"Researchers attribute up to 900,000 premature deaths every year to a dangerous component of air particle pollution found in paints, pesticides, and cleaning supplies."
"Local water systems are asking the EPA—for the first time in the Safe Drinking Water Act’s history—for help obtaining chlorine-based water treatment chemicals amid a nationwide shortage."
"Two American manufacturers unveiled a new recipe on Thursday for PFAS and plastics-free packaging for everything from burgers to salads, in a bid to make takeout food more sustainable and safer for consumers. While the companies—Zume and Solenis—are not the first to design a grease-resistant, PFAS-free food container, this is the first time that manufacturers have open-sourced such packaging technology."
"The groundwater of at least nine military installations near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and Virginia is contaminated with high levels of toxic fluorinated “forever chemicals,” according to a report Wednesday by an environmental group that cites Defense Department records."
"A federal judge ruled Monday that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must update nearly three-decade-old regulations about the chemicals that can be used to disperse offshore oil spills, which some environmental groups contend cause serious health problems."
"FDA is warning the food industry that certain processes for producing plastic used for food containers may result in PFAS leaching into food. "
"Monsanto owner Bayer AG has lost another appeals court decision in the sweeping U.S. Roundup litigation, continuing to struggle to find a way out from under the crush of tens of thousands of claims alleging that Monsanto's glyphosate-based herbicides cause cancer."
For years, public information about some of the deadliest chemical security risks has been limited. But now that the Biden EPA is exploring the issue, our latest WatchDog opinion column explains why this is such an important open information issue for environmental reporters and other journalists.
"The summer of 2020 brought fear of Covid-19, social distancing – and heat-related health problems that affects tens of millions of Americans. During those months, more than a quarter of the US population suffered from the effects of extreme heat, according to a study released this week."
"There's a certain smell that reminds Dianna Cormier-Jackson of her childhood on Leila Street in Houston's Fifth Ward. When she was young in the early 1960s, she recalls the air there feeling "heavy," as if it was thick with oil and gasoline. Some days, the heavy smell would be so strong that her parents would make her and her siblings stay in the house. But on school days, they marched out into the rank air."
