Infrastructure

"Extreme heat and flooding are accelerating the deterioration of bridges, engineers say, posting a quiet but growing threat."

"A year and a half after a catastrophic Norfolk Southern train derailment and chemical fire in East Palestine, Ohio, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has announced plans to monitor private drinking water wells for Pennsylvania residents living within one mile of the accident site for the next decade."

"The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is considering making 31 million acres of public lands across the western U.S. available for potential solar energy development, according to a proposal published on Thursday."

"As high temperatures break records around the US and wildfires rip through the West, another climate-driven weather hazard — extreme rainfall — is pummeling the country’s Northeast and scientists say it will get worse as the climate changes. That will bring more rain-induced flooding to a region of millions that isn’t prepared."

"Surging waters have burst through a dam, wiped out at least 20 villages and left at least 30 people dead but probably many more in eastern Sudan, the United Nations said on Monday, devastating a region already reeling from months of civil war."

"The supply of drinking water for parts of Long Island is under threat, according to a new federal report."

"Conflicting federal policies may force thousands of residents in flood-prone areas to pay more for flood insurance or be left unaware of danger posed by dams built upstream from their homes and worksites, according to an Associated Press review of federal records and data."

"De-icing road salts — even those marketed as environmentally friendly — may harm important freshwater plankton, a new analysis indicates. The study, published in Science of the Total Environment, suggests that some species of zooplankton — a critical food source for freshwater fish — don’t adapt to pollution from road salts from generation to generation."

"It wasn’t Kimbrelle Eugene Kyereh’s intention to become a community leader when she moved back to her hometown of St. Rose, Louisiana in 2017. But it’s the role she felt she had to take when she learned a petrochemical company had plans to build a $4.6 billion blue ammonia plant in her predominantly Black community."