Watco Transloading says it will no longer handle materials with high concentrations of manganese, a heavy metal used in steelmaking that can cause brain damage at high exposure levels. 

Chicago facilities that process potentially harmful industrial materials must now take further steps to ensure they aren’t polluting surrounding neighborhoods.

Water samples collected at homes near a suburban medical sterilization plant linked to a cancer-causing gas showed no signs of contamination, environmental regulators announced Wednesday.

A group of state attorneys general, including Lisa Madigan, is demanding that the EPA withdraw its plan to delay a regulation aimed at reducing emissions of methane and other pollutants from landfills.

The advocacy group Moms Clean Air Force warns that a Trump administration proposal to weaken standards for emissions of toxic mercury would harm residents and wildlife across Illinois. 

After finding high levels of brain-damaging manganese near Watco Transloading’s facility on the Southeast Side of Chicago, the EPA has accused the company of violating the Clean Air Act. 

Watco Transloading faces up to $20,000 in city fines for failing to control emissions of brain-damaging manganese from its storage facility along the Calumet River. 

Water testing at homes in suburban Willowbrook is the latest step in the response to concerns over the release of dangerous ethylene oxide gas by Sterigenics International. 

As regulators continue to monitor manganese emissions at S.H. Bell Co., new air monitoring data shows alarming levels of the brain-damaging heavy metal near another industrial facility in the area.

The Trump administration is taking another swing at coal regulations, announcing that it plans to ditch an Obama-era rule that set pollution limits for new coal-fired power plants.

The first chunk of Illinois’ windfall from the Volkswagen emissions lawsuit settlement will fund cleaner-burning bus and train engines for CTA, Metra, Pace and other agencies.

After reports of a dangerous gas being emitted from several suburban industrial sites, U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth and other lawmakers have introduced a bill that would force the EPA to more quickly disclose similar public health risks. 

Air pollution’s impact on life expectancy exceeds that of communicable diseases such as AIDS, cigarette smoking and even war, according to a first-of-its-kind study from the University of Chicago.

The ongoing probe into harmful levels of brain-damaging manganese on Chicago’s Southeast Side has turned up another, more familiar neurotoxin: lead.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin is calling for federal action following a report that identified an Illinois meat-processing plant as the worst-polluting plant of its type in the country.

An inexpensive drug for Type 2 diabetes also decreases the risk of heart attacks and strokes caused by air pollution, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study.