An EPA program that helps pay for municipal water infrastructure is facing Congressional appropriations scrutiny. But with the program looking like it may escape big cuts, it remains a reservoir of reportable local projects. Find out more in the latest TipSheet, plus get state-by-state resources.
"The Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin gave the feds notice of intent to sue over the alleged failure to protect the water quality of the tribe's namesake river."
With ice and snow ahead, it's time to start thinking about road salt — its use may make driving safer, but can also cause real harm to the environment. This week's TipSheet clears the road for your reporting on this potential hazard, detailing its risks, outlining its alternatives and offering story ideas.
"Why our water rates are surging – and why black and poor suburbs pay more".
"With scare studies, policy drafts and political donations, industry groups turned Ohio lawmakers against policies they once overwhelmingly supported."
"The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is proposing to add more lakes and streams to the state's list of impaired waters."
"While Flint battles a water crisis, just two hours away the beverage giant pumps almost 100,000 times what an average Michigan resident uses into plastic bottles".
"A potentially harmful algae bloom covered more than 700 square miles in the western basin of Lake Erie last week, turning the lake bright green and alarming residents and local officials."
"The Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District's $3 billion Project Clean Lake is designed to one day capture and clean 98 percent of the 4.5 billion gallons of stormwater and sewage that it receives each year before it pours untreated into Lake Erie. But even that federally mandated, 25-year program wouldn't have prevented pollutants from 236 wastewater treatment plants in Northeast Ohio from being discharged into our waterways over the past five years".
"SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — After a year of scouring the depths of Lake Michigan with a sonar-equipped fishing boat, Steve Radovan finally got a hit on the gray-scale monitor in the captain’s cabin in May 2016. The 71-year-old shipwreck enthusiast powered down the Discovery’s engines and dropped a waterproof camera attached to a rope into roughly 300 feet of water. The images revealed a three-masted barquentine, covered in mussels and algae but lying on the bottom still largely intact."
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