EWG staffers put our heads together to come up with this list of bad news environmental stories of the last decade that people might have missed. But there were plenty of big stories that hardly anyone could have missed, such as climate change. What's on your list of the biggest environmental stories of the last 10 years?

1. Secret Gas Drilling Chemical Almost Kills Colorado Nurse
Doctors ran into a medical mystery -- and a stone wall from industry -- when they tried to find what was in a gas drilling chemical that nearly killed a Colorado nurse. Aren't you glad that Congress exempted these "fracking" chemicals from regulation under the Safe Water Drinking Act?

2. Intersex Fish Turn Up All Over
Are you a boy or are you a girl? That's the question that scientists are asking as they study the organs of supposedly male fish from coast to coast and find eggs in many of them. The chief suspects: endocrine-disrupting pollutants that even in tiny amounts can mimic hormones and affect sexual development.

3. Prescription Drugs in Your Drinking Water
Take a swallow and call me in the morning. Antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones - they've all turned up in tests of drinking water around the country. Could there be health risks from decades of drinking water laced with combinations of potent drugs?

4. And Rocket Fuel, Too
Perchlorate -- the stuff is used in rocket fuel and explosives and turns up not just in water but also in milk, lettuce, other foods - and in our bodies. It's been linked to thyroid problems in pregnant women, newborns and infants. The EPA is reconsidering its earlier decision not to regulate it in water. Stand by.

5. Ethanol -- Not Just Bad Energy Policy
There are a lot of reasons to question the drive for biofuels, especially corn-based ethanol, but there has been much less attention paid to what it means for air pollution and health. For people who like to breathe clean air, the balance doesn't look promising.

6. Non-stick, No-Stain and No-Good
They were the miracle products that were supposed to make life easier - keeping spills from staining our couches and making it easy to clean our pots without scrubbing -- until it all went sour. Chemicals in the original Teflon and now off-the-market Scotchgard were linked to cancer and developmental problems. They have a way of polluting everything and they refuse to go away.

7. Monsanto Owns Corn (and also soybeans)
80% of the corn and 95% percent of the soybeans grown in America contain genes inserted by Monsanto scientists, and the company writes tough - and secret - licensing agreements to maintain control and lock out competitors. Now the Justice Department and some states are thinking these practices might violate anti-trust laws. Turnips, anyone?

8. Occupational Hazard: Microwave Popcorn
This fun food turned to be no fun for people who make it. A strange lung malady that sickened workers in plants that make microwave popcorn was traced to a widely used butter flavoring. And one popcorn-crazy consumer was felled, too. It took a while, but OSHA finally took a look, and the stuff is being phased out.

9. Dead (Zone) on Arrival
In the Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere, vast expanses of ocean have been turned into biological deserts as fertilizer runoff from farms washes downstream and nourish runaway algae growth, which deplete most of the oxygen when the tiny organisms die and decompose. The Gulf dead zone has more than doubled in size since the 1980s - accelerated by the boom in crops grown to make biofuels. In 2009, it was smaller than predicted, but more intense, in 2009.

10. The (Not So) Great Pacific Trash Gyre
It's hard to spot from the water or even from space, but an estimated 3.5 million tons of mostly plastic trash from all over the world floats just below the surface of the Pacific, swirling slowly around in an area of circular currents twice the size of Texas. It's devastating to birds and sea creatures that think the plastic bits are food. It's time to stop adding to the mess - and then see if there's any way to clean it up.

What stories top your list of the decade's biggest environmental news??

By Michelle Perez, EWG Senior Analyst

Press coverage last week of the latest federal proposals to clean up the Chesapeake Bay was good. But, an important piece of the puzzle was missing from the discussion.

The puzzle's missing piece

Yes, it's fantastic that President Obama has asked five federal agencies to propose ways they can do their jobs better to restore water quality in the six-state, 64,000 square-mile Bay watershed. And yes, Senator Ben Cardin's (D-Maryland) draft legislation is crucial to give EPA unprecedented power to compel the states to clean up the Bay and punitive authority if they fail to act.

However, these reports and legislation and the resulting press coverage ignores the 800-pound gorilla in the room:

The federal government's reach over farm pollution - which is the single largest source of the nutrient and sediment pollution harming the Bay - is limited to regulating only the largest animal production farms. This leaves the majority of animal farms and the majority of animal waste unregulated by the federal government.

What's worse, there's a huge loophole in the federal animal farm regulation: the feds have no authority over the manure that gets transferred off the regulated farm and onto an unregulated farm where the manure is applied to land as a fertilizer substitute.

The current system isn't working

EWG released a report last week - Facing Facts in the Chesapeake Bay - that points out the real gorilla in our midst:

The inability of the six Bay states (Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, and New York) to cope with the agricultural pollution that the federal government has no jurisdiction over.

Furthermore, EWG's analysis explains why and gives examples of how the voluntary approach that pays farmers to install best management practices that are good for the farm and good for the environment has failed to clean up the unintended pollution.

