By Leslie Hook and John Reed 24 October 2018 (Financial Times) – As Robert Reed examines a mountain of trash piled three storeys high, a thin white plastic bag catches his eye. He fishes it out and holds it up. “That is a problem plastic,” he says gravely. “These get stuck in the machines, and […]
By Mark D. Wilson 22 October 2018 (The Statesman) – Silt and debris from floodwaters have overwhelmed Austin’s ability to produce clean water, prompting an unprecedented citywide alert Monday that urged residents to avoid drinking tap water without boiling it first. By Monday evening, the situation led to a run on bottled water supplies at […]
By Dino Grandoni and Juliet Eilperin 13 October 2018 (The Washington Post) – The Environmental Protection Agency moved this week to disband two outside panels of experts charged with advising the agency on limiting harmful emissions of soot and smog-forming pollutants.The agency informed scientists advising the EPA on the health impacts of soot that their […]
By Terray Sylvester 18 October 2018 APALACHICOLA, Florida (Reuters) – A sewage spill from a Florida wastewater plant during Hurricane Michael into a river feeding environmentally fragile Apalachicola Bay is suspected of causing mass fish kills downstream, state officials said on Thursday.Experts say the discharge of 80,000 gallons of partially treated sewage into the Apalachicola […]
By Pam Wright 17 October 2018 (The Weather Channel) – An extreme drought that depleted half of Utah’s reservoirs has prompted Gov. Gary Herbert to declare a state of emergency.The declaration allows drought-affected communities, agricultural producers and others to begin the process of accessing state or federal resources, according to a press release.“The rainfall we […]
By Eric Wolff and Darius Dixon 15 October 2018 (Politico) – One of the Trump administration’s major efforts to prop up ailing coal companies has run aground in the White House, a setback to an industry that had hoped for a major resurgence after Donald Trump won the presidency. Energy Secretary Rick Perry has spent […]
By Damian Carrington 10 October 2018 (The Guardian) – Huge reductions in meat-eating are essential to avoid dangerous climate change, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet of the food system’s impact on the environment [pdf]. In western countries, beef consumption needs to fall by 90 percent and be replaced by five times more beans […]
11 October 2018 (Silencing Science Tracker) – On 11 October 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) disbanded the particulate matter (PM) review panel. In the past, the panel has provided advice to EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), which is responsible for reviewing the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for criteria pollutants. Under […]
By Jennifer Kay 15 October 2018 MIAMI BEACH, Florida (Associated Press) – Hurricane Michael failed to break up a patchy and toxic algae bloom that has lingered in the Gulf of Mexico off Florida’s shoreline for the last year, experts said Monday, meaning the red tide outbreak could continue to cause problems in the weeks […]
By Christopher Flavelle 29 August 2018 (Bloomberg Businessweek) – One morning in June, Douglas Yoder climbed into a white government SUV on the edge of Miami and headed northwest, away from the glittering coastline and into the maze of water infrastructure that makes this city possible. He drove past drainage canals that sever backyards and […]
