Publication Items

A cool swim on a hot day is one of the quintessential pleasures of summer. That is, unless polluted water makes it — and any other aquatic contact — a high-risk activity. It’s an important environmental and public health story for journalists to tell. TipSheet helps review waterborne illnesses to watch for, regulations supposed to protect against them and local story ideas to pursue.

Lead-contaminated drinking water has long been a widespread worry, but one big challenge has been locating the many lead service lines around the United States. The latest Reporter’s Toolbox points you to a mappable database to help address that problem, with current, detailed data filtered through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Learn more about this resource and how to best use it.

Trump administration efforts to defund public media, now before Congress, are a misguided effort to harm a source of journalism that is highly trusted by audiences, argues the latest WatchDog Opinion column. And while public broadcasting’s diverse funding sources may insulate it from politics to some degree, the attacks do threaten to chill press freedom, including environmental reporting, more broadly. The latest Dog explains.

A private social media message piqued Arizona Republic reporter Joan Meiners’ interest in rural retirees’ efforts to block construction of a gas-fired peaker plant next to their homes. Her year-long, grant-funded investigation in 2024 uncovered questionable local government actions and utility executive motives, and concluded with action against the facility. Read Meiners’ account of how rural Arizonans became unlikely climate activists, in the latest FEJ Storylog.