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Last night former Vice President Joe Biden handily won the Michigan primary, defeating Senator Bernie Sanders and amassing 53 delegates to Sanders 35. As of writing this last night Biden also claimed Idaho, Mississippi, and Missouri while Washington State and North Dakota had not fully reported their votes. Michigan was arguably the most important state […]
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Whether it is drinking water in Michigan, floodwaters in Missouri and Mississippi, or dams versus salmon in Washington and Idaho, or wastewater from fracking in North Dakota — clean water is an issue that runs through the primaries that are taking place today.
Why This Matters: The two remaining Democratic candidates have not had a chance to discuss these important water issues in the debates thus far.
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Climate change and clean water are the two biggest environmental issues facing the Democratic Presidential candidates stumping in New Hampshire.
Why This Matters: Pollution and climate change were big issues in Iowa and they will be important in New Hampshire as well. The recreation industry is poised to take a beating due to shortened ski seasons and PFAS contamination is pervasive and too expensive to clean up right now.
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When she was 8-years-old, Mari Copeny wrote a letter to President Obama, asking him to meet with her and a group of people coming to Washington D.C. to watch congressional hearings on the Flint water crisis. He responded with a letter announcing that instead, he was coming to Flint to ensure the people there receive […]
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The New York Times reported over the weekend that the “Environmental Protection Agency has made it easier for cities to keep dumping raw sewage into rivers by letting them delay or otherwise change federally imposed fixes to their sewer systems.”
Why This Matters: The Obama Administration started the practice of giving cities a break on sewage overflows but according to officials from the prior administration, the bar was higher — a city had to demonstrate a hardship event like a natural disaster in order to get leniency.
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The Trump Administration on Thursday made official a controversial rule to drastically limit the application of the Clean Water Act, finalizing its proposal that has been uniformly criticized by environmental groups and the agency’s own science advisors because it will lead to the contamination of groundwater, many intermittent water bodies, and drinking water supplies and the elimination of many wetlands.
Why This Matters: They call it the “The Navigable Waters Protection Rule” but nothing could be further from the truth because now pollution can enter big waterways and the ocean from smaller ones and from wetlands that are no longer protected. More pesticides, more PFAS, more chemicals, more waste — and we won’t know it because these discharges and wetlands destruction will all be “perfectly” legal.
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