Environmental Issues and Protection

West Lake Landfill: EPA Says No Radioactive Hazards As Activists Scrutinize Bridgeton Fire

In March, concerns about the incredibly smelly landfill in Bridgeton reached a new level when environmental groups warned of a possible "dirty bomb." The question was whether the Bridgeton Landfill's increasing stench -- tied to an underground fire -- could prove to be especially hazardous, given th ... More >>

Bridgeton Landfill: "Dirty Bomb" Radioactive Hazards or Irresponsible Activist Speculation?

Residents of Bridgeton, Missouri should be worried about serious potential health hazards tied to an increasingly smelly landfill. So says a coalition of environmental activists who are spreading the word about a possible "dirty bomb" or chemical threat related to radioactivity on the site. Offici ... More >>

There's Poop in the Drinking Water at Some Missouri State Parks! Doesn't Anyone Care?

A national environmental group is calling for a federal review of drinking-water quality at Missouri's state parks, citing a failure to perform federally mandated testing, as well as repeated instances of contamination with coliform bacteria, including E. coli. For the uninitiated, when science typ ... More >>

Forbes Names St. Louis #20 Dirtiest City in America

St. Louis earned a place on a Forbes magazine list alongside the likes of New York City and Los Angeles. Unfortunately that list was of the dirtiest cities in America, as determined by air and water quality.

EPA Puts Off Clean-up of Nuclear Dumpsite, As Lawsuits Pile Up and Activists Circle the Wagons

It'll take a few billion years for 8,700 tons of radioactive waste illegally dumped in a suburban landfill in St. Louis County in the 1970s to stop emitting deadly radionuclides. But before that happens, if this apocalyptic cocktail of Cold War-era nuclear byproducts and municipal toxic waste (jus ... More >>

Garbage In, Treasure Out

St. Louis Earth Day Festival Food Preview

With more live entertainment slated for the St. Louis Earth Day Festival on Sunday, April 22, than ever before, this year's celebration is bound to knock St. Louis up to the second largest Earth Day festival in the country -- after all we are world champs, at things both big and small (but mostly bi ... More >>

Jury: Former Owners of Doe Run Lead Smelter Must Pay Families $38 Million

Photo: Jennifer SilverbergWarnings outside the Doe Run smelter in Herculaneum.​A trial lasting three months wrapped up today in St. Louis Circuit Court with a jury awarding 16 plaintiffs $38.5 million in compensatory damages for lead poisoning they sustained living next to a Herculaneum smelter. M ... More >>

U2 Tour Has Out of This World Stage -- and Carbon Footprint

Image via WikimediaCommonsU2's spaceship stage as seen in a European stadium.​Roadies with U2's "360 Tour" have been at Busch Stadium all week preparing the ballpark for Sunday's show -- said to be the biggest rock concert St. Louis has seen since The Beatles played here in 1966. On Monday, crews ... More >>

Ameren Fired Contractor for Flagging Environmental Violations, Lawsuit Says

​A lawsuit filed on behalf of a local plumbing contractor alleges the company lost its contract with utility giant Ameren -- after the contractor informed Ameren management of violations of environmental law and illegal discharge of pollutants.The suit was filed by Bishop & Associates, owned b ... More >>

Little Elise's Science Experiment Nips Bud Nip in the Bud

Image via​ A little girl named Elise performed an age-old science experiment: submerging a sweet potato in water to see how long it took to sprout. The results weren't what she expected. The conventionally grown sweet potato languished, the one from the organic grocery store sprouted a littl ... More >>

Man Slapped with $1k Fine and Six Months Probation in First-Ever Invasive Species Case

Courtesy Missouri Department of ConservationBad news! Agents remove a guy's boatlift that had an invasive species attached to it.​Silver carp. Emerald ash borers. Zebra mussels. Missouri's got all kinds of "invasive species," not native to our state, that wreak havoc on our ecosystem. Now the stat ... More >>

Should Missouri Subsidize Lead Company That Poisoned Town and Is Owned by Billionaire?

Photo: Jennifer SilverbergOutside the Doe Run smelter in Herculaneum.​The Herculaneum-based lead company, Doe Run, made news twice this week for two wildly different issues. On Tuesday, a trial began in St. Louis Circuit Court in which sixteen families from Herculaneum are suing Doe Run on claims ... More >>

What on Earth!? St. Louis Earth Day Festival is Huge! (Who Knew?)

stlouisearthday.org​Check out a video of St. Louis Earth Day at the end of this post.We here at Daily RFT are usually out in the backyard burning garbage whenever the St. Louis Earth Day Festival comes along. This year was an exception. Someone tricked us into thinking we were going to a livestock ... More >>

This Week's Tip of the Tongue Newsletter

​Gut Check not providing enough dining tidbits for you? Consider subscribing to Tip of the Tongue, the Riverfront Times' weekly e-mail dining newsletter. In this week's newsletter, we dish on the 2011 St. Louis Earth Day Festival, which will include live music, an "all species parade," famil ... More >>

Feel the Earth Move

Global Warming, Version 1.0

image viaFike and a 443-million-year-old limestone slab containing the fossilized remains of extinct sea creatures.​Once upon a time -- well, between 443 and 445 million years ago -- all the land on Earth was clumped in a big mass around the equator and the rest was covered with oceans full of ... More >>

Ass Clown of the Week: Politicians and Those Unable to Deal with Teenage Relationships

​It's that time of the week. Time to vote for the local newsmaker of the week whose words or actions brought them the most shame/humiliation. In other words, who's the Ass Clown of the Week? And the nominees... 1. John Shimkus: The Republican from Collinsville, Illinois, said this week that he was ... More >>

Don't Landfill Those JNCOs!

