"When pollution gets bad enough in the rivers supplying Iowa’s largest city with drinking water, it costs Des Moines around $16,000 a day to run a special system to filter out dangerous nitrates. It’s a fact of life in the agriculture-dependent state — and climate change is making the water quality problem even worse."
"Iowa is among a few states where cancer diagnoses are on the rise. A new analysis from the Harkin Institute for Public Policy & Citizen Engagement and the Iowa Environmental Council says that environmental exposures are partially to blame."
"Wildfires burn nearly 775,000 acres in Nebraska. Land is a grazing resource for about 40,000 cows."
"A new analysis links high use of the weed killer glyphosate to elevated rates of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), particularly in the Midwest, reinforcing years of research linking cancer to the weed killer made popular by Monsanto."
"High along the Southwind Nature Trail, the tallgrass prairie waves in all directions, a mix of present-day reality and historical mirage stretching to the horizon much as it did more than 150 years ago." "Today, the vast majority of what was an estimated 140 million to 170 million acres of tallgrass prairie is gone, plowed under by 19th century agricultural sprawl and the development that followed."
"A North Dakota judge on Friday finalized a $345m judgment against Greenpeace in a lawsuit pursued by pipeline company Energy Transfer over the environmental group’s role in protests against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline."
"Facing staunch local opposition and federal roadblocks, a new wind project in Iowa is teetering on the brink, despite growing power demand."
"On paper, the public power district serving much of eastern Nebraska has been trying to quit coal at its North Omaha plant since 2014. That June, its board voted to retire three of the plant’s five coal units in 2016 and convert the final two to natural gas in 2023."
Two flourishing nonprofit programs teach young writers the basics of journalism and environmental reporting — mentoring and paying students, who publish enterprise and public records stories, personal essays and narrative features. Read more about Florida Student News Watch with CD Davidson-Hiers and Indiana’s climate solutions-focused Youth Environmental Press Team with Jim Poyser, in the new EJ Academy.
"The state’s environmental agency has the authority to investigate and issue fines for illegal spills, but lacks sufficient staff and resources."
