National Geographic Arctic ice evolution

Trump’s executive order to open Arctic waters to oil drilling was unlawful, federal judge rules

Core Topics, Our Environment

A victory for clean water and climate justice, via The New York Times: “In a major legal blow to [Donald] Trump’s push to expand offshore oil and gas development, a federal judge ruled that an executive order by Mr. Trump that lifted an Obama-era ban on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean and parts of the North Atlantic coast was unlawful.”

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Ripples Distort Reflection - 2014

Garbage from Washington State’s booming pot industry clogs gutters, sewers and landfills

Core Topics, Our Environment

“Concentrated nutrients and fertilizers left over from cannabis growing operations are being dumped in public sewers and making their way past wastewater treatment plants into Puget Sound,” reports Kristen Millares Young. “And millions of pounds of weed harvest waste that could be composted are instead getting trucked to landfills.”

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Pollution from a fish processing plant in British Columbia

Audit finds seventy percent of B.C. fish-processing plants do not comply with environmental regulations

Core Topics, Our Environment

“An audit of British Columbia fish-processing plants sparked by gory video of a pipe spewing bloody water into the Salish Sea has found that more than seventy percent of plants audited are out of compliance with environmental regulations, and some operate under rules decades behind modern standards,” Lynda Mapes reports.

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Nuclear Wetlands

Sorry, Hanford: Your radiation leaks aren’t as important as tax cuts

Core Topics, Our Environment, Public Planning

“The whole mess is like a metaphor for how the entire federal government is run today. There is talk about big needs, even as they cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy, making it harder to address those needs. We the people are distracted by our borrowed bonuses. The crippling disconnect from reality isn’t even acknowledged.”

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Satellite image of former Refuge drilling site

Here’s what oil drilling looks like in the Arctic Refuge, thirty years later

Core Topics, Our Environment

“These satellite images of a small part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge show the site of what, so far, is the only oil well ever drilled in the refuge, an exploratory well known as KIC-1 that was completed in the mid-1980s. The well was plugged and abandoned, and the drilling equipment and a special timber pad it sat on have long since been removed. “

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Fire at Arkema chemical plant in Texas

Texas Republicans lobbied against imposition of safety rules on chemical plant that exploded

Core Topics, National Defense, Our Environment, Public Planning

“The French company that says its Houston-area chemical plant is spewing ‘noxious’ smoke — and may explode — successfully pressed federal regulators to delay new regulations designed to improve safety procedures at chemical plants, according to federal records reviewed by International Business Times.”

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