Coal ash can contaminate surface and ground water with toxic heavy metals. But as this week’s TipSheet reports, Trump deregulation aims to loosen EPA rules on its disposal. That may mean a big local pollution story. If journalists can find the data, that is. The latest on the new rules, plus resources for coverage.
There’s little cause to celebrate upcoming Sunshine Week for those who cover Trump administration environmental agencies. The latest WatchDog catalogues how the EPA has adopted a secretive approach and displays frequent hostility to the news media, including with a troubling series of attacks on individual journalists.
As new research reminds us that pollution often disproportionately affects poor and minority communities in the United States, a long-standing mapping tool from the EPA can help reporters explore and discover those environmental justice stories nearest them. The latest TipSheet explains the problem, and walks you through the mapping app.
A hard-nosed account of Monsanto and its controversial and popular herbicide Roundup comes in a new book by a former wire service reporter, who pieced together documentation and fact-finding from over 20 years to make a case there was a dangerous cover-up. BookShelf reviews Carey Gillam’s “Whitewash.”
Covering local infrastructure projects often means covering energy and the environment. This week’s TipSheet offers a companion to our special backgrounder on the national infrastructure story emerging out of Washington. We’ve got dozens of resources and links for finding infrastructure news and information from Congress, executive agencies, infrastructure organizations and environmental groups.
Somewhere near you is a toxic waste site. And as the EPA brings the Superfund cleanup program back into its sights, TipSheet helps you cover this perpetual problem. Info on cleanup funding and priority-setting, resources to locate nearby sites, questions to ask to dig into your Superfund story and more.
After an EPA Superfund settlement was rebuffed by a small town, a local environmental advocate goes to jail while executives behind a chemical plant contamination remain free. In the latest Q&A for our Inside Story column, we hear from investigative reporter Sharon Lerner of The Intercept about the complex challenges of telling this award-winning tale.
Top reporters at an event sponsored by the Society of Environmental Journalists predicted clashes in 2018 over climate, drilling on public lands, environmental laws, infrastructure, national monuments and more. Here's what these journalistic veterans forecast. Plus, check out the accompanying annual issues guide.
OSHA stops publishing on its website a list of U.S. workers who died on the job, a new "Silencing Science Tracker" tool and a journalists' guide to working with whistleblowers are released, plus a powerful politician pressures a scientist on environmental health policy. All in the latest WatchDog TipSheet.
This is a decisive time on the energy and environment front, with challenges and confrontation expected over the consummation of the Trump deregulatory agenda. Our second annual issues guide provides a roadmap for covering the big stories. The guide's formal launch took place at an SEJ event in Washington, D.C. on January 26. If you missed it, the webcast is archived here.
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