There are currently 16 lawsuits pending against American military contractors KBR and Halliburton, claiming that they poisoned scores of American troops by burning everything from human corpses to asbestos in huge open air burn pits.

These lawsuits also include a Turkish company called ERKA. However, this post will focus on the American parties named in these suits.

KBR was Halliburton's subsidiary until 2007. They are now two separate corporate entities.

The lawsuits center around large open air fire pits that allegedly compromised the health of American soldiers and private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The lawsuits claim that these open air pits emitted extremely hazardous fumes. The suits claim that the companies burned a range of hazardous materials in these pits such as human corpses, animal carcasses, and asbestos.

Retail Giants' Waste Disposal Practices are No Bargain for the Environment

Target stores throughout California have been unlawfully disposing of hazardous waste materials for at least eight years, according to a lawsuit filed against the retail giant this week by the California Attorney General and a number of local prosecutors.

Another big-box retailer, KMart Corporation, reached a settlement in May over similar waste dumping allegations, agreeing to revise its disposal practices and pay more than $8 million in penalties, the state's AG announced.

First the 2013 Super Bowl, Now This. . .

Federal class actions over tainted China-manufactured drywall -- the defective home-building material that is being blamed for home damage and health problems nationwide -- will be combined and heard before a federal judge in New Orleans, according to an order issued on Monday.

The decision in the case (titled "In Re: Chinese-Manufactured Drywall Products Liability Litigation") came in the form of a Transfer Order from the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, which is charged with funneling similar federal lawsuits into a single action that will be presided over by one judge.

A jury has acquitted chemical manufacturing giant W.R. Grace and three of its top executives in a federal criminal case that accused the company of causing -- and then attempting to cover up -- asbestos contamination in the small Montana mining town of Libby. Today's decision puts the spotlight back on the longstanding health risks associated with asbestos exposure. 

Asbestos in Libby, Montana. In the town of Libby, population approximately 2,600, at least 200 people have died from illnesses caused by asbestos, with hundreds more made seriously ill, the New York Times reports: "And there is no doubt that the Zonolite Mountain vermiculite mine, owned and operated by Grace from 1963 to 1990, was the source of the asbestos."

What was at stake in the case in federal district court in Missoula, Montana, were the two key questions before the jury: 1) What did W.R. Grace know about the extent of the asbestos risks that were tied to its mine, and 2) At what point did they decide to act (or decline to act) based on that knowledge, the Times reports.   

Companies who have only limited links to environmentally contaminated property will have an easier time escaping liability for huge cleanup costs associated with the contamination, under a decision handed down Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The case involves the cleanup of contaminated property at Brown & Bryant's chemical distribution facility in Arvin, California, and the responsibility of Shell Oil Company to pay for cleanup of the property. Shell had sold the pesticide D-D to Brown & Bryant over a number of years, and that chemical played a role in the contamination of the property.

The Court on Monday was charged with examining Shell's liability as a company that "arranged for disposal" of hazardous materials under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (called "CERCLA" or the "Superfund Law" informally).

Complaints about property damage and health problems linked to tainted drywall manufactured in drywall are on the rise, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced last week, when a team of CPSC experts was in Washington to meet with members of Congress over the problem.

CPSC reports that it has received 180 reports from consumers in 13 states "who believe their health symptoms or the corrosion of certain metal components in their homes are related to the presence of drywall produced in China."

Problems reported to CPSC range from a sulfur "rotten egg" smell in the house, to blackened and corroded home metal components -- most often including replacement of air conditioning parts -- to health complaints. These include itchy eyes, irritated skin, difficulty breathing, persistent cough, bloody noses, runny noses, recurrent headaches, sinus infection, and asthma attacks, according to CPSC.

A lawsuit filed this week accuses a Missouri tannery of producing a chemical sludge that contaminated local farmlands, and allegedly caused tumors in a number of residents of Cameron, Missouri.

The Missouri Lawsuit. The lawsuit claims that sludge produced by Prime Tanning Corp. -- and later used as agricultural fertilizer on farms across four neighboring counties -- contains unusually high levels of hexavalent chromium, a carcinogenic chemical compound, according to the Kansas City Star. The suit, which was filed in Clinton County, Missouri, alleges that exposure to the chemical has caused brain tumors in an unknown number of people living in Cameron, Missouri, the Star reports.