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Water Pollution

Flint Families File Class-Action Lawsuit

March 9, 2016 Timothy Cama, www.thehill.com , , ,
By Timothy Cama for The Hill - Seven families in Flint, Mich., filed a federal lawsuit seeking damages from the city and state over the lead-contaminated drinking water crisis. The families are seeking class-action status from the court to cover any children poisoned by lead that leached into water due to the 2014 switch in Flint’s water source, NBC News reported Monday. Flint resident Melissa Lightfoot told NBC her three children had no health problems before the water switch, and now all three have dangerously high lead levels in their blood.

Lost Opportunity: Jobs, Infrastructure & Water Poisoning

March 1, 2016 Dean Baker, www.truth-out.org , , , ,
By Dean Baker for Truthout - We all understand the concept of trade-offs. If we spend more of our paycheck on restaurants, then we will have less money for rent. If we spend more time watching television we will have less time to read or do sports. There will often be similar sorts of trade-offs in public policy decisions. If we spend more money on health care then we will have less money for education or child care. But trade-offs in public policy decisions don't always work that way.

Corporate Pollution Poisons Upstate NY Town’s Water

March 1, 2016 Andy Cush, www.gawker.com , , ,
By Andy Cush for Gawker - The New York Times today has a good recap of the situation in Hoosick Falls, New York, a small city outside Albany that has been contending with its own Flint-style water crisis. Hoosick Falls’ water was recently found to have elevated levels of perfluorooctanoic acid, a likely carcinogen. The town of 3,500 was once home to several Teflon factories, and the New York Department Environmental Conservation alleged this month that a plant currently operated by Honeywell International is responsible for the perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) spike.

8 Powerful Moments From Ryan Coogler’s #JusticeForFlint Event

February 29, 2016 Zeba Blay, www.huffingtonpost.com , , ,
By Zeba Blay for The Huffington Post - The most important star-studded event taking place Sunday night wasn't the Oscars -- it was director Ryan Coogler's #JusticeForFlint charity concert. The event, which was held at the Whiting Auditorium in Flint, Michigan, helped to raise tens of thousands of dollars for residents affected by the Flint water crisis, and provided them with "a night of fun, relaxation, and entertainment." Below are just a few of the stand out moments from the show...

Will Anyone Be Prosecuted In The Flint Water Crisis?

February 24, 2016 Staff, www.theconversation.com , ,
By Staff of The Conversation - The headlines were alarming. Traces of cancer-causing contaminants in New Orleans and Pittsburgh public drinking water supplies. Lead from water supply pipes in Boston tap water. In response, in 1974 Congress enacted the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), which was designed to protect public drinking water supplies. Forty years later, Congress has passed multiple amendments to the SDWA, and regulatory agencies have adopted complex and lengthy regulations designed to prevent crises like the catastrophe now occurring in Flint, Michigan. But Flint’s water is still undrinkable and dangerous.

Flint’s Crisis Is About More Than Water

February 9, 2016 Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com , , ,
By Chris Hedges for Truth Dig - What is in the mind of someone who knowingly poisons children and impairs their lives? Why did the politicians, regulators and bureaucrats who knew the water in Flint, Mich.,was toxic lie about the danger for months? What does it say about a society that is ruled by, and refuses to punish, those who willfully destroy the lives of children? The crisis in Flint is far more ominous than lead-contaminated water. It is symptomatic of the collapse of our democracy.

Pennsylvania Fracking Water Contamination Higher Than Reported

February 7, 2016 Laurel Peltier, www.baltimorefishbowl.com , , ,
By Laurel Peltier for Baltimore Fishbowl. Contrary to the EPA fracking study’s conclusion, the prevalence of drinking water contamination appears to be much higher than previously reported. Accurate drinking water complaint data is vital to know as Maryland drafts new fracking regulations to potentially welcome the natural gas industry into Western Maryland in 2017. Joshua Pribanic, Public Herald’s Editor-in-Chief adds, “At this point, there is no way to find out what happened with thousands of fracking water complaints except to go door-to-door and ask what happened with a complainant’s drinking water. In many cases you’ll find rooms stuffed with bottled water. Or, you’ll find in the basement an industry-supplied reverse osmosis system or a methane mitigation system. The true extent of water contamination has been concealed.

