NEWBURGH, N.Y. – When Newburgh’s city manager declared a state of emergency last year after tests found dangerous levels of perfluorooctanesulfonic acid in the city’s water supply, Nancy Colas scheduled blood tests for everyone in her family. “My 17-year-old, he pretty much grew up here, and he’s been drinking that water all his life,” she […]
LYNDEN, Wash. – Kip Sauve has lived at the Kontree Apartments in Lynden, Washington, for two years. He won’t drink the water from the tap. And he won’t let his pet cat and bird drink it, either. For more than a year, the residents of the complex have periodically received “do not drink” advisories […]
PHOENIX – When Bonnie Sicard of Beebe Plain, Vermont, started receiving notices about arsenic in her drinking water more than than five years ago, she wasn’t going to risk poisoning her family. She went straight to bottled water. “I got seven grandsons,” she said. “When they used to come over when they were little, we […]
WAUKESHA, Wisc. – The city of Waukesha has a radium problem, and it’s looking to Lake Michigan for a solution. Although talks of drawing water from nearby Lake Michigan began in 2002, Waukesha has struggled with radium contamination since the late 1970s when the Environmental Protection Agency lowered the acceptable limit for radium in public […]
HYANNIS, Mass. – When Hyannis officials discovered that unacceptable levels of contaminants from firefighting foam had leaked into the city’s water supply, they took action. Officials immediately provided cases of water to 18,000 residents of the Cape Cod community and spent $6 million to install an activated carbon filtration system. Now, they are cleaning the […]
PHOENIX – Poor and minority communities have long suffered from a disproportionate share of harmful environmental problems, such as contaminated water and polluted air. And one Indiana University associate professor fears those environmental justice issues will only get worse under President Donald Trump. David Konisky, who researches politics and public policy and focuses on environmental justice […]