"Nearly 70 percent of the infrastructure in the Northern Hemisphere’s permafrost regions are located in areas that could have near-surface thaw by 2050, researchers project".
Tens of thousands of dams around the United States provide important functions — but also represent critical environment or public safety risks. Now, one central resource to help environmental journalists cover these structures has been improved in important ways. The latest Reporter’s Toolbox walks you through the main changes to the National Inventory of Dams, and points out some lingering weaknesses.
A crisis of lead in drinking water affects thousands of U.S. communities, but 2022 will bring new focus to the problem as new Biden administration plans play out following passage of a $15 billion fund to replace lead service lines. TipSheet outlines the problem and the impact of a regulation carried over from the Trump era. Plus, seven reporting approaches to local and state-level stories.
"The recently passed bipartisan infrastructure bill could increase carbon dioxide emissions from the transportation sector, according to research from the nonpartisan Georgetown Climate Institute."
"Engineers know how to protect people from tornadoes like the ones that recently devastated parts of Kentucky, but builders have headed off efforts to toughen standards."
"Lowndes County, Alabama, which sits between Selma and Montgomery, was once called Bloody Lowndes for its central role in the struggle for civil rights. Today people in Lowndes are fighting for another basic right: access to sewage treatment."
"When the highway and pipeline were planned in the 1970s, the debris “lobes” were frozen solid. Now, they’re monsters devouring everything in their paths."
"The declaration from Senator Joe Manchin III that he cannot support his party’s $2.2 trillion Build Back Better bill has significantly dimmed the prospects for the climate action that scientists say the United States must take to avert the most catastrophic effects of global warming."
"EPA’s internal watchdog is planning aggressive oversight for the billions of infrastructure funds flowing into the agency, warning fraud could follow the influx of cash."
"Democratic plans to restrict new oil and gas development off both coasts and in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge have emerged as a new flash point in the Build Back Better bill, highlighting the party’s political schism as it tries to advance the massive spending legislation."
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