"The barn where David Hughes raises chicks on his Shenandoah Valley turkey farm smells mostly like the wood shavings he spreads across the floor for bedding. And that may be an important clue in a farm regulation battle that's about to come to a head 118 miles to the east in the nation's capital."
There’s little cause to celebrate upcoming Sunshine Week for those who cover Trump administration environmental agencies. The latest WatchDog catalogues how the EPA has adopted a secretive approach and displays frequent hostility to the news media, including with a troubling series of attacks on individual journalists.
"The Chesapeake Bay restoration plan is fueling the most robust resurgence of underwater grasses and submerged aquatic vegetation in the world, according to a new study."
"The Clean Air Council has filed notice it will sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency unless the agency forces the Allegheny County Health Department to review and issue long overdue operating permits for many of the county’s biggest industrial air pollution sources."
"Major utilities are finding evidence of groundwater contamination at coal-burning power plants across the U.S. where landfills and man-made ponds have been used for decades as dumping grounds for coal ash."
As new research reminds us that pollution often disproportionately affects poor and minority communities in the United States, a long-standing mapping tool from the EPA can help reporters explore and discover those environmental justice stories nearest them. The latest TipSheet explains the problem, and walks you through the mapping app.
"In the debate over how quickly to make American cars pollute less, the nation’s auto-parts makers are now in open disagreement with the automakers that buy the countless transmissions, turbochargers and other components that make up modern automobiles."
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed changes to rules regulating coal ash waste from power plants that it said would give states more flexibility over its disposal and save electric utilities up to $100 million a year in compliance costs."
A new book on the Gulf of Mexico earns kudos for the balance and passion of its tone, as well as for its historical storytelling about this important ecosystem and the overfishing, oil spills, hurricanes, explosive growth and poor land-use decisions it faces. BookShelf reviews Jack Davis’ “The Gulf.”
They count in the tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands, and each one is a potential story. This week’s TipSheet looks at abandoned mines spread across the United States, many of them polluted, and with few cleanups underway. Find out what’s at stake, and get reporting resources.
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