Last Monday, Keurig Dr. Pepper announced they would be pulling their bottled water brand Peñafiel from the shelves, as a report found the arsenic levels in their water to be non compliant with FDA bottled water standards.
One of the reports in question, by the Center for Environmental Health (CEH), found both Peñafiel and Starkey bottled water to contain high levels of arsenic. Peñafiel is sold at Target and Walmart, and Starkey is sold at Whole Foods.
Arsenic in water bottles may be more common of a problem than we think: a study conducted last April found 11/130 bottled water brands sold have detectable levels of arsenic. <Read more>
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As Laura M. Holson from the New York Times reports, as climate change dialogue is increasing across the country, be it through realistic portrayals or fictionalized Hollywood movies, children are increasingly nervous about the prospect of impending disaster. Children, especially, are feeling the impacts of our overall anxiety about climate change because much of the messaging is directed at them, explaining how our children are the ones that will feel the worst impacts of our warming planet.
As climate change becomes a very real issue weighing on our kids’ minds, here are some ways to explore the topic to help our kids feel as though they have agency over their futures. <Read more>
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EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced last Friday that the EPA is strengthening standards for lead dust, especially in schools and work places, throughout the county. Their updates include reducing the amount of dust considered to be a hazard in an attempt to better reflect the amount of lead that can impact children. These new standards focus on lead dust on floors and on windowsills. <Read more>
Why isn’t the DNC holding a climate debate?
In the past two weeks, climate change activists have been furiously protesting after Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Tom Perez announced that he did not support the Democratic party having a climate specific debate for the 202o elections.
According to Perez, holding a climate debate would be putting too much focus on a single issue, especially when there are candidates like Jay Inslee who are focusing their entire campaign around climate change.
However, environmental organizations don’t see climate as only a single issue, rather the issue that will define everything in the coming decade. 314 Action pledged $100,000 to put on a climate debate, and 15 out of the 23 Democratic candidates want to see a climate-specific debate.
As Vox reports, many democratic voters want to make climate a central issue in the 2020 election, especially since it was hardly brought up in the 2016 election cycle. In Iowa, three quarters of Iowa Democratic caucus voters wanted to see climate change treated as the single most threatening risk to humanity. <Read more>
Sign the petition for the DNC to hold a climate debate!
Most specifically, Sunrise Movement is currently holding a sit in in the DNC protesting the organization’s lack of movement on the climate debate front. Sunrise Movement is a an organization building a network of young people to create an army fighting climate change.
In 2019, fighting climate change is more important than ever. The midwest is flooding, more temperature anomalies have been reported, and large chunks of the polar ice caps are breaking off. What’s even worse is that climate change has the potential to have impact marginalized communities the most. No matter your political affiliations, it’s important to discuss this issue across the aisle.
Sunrise Movement is circulating a petition to demand the DNC hold a climate debate. Click here to sign the petition.
Last Monday, the Supreme Court ruled on Virginia Uranium vs. Warren, a case questioning whether Virginia had the authority to ban Uranium mining, the New York Times Reports. The justices were deciding whether the Atomic Energy Act, a federal law regarding Uranium, would overturn Virginia’s decision to ban the practice after a fierce battle beginning in the 1970s, when Uranium was first discovered in the state.
The Supreme Court upheld Virginia’s right to ban Uranium Mining, with Justice Neil M. Gorusch (joined by Justice Thomas and Justice Kavanaugh) stating that states should have the authority to regulate their own policies on mining. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (joined by Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan) wrote a second opinion, agreeing with much of Gorusch’s analysis but stated that Gorusch’s opinion discussing the perils of questioning the motives of legislation “sweeps well beyond the confines of the case”.
Chief Justice Roberts, along with Justice Breyer and Justice Alito, offered a dissenting opinion. <Read more>
Members of the Seneca Nation paddled down the entire 290 miles of the Allegheny River, called Ohi:yo’ (meaning beautiful river) in the Seneca language, in a journey called Paddle for Peace to Protect Our Waters. The journey has been organized by Seneca cause Defend Ohi:yo’, a group that helped stop corporations from dumping treated fracking water in the river just last year. The purpose of the journey is to raise awareness about the importance of protecting the environment and to protest a proposed pipeline project that will threaten the region’s rivers. <Read more>
- One of many bends down the 290 mile length of Ohi:yo’ (Allegheny) River
Vermont legislators have just passed a bill that will require schools to test water for lead, and that will require the state to pay for it. The bill comes after increased national concern about potential toxins in school water systems: just last year, Vermont tested water in 16 schools, and all were found to have traces of lead in their water. <Read more>
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Corroded faucets can be a source of water contamination / Pixabay Creative Commons
As WWMT News reports, an EPA advisory group will hold three community meetings for the Allied Paper, Portage Creek, Kalamazoo River Superfund Site. These meetings are meant to serve as town halls for the community to discuss the status as the clean up, as well as the role of Michigan and Natural Resource Trustees in the clean up. Each meeting will discuss a different aspect of the Superfund Site clean up. <Read more>
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Portage Creek Superfund site on the Kalamazoo River Jeremy M Wintworth, Creative Commons
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In August 2018, a dive group found barrels containing the two specific toxic chemicals required to make Agent Orange at the bottom of Wallowa Lake, Digital Journal reports. One of these chemicals is known to be contaminated with dioxins, which were used in Oregon forests as a herbicide until higher rates of miscarriages were reported in 1979. Residents were alarmed, not only because the lake is treasured by the community but also because it provides drinking water to the nearby town Joseph. However, Oregon DEQ still has not pulled these barrels out of the lake. <Read more>
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A new elementary school in Moore County, North Carolina, is to be constructed between two Superfund sites threatened by high levels of air pollution, NC Policy Watch reports. According to the city, the site bears no heightened risk of contamination, but CHEJ science director Stephen Lester isn’t so sure. Stephen shares CHEJ’s findings that there is no scientifically proven “safe distance” from pollution sites, and he calls into question effectiveness of current school siting guidelines. He recommends that parents sending their kids to the new Aberdeen elementary school in the future be incredibly vigilent about changes in their children’s health.
The Moore County case is particularly relevant because the new Aberdeen elementary school would serve primarily low-income students and students of color. In many ways, constructing a new elementary school is a push toward progress, as existing Aberdeen elementary schools were built during the segregation era. However, the new elementary school’s future location could potentially mean disproportionately exposing students of color and low income students to environmental contamination. As Stephen says, children are at higher risk for health complications from pollution contamination, and no child should have to face health complications due to pollution. <Read more>
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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
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