The U.S. air quality alert scale is showing a lot of unhealthy colors this season, from oranges up to unhealthy reds and purples or worse, as smoke from wildfires in Canada periodically drifts across various U.S. regions. The latest Reporter’s Toolbox explores a key database and other resources to help journalists report on the spread of smoky air.
"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Tuesday it did not find discrimination by the state of Louisiana against Black residents who face high levels of air pollution, closing a probe into actions by state departments."
"Because of overuse of water and climate change, the Great Salt Lake is drying up — and the Mormon Church is taking on an unusually public role to help save it."
"A bridge that crosses the Yellowstone River in Montana collapsed early Saturday, plunging portions of a freight train carrying hazardous materials into the rushing water below."
"Just 45 miles from the Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation where Daranda Hinkey and her family corral horses and cows, a centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s clean energy plan is taking shape: construction of one of the largest lithium mines in the world."
"The US’s first-ever trial in a constitutional climate lawsuit kicked off Monday morning in a packed courtroom in Helena, Montana. The case, Held v Montana, was brought in 2020 by 16 plaintiffs between the ages of five and 22 from around the state who allege state officials violated their constitutional right to a healthy environment by enacting pro-fossil fuel policies."
Attacks of all kinds on U.S. journalists clearly hamper a free press. And environmental journalists are not spared such aggressions, especially when covering contested places like pipeline construction sites. WatchDog Opinion outlines the problem and explores how journalists might be spared from such violations, including with a prospective law explicitly protecting journalists from assault.
"A landmark climate trial that will reverberate in states and litigation across the US is set to begin Monday, when more than a dozen young people face off with the state of Montana at Lewis and Clark County District Court."
"A federal judge has yanked approval for a phosphate mining project in southeastern Idaho, saying federal land managers in the Trump administration didn’t in part properly consider the mine’s impact on sage grouse, a bird species that has seen an 80% decline in population since 1965."
"In Colorado's famed San Luis Valley, residents who rely on well water are grappling not only with a shortage amid drought, but questionable quality of the water coming out of the ground."
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