Section » Water
Dairy runoff in our tap water
Big dairies, big problems: Reporter Charles Duhigg of the New York Times has been on the rampage these past few weeks with a series of great articles highlighting the need for better government regulation, oversight and enforcement of clean water laws. The latest installment covers the dairy industry
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Monsanto’s metallic legacy: Near phosphate mines, Idaho’s rivers take the hit
Everyone's favorite company finds yet another environmental resource to mismanage: In order to make its infamous herbicide Roundup, Monsanto needs phosphate, a mineral that happens to be prevalent in Southeastern Idaho thanks to a warm sea that existed there 240 million years ago. Three of the company's
Michigan food processors turn groundwater orange
Orange you glad I didn't say arsenic?: It's common practice among Michigan's fruit and vegetable processors to spray their untreated wastewater, heavy with sugars and salts, onto nearby fields. After years of putting up with the spraying, nearby residents are complaining that large processors like Birds
Engineer designs inexpensive drip irrigation system
Drop zone: On a visit to Ethiopia, mechanical engineer Peter Frykman saw how people went hungry because of a lack of affordable irrigation equipment for their fields, so he designed an inexpensive drip irrigation system. Only 1 to 2% of clean technology investments is directed to water work, primarily
Australia fires major salvos in bottled-water battle
Taptive audience: Residents of Bundanoon, a town of 2,500 about 100 miles south of Sydney, have voted to ban the sale of bottled water, possibly the first community in the world to do so. This "battle against the bottle" started years ago, when a beverage company announced plans to build a water extraction
GAO recommends better labeling for bottled water
Thirsty for more information: The Government Accountability Office recently looked at oversight of the bottled water by the FDA and states in comparison to EPA's regulation of tap water. FDA's standards are generally similar, but GAO noted that 1) FDA has not set a standard for di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate
Digest - News: Gates Foundation exec picked for USDA research post, Roundup Ready losing potency
Get Shah-ty: The Obama administration has nominated Rajiv J. Shah to serve as Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics of the USDA. (NYT Diner’s Journal Blog) Shah is the director
Digest - Features & Blogs: Convention frenzy, local meat gets scrapped, and Michelle’s big announcement
O-yeah: Michelle Obama tells Oprah that she's planning a veggie garden on the lawn of the White House in order to "use it as a point of education, to talk about health and how delicious it is to eat fresh food, and how you can take that food and make it part of a healthy diet." The President won't be
Rigging the aquaculture game
Updated 9/21 to clarify the MMS proposal. Thanks, Zach! I've gotta hand it to the Bushies. If there is one arena in which this band of generally-less-than-a-full -deckers shows a glimmer of brilliance, it
One nation, underinformed (and one state underwater)
We've been slow to report on the flooding that has turned Iowa, golden icon of the Corn Belt, into an underwater nightmare. If I may speak for the group, it's just pretty damn overwhelming. As of this writing, some 36,000 Iowans have been evacuated from their homes; according
“You can almost taste the rose petals”
Food & Water Watch did a funny little April Fool stunt for YouTube, involving some high-end "Potomac Springs" bottled water, as part of their Take Back the Tap
Digest - Features: The ABCs of GM foods, Alice as the Sustainable Kitchen Fairy, clean-food catastrophe
This Digest was amended at 11 a.m. to add the excellent New York Times Magazine feature on water. A frank look at frankenfoods: Science writer Elena Conis has a top-notch, clear-eyed primer on the science of, and debate over, genetically modified foods — which can be found in 70% of processed foods.
Digest - News and Commentary: animal welfare, recalls, CAFO map
Although the House passed its version of the Food and Farm Bill on Friday, this news digest will be Farm Bill-free news digest (to which many will breathe a sigh of relief). We'll have a special Food and Farm Bill digest in the next few days that will be full of wonky goodness. Welfare goes widespread:
