When a Chicago-based freelancer was just about to hit the road to report a three-part story and TV segment on the potential impacts of two proposed copper mines in the Great Lakes basin, there was a little hitch: The COVID-19 pandemic hit. The new FEJ StoryLog has the story of how Lorraine Boissoneault found the flexibility to complete her grant-supported project.
One especially ambitious element of the Biden infrastructure plan would swap out millions of lead pipes. It’s a massive, costly endeavor, but could remove from the country’s water supply a neurotoxin that harms human health, especially of kids and the poor. TipSheet looks at the new plan and offers ideas for reporting the story in your area.
"Hotly debated legislation would open the state to renewable energy projects, trumping local restrictions."
"A debate over renewable energy in Indiana is scrambling some of the usual politics of energy and the environment.
The wind industry is working with leaders in the Republican-run state government to pass statewide rules for where wind and solar systems can be built, which would allow for more development by replacing the often-restrictive rules now set at the county level.
Understandably, county leaders don’t like that.
"MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota Court of Appeals on Tuesday heard arguments over Enbridge Energy’s Line 3 replacement project in northern Minnesota, which opponents are calling unnecessary due to an eventual decline in the demand for oil.
An invasive species of mussel — no, not zebra mussels, but quagga mussels — are wreaking havoc not just in the Great Lakes, but have now spread through the Mississippi and Colorado basins, as far west as Lake Mead. The latest TipSheet runs down the extent of the problem, how quaggas may be even worse than zebra mussels, and ideas for reporting on your local waterways.
"A federal regulator has suspended the permit it issued to PolyMet Mining Corp. to fill or dredge more than 900 acres of wetland for Minnesota's first copper mine, handing a victory to the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa."
"A diverse coalition of more than 370 environmental and tribal rights organizations demanded Monday that President Joe Biden act immediately to halt construction of Enbridge's Line 3 pipeline, a multi-billion-dollar crude oil project that the groups called "an urgent threat" to Minnesota waters and the global climate."
"Wisconsin officials shut down a planned weeklong wolf hunt in just three days after 216 of the animals were killed — 82% more than the maximum that had been set by the state."
"The Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday reversed an appeals court’s rejection of a critical air emissions permit for the planned PolyMet copper-nickel mine and sent the case back for further proceedings."
"Nearly 20% of all the wolves in Wisconsin are marked for death this week after a hunting group based in Kansas won a court appeal to rush the hunting season."
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