Search Results for: Environmental Health⊂mit=Search

BY KEITH NUTHALL
COMPULSORY pollution insurance could be introduced for companies at risk of breaking the proposed European Union (EU) environmental liability directive, under amendments approved to the legislation this week by the European Parliament.

The change tells the European Commission to check in five years’ time whether the directive has sparked private insurance and security instruments allowing polluters to cover themselves for potential liabilities.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPAIN has become the second European Union (EU) country to be hit by fines levied by the European Court of Justice, being penalised for failing to improve the environmental health standards of its inland bathing waters. Judges ordered Spain to pay Euro 624,150 every year for each percentage of its rivers and lakes used for bathing that fail to meet quality standards imposed by the EU bathing water directive.…

BY PHILIP FINE

US coal-burning power plants will need to make some steep emission cuts, assuming an anti-pollution plan being laid out by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) passes. The EPA’s proposal, which still requires public comment, would give coal-burning power plants until 2015 to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions by 70 per cent and nitrous oxide by 40 per cent, while requiring mercury emissions to be cut by 70 per cent by 2018.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Environment Agency (EEA) report has concluded that generally the environmental health quality of fresh water supplies in the European Union (EU) is improving, but that there are some remaining key problems, notably regarding agricultural pollution. The report warns that nitrate pollution – especially from fertilisers – remains high and constant.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CONCERNS have been raised by eastern and central European environmental groups about the possible worsening of drinking water quality that could be caused by the construction of the planned Danube-Oder-Elbe canal. The Czech Republic’s Friends of the Earth branch is leading green groups from Germany, Austria, Poland and Slovakia in pressing the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers to avoid including the project in its priority list for funding from the trans-European transport networks (TENs) scheme.…

BY PHILIP FINE

THE UNITED States government has integrated information on all its consumer product recalls onto one central website, offering a convenient service to retailers. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has launched the English and Spanish-language site (www.recalls.gov) in collaboration with five other federal agencies.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE European Parliament is set to toughen the EU’s proposed “polluter pays” legislation – the Environmental Liability Directive – by obliging the EU member states to allocate costs on a proportional basis when more than one operator has caused environmental damage.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has delayed a decision over whether it should fund a controversial Spain water transfer scheme, with environment commissioner Margot Wallström saying she needed more proof that transferring water from the Júcar river follows European Union (EU) environmental laws.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
COMPULSORY pollution insurance could be introduced for companies at risk of breaking the proposed European Union (EU) environmental liability directive, under amendments approved to the legislation this week by the European Parliament.

The change tells the European Commission to check in five years’ time whether the directive has sparked private insurance and security instruments allowing polluters to cover themselves for their potential liabilities.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has called on the European Union to widen its controls on pollution from sea-going ships to include polycyclic aromatics (such as PAH) and heavy metals, for instance nickel and vanadium. An agreed non-binding resolution has also called on the European Commission to propose widening the objective of its anti-ship pollution policies beyond tackling environmental and human health problems to that of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and their contribution to global warming.…