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Dave Szabo says the small he has to lock up his house multiple times a week to keep the stink out.

Meat processor told to stop ‘strongly offensive’ odour

Dave Szabo describes the smell outside his dream home as like “boiling meat … sometimes with a mix of burning hair or sometimes almost like septic”.

  • Julius Dennis

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Firefighters battle the petrol tanker crash at Medlow Bath in 1992. Test results suggest the fire may be a cause of the PFAS contamination.

The forever chemicals giving Blue Mountains peas no chance

EPA testing has found some Blue Mountains vegetable garden soils laced with poisonous chemicals.

  • The Herald's View
Kate with her two youngest children. Her Medlow Bath home has high levels of PFAS in the soil.

‘Nowhere to go’: Blue Mountains residents told not to eat their vegetables after PFAS found in garden soil

Residents in Medlow Bath near a suspected PFAS contamination site want their homes remediated. Instead, the NSW government has launched another investigation it says will take about 12 months – possibly beyond the next election.

  • Caitlin Fitzsimmons
A seal at Seal Rocks on Phillip Island.

How this team is helping fur seals escape the scourge of plastic waste

Eyes in the skies can pick out an injured animal easily, even in a colony of hundreds, allowing researchers to conduct targeted rescues.

  • Bianca Hall
A long-nosed fur seal seen by the Cooks River at Wolli Creek on Sunday.

‘Skeletal’ seal seeks respite in the Cooks River

It’s the same species as the healthy seals that frequently sun themselves on the VIP stairs at the Sydney Opera House.

  • Caitlin Fitzsimmons
Sewage water is pumped into a canal as a temporary bypass for a broken segment of the Potomac Interceptor sewage pipe, near Cabin John, Maryland.

Trump approves emergency declaration over massive Washington, DC, sewage spill

Federal agencies will be able to provide disaster aid to tackle the overflow into the Potomac River, which followed the collapse of a pipeline in mid-January.

  • Maegan Vazquez
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The public health failing that flies under the radar

State government fiddling with a report into lead poisoning is the latest attempt to sweep contamination of Broken Hill under the carpet.

  • The Herald's View
Three of the seven recommendations initially proposed by the Office of the Chief Scientist and Engineer did not make the final report into lead contamination in Broken Hill, documents released through parliament this week reveal.

Plan to protect children from toxic metals erased from NSW government report

The state’s chief scientist warned delayed action on lead contamination put generations of children at risk of lifelong complications.

  • Angus Thomson
The water at Burleigh Heads can appear to be crystal blue. But looks can be deceiving.

The cleanest and dirtiest beaches in south-east Queensland revealed

Where have you been swimming this summer? We crunch the numbers on water quality at beaches and swimming spots from Rainbow Bay to Noosa Heads.

  • Marissa Calligeros and Craig Butt
The biosolid processing facility’s capacity will be increased at Sydney Water’s Glenfield water resource recovery facility as part of a $3 billion upgrade to reduce sewage at the Malabar deep ocean outfall.

The $3 billion fix promised for Sydney’s mysterious poo balls

A major upgrade of the city’s ageing sewerage system will also unlock housing development in south-west Sydney and could provide an environmentally friendly water source to data centres.

  • Caitlin Fitzsimmons