Not completely useless.​Got a few hangers holding bad ideas? Never going to fit into those pants again?Well, a University of Missouri professor wants you to think twice before throwing them out, even if they're too horrifying to inflict on your local Goodwill.Professor Jana Hawley, department chai ... More >>

Colin Beaven, the Man Who Lived Without Electricity in Manhattan, Speaks Tonight at Schlafly Branch of St. Louis Public Library

Image: Copyright CyberStern.comColin Beaven will be at the Schlafly Branch of St. Louis Public Library tonight.​Not content with just biking to work or going on a recycling crusade, Colin Beavan, author of No Impact Man lived for a year in the strictest green lifestyle. That meant eating organical ... More >>

Give A Little, Get A Little

Unplugged and Happy

Go Eco-Chic

Clean Air Festival Tomorrow at Kiener Plaza -- With Free Ted Drewes!

Yes, that's some fresh air.​The St. Louis Regional Clean Air Partnership is hosting its seventh annual festival tomorrow at Kiener Plaza.The event from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. includes live music, giveaways and information booths from entities such as Trailnet, the EPA, the Lung Association and many mor ... More >>

The Morning Brew: 4.26

Although a $1.5 billion settlement was reached months ago for discriminated African-American farmers, the plaintiffs have yet to see the money. Roland S. Martin of CNN gives his take on the situation, and how the history of American racism has affected black farmers. The food safety bill's still ... More >>

An Environmentally Friendly Jet Fighter? Call It the F/A 18 Super "Green" Hornet

The original Green Hornet fought crime, not pollutants.​A Boeing fighter jet manufactured right here in St. Louis is scheduled to take flight today (Earth Day) using a biofuel blend of jet fuel. The experiment is part of the Navy's goal to incorporate more green technology into the armed forces. T ... More >>

Woodsy Folk

Be Eco-Logical

Crossroads Becomes Sixth School in Nation to Earn Highest LEED Certification

Crossroads' new science and library building.​Good news St. Louis: Now you can send your children to a school that's as environmentally friendly as the one where Barack and Michelle Obama send their daughters. That's right. Crossroads College Preparatory School was recently awarded a platinum LEED ... More >>

Poetry in a Cold Climate: Ron Smith found his muse in Antarctica's vast icy wilderness

One Man’s Treasure

Alderwoman Takes on Downtown "Racket"; Says Trash Trucks Too Noisy

Trash collection was making some downtown residents grouchy.​St. Louis alderwoman Kacie Starr Triplett this morning introduced legislation regulating the hours that trash trucks can haul waste from businesses located near residential property. On her blog today, the downtown alderwoman (Ward 6) wr ... More >>

Flour Flies as McArthur's Bakery Declares War on Russ Carnahan

If the Daily RFT were a bakery and wanted to show our displeasure with our local congressional representative, we'd ply him with gooey butter cake and stand over him and make sure he ate it all, until he was thoroughly sick. www.stlbeacon.org Revenge, thy name is McArthur.David McArthur, prop ... More >>

Gang Green

Wild Rides: Sometimes the cars accelerate on their own. Sometimes they stop dead. Drivers of the hybrid Prius have discovered they can be an unexpected adventure.

Earthly Pursuits

Every Breath You Take

Let your lungs do the talking

Fig-get Me Not

Love of food improves the world

Craptastrophe: Record rainfall has created a dung dilemma for Missouri farmers

Welcome to Planet Earth

Please pick up after yourselves

Too Hot? Boycott.

Keen on Green

A Moonlit Mile

Mirth Days

Cleaning Up the Past

The waste may be gone, but the stigma lingers

The Right to Answers

Nobody knows why the babies are dying near Weldon Spring. But the grownups can't help asking whether the site's toxic stew is to blame.

A Sewer Runs Through It

The River des Peres tells the history of St. Louis -- our relationship to nature, to this place, to our own waste. Now there's talk of "beautifying" the river we never got around to cleaning.

Cooler Alternatives

There's more than one way to destroy a bedpan

PETER AND THE WOLF

Why Missouri Botanical Garden's Peter Raven, world-renowned environmentalist, courts Monsanto's favor, boosts its biotech and takes its money

A LOAD OF SCRAP

Tony Ribaudo's failed effort in the scrap-iron business leaves the former state lawmaker and mayoral candidate with citations for illegal dumping and a $28,000 debt to the city