pollution

Friends of the Kaw volunteers dig 2 to 6 tons of battery cases out of sandbars each year. They tackle items as big as septic tanks. Now they’re eyeing an ambitious cleanup target for 2030.

Several south-central Kansas counties are seeing a dramatic increase in groundwater contamination. The region’s nitrate pollution comes primarily from agriculture.

Decades of data show nitrate levels in rivers often drop during dry years and spike when rain returns. Experts say more conservation practices in and around farm fields could help smooth out the sharp peaks to protect drinking water and downstream impacts.

Peanut is a notable example of how plastic pollution can harm wildlife — and how an individual animal’s story can be a powerful tool in promoting social change.

Previous rules required spills of any size to be reported to the state, while the new rules set minimum quantities to alert regulators.

The majority of the pollutants released by Tyson in the five years the study examines were in the Midwestern states of Nebraska, Illinois and Missouri.

The annual “State of the Air” report from the American Lung Association shows some progress for the region and the nation in smog reduction but reports that particulate pollution levels are deadly.

A family-owned funeral home in Missouri purchased the 19th-century building and converted it into an operation for performing alkaline hydrolysis — a water-based alternative to traditional cremation.

College students are testing private wells in south-central Kansas. The results are prompting families to install treatment systems to reduce nitrate levels.

States like North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana will have to deal with toxic blue-green algae blooms already common in Kansas. Utility companies will have to act fast to treat drinking water and keep it safe.

A new global study, published in Nature, found microplastics in every lake sampled — no matter how remote. A researcher from the University of Kansas talks about how local bodies of water stack up.

State regulators are considering a request from Missouri Prime Beef Packers, which processes more than 3,500 cattle per week near Pleasant Hope, to treat wastewater from its operation using microorganisms and discharge it directly into the Pomme de Terre River.