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Thousands of Homeowners Cite Drywall for Ills By LESLIE WAYNE When Bill Morgan, a retired policeman, moved into his newly built dream home in Williamsburg, Va., three years ago, his hopes were quickly dashed. His wife and daughter suffered constant nosebleeds and headaches. A persistent foul odor filled the house. Every piece of metal indoors corroded or turned black. In short order, Mr. Morgan moved out. The headaches and nosebleeds stopped, but the ensuing financial problems pushed him into personal bankruptcy. “My house is not worth the land it’s built on,” said Mr. Morgan, who could not maintain the mortgage...

Empty turtle shells, decaying skunk carcasses and a set of deer antlers lay strewn about an empty campsite in California's Sierra National Forest. The butchered animals, as well as several five-pound propane canisters, camp stoves and heaps of trash, were all that remained of the 69 marijuana plantations recently uncovered in Fresno County as part of operation "Save our Sierras." The massive operation that began in February has already seized about 318,000 marijuana plants worth an estimated $1.1 billion, officials announced last week. In addition to 82 arrests, the multi-jurisdictional federal, state and local operation netted 42 pounds of processed...

The U.S. government wants to clear as much as $1 trillion in soured loans and securities from bank balance sheets with its latest bailout plan. That might prove a short-term respite. No sooner might the Treasury Department mop up those assets than $1 trillion or more in new ones spring up to take their place.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner today announced a public-public partnership with PBS to produce and host a program tentatively dubbed 'Legacy Assets Roadshow', with a format reminiscent of the network's popular 'Antiques Roadshow.' Part adventure, part history lesson, and part treasure hunt, the Legacy Assets Roadshow hopes to "tap the viewer's ongoing curiosity about whether that dusty old thing that looks virtually worthless might turn out to be a precious keepsake worth big bucks." Geithner plans to travel to locations around the nation inviting bankers and other financial firm executives to bring in mortgages, mortgaged-backed securities and other items formerly known...

Government sources tell Time Magazine - the Administration’s long-awaited plan to save America’s banks is being delayed ‘again’. Apparently, the cause of this latest delay consists in the Treasury Department’s difficulties, or should we say - inabilities at this point, to create a proposal on financial reform that will help banks clean up toxic assets from their balance sheets through a partnership between private investors and the feds. Administration officials are urging patience and insist they are moving faster than anyone has tried to do before. However, the reality is - the Department’s version of the plan, initially introduced by...

Beijing: Carbolic acid spilled into a river from a chemical plant has forced the suspension of tap water supplies to more than one million people in China's eastern city of Yancheng, officials said on Saturday. The privately owned Biaoxin Chemical Company was found illegally discharging waste water into a river in Jiangsu Province, Xue Yu, Secretary-General of the city administration, said. Two water plants in the city were found contaminated with phenol after the waste water was discharged into the river. The Yancheng City has three tap water plants, which provide drinking water to the city's 1.5 million people. One...

If your owners use mulch in the yard, please have them read the below letter. There’s danger in that there mulch they might be purchasing. Buyer beware. Over the weekend one of our friends experienced a tragedy with one of their dogs and wanted me to pass a special message along to all of our dog loving friends and family. Please tell every dog owner you know. Over the weekend the doting owner of two young lab mixes purchased Cocoa Mulch from

“Barack Obama,” Howie Kurtz declared, “will never get this kind of cuddly coverage again.” With that, the uber-critic gave voice to one of the cyclical predictions of the primary season’s punditry, the prediction that appears and reappears, never fulfilled, yet never dying: that, at some point, the press will stop fawning over Obama. Kurtz made this particular prediction back in December. Of 2006. Has it materialized? Well, flash forward to February of 2008, to Tuesday’s Potomac Primary. During MSNBC’s live coverage of the returns, as Mssrs. Matthews and Olbermann analyzed the victory speeches of the winners (Obama, by considerably more...

(HONG KONG) — Residents of Chenxi county in the southern Chinese province of Hunan say thousands of people are seeking medical attention after a local factory polluted the local water supply, although local officials said only 26 people were taken seriously ill. “We are not on the main water supply here, so 80 to 90 percent of villagers rely on the same water supply,” a resident of Banqiao village surnamed Chen told RFA’s Cantonese service. “One by one, they are all going to the doctor because they are getting headaches, swelling and weakness in their limbs.” Chen said that once...

