Michael Hawthorne

BP's Whiting Refinery in Whiting, Indiana on April 24, 2017.

BP settles another lawsuit over lung-damaging soot from Whiting refinery

December 2, 2021 at 3:45 p.m.

BP will pay the federal government more than $500,000 and tighten up operations after environmental groups caught the London-based oil conglomerate emitting illegal amounts of lung-damaging soot at its refinery...

The Medline Industries facilities in Waukegan on May 12, 2021.

Medline and Sterigenics would have to report ethylene oxide emissions under new EPA proposal

November 24, 2021 at 12:20 p.m.

After snubbing a federal right-to-know law for years, two Chicago-area companies could soon be forced to join competitors that make it relatively easy for Americans to determine how much cancer-causing...

Rev. Edward Pinkney delivers bottled water to Benton Harbor residents as part of his ongoing effort for clean drinking water, Nov. 9, 2021.

A low-income Michigan city has a drinking water crisis. Sound familiar?

November 15, 2021 at 7:38 p.m.

Abandoned by industry. Impoverished after white flight. Saddled with crumbling infrastructure, struggling schools and little, if any, money to fix the problems. For decades this low-income, majority Black community —...

Sugar Camp coal mine near Benton in southern Illinois on Sept. 16, 2021.

Toxic foam dumped into southern Illinois coal mine in unsuccessful attempt to extinguish underground fire

January 7, 2022 at 4:44 p.m.

Operators of a southern Illinois coal mine dumped toxic foam deep underground in an unsuccessful attempt to extinguish a fire that idled production last month, according to documents obtained by...

Sugar Camp coal mine near Benton in southern Illinois on Sept. 16, 2021. Federal and state officials are still investigating the cause of a fire, which forced an Aug. 14 evacuation of the Sugar Camp mine.

New law sets end dates for fossil-fuel power plants, but Illinois coal mining remains a huge contributor to climate-changing pollution

September 17, 2021 at 4:37 p.m.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker vows Illinois will help stop — and even reverse — climate change with a new state law that outlaws coal- and gas-fired electricity by 2045. But the...

Workers with Chicago Water Management work to replace a lead waterline with copper pipe at a house in the 8300 block of South Hermitage Avenue on Aug. 30, 2021.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot set a goal to replace 650 toxic lead pipes in Chicago in 2021. So far, 3 have been removed.

September 3, 2021 at 7:01 a.m.

Three toxic water pipes gone. Another 399,997 to go. After denying for years that Chicago has a widespread problem with brain-damaging lead in tap water, city officials are embarking on...

The ArcelorMittal steel mill (now owned by Cleveland-Cliffs) and permanently closed Bailly Generating plant, left, in Burns Harbor are seen from Indiana Dunes National Park in 2019. A nuclear power plant was proposed for the Bailly site in the 1970s, but never came to fruition. (Zbigniew Bzdak / baiduhai)

Environmental racism, unregulated chemicals, staffing shortages among the many challenges facing whomever Biden picks to lead the EPA in the Midwest

August 30, 2021 at 9:36 a.m.

More toxic lead pipes than any other region of the country. An unmatched legacy of abandoned, highly polluted industrial sites. Dozens of corporations chronically in trouble for poisoning air and...

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