• Health

New Reports Document How Trump Administration’s Rollbacks Harm Infants and Kids

• children
• kids
• lead
• safe drinking water
• toxins

Two new reports from the Union of Concerned Scientists explain in detail how this administration’s rollbacks of bedrock environmental, health and safety standards have exposed children to more poisons in the food they eat, the water they drink, and the air that they breathe and has actively suppressed the science that would give us a greater understanding of how children are uniquely affected by chemicals and toxins. 

Why This Matters:  The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says no safe blood-lead level for lead has been found for children — they should not be exposed at all.

• Water

EPA Proposes New Rules for Getting Lead Out of Drinking Water – More Slowly

• drinking water
• Flint Water Crisis
• lead

The Trump administration — after years of promising and more than 9 years of work by EPA — finally issued a proposed rule on lead in drinking water that does not require the removal of the estimated 6 million or more lead service lines that remain underground throughout the nation, and in fact, it doubles the amount of time allotted to replace lead pipes in water systems that contain high levels of lead.

Why This Matters:  They may try to put lipstick on this pig (sorry for the old pun), and it could have been worse, but when the Trump Administration brags that they put this rule in place, the question should be why did they not do more? This proposed rule is hardly sufficient to deal with the scope and the harm caused by lead in drinking water in this nation. 

• Water

Newark Fast Tracks Lead Pipe Replacement

• clean water
• drinking water
• EPA
• lead
• Newark
• water

We wrote the other week about Newark’s ongoing water crisis and the city’s plan to distribute bottled water to residents after water filters that were previously made available to the public lacked the ability to filter out lead. Now New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka announced a new $120 million plan yesterday to fast-track […]

• Water

Newark Offers Bottled Water to Address Water Crisis, Residents Grow Weary

• clean water
• drinking water
• lead
• New Jersey
• Newark

After it was determined that the 40,000 filters Newark city officials gave out to residents to address the ongoing water crisis weren’t actually filtering out lead, the city decided to begin distributing bottled water. In a startling echo of Flint, residents of Newark have been kept in the dark about the safety of their drinking […]

• Climate Change

Military Struggling to Deal With Climate Disasters and Environmental Emergencies

• burn pits
• climate change
• Flooding
• Hurricane Michael
• lead
• mold
• Offutt Air Force Base
• Puerto Rico
• toxic chemicals
• Tyndall Air Force Base

The military is struggling to cope with a series of climate change related disasters and other environmental health and safety emergencies.  Defense News reported yesterday that funding ran out yesterday for relief efforts at Tyndall Air Force Base related to Hurricane Michael, which prevents the start of all new work and puts more than 120 projects planned to begin after May 1 on hold indefinitely.  Disaster funding is stuck in Congress because the President insists that it not include more funds for Puerto Rico’s hurricane damage.

• Water

Flint water crisis: what’s being done?

• Environmental Justice
• environmental racism
• Flint
• Gretchen Whitmer
• lead
• Michigan
• water
• Whitmer

Yesterday we wrote about how the people responsible for the Flint water crisis have not yet been held accountable. Partially because justice has not been brought to the city, a new Democratic governor (Gretchen Whitmer) was elected last fall and just last week announced a broad commitment to environmental issues including environmental justice.

• Water

Flint water crisis: who’s to blame?

• Dana Nessel
• Environmental Justice
• Flint
• Flint Water Crisis
• Gretchen Whitmer
• lead
• Michigan
• Rick Snyder

As we wrote yesterday, what happened in Flint to cause water contamination at such a mass scale was a failure at many levels of government. However, despite this systematic failure, Flint’s residents deserve for the people who willingly (or even criminally) stood by when they knew something was wrong to be held accountable.

• Water

Salty runoff creating “chemical cocktails” in drinking water

• biodiversity
• Flint
• lead
• road salt
• salinity
• salt
• watershed

Last Week we wrote about the detriment that road salt can have on waterways, plants, and animals and how runoff is causing dead zones in lakes. It turns out that the story doesn’t stop there and all that salt is actually reacting with soil and water pipes to form toxic substances that can poison drinking water and harm the environment. The Revelator recently published an article examining a report published last month that found that not only is salinity increasing in many surface waters, but when you add salt to the environment it can mobilize heavy metals, nutrient pollution and other contaminants that are combining to create new “chemical cocktails” in rivers, streams, and reservoirs.