Environmental Justice

"The White House held its tribal nations summit Monday for the first time in five years. The two-day event ends Tuesday."

"After years of tribal requests, the president plans to block new oil and gas leases within 10 miles of Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. The ban is likely to generate strong pushback from industry."

"For decades, chronic flooding and nuclear waste have encroached on the ancestral lands in southeastern Minnesota that the Prairie Island Indian Community calls home, whittling them to about a third of their original size."

"The South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu is disappointed with the outcome of the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, fearing it will fail to hold back global warming and worsen the threat of rising sea levels facing low lying countries."

"A group of Benton Harbor residents filed a federal class action lawsuit Wednesday against city and state officials, saying they didn’t do enough to protect them against lead in some of the city’s drinking water."

"For decades, vulnerable countries and activist groups have demanded that rich polluter countries pay for irreparable damage from climate change. This year, there may be a breakthrough."

"A judge on Wednesday approved a $626 million deal to settle lawsuits filed by Flint residents who found their tap water contaminated by lead following disastrous decisions to switch the city’s water source and a failure to swiftly acknowledge the problem."

"The Justice Department today [Tuesday] announced a landmark investigation into wastewater issues in an Alabama county that is home to prominent environmental justice activist Catherine Flowers.

Flowers, who now serves as a White House environmental justice adviser, detailed the sewage problems that plagued Lowndes County, Ala., in her book "Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced a $630 million plan to capture and treat sewage-tainted water that routinely flows over the border from Tijuana into San Diego Bay."