SHENANDOAH, Iowa: Democratic 2008 front-runner Hillary Clinton on Tuesday blamed China for a tide of millions of toy exports which she warned could be defective and endanger American children at Christmas. The former first lady also recalled how she had “stood up” to the Beijing government in 1995 at an international conference on women on a day in which she ridiculed her Democratic rival Barack Obama’s foreign policy credentials. “One of the things I don’t believe we should have to worry about is the safety of our food that is served for Thanksgiving or the toys that we buy our...

Congo arrests after toxic dumping Katanga has one of the world's richest belts of copper and cobalt Six people have been arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo for allegedly dumping highly radioactive minerals into a river, officials say. The authorities had ordered the nearly 20 metric tons of toxic material to be disposed of at an old uranium mine. But some of those charged with the safe disposal of the waste are reportedly among those who have been arrested. Residents of the large town of Likasi nearby are being warned not to use the water from the contaminated Mura...

(LITTLE ROCK, ARK.) - Tests of two Chinese brands of dog treats sold at Wal-Mart stores found traces of melamine, a chemical agent that led to another massive pet food recall in March, a spokeswoman said Tuesday. Wal-Mart quietly stopped selling Chicken Jerky Strips from Import-Pingyang Pet Product Co. and Chicken Jerky from Shanghai Bestro Trading in July, after customers said the products sickened their pets. Company spokeswoman Deisha Galberth said 17 sets of tests done on the products found melamine, a contaminant that's a byproduct of several pesticides. "There were very small amounts of melamine found," Galberth told The...

In the wake of an Iraqi official last month blaming America's use of depleted uranium munitions in its 2003 "Shock and Awe" campaign for a surge in cancer there, the Defense Department is facing an October deadline for providing a comprehensive report to Congress on the health effects of such weapons. The report is required by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, which President Bush signed into law last year. The request for the study is an outgrowth of claims by Iraq war veterans that exposure to depleted uranium and other toxic substances there has negatively affected...

