"A lengthy, blistering heat wave that is blanketing the eastern half of the United States is putting significant stress on the nation's power grid as homeowners and businesses crank up their air conditioners."
Wildfire, hurricanes, recreation, extreme heat, drought, electric brownouts, UV rays and sunscreen, insect-borne disease like West Nile virus, fishing, dead zones, and algal blooms — TipSheet can help you cover these local environmental stories.
Bill Dawson gets the inside story from the Monterey County Weekly's assistant editor Kera Abraham (pictured at left) and her award-winning stories involving clashing shades of green.
In this issue: Harvest Public Media fills coverage gap; California weekly unravels green claims; lessons from BP's Gulf oil disaster; nuke experts assess reporting on Fukushima; rethinking climate change-natural disasters relationship; thanks to SEJ's founders; enterprising disaster coverage; spreadsheet techniques check scientists’ studies; UN science panel deals with dwindling natural resources.
Congress created a cap-and-trade plan for air pollution from the nation's aging fleet of power plants 20 years ago. In its time, it was successful in cutting pollution, but today, tattered by politics and lawsuits, its future is uncertain.
"An Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis study has found mercury contamination in soil downwind from a coal-fired power plant in Indianapolis, supporting the notion of localized mercury hot spots."
"Shrimp boats that fish in the Gulf of Mexico without the required turtle-excluder devices are killing more sea turtles than is allowed under the Endangered Species Act, the advocacy group Oceana said in a report Tuesday."
"Federal regulators knew potentially contaminated bark and wood chips were being sold from a Superfund site in the asbestos-tainted town of Libby, Mont., for three years before they stopped the practice, according to a letter from the Environmental Protection Agency to U.S. Sen. Max Baucus."
"Health and environmental groups have mounted a campaign against Bath & Body Works, urging the retailer to stop selling its line of 'Summertime Scent' soaps that contain triclosan, a chemical categorized as a pesticide."
"A Pennsylvania homeowner and an Indiana golf course company have filed a class-action lawsuit against DuPont charging that the chemical giant was either negligent or reckless in putting a new weedkiller on the market."
