drinking water

From ‘Sea to Shining Sea,’ Industrial Ag Fouls America’s Waterways

From ‘Sea to Shining Sea,’ Industrial Ag Fouls America’s Waterways

By Katherine Paul A citizen-led group in Nebraska is fighting Costco’s plan to build a huge chicken factory farm operation that residents in nearby cities say would pollute their drinking water. Residents of Devils Lake, North Dakota, along with members of the Spirit Lake Nation Tribe are battling plans to build a hog CAFO in […]

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    From Asthma to Cancer, ‘Blistering’ New Report Details Human Cost of Fracking

    From Asthma to Cancer, ‘Blistering’ New Report Details Human Cost of Fracking

    By Jessica Corbett A team of researchers on Tuesday released a “blistering” report on the serious public health threats—from headaches to asthma to cancer—posed by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a process of injecting a mix of water and chemicals into rocks to release oil and natural gas. The study—described as “the most authoritative” of its […]

    5 Environmental Catastrophes in the Trump Budget (and Who to Call to Stop Them)

    5 Environmental Catastrophes in the Trump Budget (and Who to Call to Stop Them)

    By AnaChristina Arana President Trump has released his 2019 budget proposal, and when it comes to environmental policy, it’s full of bad ideas. The proposal he sent to Congress on Feb. 12 threatens our health, safety and economic future through major cuts to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), essential environmental programs and our judicial […]

    Lead in Grape Juice: FDA’s Proposed Limit Won’t Protect Children

    Lead in Grape Juice: FDA’s Proposed Limit Won’t Protect Children

    By Tom Neltner On March 12, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will be leading the U.S. delegation in the Netherlands proposing that the Codex Alimentarius Commission adopt a maximum lead limit of 40 parts per billion (ppb) in grape juice. The current limit, set by Codex in the 1980s, is 50 ppb. While it’s […]

    While Mexico Plays Politics With Water, Some Cities Flood and Others Go Dry

    While Mexico Plays Politics With Water, Some Cities Flood and Others Go Dry

    By Veronica Herrera When Cape Town acknowledged in February that it would run out of water within months, South Africa suddenly became the global poster child for bad water management. Newspapers revealed that the federal government had been slow to respond to the city’s three-year drought because the mayor belongs to an opposition party. Cape […]

    3M to Pay Minnesota $850M in Surprise Settlement Over Chemical Disposal

    3M to Pay Minnesota $850M in Surprise Settlement Over Chemical Disposal

    On Tuesday, a trial over Minnesota’s $5 billion lawsuit against manufacturer 3M Company—the biggest environmental lawsuit in state history—was set to begin with jury selection. But on that very same day, the Maplewood-based manufacturer agreed to an $850 million settlement, finally putting an end to eight years of litigation over the water pollution case. The […]

    Report: 64% of Bottled Water Is Tap Water, Costs 2000x More

    Report: 64% of Bottled Water Is Tap Water, Costs 2000x More

    By Julia Conley Bottled water companies have relied on predatory marketing practices and exorbitant lobbying efforts to sell Americans on the inaccurate belief that pre-packaged water is cleaner and safer than tap water—a notion that is costing U.S. households about $16 billion per year. In a new report entitled “Take Back the Tap,” Food & […]

    How Water Scarcity Shapes the World’s Refugee Crisis

    How Water Scarcity Shapes the World’s Refugee Crisis

    Behind barbed-wire fences at this camp in northern Jordan, about 33,000 Syrians—half of them children—exist uneasily, housed in rows of rudimentary shelters that barely protect them from the winter cold. Drinking water must be brought in daily by dozens of tanker trucks or pumped from desert boreholes that overexploit Jordan’s largest groundwater basin. As in […]

    Update on Nestlé: Michiganders Mobilize to Take Back Public Water

    Update on Nestlé: Michiganders Mobilize to Take Back Public Water

    By Miranda Fox The Swiss multinational Nestlé has been facing increasing scrutiny in Michigan. Outside of the small town of Evart, a mere 128 miles from Flint, Nestlé is attempting to increase how much spring water it is taking for water bottling. Nestlé submitted an application with Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) late last […]