Living and working next to The New York Times for many years now, I noticed the other day they were moving out to their new building on 8th avenue between 40th and 41st street after around a century on 43rd street. All signs are gone that they ever lived there. They have cleaned their logos off the clocks, the huge lighting bulbs that lined the street and even the doorways. Signs on the front door say closed and directs you to their new building that some critics rave about, but I think looks like the worst designed building I...

~~~snip~~~ Not far away, bulldozers piled up mountains of junk from AuClair's illegal dump, a dump so toxic it has been declared a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency. He now faces millions of dollars in fines. AuClair's site isn't unusual. Illegal dumps are spread across the Torres Martinez reservation like ugly wounds, making it the most polluted tribal land in California, Nevada and Arizona. Vast swaths of desert have been transformed into toxic trash heaps threatening the tribe and nearby communities. There are at least 26 illegal dumps here, including the largest one in the state. Federal officials...

WASHINGTON -- As federal regulators scrambled last month to contain a pet food contamination outbreak, officials in some Southern states had a different concern: Noticing that catfish imports from China had skyrocketed, they began testing the imported fish. ... The discovery enabled Alabama and Mississippi to put "stop sale" orders on the catfish, tying up more than 700,000 pounds of fish in Alabama alone. But without these last-minute tests, the fish would have been eaten by any number of consumers, despite the presence of the banned antibiotics. ...

"The main reason behind the rising number of cancer cases is that pollution of the environment, water and air is getting worse by day," the paper quoted Chen Zhizhou, a cancer expert at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, as saying.

WASHINGTON, May 18 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture ordered nearly 80,000 birds ready for processing after recent tests showed they were unharmed by tainted pet food. While the animals had been held on Indiana farms after ingesting pet food containing compounds such as melamine, testing showed the birds were safe for human consumption, an Agriculture Department news release said Friday.

SHANGHAI -- China says checks on food exporters have turned up no sign of a chemical blamed for the deaths of cats and dogs in North America, and urged US authorities to refrain from further action against Chinese producers. The government body responsible for overseeing food safety said it accompanied US Food and Drug Administration inspectors on visits to two companies blamed for the chemical contamination.

(CNN) -- U.S. health officials said Tuesday that fish intended for human consumption were fed meal that was contaminated with the chemical melamine. ... Officials: Fish pose no 'significant' danger ... Cats dead from kidney failure ...

WASHINGTON - Just 1.3 percent of imported fish, vegetables, fruit and other foods are inspected — yet those government inspections regularly reveal food unfit for human consumption. Frozen catfish from China, beans from Belgium, jalapenos from Peru, blackberries from Guatemala, baked goods from Canada, India and the Philippines — the list of tainted food detained at the border by the Food and Drug Administration stretches on. Add to that the contaminated Chinese wheat gluten that poisoned cats and dogs nationwide and led to a massive pet food recall, and you’ve got a real international pickle. Does the United States have...

Russia's emergency situations ministry says it is dispatching experts to a Siberian province to find out why yellow and orange snow has been falling in several villages, the ITAR-TASS news agency has reported. "A chemical test unit will be sent to Omsk ... it's main task will be to investigate pollution in the region and establish the degree of danger represented by the anomalous snow fall," the agency quoted an unnamed official from the ministry as saying. Snow ranging in colour from light yellow to orange and carrying a distinctive "musty"

William T. Love came to 1890s Niagara Falls, New York, with hugely ambitious plans. The landowner and entrepreneur envisioned the creation of an enormous utopian metropolis. His city would be home to enviable industry, and housing for more than a million people. Thousands of acres would become "the most extensive and beautiful [park] in the world". He planned to power the city using hydroelectric dams on a new 11-kilometer canal between the upper and lower Niagara Rivers. Within a year, however, Love's plans failed, and would quickly have been forgotten if it weren't for one problem. The one part of...

Estonia has immobilised the ship at the heart of an environmental scandal in Ivory Coast and launched a criminal investigation after finding toxic waste on board, prosecutors said.The investigation was opened at the request of the environment ministry after the results of analyses conducted on the residue left from cleaning the Probo Koala's oil tanks came today," Piret Seeman, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, told �FР on Wednesday. "The results of the analyses show similarities between the waste on board the Probo Koala in Estonia and the waste delivered by the Probo Koala to Ivory Coast, which caused mass...

A train derailed and spilled a hazardous liquid Tuesday night, prompting about half the population of Crawford to temporarily evacuate, officials said. President Bush's ranch is about 20 miles away from the town and is not near the area evacuated. Bush was not at the ranch at the time of the spill. More than 300 people were told to stay away from their homes for about four hours before they were allowed to return at 10 p.m., said Crawford Police Chief Donnie Tidmore. No injuries were reported after the train spilled vinyl acetate, said Joe Faust, spokesman for BNSF Railway....

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A spill of toxic liquids aboard International Space Station on Monday set off a short-lived emergency and fears of a fire aboard the outpost. The station crew was cleaning up from one group of visitors and preparing for their next guests when they smelled toxic fumes, flight engineer Jeff Williams and commander Pavel Vinogradov reported to ground control teams in Houston and Moscow. "The situation is stable right now. There's an obvious smell. There was never any smoke. It was perhaps wrongly assumed to be a fire initially," Williams said. The leak occurred near a...

