The Tennessee Lookout | The company’s proposal to transfer its defunct facility into an environmental trust follows recent scrutiny from regulators and attorneys regarding mismanagement and potentially fraudulent activities. The Memphis plant’s 2012 closure lagged behind nationwide actions prompted by Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring, which exposed the dangers of pesticides like those produced by Velsicol. Now, many are hoping that public institutions will finally hold this legacy polluter accountable.

New Lines Magazine | It’s a hazy and suffocating future for people in the Western U.S. Wildfire smoke poses a health threat to everyone, but pregnant people face greater risks due to their heightened cardiac output, which can increase by up to 50%. Scientists—some of whom were pregnant during wildfire events—warn that a smoky future looms for pregnant people across the country, with few realistic protections in place.

NextCity and Yes! Magazine | The land back movement is a key part of restoring fire and ecological balance. The Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians is among those leading the way by integrating traditional ecological knowledge with Western science to sustainably manage fire on their homelands. Land trust managers and scientists increasingly recognize that centering land return and Indigenous knowledge is essential for addressing global climate challenges.

Sierra Magazine | Large slash piles from logging and wildfire activities, often stacked like bonfires, pose significant risks if ignited in a wildfire. As the summers on the west of the Cascade Mountains become hotter and dryer, primed for wildfires, limited resources and personnel within the U.S. Forest Service contribute to a growing backlog. Solutions include policy reforms and incentives for timber companies to reduce slash and find sustainable uses for the debris.

Cascade PBS | The balance between carbon credits and timber harvest has significant implications for forests and the communities that rely on them. Behind the tree rotation science are small forestland owners and timber workers navigating political decisions that have long reshaped and continue to influence land management in Washington state.

Cascade PBS | King County’s Cedar Hills Regional Landfill has a gas problem. It's ranked among the country’s top 50 methane-emitting landfills, and emissions have increased 18-fold in recent years. And now with a key partner of King County’s Cedar Hills Regional Landfill in court, the situation has escalated. But surprisingly, so have some potential new solutions and policies

TriplePundit | In Oregon’s forest communities, where vulnerable infrastructure challenges cleaner energy solutions, a local business is salvaging wood from forest fires. It's part of an economic plan to revitalize a once booming timber town while sourcing a fuel that locally improves air quality.

Mongabay | While proactive, intentionally set fires are effectively returning to ecosystems that depend on them — insurers don't want to cover it as a natural resources management tool. This financial barrier is one of the primary obstacles to getting more burns done in the American West. States like California are now coming to terms that if prescribed burns are to be a public service, they must help fund it with public dollars.

Scientific American | While researchers have been discovering a shape-shifting fungus in new pockets throughout the western U.S., many state health departments have failed to track it. What limited data exist indicates that the people most at risk of life-threatening disease are Latino, Asian and Native American people who spend long hours in dusty outdoor locations.

Cascade PBS | In Washington state, the demand for using natural resources as climate fixes is increasing. While forest-based carbon sequestration projects can be priced and put on the market, more study is needed to understand both the science and the economics.

The Urbanist | Climate change made Seattle’s excessive heat this week five times more likely compared to spring days decades ago, according to an index from policy-neutral nonprofit Climate Central. Additionally, Seattle’s historical records show evenings are not cooling off like they used to, and the frequency of evening heatwaves is increasing.

Mongabay | Along the coastlines, two kinds of rare American freshwater crustaceans have been found to thrive after prescribed burns in their habitats. Both areas are savanna ecosystems that have relied on frequent fires over millennia — whether naturally occurring or intentionally set by Indigenous peoples — to maintain the open habitats to which myriad organisms have adapted.

The Urbanist | For years, scientists and politicians have warned that wildfire will become more frequent in Western Washington, an area with a historically wet climate. Now, the threat is in communities that have never been exposed to wildland fire.

Cascade PBS | Under the Climate Commitment Act, the money will go toward funding climate solutions and investing in communities that face environmental injustice. With three more auctions scheduled for later this year, the vitality of a new economic market will begin to unfold.

Cascade PBS | Washington's Emmons Glacier is the largest of its kind in the United States. And although it grew in size each winter for decades, its ice mass is now shrinking. What does Emmons' irregular melting mean for our warming future? Scientists and natural resource managers are trying to figure that out.

