News

Farmworkers against California water bond

2/23/10 Op-Ed by United Farm Workers president Arturo Rodriguez, who says the UFW's reason for opposing the bond: We don't believe that the giant agriculture corporations should get more subsidized water until farmworkers get the right to protect themselves, including the right to clean and fresh drinking water. Read Full Article

Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Foiling E.P.A.

2/28/10 Thousands of the nation’s largest water polluters are outside the Clean Water Act’s reach because the Supreme Court has left uncertain which waterways are protected by that law, according to interviews with regulators. As a result, some businesses are declaring that the law no longer applies to them. And pollution rates are rising.

About 117 million Americans get their drinking water from sources fed by waters that are vulnerable to exclusion from the Clean Water Act, according to E.P.A. reports. Read Full Article

Too much pavement, too little oversight: EPA to tackle stormwater runoff

2/17/10 Across the country, stormwater runoff hammers thousands of rivers, streams and lakes. Communities are left to struggle with the consequences of too much pavement and too little oversight. Now the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is gearing up to tighten federal stormwater rules that have been criticized by environmental groups and deemed ineffective by a national panel of researchers. Read Full Article

President Clinton Keynote Address to Waterkeeper Alliance Conference

In June 2009, the Waterkeeper Alliance held its annual conference in New York. Humboldt Baykeeper Executive Director Pete Nichols got the opportunity to see this year's keynote speaker Bill Clinton, and now you can too. Watch Clinton's speech to the Waterkeeper Alliance here.

New Study Shows Impact of Mercury Pollution: $8.7 Billion Lost Annually Due to Poisoning in the Womb

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28, 2007 /U.S. Newswire/ -- As the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) face pending deadlines on mercury reduction plans, a new study published today calculated that the U.S. loses $8.7 billion annually due to the impact of mercury on children's brain development. The peer-reviewed study by the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine's Center for Children's Health and the Environment was published today, February 28, online by the National Institutes of Health journal, Environmental Health Perspectives.

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"Before they take their first breath, as many as 600,000 babies may suffer permanent brain damage from their mothers' exposure to mercury pollution," said Susan Marmagas, MPH, director of Physicians for Social Responsibility's Environment and Health Program. "The damage has personal consequences for these children, but now we see that it also has enormous implications for the national economy."