Pollution

Farmers interested in reducing pollution can apply for financial help through a federal program, but they need to act fast because the deadline is Friday, officials said. The federal Environmental Quality Incentives Program helps farmers finance changes that would help their farms pollute less, such as shredding tree prunings and replacing old diesel generators.

Activists have filed suit challenging a ruling that Imperial County is not responsible for dust pollution that it blames on Mexico. The legal advocacy group Earthjustice says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency erred when it declined to impose more stringent controls on the county. The EPA ruled in October that the county would have met clean-air standards if not for pollution wafting across the border from Mexicali.

Work is set to begin in August on the next phase of detoxifying the old Remco Hydraulics plant in an effort to clean up one of the North Coast's worst sources of ground water pollution. The plans, including injecting molasses, yeast and vegetable oil into the soil, would be a major step in a lengthy cleanup effort on the seven-acre property that for several decades was the site of a heavy machinery manufacturing business.

The Soviet Union has a poor record on combatting pollution but plans to double environmental spending and sharply cut harmful emissions over northern Europe, the Soviet environmental protection minister said Friday. Signing a five-year environmental cooperation agreement with Sweden, Fyodor T. Morgun sharply criticized his country's past record in the ecological field. "We criticize ourselves because many European countries and the United States allocate twice as much money as we did and do in the Soviet Union to the environment," Morgun told a news conference.

A federal judge in Great Falls, Mont., has approved a $260-million settlement between the state of Montana and Atlantic Richfield Co., ending 16 years of court battles. The case involves 100 years of pollution in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin from mining and smelter operations. Los Angeles-based Arco inherited the problems in the 1970s, when it acquired Anaconda Co.

Bacteria found in the frozen corpses of two seamen who died 140 years ago in the Arctic show unexpected resistance to modern antibiotics, scientists say. Because there is evidence that lead poisoning killed the men, the Canadian researchers speculate that heavy metal pollutants, not just overuse of antibiotics, may play a role in creating disease germs that survive drugs.

American Electric Power Corp., Cinergy Corp., Illinova Corp., Southern Co. and three other Midwest and Southern utilities are being sued by the U.S. government for allegedly polluting the air with emissions from 17 coal-fired electricity-generating plants. The Justice Department filed the lawsuits to recover what officials said could be as much as $1 billion in fines and penalties for violations of the Clean Air Act dating back 20 years and to cover the cost of pollution-control devices.

The vast majority of Americans would accept mandatory trash recycling, higher electric bills and other inconveniences to help clean up the environment, a national poll has found. Broad perceptions exist that pollution is on the rise. The Media General and Associated Press survey also found backing for initiatives ranging from a ban on household aerosol products to strict emission controls at power plants. Three-quarters of the 1,084 respondents said laws against pollution in the United States are too weak, and about as many faulted efforts by government, businesses and average Americans to keep the environment clean.

The inhabitants of this metropolis of 12 million people, and perhaps as many cars, buses, trucks and motorbikes, have seen something new in recent months: the city itself, unobscured by the thick smog that normally blankets the capital. For years, pollution in Tehran seemed to only grow worse, the stench of exhaust more dizzying, the number of patients rushed to hospitals with breathing difficulties ever increasing.

During the mid-1980s, the U.S. market for Monitor Technologies' air-pollution monitoring equipment deteriorated so severely that the San Diego-based company was forced to actively pursue foreign sales in Europe and the Middle East. But prospects for U.S. sales during the 1990s picked up dramatically last week when the Bush Administration carried through on a campaign pledge by promising to enact new environmental legislation. If the Bush Administration's environmental initiative results in tougher pollution controls, then Monitor will be "a company with the right product at the right price at the right time," according to Larry Selwitz an industry analyst with Newport Beach-based Cruttenden & Co. Waiting for Controls Bush's promise to address acid rain and the growing problem of urban pollutants that create smog was good news for Monitor, according to Irving Katz, director of research for Thomas Green/San Diego Securities.