The Urbanist | Seattle’s heatwaves are showing just how sick people can get from the infamous two degrees of warming that scientists have warned about for years. It will take years for local agencies to implement their long-term strategies and provide resources that scale to problem that the new reality of extreme heat brings to the least air-conditioned metro in the U.S.

Modern Farmer | In the Pacific Northwest, extreme temperatures and recurring drought are disrupting the health of essential bee colonies. Commercial beekeepers and family apiaries share their experience of wildfire and loss. Together, with researchers, they are learning how to mitigate the challenges coming with climate change.

Cascade PBS | South Park and Beacon Hill are communities experiencing some of the worst effects of climate change and environmental injustice in Seattle. The issues are chronic and it's bringing a new kind of distress: climate anxiety and grief. Action for better policy and resources starts with identifying and talking about our emotions.

The Tennessee Lookout | For thousands without basic services in Memphis in the wake of a winter storm, it feels like same song, second verse. This time, ice-encased trees brought down power lines. Last year freezing temperatures caused water line breaks. What’s MLGW said about long-term plan for resiliency?

Women’s Media Center | Researchers and people living in Houston know the challenges that intersect with emergency response and reproductive care. It’s a disaster within a disaster.

The Guardian | Researchers in Oregon ask about the implications of wildfire smoke on dairy cows and their milk. It's another example of how climate change touches every corner of our lives, down to the milk that sits in our refrigerators.

MLK50: Justice Through Journalism | Basic economic principles underscore that every benefit comes with a cost. Despite this, leadership s has not publicly shared the tradeoffs that come with the arrival of xAI in the Bluff City, particularly for communities of color and natural resources like the Memphis Sands Aquifer.

The Urbanist | From developing public housing on remediated land to establishing community trusts, government workers and movement organizers say community-centered development is a key solution to thwarting displacement caused by environmental cleanups and green initiatives.

MLK50: Justice Through Journalism | After months of vague promises from Sterilization Services of Tennessee about closing, South Memphis residents and environmental advocates believe that one of the worst EtO-emitting facilities in the country is finally closing. As the company leaves community members want repair for their exposure to the toxic gas that had been leaking from the plant for four decades.

Tennessee Lookout | When North Memphis residents gathered to hear about the future of a defunct chemical plant in their neighborhood, a facility that has left a toxic legacy, they were surprised to learn the company has been storing and shipping chemicals. That's because the plant closed nearly a decade ago.

MLK50: Justice Through Journalism | Commercial sterilizers must comply with EPA's new rules to cut ethylene oxide (EtO) pollution within two to three years. In Memphis, this might not matter—the EtO-emitting plant there is supposed to relocate long before. But, residents near the plant are in the dark, again, about the company’s plans.

Tennessee Lookout | Velsicol, a Memphis chemical company whose products Rachel Carson described as the "elixirs of death," is looking to renew a state permit that would allow hazardous waste operations to continue at its defunct facility. People who live nearby are asking if this permit is serving its intended purpose, or is it facilitating circumvention of national Superfund site status?

Prism | In the 2024 Washington State legislative session, the Cumulative Risk Burden (CURB) Pollution Act joins a growing movement of environmental justice policies nationwide that go beyond procedural norms and into authoritative action. Its enforcement mechanisms that would give agencies the power to deny permits for facilities whose pollution exceeds newly identified health risk thresholds.

Prism | In one of the most notorious manmade environmental disasters of our lifetime, people in Flint are still looking for accountability almost 10 years after the city's water crisis. This hit hard in October when the state attorney general's office closed their investigation in the pursuit of holding government leaders criminally responsible for their actions. Now, an emerging generation of policymakers, scientists, and lawyers are reimagining what restorative justice could look like in the future, especially as climate emergencies unfold.

Seattle Met | In 1912, gravediggers unearthed 3,000 bodies along the Duwamish River. This lost cemetery is a little known piece of Seattle history, but it is also part of a larger story that still haunts the city to this day: a systemic trend of environmental injustice and degradation at the expense of those who call Duwamish Valley home.

MLK50: Justice Through Journalism | Since the EPA came a year ago to warn of a cancer-causing chemical lofting in South Memphis, people have had more questions than answers. That’s still the case as the company emitting this chemical says it is relocating. The uncertainty has taken a toll on people who have lived there most of their lives, and now they taking it on themselves to address the ambiguity from government agencies.

