water pollution

September 11, 2020 - A storm of historic proportions in a record-breaking year, Hurricane Laura and the damage it wrought are symptoms of the worsening global climate disaster. Striking a heavily industrialized corridor along the Louisiana-Texas border, Laura exacerbated ongoing environmental crises that are disproportionately hurting communities of color in the South.

July 27, 2020 - Developers of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and other pipeline projects are improperly storing massive quantities of pipe outside, uncovered, for years at a time. A new report filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission details how this causes a coating on the pipe to break down and release toxic substances into the environment, creating a public health risk.

April 24, 2020 - A decade after the BP oil spill set off an environmental health disaster in communities across the Gulf Coast, the company and the rest of the U.S. oil and gas industry continue to inflict pain on vulnerable populations across the South — and they're now implicated in raising the death rate from the novel coronavirus in African-American communities across Louisiana.

November 18, 2019 - The Trump administration is taking comments on proposals to ease coal ash regulations that the EPA adopted after the catastrophic 2008 spill at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant in East Tennessee. Critics say the proposed rules would take a toll on public health by allowing more pollution, and on the public purse by letting utilities shift costs.

April 22, 2019 - State regulators recently issued a new general permit for industrial hog farms, and it dashed the hopes of environmental advocates who say it represents a failure to address the unequal pollution burden borne by nonwhite communities. They're calling on the agency to take environmental justice into account in future permitting decisions.

April 12, 2019 - North Carolina is now the third state in the South to order utilities to excavate all of their coal ash pits and move the toxic material to lined landfills. Duke Energy wants to charge its customers for the work, but some state lawmakers are trying to prevent that from happening. Meanwhile, the company is challenging the order.

September 28, 2018 - As floodwaters receded, environmental watchdogs affiliated with the Waterkeeper Alliance took to airplanes and boats to document the pollution left in the storm's wake. Here's what they found.