Why Is This Federal Pollution Tracker Shutting Down?
Toxmap allowed users to pan and zoom across a map of the United States and Canada to discover information about environmental contamination, and to cross-reference that with other relevant data, like demographics and population. /NLM This piece was originally published in Undark and appears here as part of our Climate Desk Partnership. Fifteen years ago,…
The Supreme Court Is Tackling an Important Superfund Case and It’s—Messy
The U.S. Supreme Court building at sunset.Bill Clark/AP For decades, Anaconda Company Smelter operated an enormous copper smelting factory in Opportunity, Montana. And for more than seven decades, that factory spewed tons of toxic waste, mostly arsenic, into the community’s soil and water supply. In 1983, the EPA made Opportunity one of its Superfund sites, and…
Tech Company Free Meals Beget a Lot of Leftovers. Meet the Man on a Mission to Rescue Them.
Marisa Endicott I meet Les Tso on a corner in San Francisco’s SoMa district on a wet Thursday afternoon. He pulls his silver Isuzu SUV into an alley. “Today because it’s the first rain, people are going to be driving cluelessly—there are a lot of Uber and Lyft drivers that come from out of the…
Health Officials in “Cancer Alley” Will Study if Living Near a Controversial Chemical Plant Causes Cancer
Louisiana health officials plan to knock on every door within 2.5 kilometers of the controversial Denka Performance Elastomer plant in St. John the Baptist Parish in hopes of determining exactly how many people in the neighborhood have developed cancer. Neighbors say the inquiry, first announced in late August, is long overdue. The Denka plant is…
Most Superfund Sites Are Threatened by Climate Change. EPA Doesn’t Plan to Do Anything About It.
Dixie Oil Processors Superfund site on September 4, 2017 in Friendswood, Texas.Justin Sullivan/Getty Two years ago, Congress asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to determine how prepared the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was to address the threat climate change poses to Superfund sites—spaces that store hazardous materials, like coal ash ponds or decommissioned mining sites…
America Recycles Day Encouraged Recycling. It Was Sponsored by Companies That Produce a Ton of Plastic.
Large amounts of trash and plastic refuse collect in Ballona Creek after first major rain storm, Culver City, California, USA.Citizen of the Planet/Getty This piece originally appeared in the Guardian and appears here as part of our Climate Desk Partnership. America’s government-backed national recycling awareness day is being used as cover by large corporations that are…