Seattle-based correspondent Brett Walton has a habit of adding extra days to his reporting schedules. In this FEJ StoryLog, Walton shares how he used one such buffer to stretch a grant and produce not just one story on California’s small drinking water systems, but a second on the aftermath of wildfire on another town’s water system, plus finish a third pending project on household water debt.

Sometimes on the environment beat, what seems like an old story is perpetually new again. That’s the case with waste incineration, finds the latest TipSheet. Rather than being reduced, incinerators are just being transformed, with the ongoing burning of plastics especially troubling for the environment and public health. Get the backstory on where the regulatory regime may have holes, plus key reporting angles and story ideas.

A decade’s worth of government pesticide data — only available before through FOIA — has been made newly available. And, explains the latest Reporter’s Toolbox, it can lead to revealing environmental, public health and environmental justice stories. More on how the data came to be compiled and advice on using it smartly, along with some caveats.

Long-growing concern over dangerous “forever” chemicals has drawn the attention of federal and state policymakers, local communities and the utilities that provide their drinking water. But little about regulating PFAS will be quick or easy, making it a major environmental and public health story for years to come. Issue Backgrounder unfolds the regulatory moves, the politics and the larger implications of PFAS policy.

As algal blooms (think “red tides” or “dead zones”) grow larger and more frequent, they are emerging not just on the coasts and major estuaries, but in inland lakes and streams. And they cause all kinds of harm, to humans and to the environment. The latest TipSheet has details on how to cover the problem locally, including story ideas and reporting resources.

Whether marginalized communities suffering from asthma or cities cloaked in smoke from far-away wildfires, journalists looking to connect public health and environmental concerns around air pollution will find much of the data they need via the Centers for Disease Control’s asthma surveillance data. The latest Reporter’s Toolbox outlines the source and smart ways to use it.