The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate.
Environmental Defense Fund or EDF is a United States-based nonprofit environmental advocacy group. The group is known for its work on issues including global warming, ecosystem restoration, oceans, and human health, and advocates using sound science, economics and law to find environmental solutions that work. It is nonpartisan, and its work often advocates market-based solutions to environmental problems.
Mountaintop removal mining (MTR), also known as mountaintop mining (MTM), is a form of surface mining at the summit or summit ridge of a mountain. Coal seams are extracted from a mountain by removing the land, or overburden, above the seams. This process is considered to be safer compared to underground mining because the coal seams are accessed from above instead of underground. In the United States, this method of coal mining is conducted in the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States. Explosives are used to remove up to 400 vertical feet of mountain to expose underlying coal seams. Excess rock and soil is dumped into nearby valleys, in what are called "holler fills" or "valley fills".
An air quality index (AQI) is an indicator developed by government agencies to communicate to the public how polluted the air currently is or how polluted it is forecast to become. As air pollution levels rise, so does the AQI, along with the associated public health risk. Children, the elderly and individuals with respiratory or cardiovascular problems are typically the first groups affected by poor air quality. When the AQI is high, governmental bodies generally encourage people to reduce physical activity outdoors, or even avoid going out altogether. When wildfires result in a high AQI, the use of a mask outdoors and an air purifier indoors are also encouraged.
A patient safety organization (PSO) is a group, institution, or association that improves medical care by reducing medical errors. Common functions of patient safety organizations are data collection, analysis, reporting, education, funding, and advocacy. A PSO differs from a Federally designed Patient Safety Organization (PSO), which provides health care providers in the U.S. privilege and confidentiality protections for efforts to improve patient safety and the quality of patient care delivery
The health and environmental impact of the coal industry includes issues such as land use, waste management, water and air pollution, caused by the coal mining, processing and the use of its products. In addition to atmospheric pollution, coal burning produces hundreds of millions of tons of solid waste products annually, including fly ash, bottom ash, and flue-gas desulfurization sludge, that contain mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic, and other heavy metals. Coal is the largest contributor to the human-made increase of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere.
Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials into the atmosphere, causing harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or damaging ecosystems. Air pollution can cause health problems including, but not limited to, infections, behavioral changes, cancer, organ failure, and premature death. These health effects are not equally distributed across the U.S. population; there are demographic disparities by race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and education. Air pollution can derive from natural sources, or anthropogenic sources. Anthropogenic air pollution has affected the United States since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Respiratory Health Association is a nonprofit organization located on Chicago's Near West Side.
The Clean Air Act (CAA) is the United States' primary federal air quality law, intended to reduce and control air pollution nationwide. Initially enacted in 1963 and amended many times since, it is one of the United States' first and most influential modern environmental laws.
The Institute of Occupational Medicine (IOM) was founded in 1969 by the National Coal Board (NCB) as an independent charity in Edinburgh, UK and retains its charitable purpose and status today. The "Institute" has a subsidiary, IOM Consulting Limited, which became fully independent in 1990 and now celebrates its 25th year within the IOM Group as an independent consultancy and also the commercial part of the IOM organization. It specializes in asbestos surveys and services, occupational hygiene services, nanotechnology safety, laboratory analysis and expert witness consulting services. IOM is therefore one of the UK's major independent "not for profit" centres of science in the fields of environmental health, occupational hygiene and occupational safety.
The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, commonly referred to as OEHHA, is a specialized department within the cabinet-level California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) with responsibility for evaluating health risks from environmental chemical contaminants.
Mining in the United States has been active since the beginning of colonial times, but became a major industry in the 19th century with a number of new mineral discoveries causing a series of mining rushes. In 2015, the value of coal, metals, and industrial minerals mined in the United States was US$109.6 billion. 158,000 workers were directly employed by the mining industry.
The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is a research impact evaluation of British Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). It is the successor to the Research Assessment Exercise and it was first used in 2014 to assess the period 2008–2013. REF is undertaken by the four UK higher education funding bodies: Research England, the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW), and the Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland (DfE).
The relationship between Uranium mining and the Navajo people began in 1944 in northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah.
Water pollution in the United States is a growing problem that became critical in the 19th century with the development of mechanized agriculture, mining, and industry, although laws and regulations introduced in the late 20th century have improved water quality in many water bodies. Extensive industrialization and rapid urban growth exacerbated water pollution as a lack of regulation allowed for discharges of sewage, toxic chemicals, nutrients and other pollutants into surface water.
Environmental justice and coal mining in Appalachia is the study of environmental justice – the interdisciplinary body of social science literature studying theories of the environment and justice; environmental laws, policies, and their implementations and enforcement; development and sustainability; and political ecology – in relation to coal mining in Appalachia.
Environmental issues in Appalachia, a cultural region in the Eastern United States, include long term and ongoing environmental impact from human activity, and specific incidents of environmental harm such as environmental disasters related to mining. A mountainous area with significant coal deposits, many environmental issues in the region are related to coal and gas extraction. Some extraction practices, particularly surface mining, have met significant resistance locally and at times have received international attention.
The Division of Industrial Hygiene was a division of the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) with responsibility for occupational safety and health programs. It existed from 1914 until 1971, when it became the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). It had several names during its existence, most notably the Office of Industrial Hygiene and Sanitation in its earlier years and the Division of Occupational Health during its later years.
The Harvard "Six Cities" study was a major epidemiological study of over 8,000 adults in six American cities that helped to establish the connection between fine-particulate air pollution and reduced life expectancy. Widely acknowledged as a landmark piece of public health research, it was initiated by Benjamin G. Ferris, Jr at Harvard School of Public Health and carried out by Harvard's Douglas Dockery, C. Arden Pope of Brigham Young University, Ferris himself, Frank E. Speizer, and four other collaborators, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1993. Following a lawsuit by The American Lung Association, the study, and its various follow-ups, led to a tightening of pollution standards by the US Environmental Protection Agency. This prompted an intense backlash from industry groups in the late 1990s, culminating in a Supreme Court case, in what Science magazine termed "the biggest environmental fight of the decade".
Environmental racism is a form of institutional racism, in which people of colour bear a disproportionate burden of environmental harms, such as pollution from hazardous waste disposal and the effects of natural disasters. Environmental racism exposes Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, and Hispanic populations to physical health hazards and may negatively impact mental health. It creates disparities in many different spheres of life, such as transportation, housing, and economic opportunity.