What needs to happen

Finally, EWG points out that the only way these state governments can show EPA they are truly able to achieve their portion of the upcoming Bay clean-up goals is if they develop a fair and sensible regulatory framework to reduce agricultural pollution.

Read more about what a fair and sensible regulatory framework could look like and find out what agricultural pollution regulations do exist are in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, and New York.

Like most kids, mine love bathtime. And while I take care to avoid the toxic chemicals in some bath products by making careful choices, at least I don't have to worry about the safety of the water itself. As it should be.

But that's very much not the case for the Hall-Massey family of West Virginia. Quite the contrary, they do have to worry about the safety of the water itself. So much so that the kids take super-quick baths and they buy and truck in water that they store in big barrels on the porch. Today? In America?

This family's very unsafe drinking water is chronicled by the New York Times in the second article (and compelling video) in its important series on the increasing pollution in American waters. As Mrs. Hall-Massey says so well:

"How can we get digital cable and Internet in our homes, but not clean water? ... How is this still happening today?"

How is this still happening today?
Mrs. Hall-Massey's question is easily answered: the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act are being violated significantly and routinely, and the violators are simply not being punished.

According to the NYT's investigation, state officials fined or otherwise punished fewer than 3 percent of Clean Water Act violations. And when there are more than 506,000 Clean Water Act violations by more than 23,000 companies and other facilities, 97% unpunished violations means something.

How does your water compare?
The Hall-Massey's downright dangerous water problems (which you can watch on video here) may seem extreme. But are they? Thanks to the New York Times, you can see how many water violations there are in your area and what is - or isn't - being done about it.

You can find water polluters near you here and see how violations are being handled here. It is important to have access to this information, but unfortunate that it tells a story of abuse, very weak enforcement, and ultimately, unsafe drinking water.

Get our Guide to Safe Drinking Water
When I get bad news, I want to do something about it. If you do, too, check out our short guide to safe drinking water to see what steps you can take to improve yours.

Your first step should be reading your water supplier's water quality report - or testing your well - so you know what you're working with. Our top tip for tap water? Filter it. Here's how:

• Carbon filters (pitcher or tap-mounted) are affordable and reduce many common water contaminants, like lead and byproducts of the disinfection process used to treat municipal tap water.


• Install a reverse osmosis filter if you can afford it, to remove contaminants that carbon filters can't eliminate, like arsenic and perchlorate (rocket fuel).

How many times have you heard senior officials in Washington say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it? So they do nothing.

But what if it is broken? So busted up that it's actually dangerous?

The U.S. Government Accountability Office, which is the investigative arm of Congress, doesn't take folksy clichés for an answer.

To make sure policymakers don't neglect critical government functions that are falling into near-terminal disrepair, GAO maintains a list of "high risk" government operations that involve, among other things, public health and safety, national security, economic stability or vast sums of money. Over the years, GAO's fix-it list has included agencies that permitted the savings and loan crisis of the early 1990s, air traffic control modernization, defense and aerospace procurement, the Medicare and Medicaid programs, pension protections and homeland security.

Last week, GAO added three new urgent priorities to the list, which now totals 30:

• Modernizing the U.S. financial regulatory system.
• Improving the federal Food and Drug Administration's ability to assure the safety and effectiveness of drugs and medical devices;
• Transforming the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to prevent toxic chemicals from causing human illness and environmental damage.

It's sobering to see the toxic chemicals problem sharing equal billing with the global economic meltdown. GAO's bill of particulars, laid out in a 99-page report, is chilling:

• EPA has assessed the risk of just 9 assessments of chemicals that could have serious impacts on human health.
• EPA's backlog of 70 assessments has hardly budged in years. Some chemicals were under study as long as 9 years. Well more than half the agency's 540 assessment may be outdated.

Here's a disturbing set of facts: what year did the federal government's Report on Carcinogens first list dioxin as a suspected human carcinogen? 1981. What year did the report upgrade that classification to known human carcinogen? 2001.

What year does EPA expect to wind up its assessment of dioxin? 2015-2017, according to GAO.

GAO blamed interference from the Bush White House for some crucial delays. Others, it said, were caused by EPA managers - who, at the highest level, are White House political appointees.

The Obama administration is expected to be far more aggressive in regulating toxic chemicals. But GAO says that it will need better tools: the Toxic Substances Control Act won't be up to the job.

That was clear from the moment it was enacted -- in 1976, to be precise. That's why the Environmental Working Group and other health and consumer groups are working for passage of the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act, introduced in the previous Congressional session by Sen Frank Lautenberg, D-NJ and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee. Current law places the burden of proof on EPA to prove an industrial chemical is not safe. Consequently, some 80,000 chemicals have never been tested for safety.

The Kid-Safe act, expected to be reintroduced in coming months, would put the burden on chemical companies to show their products are safe before they are placed on the market. And the companies, not the taxpayers, would pay for testing.

Until somebody does something major, GAO said, "the nation lacks assurance that human health and the environment are adequately protected."