NextCity | Greenwashing solutions from corporations are not the answer for what should be basic services from public utilities, like safe water. That is especially the case for places like Memphis that sources its water from a large aquifer that naturally filters pristine freshwater.

The Urbanist | As Seattle grapples with its hotter summers, people are drowning more than ever in open water like Lake Washington. It’s compounding environmental and social issues for people of color who are in the warmest communities and were historically and violently excluded from swim areas. Policy change increasingly proves to be the most impactful tool for water competency and safety.

The Urbanist | In the Duwamish Valley, three highways are within one mile of each other. This culturally diverse community has been overburdened by pollution for more than 50 years. Grassroots leaders believe that highway removal is a means of justice for generations of people.

MLK50: Justice through Journalism | A facility in South Memphis emits a colorless, cancer-causing gas – a burden that both the people and their environment have carried for decades, invisibly. The Environmental Protection Agency is trying to regulate ethylene oxide in plants across the US, but the facility in Memphis brings some of the highest risks in the country.

The Urbanist | Policymakers in the 2023 Washington Legislative Session are trying to lessen the burden of plastic pollution on everyday people and shift responsibility to companies creating the product packaging. That matters for South Seattle and King County communities who live near recycling centers and landfills.

MLK50: Journalism Through Justice | An environmental crime committed in Memphis reveals a crack in proactive enforcement of the Clean Water Act that can leave vulnerable communities facing environmental inequities. In this case, that disparity can be felt by people who are on the periphery of historically Black Soulsville in South Memphis — a corner of the city that experiences disproportionate pollution.

Tennessee Lookout | Velsicol made chemicals in Memphis so toxic it could kill a fly before it hit the ground. They finally closed their plant 10 years ago, but a permit that would allow them to continue to store, treat, and dispose of hazardous waste will soon be up for renewal. A six-month investigation looks into exactly what is being cleaned up.

Next City | The Duwamish Valley is getting temporary monitoring sites for air toxins this summer after community scientists collected moss samples that showed high concentrations of arsenic along with measurements of cadmium, chromium, and more.

MLK50: Justice Through Journalism | Preemption has a long harmful history in the South that causes harm to low-income workers of color and women. Now it’s being used in a bill could revive the Byhalia Pipeline with far-reaching implications on fossil fuel infrastructure in Memphis.

Climate Conscious and High Ground News | An energy company wants to build a pipeline above a natural aquifer in an area where earthquakes can happen.

The Urbanist | As Seattle grapples with its hotter summers, people are drowning more than ever in open water like Lake Washington. It’s compounding environmental and social issues for people of color who are in the warmest communities and were historically and violently excluded from swim areas. Policy change increasingly proves to be the most impactful tool for water competency and safety.

Cascade PBS | Friends make the best training partners. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Heather Galeotalanza and Erin Martin started their journey to become competitive athletes in adaptive ski. Despite challenges with COVID and low snowpack, they found themselves at the Winter Paralympics trials, racing for a spot on Team USA.

The Urbanist | At least eight cities south of the Seattle limits lack open space in communities that are low-income and who experience high hospitalization rates for asthma, diabetes, and heart disease. Funding through the Outdoor for All Act could help change that.

Adventure Uncovered | As alpine landscapes melt, adversity locks people out from experiencing elements of a disappearing world. Explore mountaineering culture's problematic and slow shift away from gatekeeping through the story of Alma Wagen — an overlooked Pacific Northwest trailblazer who became Mount Rainier's first woman mountain guide.

TrailRunner, Outside+ | Scientists measure a period of climate, defined as a long-term pattern of weather, over a span of 30 years, and that’s about how long Tim Stroh has been running long distances. As the saying goes, if data is the plural of anecdote, then noting the human experience in climate can give us a clearer picture of what’s happening, and how it affects recreation.

Runners Life | What’s the science of pain when it comes to long-distance running. Is something physically wrong? Is it the perception of pain?

Mountaineer Magazine | We felt breathless as we snowshoed four miles to one of the highest points in Tahoma State Forest. But with every crunch beneath our snowshoes — and between the sounds of our groans — the top of Mount Rainier became more and more visible.