"A century ago, a well-ventilated building was considered good medicine. But by the time Covid-19 arrived, our buildings could barely breathe. How did that happen? And how do we let the fresh air back in?"
After a massive fire at a Texas petrochemical storage facility, reporters from Public Health Watch and The Texas Tribune worked together to shed light on who was responsible for this disaster and what health threats had been hidden from the public. This behind-the-scenes report from Public Health Watch’s David Leffler and Savanna Strott looks at the challenges the team faced and how they overcame them.
A billion pounds of chemicals are used on U.S. crops each year. Designed to protect them, they can also leave residue on foods we eat and enter the waterways we drink from. Reporter’s Toolbox has some key data sources for journalists, whether they’re looking at the big picture or are drilling down locally around issues of pesticide use and human or ecological health.
"Residents, lawyers, and environmental groups point to aging facilities and reluctant state regulators as reasons for the continued string of industrial fires."
"Bayer AG agreed on Thursday to pay $6.9 million to settle claims by New York Attorney General Letitia James that it misled consumers by advertising Roundup weedkiller, which has been linked to cancer, as environmentally safe."
"The Environmental Protection Agency has announced more stringent rules governing offshore oil spill response, amid continuing concerns about the effects on public health and wildlife from chemical disasters, including BP’s Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010."
"Call it a smoke front. That’s what it looks like from space on weather satellites and here on the ground on air quality monitors."
"The Interior and Energy departments will spend the coming months trying to cement some of the White House’s critical energy ambitions, ahead of an election year in which Republicans are likely to attack President Joe Biden’s focus on boosting renewables and cutting planet-warming emissions."
"As it negotiates water rights with tribes, Arizona goes to unique lengths to extract concessions that limit tribes’ opportunities for growth and economic development, according to a ProPublica and High Country News investigation."
"Smoky days can double emergency hospital visits for asthma, which disproportionately affects Black and Latino children. In New York, the Bronx was especially hard hit."
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