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• Recent News Stories

Page Updated:
July 23, 2024

• • Tribes and Environmentalists Press
  Arizona and Federal Officials to Stop
  Uranium Mining Near the Grand Canyon

  Activists Hope to Shut Down an Existing Mine Within a New National Monument and to Prevent Transporting of Uranium on State and Federal Roads Across Navajo Nation Lands
  
  

  July 17, 2024 -Members of environmental groups stood together in the lobby of the Arizona State Capitol Executive Tower late last month to deliver a petition to Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, requesting that she stop uranium mining activities near the Grand Canyon National Park.

  The Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, National Parks Conservation Association, Wild Arizona, Chispa Arizona and Haul No!, a group formed to fight the mining and transport of uranium, delivered a petition with more than 17,500 signatures to the governor.

• • An Historic African American Community
  Outside Charleston, S.C., Embraces Conservation

  Climate Gentrification Prompted It
  
  

  July 7, 2024 -After emancipation, freed slaves bought marshy land along the coast that white landowners weren’t interested in. Now, big developers covet such waterfront property, despite rising sea levels, threatening historic Black communities.

  At high tide, the marsh alongside Seafood Road disappears under an inscrutable mirror of water. Then, as it drains, reeds resurface and begin to trace hundreds of paths through the marsh, etched by generations of subsistence fishing.

• • Thousands Across Alabama Live
  Without Access to Public Water
  

  The Water is No Longer Flowing
  
  

  June 10, 2024 -Across Alabama, around 800,000 people—about 20 percent of the state’s population—rely on private water supplies, like wells, for drinking water, according to state estimates. That reality often has socioeconomic and racial implications, too.

  In some places, such as Athens, just under 100 miles north of Birmingham, and Prichard, just north of Mobile, most whites have reliable municipal water and sewer service while many Black residents suffer from deteriorated or nonexistent water infrastructure. In rural Marion County, where around 94 percent of residents are white, connections, money and power often determine where the water flows, according to residents.

  Click now for the story and a graphic image.

• • Battle to Prioritize Public Health
  over Oil Company Profits Heats Up
  

  Proposed California Bills Would Protect Residents in Mostly Low-Income Communities of Color by speeding cleanup of Dangerous Neighborhood Oil Wells
  
  

  May 3, 2024 -On a dreary afternoon in January, a geyser of oily water shot over the fence of an oil and gas company in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Wilmington, splattering the street, cars and a local coffee shop with petroleum just a block away from Ashley Hernandez’s house.

  The frightening spectacle was just the latest in a long line of blowouts, spills and explosions to contaminate a community long dominated, and sickened, by oil drilling in the neighborhood.

• • Florida's Message to Outdoor Workers:

  'No Rest, No Shade,
  No Water and No Empathy.'
  
  

  Apr. 19, 2024 -Last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill he buried under nine others. Why? Because he would prefer most people know nothing about it.

  The law, HB 433, would prohibit local governments from requiring heat protection for outdoor workers. My wife and I have lived here for 10 years and find the heat of summer insufferable outdoors.

  So, we go into the air conditioning while workers all around us bust their butts in the heat.

• • Black Residents Want This Company Gone From Africatown

  Will Alabama’s Environmental Agency Approve a New Permit?
  
  

  Apr. 4, 2024 -In the historic Africatown community, residents say an asphalt plant has turned life on Chin Street into a living hell for 25 years. When the state’s Department of Environmental Management held a hearing in February to consider a permit renewal, they saw an opportunity.

  Click now to read on.

• • The Nation’s First ‘Green Bank’ Network

  White House Awards
  $20 Billion to It
  
  

  Apr. 4, 2024 -At least 70 percent of the funds will go to disadvantaged communities, the administration said, while 20 percent will go to rural communities and more than 5 percent will go to tribal communities.

  Click now for the rest of the story.

• • Helping Marginalized Communities Go Solar

  How Big-Box Stores
  and Schools Can Assist
  
  

  Apr. 3, 2024 -Across the nation, strip malls, schools, factories, and other big, nonresidential buildings bask in the sun — a powerful, and too often wasted, source of electricity that could serve the neighborhoods that surround them.

  Installing solar panels on these vast rooftops could provide one-fifth of the power that disadvantaged communities need, bringing renewable energy to people who can least afford it,