"The chemical giant Chemours’s notorious West Virginia PFAS plant is regularly polluting nearby water with high levels of toxic “forever chemicals”, a new lawsuit alleges."
"In the summer of 1975, Trenton’s public water utility experienced so many failures that its reservoir ran dry and residents had no water, forcing fire trucks to line up for miles to pump water from the suburbs and civil defense to truck in water, too. ... Fifty years later, little has changed at Trenton Water Works, according to two new independent reports the state Department of Environmental Protection issued Monday."
"The surprise dismissal of the EPA’s inspector general has left agency veterans puzzled, given Sean O’Donnell’s track record in recovering money and scrutinizing waste within the agency."
"US environmental regulators are planning to change allowable levels of a weedkiller linked with reproductive health problems to a concentration critics say discounts years of documented health and environmental risks — potentially marking a new battlefront within the Trump administration."
"Here's what you need to know about toxic fallout from a major wildfire"
"The decision opens the door for new ways to manage uranium pollution on tribal land"
"Amid a flurry of actions curtailing Biden’s environmental policies, the administration of newly inaugurated President Donald Trump this week withdrew a plan to set limits on toxic PFAS chemicals in industrial wastewater."
"The Trump administration has fired about 17 independent inspectors general at government agencies, a sweeping action to remove oversight of his new administration that some members of Congress are suggesting violated federal oversight laws." EPA, Energy Dept., Interior, Commerce, Agriculture are included in the list.
"President Trump is stocking the Environmental Protection Agency with officials who have served as lawyers and lobbyists for the oil and chemical industries, many of whom worked in his first administration to weaken climate and pollution protections."
To many, plants are a merely green backdrop, indistinguishable and inconsequential. But, freelancer Karen Mockler says that such “plant blindness” belies an urgent need for our notice. More than a third of the world’s trees and thousands of other plant species face extinction. Their plight — and their many blessings — offer perceptive journalists a wealth of reporting and storytelling opportunities. Mockler on why to write about plants.
