Millions of Americans are unknowingly ingesting water that includes “an invisible toxic cocktail” of cancer-linked chemicals, a new survey of the nation’s tap water has found.
The Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) 2021 Tap Water Database, available to the public as of Wednesday, revealed contamination from toxins like arsenic, lead and “forever chemicals” – perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – in the drinking water of tens of millions of households across all 50 states, as well as Washington, D.C.
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Category: News Archive
Analysis identifies 56 new chemicals in water supplies – including some linked to critical diseases.
Water utilities and regulators in the US have identified 56 new contaminants in drinking water over the past two years, a list that includes dangerous substances linked to a range of health problems such as cancer, reproductive disruption, liver disease and much more.
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider the extent of the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to limit carbon emissions under a provision of the Clean Air Act.
The Supreme Court will review a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The appeals court vacated a Trump administration rule relaxing restrictions on greenhouse gases in January.
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Courts agree that the people who live near the industrial hog farms in Bladen, Duplin and Sampson counties continue to suffer environmental harms, but state and local laws make it increasingly difficult to get justice.
In the mid-1990s, Billy Kinlaw purchased land in a remote, mostly Black section of White Oak, a rural community of just 350 people in Bladen County.
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Photo credit: North Carolina Health News
What is already known about this topic?
No safe blood lead level (BLL) in children exists. Even low levels cause harm.
What is added by this report?
CDC updated the blood lead reference value (BLRV) to 3.5 μg/dL, which provides an opportunity for additional progress in addressing longstanding disparities in lead exposure and BLLs in children.
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Photo credit: CDC
A new, more stringent review of the environmental impacts of a massive proposed plastics plant along the Mississippi River in St. James Parish will likely take more than two years.
Environmental groups are cheering that scrutiny, arguing it could provide a more realistic assessment of the environmental damage the plant would do to an area they say already bears a heavy burden of pollution. But some local government and business leaders are trying to rally support for a project that could create about 1,200 permanent jobs and pour millions of dollars into the local economy.
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Photo credit: David J. Mitchell/The Advocate
Categories
Poison in the Air
The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones” where residents breathe carcinogens. ProPublica reveals where these places are in a first-of-its-kind map and data analysis.
From the urban sprawl of Houston to the riverways of Virginia, air pollution from industrial plants is elevating the cancer risk of an estimated quarter of a million Americans to a level the federal government considers unacceptable.
Photo credit: Kathleen Flynn/ProPublica
Washington State recently announced that PFAS are “hazardous substances” regulated under the State’s environmental cleanup laws. The Department of Ecology (“Ecology”) announced its decision online stating that, because “PFAS compounds all have multiple carbon-fluorine bonds,” such “forever chemicals” are already within the State’s existing definition of hazardous substances.[i] Ecology went on to say that releases of PFAS that may threaten human health or the environment in any media must be reported to State regulators, followed by site assessment and, potentially, cleanup. The agency did not define what specific levels would trigger reporting.[ii] That judgment appears to be left to the entity doing the reporting. In doing so, Washington became perhaps the first state in the country to define PFAS in a way that could construe the entire class of PFAS compounds as hazardous substances in a regulatory context.
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Photo credit: Dmitry Buber
On October 18, 2021, EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan announced the PFAS Strategic Roadmap: EPA’s Commitments to Action 2021-2024 (Roadmap). The Roadmap is intended to be a comprehensive approach to confronting PFAS contamination nationwide. Among many other efforts, the Roadmap includes the following planned actions:
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Today, EPA has made available updated 2020 Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data about chemical releases, chemical waste management, and pollution prevention activities that took place during 2020 at more than 21,000 federal and industrial facilities throughout the United States and its territories. This dataset builds on the preliminary data released in July. It includes revised and late submissions from facilities, and additional data quality checks by EPA.
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Photo credit: EPA