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House lawmakers on Tuesday criticized the Navy for its initial response to the fuel leak in Hawaii that has contaminated the tap water for thousands of families. "The Navy caused this problem, we own it, and we are going to fix it," Rear Admiral Brendan Converse, deputy commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet said in his opening statement at a virtual hearing in front of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness. The Navy started receiving reports of discolored water that smelled like diesel fuel and of families with symptoms of diarrhea, nausea, headaches, and eye and skin irritation. A fuel leak from the Navy's Red Hill underground fuel storage facility is suspected to have spread to a water well serving thousands. (Watson, 1/11)

The Environmental Protection Agency is taking its first major action to address toxic wastewater from coal-burning power plants, ordering utilities to stop dumping waste into unlined storage ponds and speed up plans to close leaking or otherwise dangerous coal ash sites. Plants in four states will have to close the coal ash ponds months or years ahead of schedule, the EPA said Tuesday, citing deficiencies with groundwater monitoring, cleanup or other problems. (Daly, 1/12)

A year after unprecedented charges against a former Michigan governor, the Flint water prosecution of Rick Snyder and eight others is moving slowly, bogged down by disputes over millions of documents and even whether some cases were filed in the proper court. Snyder, a Republican, is charged with willful neglect of duty arising from decisions to switch Flint’s water supply to the Flint River in 2014-15 without treating it to reduce the corrosive effect on aging urban pipes. Lead contaminated the system, a disastrous result in the majority Black community. (White, 1/12)

When Chris Jelenewicz learned that at least 17 people had been killed in a fire at a high-rise apartment building in the Bronx on Sunday, his reaction was one of angry disbelief. Jelenewicz is the chief engineer at the Society of Fire Protection Engineers. “It’s inconceivable to me that it’s 2022 already and we have a building” where so many can perish in such a fire, he said. (Slater, 1/11)

Three companies agreed to recall their home elevators to fix a safety hazard that has killed and hurt children for decades, regulators announced Tuesday — the latest step in a lengthy standoff with an industry often reluctant to provide the simple fix. Two other major manufacturers continued to refuse the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s request that they voluntarily agree to notify consumers and make minor modifications to eliminate the danger. (Frankel, 1/11)

The health benefits of olive oil have long been touted – olive oil is packed with healthy fats, nutrients and antioxidants – and it's a vital ingredient of the Mediterranean diet. This new research, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American College of Cardiology, suggests the potential of including olive oil in your diet. The study, led by researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, studied the health and diet of 60,582 women and 31,801 men in the U.S. from 1990 to 2018. During the 28 years studied, those who said they consumed more than a half tablespoon of olive oil daily had 19% lower risk of all causes of death, as well as 19% lower risk of cardiovascular disease, compared to those who rarely or never had olive oil. (Snider, 1/11)

A rise in the prevalence of autoimmune diseases around the world can be blamed on Western-style diets, scientists say. In a Sunday interview, James Lee and Carola Vinuesa of London’s Francis Crick Institute said they are working to pinpoint the precise causes of autoimmune disease. "Numbers of autoimmune cases began to increase about 40 years ago in the west," Lee told the Guardian's Observer. "However, we are now seeing some emerge in countries that never had such diseases before." (Musto, 1/11)