A decade’s worth of government pesticide data — only available before through FOIA — has been made newly available. And, explains the latest Reporter’s Toolbox, it can lead to revealing environmental, public health and environmental justice stories. More on how the data came to be compiled and advice on using it smartly, along with some caveats.
What brought together two teams of student reporters, half a dozen states and 1,000 miles apart? For one, the high environmental cost of chemical fertilizer. For another, a pair of dedicated journalism teachers. Cynthia Barnett and Sara Shipley Hiles share how they took the project from daydream to reality, brought students into the field and got pickup from numerous news outlets, in the latest EJ Academy.
"In the early 2000s, researchers tested breast milk samples from U.S. mothers and found high levels of toxic compounds used as a common flame retardant in household items."
"On Thursday, NASA released the first data maps from its new instrument launched to space earlier this year, which now is successfully transmitting information about major air pollutants over North America."
"The largest natural gas-producing counties in Appalachia have had worse economic outcomes than the rest of the region and the nation since the start of the region’s fracking boom, according to a new report."
"As the Biden administration makes billions of dollars available to remove millions of dangerous lead pipes that can contaminate drinking water and damage brain development in children, some states are turning down funds."
"Federal regulators have sent a proposed safety order to the developers of the contentious and highly politicized Mountain Valley Pipeline citing concerns over potential pipe corrosion and land movement in the steep mountain terrain the pipeline will cross in West Virginia and Virginia."
"Japan said on Tuesday it will start releasing into the sea more than 1 million metric tons of treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant on Aug. 24, going ahead with a plan heavily criticised by China."
"The Department of Interior announced on Tuesday that it had reinstated Obama-era safety rules for offshore drilling that were created in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon catastrophe that killed 11 people and fouled the Gulf of Mexico."
"What do you get when you combine record-breaking heat, wildfire smoke and sunlight? Ground-level ozone in amounts high enough to cause health problems in both Baton Rouge and New Orleans on Friday and Saturday, according to the federal/state Air Quality Index."
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