Environmental Health

"A former Florida Department of Health employee has received whistleblower status a year after being fired for repeatedly violating the agency’s policy about communicating with the media."

"Sewage sludge that wastewater treatment districts across America package and sell as home fertilizer contain alarming levels of toxic PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals”, a new report has revealed. Sludge, which is lightly treated and marketed as “biosolids”, is used by consumers to fertilize home gardens, and the PFAS levels raise concerns that the chemicals are contaminating vegetables and harming those who eat them."

"China plans to strengthen controls in industries such as steel and aluminium which involve high energy use and produce high emissions, in an effort to promote low-carbon developments, the environment ministry said on Monday."

"More than one-third of the world’s heat deaths each year are due directly to global warming, according to the latest study to calculate the human cost of climate change."

"For years, the people of Mead, Nebraska, have worried about the ethanol plant that moved into their small rural community a little over a decade ago. They feared the terrible smells and odd illnesses in the area might be connected to the plant and its use of pesticide-coated seed corn in its biofuel production process."

"Fishermen and environmentalists say a plan to export crude would require dredging mercury-laced sediment in a Superfund site, imperling oyster reefs and the natural habitat."

"The true number of people killed by the disastrous winter storm and power outages that devastated Texas in February is likely four or five times what the state has acknowledged so far. A BuzzFeed News data analysis reveals the hidden scale of a catastrophe that trapped millions of people in freezing darkness, cut off access to running water, and overwhelmed emergency services for days."

"President Joe Biden’s fiscal 2022 budget lays out a 24.1% boost to the EPA’s core rule-writing and enforcement programs and a 7.5% increase in staffing to get the work done, according to a detailed blueprint released on Friday."