Iowa is currently facing an unprecedented drinking water crisis. Recent reports indicate alarming nitrate levels in the Raccoon River; so high that city officials enacted emergency measures such as lawn water bans, to ensure water treatment facilities could comply with regulatory standards for safe drinking water. Unfortunately, at least for pregnant women, any level of nitrate in drinking water appears unsafe.
By Brian Bienkowski
Federal regulators are proposing to repeal Obama- and Biden-era regulations that forced power plants to cut harmful pollutants, including mercury, lead and arsenic, as well as greenhouse gases, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lee Zeldin announced on Wednesday.
At a time when climate-related headlines often read like obituaries for our planet, Earth Day 2025 offered something rare – a reason for hope. Not the naïve optimism that suggests salvation is assured, but rather compelling evidence that we can make people act for good when we get the messaging right.
In the years after World War II, the smog in Los Angeles was so thick that at times people could see no farther than three blocks.
Despite efforts to limit emissions from power plants and oil refineries, the eye-burning, lung-choking blanket of smog remained. Then, in the 1950s, groundbreaking research by a biochemistry professor at the California Institute of Technology, Dr. Arie Haagen-Smit, determined that the main culprit was automobile exhaust.
By Carey Gillam
Farm groups were cheering moves announced this week by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that will alter protections for endangered species to allow for easier use of certain pesticides in agriculture.
By Julia Tilton / The Daily Yonder
Environmental justice efforts at the 10 US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regional offices have stopped and employees have been placed on administrative leave, per an announcement from EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin earlier this month. Former EPA employees involved with environmental justice work across the country say rural communities will suffer as a result.
“We cannot stand by and allow this to happen. We need to hold this administration accountable.”
By Dana Drugmand
American families will face increasing rates of environmental-related illnesses and premature deaths, including lung and cardiovascular diseases, due to the Trump administration’s sweeping rollbacks of air quality regulations, health professionals warn.
For decades, Mead, Nebraska, was a peaceful rural town—until toxins generated by the area ethanol plant poisoned Mead’s land, water, and air. Farm to Fuel, a short documentary, builds on investigative reporting by The New Lede, co-published with The Guardian, which exposed how the plant’s reckless disposal of pesticide-laced waste created an environmental disaster.
By Richard Mertens
Patsy Hopper dreamed of a home in the country with a garden and lots of trees. What she didn’t count on were the herbicides that would come drifting in, year after year, from the farmland around her, killing vegetables in her garden and wildflowers in the ditches and curling the leaves of the trees she had planted.
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