Environmental Health

"A smelting company has poisoned rivers, killed off boreal forest and belched out more sulfur dioxide than active volcanoes. Now it wants to produce more metal for the “green economy.”"

"ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST PARISH, La. — As white smoke wafted from a massive oil and gas refinery that sits near his backyard, Michael Coleman reminisced about the sweet days of his childhood, before sugar cane fields that stretched for miles were sold and replaced by chemical companies that wiped out the “nice little community we had here.”

"A $9 billion highway widening project being proposed in the Houston area could become an important test of the Biden administration’s commitment to addressing what it has said is a history of racial inequity with infrastructure projects in the U.S."

"The Tennessee Valley Authority received the final regulatory approval it needs to remove tons of coal ash from ponds in Southwest Memphis and transport them along Shelby Drive to a landfill in Southeast Memphis."

"The department recommended higher fees for oil and gas leases, but there was no sign the government planned to take global warming into account when weighing new applications."

"When Chesapeake Bay oysters and other shellfish become contaminated with sewage or other pollution, Maryland environmental officials normally alert the public before any are harvested or eaten. But that didn’t happen after a recent sewage spill in Southern Maryland — and at least two dozen people became ill."

"The risk of the plague spilling over from humans to animals in the western U.S. has increased since 1950 thanks to climate change, a new study has found."

"Oil companies have replaced Indigenous people’s traditional lands with mines that cover an area bigger than New York City, stripping away boreal forest and wetlands and rerouting waterways."

"For years Americans have been warned about the dangers of pollution and climate change but one effect is neglected: impacts to our brains."