SYDNEY (AFP) - An Australian state government called for the army to be deployed against an invasion of toxic toads. Battalions of imported cane toads are marching relentlessly across northern Australia and the West Australian government wants soldiers to intercept the environmental barbarians. State Environment Minister Mark McGowan has written to Defence Minister Brendan Nelson asking permission to use soldiers based in the neighbouring Northern Territory to kill the toads. "The army in the Northern Territory is greater than any other part of Australia," McGowan told national radio. "We'd seek the Commonwealth (federal government) to help us in fighting this...

Toxic Tides: Another reason to worry about hurricanes Sid Perkins When Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne struck Florida in the summer of 2004, they killed 116 people, left thousands homeless, and caused billions of dollars in damage. Now, scientists suggest that the storms may also have triggered an intense, widespread Gulf of Mexico algae bloom that afflicted the state's western coast throughout 2005. DANGER ZONE. The red-and-yellow patch of Gulf of Mexico water off Tampa Bay shows the origin of last year's huge red tide, which may have been fueled by nutrient-rich groundwater discharges boosted by 2004 hurricanes. Hu,...

For the past 30 years, flame retardants have been found in every Canadian home, added liberally as a safety precaution to everything from mattresses and carpets to stereos, televisions and computers. Now Canada is poised to add flame retardants — or polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) — to its toxic-substances list. If a draft proposal it is circulating is any guide, the federal government is expected to virtually eliminate some varieties of the chemical and place tight controls on others. Regulators are considering drastic action because laboratory studies using animals have linked the chemicals to behaviour changes that bear an uncanny...

Darwin's nightmare: Toxic toad evolves to secure supremacy Wednesday February 15, 07:13 PM PARIS (AFP) - He's fat, ugly and poisonous -- and he's mutating. He's the cane toad (Bufo marinus), a species which was introduced into the Australian state of Queensland 70 years ago to tackle insect pests in canefields and has since become an ecological catastrophe. Weighing in at to up two kilos (4.4 pounds), the unwanted anuran has extended its range to more than a million square kilometers (386,000 square miles) in tropical and sub-tropical Australia, crushing native species in its relentless A team of University of...

Two Fox News employees have filed a lawsuit claiming they were sickened by air contaminated with toxic molds and pesticides while working in the building where "The O'Reilly Factor" and "At Large with Geraldo Rivera" are produced. Laurette DeRosairo and Madronicia Clarke, both Fox employees for about nine years, say in court papers that the molds and the "inappropriate" use of cleaning agents and pesticides has caused them headaches, dizziness, weakness, anxiety and blurred vision. DeRosairo, a control booth graphics technician, and Clarke, a makeup artist, said they were made ill while working within the broadcasting complex that produces shows...

JIAMUSI, China - The United States said Tuesday that it was sending experts to help China cope with a river-borne toxic spill that is approaching Russia's Far East, while Beijing promised to work closely with Moscow to limit the damage. The U.S. ambassador to China said the communist government had accepted the offer of an Environmental Protection Agency assessment team that would suggest ways to remedy effects of the 90-mile chemical slick. Addressing business leaders in Hong Kong, Ambassador Clark T. Randt expressed concern that Beijing failed to react quickly enough to the benzene spill, which has disrupted water supplies...

The article is linked above, with a link to a larger version of this image: Here are a couple of other images of Karthala (these may load slow; they're from the April 2005 eruption): Karthala apparently dominates Grand Comore like Haleakala dominates Maui:

Thursday November 24, 4:27 PM 80-kilometer slick flows into China's Harbin city HARBIN, China (AFP) - An 80-kilometer-long (48-mile) slick of highly toxic benzene flowed along the icy Songhua river into one of China's biggest cities, contaminating water supplies for up to four million people. The carcinogenic chemical reached the outskirts of Harbin, capital of China's northeastern Heilongjiang province, about 5:00 am on Thursday, authorities said. Although water supplies were cut off about 30 hours before the poisoned water reached the city and there were no reports of people being contaminated, the environmental impact of the potential disaster was still...

I need help to find out if there is a way of testing toys/clothes/ect. for hazardous residue,chemicals,meth,how do i know if its safe to buy or sell used items?Or how do you clean?Then are they safe?who knows where it came from?Goodwill,sale,or,a tweaker,garbage,store?how do i know its safe? help me?Im in recovery,Life getting better I hope!

...In 1981, there were 325 refineries in the U.S. with a capacity of 18.6 million barrels per day. Today, there are 148, with a capacity of about 17 million barrels -- though U.S. demand for gasoline has increased more than 20%.... One explanation for this performance is the historically low gas prices over much of the past 20 years; there has often been little incentive to build new capacity. But just as big a problem are onerous and costly regulatory burdens that have sucked profits from the industry. This includes a permitting process that is subject to endless bureaucratic delay...

Raw sewage, traces of weed killers and toxic lead taint the floodwaters inundating New Orleans, according to data released Monday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The results of the tests, which analyzed water for more than 100 chemical and biological contaminants in six residential areas of the city, confirm warnings issued by federal authorities last week not to drink or wade in the stagnant water. Fecal coliform — a bacteria that comes from human and animal waste, and can cause vomiting, nausea and diarrhea if ingested — was found in nearly all tests at levels thousands of times higher...

Why are they pumping all that extremely toxic contaminated water into Lake Pontchetrain(sp)? The toxic contaminates are contained behind the levies... pre-treat it there before pumping it out into the uncontaminated environment...What is their damned hurry?? New Orleans has been evacuated and for all intents and purposes destroyed; it will be years before it "MIGHT" be rebuilt.I live in Buffalo NY about 20 miles from Love Canal, New Orleans has become a huge Love Canal and now they're blindly pumping toxins into the rest of the Mississippi Delta and eventually the Delta ground water.What a pathetic knee-jerk decision.

