Concerns about the greater impact of pollution on poor people and ethnic minorities are not new. But now, environmental reporters have more tools than ever for finding and telling these stories. The latest TipSheet spotlights a useful EPA app and numerous other sources to track this ongoing story.
"Long after the Black Hawk helicopter carrying Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke flew off into the bright Utah sky, James Adakai stood in the airport parking lot with an angry frown frozen on his face."
"Northern Michigan's industrial past is returning to haunt the Petoskey waterfront, where environmental and public health officials are going door-to-door to test for poison vapors inside residences built on a Superfund site."
"A pair of Dumfries homeowners have filed suits seeking millions in damages from Dominion Energy, claiming heavy metals seeping from coal ash ponds at the Possum Point Power Station contaminated their drinking water wells."
"Residents of a coastal community in Oregon are considering whether to try to derail a fossil fuel export project in their rural county, a decision that could put them at odds with the Trump administration."
"U.S. EPA [Friday] cleared a path for the Pebble mine to begin the permitting process, promising to scrap the Obama administration's proposed restrictions on the southwestern Alaska project."
"The storage project would have brought more gas from Pennsylvania fracking country through New York’s Finger Lakes region. It sparked years of civil disobedience."
"A shipment of 36 million pounds of soybeans sailed late last year from Ukraine to Turkey to California. Along the way, it underwent a remarkable transformation."
"In an expanding controversy over the role of science in the Trump administration, two expert advisers to the Environmental Protection Agency resigned Friday in protest at the dismissal of half of the members of a key science committee."
"The USDA’s research section studies everything from climate change to nutrition. Under the 2008 Farm Bill, its leader is supposed to serve as the agency’s 'chief scientist' and be chosen 'from among distinguished scientists with specialized or significant experience in agricultural research, education, and economics.' But Sam Clovis — who, according to sources with knowledge of the appointment and members of the agriculture trade press, is President Trump’s pick to oversee the section — appears to have no such credentials."
