In The News / Feb 3

• Scientists censure McGill University over ties to asbestos industry.

  Dozens of prominent medical researchers and scientists from across Canada and around the world have signed a letter demanding that McGill University sever its ties with the asbestos industry. Montreal Gazette, Quebec

• Poor, minority residents face most health risks with climate change.

  Poor, urban and minority residents are most at risk for health problems linked to climate change, according to a new California Department of Public Health analysis of Los Angeles and Fresno counties. California Watch

• Filmmaker sounds alarm over ocean of plastic.

  On Midway atoll in the North Pacific, dozens of young albatross lie dead on the sand, their stomachs filled with plastic objects their parents have mistaken for food. That surreal sight, says film director Craig Leeson, is one of the many symptoms of a plague afflicting the world's oceans, food chains and human communities: the onslaught of discarded plastic. Agence France-Presse

• Movement to banish copper from brake pads gains momentum.

  While government has been preoccupied with fuel economy, what about smaller environmental causes like mercury in car switches and lead weight wheel balances? Add to these copper brake pads, which produce metal dust that environmental advocates say reaches waterways and harms aquatic life. New York Times

• Cadmium pollution exposes lax regulations.

  The latest incident in the city of Hechi, an "unprecedented" cadmium contamination, is certainly not an isolated case. Xinhua News Agency, China

• Wishing upon an atom in a tiny French village.

  The protesters who periodically descend upon the French rural village of Fessenheim say the aging nuclear power station here, in the woods beyond the cornfields, is a calamity in waiting. New York Times

• Yakuza labor structure formed base of nuclear industry.

  A labor practice involving "disguised subcontracts" is illegal under Japan's Employment Security Law. But the practice has remained widespread for years at nuclear plants around the nation, according to sources. Asahi Shimbun, Japan

• Chernobyl experts hopeful on Fukushima.

  Ukrainian nuclear experts say Japanese evacuated from around the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant should be able to return to their homes – unlike the Chernobyl site, which remains inside a wide no-go zone a quarter-century after the accident there. Associated Press

• Bird numbers plummet around stricken Fukushima plant.

  Researchers working around Japan's disabled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant say bird populations there have begun to dwindle, in what may be a chilling harbinger of the impact of radioactive fallout on local life. London Independent, United Kingdom

• ‘Unusual’ wear on new tubes carrying radioactive water at California nuclear plant raises concern.

  The integrity of some equipment installed in 2009 at Southern California’s San Onofre Unit 2 nuclear plant is drawing concern after unusual wear was found on hundreds of tubes that carry radioactive water. Associated Press

• Rebuilding wetlands by managing the muddy Mississippi.

  The Mississippi delta is in trouble. A complex network of humanmade river channels, levees, and dams, intended to control the river and save coastal communities from flooding, has cut sediment supply to the delta in half. Rising sea levels due to climate change and lowering land surface from groundwater pumping and oil and gas extraction are also taking their toll. Science

• Latest effect of Gulf spill: Waves of cash.

  At least $100 million, and possibly much more, will be funneled to Texas as part of the cleanup financing from BP after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Although the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion occurred hundreds of miles from Texas shores, Texas has been affected indirectly. Texas Tribune, Texas

• Westlands Water District suing feds for $1b.

  Westlands Water District is suing the federal government for $1 billion, claiming the Interior Department failed to deliver a court-ordered cleanup of salty irrigation drainage. Bad water trapped below the ground surface still slowly poisons west Valley farmland. Fresno Bee, California

• Drought may dry up Texas rice crop.

  A day of reckoning looms for the state’s rice growers, who pump millions into Southeast Texas each year and account for 5 percent of America’s rice. Come March 1, if there is not enough water in reservoirs along the Lower Colorado River, managers will take the unprecedented step of withholding water from agriculture. Climate Central

• New generation of nuclear reactors could consume radioactive waste as fuel.

  A generation of "fast" nuclear reactors could consume Britain's radioactive waste stockpile as fuel, providing enough low-carbon electricity to power the country for more than 500 years, according to figures confirmed by the chief scientific adviser to the Department of Energy and Climate Change. The Guardian, United Kingdom