News Clips

A new study warns that athletes playing sports on artificial turf could become covered in per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, present in the turf. Researchers from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) conducted a small-scale study of young athletes, as well as ...

Maryland law subsidizes burning trash to create energy as renewable, placing it on par with wind and solar, despite the carbon emissions and air pollution it releases. The WIN Waste incinerator in Baltimore has been categorized as Baltimore’s biggest single source of air pollution. WIN ...

Gov. Janet Mills wants to roll back protections for the sand dunes that partially make up the state’s preferred site for a landmark offshore wind terminal. The Mills bill shows that the state is “making the mistake of designating a preferred location, and then trying to find the ...

Athletes who play on artificial turf are likely to be coated with higher levels of toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” than before playing on the field, new research suggests, raising more questions about the controversial material’s safety. The results from the small study, which looked ...

Federal land managers have sparked a heated debate about recreation in some of this country’s most wild places with a proposed overhaul of rules governing rock climbing on public lands, angering both wilderness advocates and climbers alike. Murdock said the divide between climbing and ...

The Washoe County lands bill has something for everyone to love, and something for everyone to loathe. In a recent op-ed in The Nevada Independent, Eli Turner of the Nevada Mineral Exploration Coalition, who falls on the side of loathing the bill, made a number of false statements about ...

Known as the gateway to Glacier National Park, Kalispell, Montana, has long taken pride in its pristine water supply. So when “forever chemicals” were detected in the groundwater in 2021, city officials were stumped. “You can’t look at the levels in your well and say, ‘This PFAS ...

The CRD has been punting its management problem down Hartland Ave. for years. Pressure to resolve the region’s biosolids and other solid waste management plan has resurfaced as construction plans to increase capacity at the landfill are underway. The CRD board faces pressure from the ...

The Office of the Legislative Auditor, or OLA, has announced it will undertake what’s known as a “special review” to examine the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ alleged misuse of federal grant funds designed to benefit wildlife and their habitat. The OLA informed DNR ...

Sprinturf, the turf’s manufacturer, had assured the city that the field was PFAS-free, and shared a lab report to support its claim. The newspaper asked three PFAS experts to independently review the report. Each said the results were misleading and inadequate, and that the field likely ...

Test results from the San Diego soccer kids experiment found that two of the three players came off the turf field with higher amounts of PFAS on their hands than at the beginning of the practice.  When the players practiced on natural grass, the results were mixed. The San Diego ...

Maryland is poised to dole out more than $300 million to trash incinerators between 2012 and 2030, according to the latest analysis by the nonprofits Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), Clean Water Action and Progressive Maryland. Timothy Whitehouse, executive ...

New legal action could put an end to the practice of spreading toxic sewage sludge on US cropland as a cheap alternative to fertilizer, and force America to rethink how it disposes of its industrial and human waste. A notice of intent to sue federal regulators charges they have failed to ...

There’s usually a large disconnect between the food people eat and the process it took to get on their plate, but you’d think basic regulations would be preventing your broccoli from being raised on toilet water. The poop farmers are putting on our food isn’t just literally crappy ...

The Nevada Wildlife Commission’s endorsement Friday of a plan to remove 75% of wild horses and burros from the state’s public lands, along with its refusal to consider a ban on controversial coyote killing contests, are both out of step with the desires of residents and tourists and ...

It sounds like a crime show episode at sea: In late January 2024, federal regulators learned that a dead female North Atlantic right whale had been sighted near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The whale was towed to shore, where more than 20 U.S. and Canadian scientists converged to ...

A Baltimore County company that makes fertilizer using residual material from wastewater treatment plants has been sued by several Texas residents, who allege its products contaminated their farmland with dangerous “forever chemicals.” A Maryland-based nonprofit, called Public ...

A Texas county has launched a first-of-its-kind criminal investigation into the waste management giant Synagro over PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge it is selling to Texas farmers as a cheap alternative to fertilizer. Two small Texas ranches at the center of that case have also filed a ...

Colorado legislators want to close loopholes in a ban on “forever chemicals” in many consumer products that was passed in 2022, saying the cost to filter out PFAS is overwhelming water treatment agencies and other states have moved faster in regulation. About 21,000 industrial sites in ...

Federal employees are filing fewer whistleblower disclosures, and reporting fewer complaints of whistleblower retaliation. The Office of Special Counsel, according to recent data analyzed by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), saw a more than 48% decline in ...