In other words - fix it!

There will be many happy people around the world when the Obama administration takes over in January. Indeed, President Bush will leave the office as one of the least popular presidents in the history.

My focus is what he has done to our lovely planet Earth. For a start, take a look at the National Resources Defense Council's take on the Bush record or read the Boston Phoenix's 20 Reasons the Earth will be Glad to See Bush Go.

I'm glad to say goodbye to Bush because:

In January, my former colleague Bill Walker wrote about California's effort to to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. The Environmental Protection Agency denied the state's petition, citing "lack of evidence linking carbon emissions to specific health effects."

Walker described Bush administration food policy as "keep your fingers crossed and hope for the good weather."

The Bush administration seemed to think that if it ignored the issue of climate change, it would go away. Well, future generations will pay the price for the Bush administration's stubborn refusal to address this global problem. My former colleague Amanda Hanley wrote about it here.

The administration rarely missed as chance to weaken regulations aimed at protecting the public and workers from dangerous chemicals, as I wrote last July.

Bush administration appointees changed and manipulated data, stacked scientific panels, appointed inexperienced people to positions of authority and fired people who threatened polluters, as my colleague Elaine Shannon wrote in September.

Steve Johnson's tenure as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency was marked by controversies. Among other things, he approved human testing of pesticides and hid dangers of global warming.

We work very hard here at EWG to bring out the truth about issues environment and public health. We are a non-partisan watchdog organization, and I can guarantee we will be watching what the new administration is doing, too. We promise to bring you many more exposes here at Enviroblog in 2009. Stay tuned and have a Happy New Year!

Our new year's resolution: build on the accomplishments of 2008 to make 2009 the year we turn the corner on crucial environmental issues facing our society. We scored breakthroughs on a range of problems last year. Among them:

Advancing the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act.
EWG's work on toxic chemicals spurred the reintroduction of the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act and its requirement of mandatory biomonitoring of industrial chemicals in people. EWG briefed Congressional staff members on the legislation, that aims to replace the weak Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. In the next Congress, EWG plans to organize briefings and push for hearings and passage of the bill.

Progressing toward a ban of toxic plastic chemical BPA.
On October 31, the Science Board of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a stinging rebuke to the agency and embraced EWG arguments that bisphenol-A (BPA), a synthetic estrogen used to make polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resin may be a threat to human health. The panel forced FDA to retreat from its stance that trace levels of BPA are safe in food packaging, including infant formula cans and baby bottles. EWG scientists testified, wrote comments and served on the expert panel for the Science Board.

In September, the National Institutes of Health's National Toxicology Program (NTP)declared that BPA, shown in laboratory tests to disrupt the endocrine system, may alter brain development, cause behavioral problems and damage the prostate glands in fetuses, infants and young children.

In 2009, EWG will work with Congressional leaders and the Obama administration to press for a federal ban of BPA in food packaging and other products that expose children and pregnant women to the chemical.

With strong advocacy by EWG's California office, the California assembly office came close to passing the first state-level BPA ban. In 2009, 13 state legislatures are expected to consider similar measures.

Blowing the whistle on FDA plan to push mercury-laced seafood.
On December 12, the Environmental Working Group made public internal government documents disclosing the Food and Drug Administration's secret plans to reverse federal warnings that pregnant women and children limit their fish intake to avoid mercury, a neurotoxin especially dangerous to the fetus and infants. EWG obtained both the FDA plan, stamped "CLOSE HOLD," and memos by senior Environmental Protection Agency scientists attacking FDA's rationale. The Washington Post broke the story, and other national stories followed.

Reaction from Capitol Hill was swift and sharp. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., denounced FDA: "Now, in the administration's 11th hour, they are quietly trying to water down advisories for women and children about the dangers of mercury in fish, disregarding sound science on this issue....This backroom bouquet for special interests should be stopped in its tracks. If they slip this through, I will work with the incoming Obama Administration to restore science-based decisions on mercury."

Soft plastic toys are often loaded with phthalates.

National Research Council tells EPA: cumulative risk assessment of phthalates and other toxic chemicals is urgently needed

A real victory for both human and environmental health has been achieved right at the end of the year, as the National Research Council (NRC) directed EPA to examine the combined risks of exposure to phthalates, a family of toxic chemicals that have been linked to allergies and asthma, infertility, reduced testosterone concentrations, and, most worrisome, abnormal development of reproductive system in baby boys.

Phthalates are used in a wide variety of consumer products such as fragrances, cosmetics and shampoos, medical devices, soft toys that children and pets play with and often chew, building and home decorating materials, and even children's clothing. Because of health concerns associated with phthalates, several of them have been restricted in the European Union and the US; yet, a parent looking for a phthalate-free baby powder or a soft toy may not know what to buy, since manufacturers frequently don't disclose all ingredients in consumer products. Meanwhile, many different phthalates contaminate the bodies of most Americans, including children developing in the womb, since phthalate exposures are nearly ubiquitous.