A glimmer of hope in environmental civil rights law
In 2015, the nation was horrified by the news coming out of Flint, Michigan. The small industrial city about an hour’s drive north from Detroit was poisoned by the reckless indifference of their public officials, and the contaminated water those officials allowed to course through the corroded pipes of the midwestern city. In 2014, the […]
Gillibrand Introduces Legislation To Ban Firefighting Foam With Cancer-Causing Chemicals
U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York has introduced a bill that would ban the use of firefighting foam that contains cancer-causing PFAS chemicals. PFAS are found in firefighting foams used at airports and military bases. Direct exposure to PFAS by firefighters has been linked to cancer. Gillibrand said the bill would create a nationwide […]
Water near Arizona Air Force base is tainted in latest case
PHOENIX — The U.S. Air Force says it will be distributing bottled water to thousands of residents and business owners near its base in suburban Phoenix until at least April, marking the latest case of chemicals from military firefighting efforts contaminating the water supply in a nearby community. Luke Air Force Base announced this month […]
‘Cost of Silence’: Film Review
Most Americans who don’t live on the Gulf Coast have, in all likelihood, long ago stopped thinking about the causes and effects of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. It’s impossible to hold all the world’s crises in your mind at once, and a relief to set one aside. We do the latter, often, because we […]
Bayer reaches $2 billion deal over future Roundup cancer claims
DuPont, Chemours reach agreement over ‘forever chemicals’
The Dupont Co. and its spinoff business Chemours have agreed to resolve legal disputes over environmental liabilities for pollution related to man-made chemicals associated with an increased risk of cancer and other health problems. The binding memorandum of understanding announced Friday comes just over a month after Delaware’s Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit alleging that […]
Firefighters Battle an Unseen Hazard: Their Gear Could Be Toxic
Every day at work for 15 years, Sean Mitchell, a captain in the Nantucket Fire Department, has put on the bulky suit that protects him from the heat and flames he faces on the job. But last year, he and his team came across unsettling research: Toxic chemicals on the very equipment meant to protect […]
Federal Appeals Court Rejects Trump Admin’s ACE Rule
A federal court has struck down the Trump administration’s Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) Rule, which would repeal and replace the greenhouse gas emissions reduction plan issued by former President Barack Obama. Supporters of the Trump administration rule say that the decision could be the first of a wave of court decisions overturning policies enacted during […]
New Orleans restaurants’ oyster shells helped save the coast; can they again?
The shells are cast-asides from the heady days before the coronavirus pandemic, back when New Orleans’ vaunted seafood restaurants were crammed with customers. The eateries were producing about 75 tons of shells per month for the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, which runs New Orleans’ 7-year-old oyster recycling program. The vast majority of oyster shells […]
‘Forever chemicals’ pollute water from Alaska to Florida
Tom Kennedy learned about the long-term contamination of his family’s drinking water about two months after he was told that his breast cancer had metastasized to his brain and was terminal. The troubles tainting his tap: per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a broad category of chemicals invented in the mid-1900s to add desirable properties such […]