"WASHINGTON -- For the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency may require oil refineries to regularly measure the air quality at their perimeters. These fence line measurements will give surrounding communities – largely low-income communities of color – data on the level of pollution they are exposed to each day."
"Lisa Feldt wasn't the obvious candidate to replace Bob Perciasepe as U.S. EPA's second in command."
After uranium mining poisoned their wells, thousands of Navajos must drive long miles to get water that is safe to drink.
In this issue: Covering the environment, health fallout of unexploded ordnance; special report on risk and resilience/lessons from Louisiana on the realities of coastal iving; freelancers and fellowships, a path for growth; utilizing the National Weather Service to track storm intensity; tapping the environmental journalism 'power grid'; book reviews; and classroom research on long-term relevance of front-page stories.
"Survey of 300 US environmental groups show lower percentage of jobs held by ethnic minorities than in science and engineering"
Here are some recent explainers of interest to environmental journalists from the CRS, which Congress does not allow to be released to the taxpaying public who paid for them. The WatchDog thanks those who leaked them and the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy for publishing them.
The federal government has not only done very little to protect the public from the mass-casualty threats chemical facilities present to neighboring communities, they've focused efforts on keeping the public from knowing about those threats or the government's own failures to keep them safe. Now the U.S. EPA has signaled that it is about to revise a key rule governing chemical facility safety and security.
"A northwestern Ontario First Nation has released a five-year-old report confirming the community suffers ongoing effects from mercury poisoning, but it says the government has never acted on the findings."
"Bob Perciasepe, deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), will resign next month to lead an energy and climate advocacy group, the agency announced Thursday."
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