The surging racial justice movement has reenergized aspirations to correct the environmental injustices that blemish countless underprivileged U.S. communities. The new TipSheet, another part of our 2021 Guide, scans the landscape of trouble spots, from urban to rural, industrial zones to Superfund sites. Plus, story ideas and reporting resources.
It’s been a half-century since the first Earth Day in 1970 and a new book from an old hand catalogues the advances and the setbacks in the decades since. BookShelf contributor Francesca Lyman reviews “You Can’t Fool Mother Nature: The Once and Future Triumph of Environmentalism,” and explores how a long view from a veteran environmentalist informs the field of environmental reporting.
The “underworld” of sewage treatment had fascinated one journalist for years. But it was only after winning a reporting grant that Christine Woodside had the luxury of spending dozens of hours to focus on how one old, malfunctioning plant left a local community appalled and angered. Woodside shares the details in the latest installment of SEJournal’s newest column, FEJ StoryLog.
"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is declining to require oil and gas, coal, chemical and mining companies to have insurance to cover major spills and accidents."
"Nine environmental groups are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review an EPA rule that pushed back deadlines for utilities to begin closing unlined coal ash disposal sites."
"Turkey farmers are getting on the regenerative bandwagon. But experts say the birds must be part of a larger regenerative farming system to warrant the term."
"Marsha Jackson didn’t go to the mountain. The mountain came to her. ... The mountain is human-made — an environmental nightmare of discarded roofing shingles stretching more than a city block. Even though it’s an illegal toxic waste dump on the edge of a neighborhood, it took months of pressure to get city officials to even acknowledge its existence and finally make plans to take it down."
"Support is growing internationally for a new global treaty to tackle the plastic pollution crisis, it has emerged, though so far without the two biggest per capita waste producers – the US and the UK – which have yet to signal their participation."
The toxic compounds known as PFAS are causing a crisis in the waste and recycling industry, which faces mounting regulation and litigation over handling its presence in the waste stream. One reporter on the PFAS front lines explains the industry’s dilemma, as well as the challenges of covering the story and how a financial prism led to important insights into industry’s response.
"From African shantytowns to the backstreets of China’s cities, small-scale businesses that recycle the lead from auto batteries are proliferating. Experts say the pollution from these unregulated operations is a lethal threat – with children being the most vulnerable to poisoning."
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