Water & Oceans

"ST. JOSEPH, Louisiana – On a hot delta day, Roy Bowman fills a gallon jug from an Army green trailer-mounted water tank. All year, Bowman and his neighbors in this crushingly poor, mostly African American town perched on the west bank of the Mississippi River have gotten their water this way."

"MONROE, Mich. — Competing in a bass fishing tournament two years ago, Todd Steele cast his rod from his 21-foot motorboat — unaware that he was being poisoned."

The law and regulations make it hard for the U.S. EPA to regulate new chemicals in drinking water. A lot of testing is required to show the chemical is harmful and found widely in water. New analysis of existing data shows a family of chemicals that includes perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, may be doing much more harm than EPA admits.

"After announcing on Sunday the city’s intent to sue U.S. Steel for polluting Lake Michigan, Mayor Rahm Emanuel blasted the company and federal environmental regulators who’ve been “asleep at the switch” under the Trump administration."

"A pivotal EPA study provided the rationale for exemptions that helped unleash the fracking boom. The science was suppressed to protect industry interests."

"Think renewable energy and the wind and sun come to mind. But some day it may be possible to add ocean energy to that list. The fledgling wave energy industry is now getting a boost from the federal government. The Department of Energy is spending up to $40 million to build a wave energy test facility off the Oregon Coast."

"Animals from the deepest places on Earth have been found with plastic in their stomachs, confirming fears that manmade fibres have contaminated the most remote places on the planet.

"A new set of documents, obtained from the Environmental Protection Agency by the Partnership for Policy Integrity and shared with Marketplace, shows that the agency has previously undisclosed health concerns that some fracking chemicals might cause things like liver poisoning and tumors."