KENNETT, MO. — Nestled in Missouri’s Bootheel is the small town of Kennett, the Dunklin County seat. With just over 10,000 residents, it’s a close-knit community where good-natured teasing is a common show of affection. Once a sprawling swampland, it has since been transformed into an expanse of flat, fertile fields where agriculture stands as the backbone of the region’s economy.
By Brian Bienkowski
Steel and coke plants in the US are regularly releasing illegal amounts of air pollutants and the Trump administration’s delay on stricter rules at these plants leaves fenceline communities struggling for long-sought federal help, according to a new report.
By Marin Scotten
Ryan Dunham heard his eleven-year-old daughter’s scream from his living room. He bolted up the stairs to the bathroom where she was taking a shower and couldn’t believe his eyes. The water flowing from the faucet was brown, and it smelled like “decay, rot and death.”
By Brian Bienkowski
Children highly exposed to an insecticide prior to birth showed signs of impaired brain development and motor function, according to a new study of chlorpyrifos — a pesticide still used on US crops despite decades of warnings about its impact on children’s health.
Hundreds of Iowans gathered at Drake University in early August to confront a growing water quality crisis linked to the state’s powerful agricultural industry.
Community leaders, scientists and farmers warned of dangerously high levels of nitrates, pesticides and livestock waste contaminating the state’s drinking water — pollution they fear is driving staggeringly high, and rising, cancer rates.
By Brian Bienkowski
Roughly a quarter of the nation’s large cattle, dairy and hog farms are located in just 30 US counties, a new satellite-mapping study has found. The research also links large farms — whether in these dense hotspots or scattered elsewhere — to elevated air pollution.
By Carey Gillam
DES MOINES, Iowa- Several hundred Iowa residents gathered in the state capital this week, calling on public officials – and each other – to take swift action against dangerously polluted water supplies that are closely linked to the state’s powerful agricultural industry.