IBM sued over pollution
Residents and business groups in New York sued IBM Corporation on January 3 alleging that decades of pollution from the company's former microelectronics plant in the village of Endicott, Broome county, has made them sick. The lawsuit says IBM, which built computers, circuit boards, integrated circuits and related goods at the Endicott plant from 1924 to 2002, failed to protect residents from toxic chemical pollutants like trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene, trichloroethane, benzene and trichlorotrifluoroethane. Decades of exposure to these industrial wastes are causing higher rates of cancers and heart defects in the area, says the lawsuit. IBM says under a cleanup required by state regulators, it has built hundreds of extraction and investigation wells since 1979 to monitor groundwater pollution in the area and has already addressed the residents' concerns.

New Zealand court rules on housing row
An environment court in New Zealand has confirmed policies that will help protect Marlbourough district's productive soils and make it tougher to develop housing and business complexes in rural areas. The court has asked the district council to modify a plan proposed by wine industries several years ago that would have allowed fragmentation of rural areas through inappropriate development of housing and business complexes.