Contaminated Water Requires National Public Health Action

February 7, 2016 Drs. Jill Stein and Margaret Flowers, www.truthout.org , , , , , , ,
By Drs. Jill Stein and Margaret Flowers for TruthOut. Most people in the United States know about the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in March 1979. Although the official reports stated that an "insignificant" amount of radiation was released (this understatement has since been refuted), it is called "America's worst nuclear accident." Very few people know about the actual worst nuclear accident in the United States, which happened three months later in Church Rock, New Mexico. Perhaps this is because it mostly impacted people of the Navajo (Diné) Nation. On July 16, 1979, the wall of a tailings pond for a uranium mill broke open and released 93 million gallons of radioactive waste into the Arroyo Pipeline, a tributary to the Puerco River. The waste traveled 80 miles down the Puerco River into Arizona. Not only is it amazing that this spill was not reported in the media, but it is also remarkable that the governor of New Mexico refused to issue a state of emergency.

Flint Residents FINALLY Suing Government For Poisoning Them

February 3, 2016 Reagan Ali, www.countercurrentnews.com , , , ,
By Reagan Ali for Counter Current News - It’s not generally very easy to sue the government. But now a well known Baltimore attorney, William H. “Billy” Murphy Jr. — who recently won a $6.4 million settlement for the family of Freddie Gray — has filed a federal class-action lawsuit against state and local government officials in Flint, Michigan over the poisoning of the city’s drinking water. The city first monopolized the water – not allowing residents any choice in where they obtained their water services from – then they cut corners, and knowingly poisoned the city’s water supply, even while government officials had clean water shipped in for them.

Navajo Water Supply More Poisoned Than Flint’s For Decades

February 3, 2016 M. David, www.mintpressnews.com , , ,
By M. David for Counter Current News - We recently reported on six other cities in Michigan, which have more lead poisoning in their city water supplies, than Flint. The Detroit News reports that “Elevated blood-lead levels are seen in a higher percentage of children in parts of Grand Rapids, Jackson, Detroit, Saginaw, Muskegon, Holland and several other cities, proof that the scourge of lead has not been eradicated despite decades of public health campaigns and hundreds of millions of dollars spent to find and eliminate it.”

FBI Joins Flint Drinking Water Investigation

February 3, 2016 Paul Egan, www.freep.com , , , ,
By Paul Egan for Detroit Free Press - The FBI is now investigating the contamination of Flint’s drinking water, a man-made public health catastrophe, which has left an unknown number of Flint children and other residents poisoned by lead and resulted in state and federal emergency declarations. Gina Balaya, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit, told the Free Press Monday that federal prosecutors are “working with a multi-agency investigation team on the Flint water contamination matter, including the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, EPA's office of inspector general, and EPA's criminal investigation division."

Stop Radioactive Contamination Of The Great Lakes

January 19, 2016 Beyond Nuclear, www.stopthegreatlakesnucleardump.com , , , ,
By Beyond Nuclear for Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump. Ontario, Canada - Ontario Power Generation plans to bury and abandon radioactive nuclear waste 400 metres below the bottom level of Lake Huron. Scientists cannot guarantee tat this nuclear waste dump will not leak. The Great Lakes provide fresh drinking water for 40 million people in two countries. Why would we bury radioactive nuclear waste beside this precious resource? Ontario Power Generation, the applicant, states this underground dump "is not likely to result in any significant residual adverse effects to human health or the environment, including Lake Huron and the Great Lakes." Is "not likely" good enough?

Year In Pollution: The Nastiest Cases Of Toxic Discharge In 2015

January 8, 2016 Zoe Schlanger, www.newsweek.com , ,
By Zoe Schlanger for News Week - There’s no subtle way to say this: 2015 was a garbage year for our air and water. A river in Colorado turned a bright mac-and-cheese orange with mining waste. Photos of the streets of Beijing, thick with air pollution, looked downright apocalyptic. Parents in Flint, Michigan can look forward to a 2016 living in fear for their children’s brain development after learning their water is full of too much lead. One of the biggest automakers in the world admitted to rigging its vehicles to pass emissions tests, even when they were spewing out as much as 40 times the legal limit of the harmful pollutant NOx. It’s a mess out there, fam.
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