Environmental law, also known as environmental and natural resources law, is a collective address environmental pollution. A related but distinct set of regulatory regimes, now strongly influenced by environmental legal principles, focus on the management of specific natural resources, such as forests, minerals, or fisheries. Other areas, such as environmental impact assessment, may not fit neatly into either category, but are nonetheless important components of environmental law.
Environmental protection is the practice of protecting the natural environment by individuals, organizations and governments. Its objectives are to conserve natural resources and the existing natural environment and, where possible, to repair damage and reverse trends.
The Saint Louis River, in the U.S. states of Minnesota and Wisconsin, is the largest U.S. river to flow into Lake Superior. It is 192 miles (309 km) in length, starts 13 miles (21 km) east of Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota, and its watershed covers 3,634 square miles (9,410 km2). Near the Twin Ports of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin, the river becomes a freshwater estuary. The lower St. Louis is the only river in the state with whitewater rafting opportunities.
The Pine Bend Refinery is the largest oil refinery in Minnesota, located in the Twin Cities suburbs of Rosemount and Inver Grove Heights next to southern split of U.S. Highway 52 and Minnesota State Highway 55. The refinery is notable for being the largest in the United States to be located in a state without any oil wells. Overall, it ranked 14th in the country as of 2012 by production, with a nameplate capacity of 320,000 barrels (51,000 m3) per day. The facility is owned by Flint Hills Resources (FHR), a subsidiary of Koch Industries.
The Washington State Department of Ecology, or simply, Ecology, is an environmental regulatory agency for the State of Washington. The department administers laws and regulations pertaining to the areas of water quality, water rights and water resources, shoreline management, toxics clean-up, nuclear waste, hazardous waste, and air quality. It also conducts monitoring and scientific assessments.
The Ministry of Ecology and Environment, formerly the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People's Republic of China (MEP), and prior to 2008 known as the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), is a department of the State Council of the People's Republic of China. It superseded the MEP in 2018.
A Plague of Frogs is a non-fiction environmental book written by William Souder and published in 2000 by Hyperion Press. The book elaborates on the issue of mutated frogs and the implications for humans. Structurally the book is divided into two parts.
Morgan Park is a neighborhood in Duluth, Minnesota, United States.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) is the Florida government agency charged with environmental protection. It is under the nominal control of the governor.
An Index of Biological Integrity (IBI), also called an Index of Biotic Integrity, is a scientific tool used to identify and classify water pollution problems. An IBI associates anthropogenic influences on a water body with biological activity in the water body, and is formulated using data developed from biosurveys.
The California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) is one of six branches of the California Environmental Protection Agency.
The Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry is a cabinet-level agency in the State of Minnesota.
The Arrowhead Refinery Superfund site is a 10-acre former waste oil recycling facility, located in Hermantown, Minnesota, within a white cedar wetland. The refining process generated a waste stream of highly acidic, metal-laden sludge which was disposed of in an unlined two-acre lagoon on the site and waste process water which was discharged into a wastewater ditch in a wetland area. Arrowhead Refining Company incorporated in 1961 and continued the re-refining activities until 1977. A public health risk assessment stated that if no action was taken to remedy the site, use or development of the site would result in unacceptable health effects on user populations. It was also determined that there was a future potential exposure risk for offsite drinking water wells across the road from the site and in the pathway of the contaminated groundwater plume. The record of decision (ROD) was issued in September 1986.
The Baytown Township Groundwater Plume is a Superfund site located east of the village of Lake Elmo, Minnesota, United States. The plume extends into Baytown and West Lakeland Townships and continues eastward approximately four miles to the St. Croix River. Baytown Township is a rapidly developing rural/suburban residential area on the eastern edge of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. The contaminated groundwater is primarily in the Prairie du Chien-Jordan aquifer, which is the major source of drinking water for many residents in the area through private and residential wells. The Lake Elmo Airport is located near the western end of the plume and is administered by the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC). An estimated 8,000 people live in the area; 80 percent of the residents use private wells for their water supply.
The Oakdale Dump is an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site located in Oakdale, Minnesota, and comprises three non-contiguous properties that were used for dumping from the late 1940s until the 1950s by the 3M corporation. The properties are named the Abresch, Brockman, and Eberle sites for their respective property owners at the time of disposal activities. The Abresch site is the largest of the three properties at about 55 acres. The Brockman site is located immediately southwest of the Abresch site and encompasses 5 acres. The Eberle site is located roughly 2,500 feet north of the Abresch site and encompasses 2 acres.
The 70-acre Burlington Northern is a former railroad tie treatment plant by Burlington Northern Railroad in Northern Minnesota. The unlined creosote and fuel oil lagoons, which had been used to treat the ties contaminated groundwater. In 1985 the site was listed as a United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund. Contaminated soils were excavated and capped and a groundwater gradient pump out well is in place.
The Freeway Sanitary Landfill is an EPA Superfund site that covers 140 acres (57 ha) in Burnsville, Minnesota. In 1971 the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MCPA) licensed the landfill to accept 1,920 acre feet (2,370,000 m3) of household, commercial, demolition, and nonhazardous industrial wastes. The state permit prohibited the disposal of liquids and hazardous wastes; however, heavy metals, acids, and bases were accepted by the landfill from local industries. The landfill also accepted 200 cubic yards (150 m3) of battery casings and 448 short tons (406,000 kg) of aluminum sweat furnace slag. Overall, the landfill contains nearly 5,000,000 cubic yards (3,800,000 m3) of waste. The waste is covered by a low permeability soil cover.
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) is the agency of the U.S. state of Indiana charged with protecting the environment and human health. There are many offices within IDEM and each has a specific role in environmental protection. According to the department's website, their mission is "to implement federal and state regulations to protect human health and the environment while allowing the environmentally sound operations of industrial, agricultural, commercial and government activities vital to a prosperous economy"
