These are some of the stories we’ve been following this week.

  • Last year more than half of the coal ash produced by power plants was recycled. In 2015, 61.1 million tons of coal ash was reused out of the 117.3 million tons generated.
  • Flooding in North Carolina has residents and officials worried about oil and gas spills that were caused by Hurricane Matthew. Coal ash ponds are also in the flood zone, but no leaks have been reported.
  • An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employee will not be charged in connection with the Gold King Mine leak last year that sent millions of gallons of contaminated water into the Animas River.
  • The United States Navy was named a defendant in a lawsuit that alleges it was one of the parties responsible for contaminating 48 acres of property in San Diego, California.
  • Oil pipelines in Canada do not have the capacity to efficiently transport all of the oil and gas produced in the country. As a result, producers must also rely on railroads.
  • Howard County in Maryland will spend $3.8 to protect Ellicott City from future floods like the one that hit in July and killed two people.
  • New Orleans has been working for years to cut down the number of blighted properties in the city. With the use of analytics, the city eliminated 15,000 blighted properties between 2010 and 2015.