While environmental themes were less prominent at the Sundance Film Festival this year, our correspondent JoAnn Valenti unearthed ecological messages from documentaries that explore the emergence of climate change refugees in the face of sea level rise, the escape from modernity into wilderness and the confrontation of environmental threats by young innovators.
Coal ash can contaminate surface and ground water with toxic heavy metals. But as this week’s TipSheet reports, Trump deregulation aims to loosen EPA rules on its disposal. That may mean a big local pollution story. If journalists can find the data, that is. The latest on the new rules, plus resources for coverage.
"BELMONT, MI -- Mark Worrall knew where to look. Worrall, a state geologist, told his superiors at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality in April 2017 that drinking water in homes southeast of Wolverine World Wide's now-infamous House Street sludge dump should be tested for toxic chemicals."
"PORT FOURCHON, La. — A dozen miles off the coast, on a rusty, aging platform, workers in hard hats and overalls spend their days extracting oil and gas from the ocean floor before retreating at night into tiny weather-beaten steel cubes that act as dorms."
"President Donald Trump and his appointees have stocked federal agencies with ex-lobbyists and corporate lawyers who now help regulate the very industries from which they previously collected paychecks, despite Trump’s promises as a candidate to drain the swamp in Washington."
"More than 40 people inhaled radioactive dust while working for a company whose vice president is now advising Scott Pruitt."
"The House on Wednesday continued to pick apart Obama-era environmental regulations, taking aim at a pair of rules limiting emissions from the brick industry and on indoor wood heaters."
"The U.S. EPA Science Advisory Board has not met in at least six months, and some of its members say it's being sidelined to avoid getting in the way of agency Administrator Scott Pruitt's anti-regulatory agenda."
"Congress’s watchdog agency is looking into the role that political appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) played in picking new scientists and other agency advisory committee members."
"Robert Taylor isn't sure why he's alive. 'My mother succumbed to bone cancer. My brother had lung cancer,' he ticks them off on his fingers. 'My sister, I think it was cervical cancer. My nephew lung cancer.' A favorite cousin. That cousin's son. Both neighbors on one side, one neighbor on the other. 'And here I am.'"
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