• Water

Houston Suburb Under Boil Water Order After Tragic Death of Young Boy

• clean water
• contamination
• Flint
• fresh water
• Michigan
• safe drinking water
• Texas
• toxins

Lake Jackson, Texas, a city in the greater Houston area, is “purg[ing] its water system for 60 days” after a brain-eating amoeba killed a 6-year old boy, NBC News reported. The city is currently under a boil-water notice, and officials have announced that it could take as long as 3 months to make the water safe. 

Why This Matters: There is little data on the risk of this amoeba, says the CDC.  More information is needed on how “a standard might be set to protect human health and how public health officials would measure and enforce such a standard.”

• Health

Don’t Let Food Contamination Spoil Your Thanksgiving

• contamination
• E. coli
• food
• Hepatitis A

CNN reported that dozens of people have fallen ill across more than 15 states from food contamination in recent days.  Keep reading for the products to avoid — especially lettuce in pre-packaged bags and romaine lettuce from Salinas, California.

Why This Matters:  No one wants to have Thanksgiving ruined by foodborne illnesses that are preventable if you get the warning.    So watch closely for any warnings and food recall notices that the government puts out.

• Water

New data shows 610 sites in 43 states contaminated with toxic PFAS chemicals

• clean water
• contamination
• drinking water
• EPA
• PFAS
• safe drinking water
• water

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a family of chemicals that are linked to cancer and other illnesses and we’ve written numerous times about the extent of their contamination of drinking water in the U.S. (even at military bases) and the EPA’s slow response to regulate these toxins. Now a new analysis put out by […]

• Water

Dirty Drinking Water Besets Coal County in Kentucky

• contamination
• drinking water
• Green New Deal
• Infrastructure

The Governor of Kentucky, Republican Matt Bevin, is considering whether to declare a state of emergency that would unlock resources to repair the dilapidated water system in Martin County, Kentucky deep in the heart of coal country.  In the meantime, the residents there must buy bottled water or hope for donated water in order to keep from drinking the tap water while they wait for action.

• Water

Drinking Water Woes Spread

• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
• clean water
• contamination
• Flooding
• Green New Deal
• Midwest
• private wells
• Resources For the Future
• safe drinking water

The midwestern floods are responsible for a new threat to drinking water supplies, according to the Associated Press the flooding could contaminate more than 1 million private water wells.  The National Ground Water Association, a trade group for the industry that includes well systems, told the AP that “there are 1.1 million private wells in 300 flooded counties in 10 states: Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Kentucky.” 

• Food

Rubber chicken is not fake news!

• allergy
• chicken nuggets
• contamination
• food
• Perdue
• shutdown
• Tysons
• USDA

If you thought those frozen chicken nuggets from Perdue and Tysons Foods tasted terrible, there could be a reason why — they had bits of rubber and wood and unlabelled other products like milk (an allergen) in them.   Consumers found pieces of “soft, blue rubber” inside the food and contacted Tysons; similarly, consumers found wood […]