Van Heerden and Rodney Mallett, communications director for the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, say there do not appear to be any choices other than to pump the water into Lake Pontchartrain or the Mississippi River, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico, a key maritime spawning ground. "I don't see how we could treat all that water," Mallett said. The result could be an second wave of disaster for southern Louisiana, said Harold Zeliger, a Florida-based chemical toxicologist and water quality consultant. "In effect, it's going to kill everything in those waters," he said.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Three crew members were killed by an apparent methane gas leak aboard a cruise ship in the Port of Los Angeles on Friday, a fire spokeswoman said. There were three fatalities and seven other people injured, Fire Department spokeswoman Melissa Kelley said. No passengers were involved, she said. Two of the injured were ship's physicians who had gone to aid the others. Two of the injured were being taken to hospitals. The other five were "walking," she said. The incident aboard Royal Caribbean's Monarch of the Seas was reported at 9:15 a.m. Crew members were performing...

Three Crew Members Killed by Toxic Gas on Cruise Ship in Los Angeles PortBy Tim Molloy Associated Press Writer Published: Sep 2, 2005 LOS ANGELES (AP) - Three members of a cruise ship crew were killed by toxic sewer gas Friday as they repaired a waste pipe aboard the ship that had just returned to the Port of Los Angeles. No passengers were injured, but 19 other crew members from Royal Caribbean's Monarch of the Seas were examined for possible exposure to the toxic gas, authorities said. Passengers were leaving the ship at the time of the incident, the company...

From train buffs and artists to skateboard-makers and the police SWAT team, the eclectic mix that shares space at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco has one thing in common: Their landlord, the Navy, wants them out. The tenants learned last week that they have six months before their leases expire and the Navy embarks on a $80 million cleanup of the toxic site that since 1991 has been on the Environmental Protection Agency's National Priorities List. Those who enjoy the cheap rent and quiet isolation that come with working at the former World War II-era ship repair...

Just thought I'd share with Freepers a warning. A few years back, I was able to get ahold of a whole bunch of CA valley wine grapes. I sat in the kitchen, and the mutt, of course who always gets a bit of what I'm eating tried one. He loved it! So over the next few minutes or so, I ate a couple cups worth, and he must have had twenty or thirty. Sadly, the hound will have to forego any more grapes. He didn't even get sick, but I find out on the tv tonight grapes and raisins are...

SACRAMENTO - California has been offered $1.7 million in training, laboratory tests and technical support from the federal government to help measure levels of toxic chemicals in state residents. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's offer came in response to a request by U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, for a federal commitment to biomonitoring in California, the Breast Cancer Fund said Monday. The Oakland Tribune published a series of stories in March on the increasing amounts of manmade chemicals and environmental toxins showing up in humans. The paper spent $17,000 to test a Berkeley family and found...

has anyone ever heard of aluminum poisining from vaccines? i have. my child is a living case of if right now. if your child or someones child you know has had problems after receiving vaccines, let us know. and none of this egg cracking thing! (you know who you are)

Of course, the Supreme Court decision has very little to do with wether or not pot is dangerous or helpful as medicine. It basically comes down to the question: Can the federal government tell the states which chemicals they have to ban? And yes, we fought a Civil War so that the federal government could tell the states exactly what to do - regardless of logic or local democracy. So last week the Supreme Court upheld Washington DC's unquestioned authority to create intrusive and illogical laws that are based on prejudiced perceptions above scientific reality. I can't really find any...

SAN FRANCISCO - When Earth Day dawned in 1970, optimistic environmentalists predicted emerging technologies would help reduce the nation's reliance on coal, oil, insecticides and other pollutants. But 35 years later, a big part of the problem appears to be technology itself. Tons of computers, monitors, televisions and other electronic gizmos that contain hazardous chemicals, or "e-waste," may be poisoning people and ground water. Activists say the nation's biggest environmental problem may be the smallest devices, and this week they're launching campaigns to increase awareness about recycling cell phones, music players, handheld gaming consoles and other electronics. Frequently, smaller portable...

A 10-million-ton pile of radioactive waste that has been polluting the Colorado River for decades will be moved under a plan announced yesterday by the U.S. Department of Energy. The decision comes after years of heated and emotional debate over what to do with the pile, which sits 750 feet from the river near the tourist town of Moab, Utah. The decision is being hailed as an environmental victory that will safeguard the drinking water of more than 25 million people, including most San Diego County residents. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman notified the department's Office of Environmental Management of his...

Thimerosol, a preservative developed by Eli Lily, was once widely used in vaccines. That was until it was identified as the source of the largest exposure to mercury in the United States in children under 18 months of age and mandated to be removed from vaccines. However, amazingly, despite its well-documented potential toxic effects, this harmful preservative remains present in the flu vaccine, which is given to pregnant women, the elderly and children. A team of researchers examined the toxicity of thimerosal within the body including neurons. They explored: Neurotoxic mechanisms How the body detoxifies mercury The use of...

As 2004 came to an end, there was an Associated Press story about a study that had stretched into seven years and cost at least $3 million. What the study found was that, in an area of Niagara Falls, NY called Love Canal, the "preliminary findings indicate no spikes in cancer or death rates and, minimal, if any, effects on births." In the late 1970s, Love Canal had become synonymous with corporate evil and a threat to the lives of some 900 families. President Carter declared a federal emergency that led to the evacuation of those families and the bulldozing...