I’ve spent decades fighting for communities left in the dark about the very pollution destroying their health. They had no idea they were being poisoned. When they asked questions, they were told that what was happening in their water, their air, their soil was fine. It wasn’t fine then. And what’s happening right now, town by town across this country, deserves the same scrutiny.

The race to build AI infrastructure is real, and it’s moving fast. Data centers are going up in industrial parks, on the edges of neighborhoods, sometimes right next to schools. Some communities are welcoming them. Others are fighting back.

A whole lot of people in between don’t even know what’s happening, until the permits are already signed.

That’s exactly why I launched the AI Data Center Reporting Map yesterday. Within hours of going live, we were flooded, and I mean flooded, with submissions from communities across the country. So many people reported in so fast that the system briefly couldn’t keep up. That response tells me this issue is far more widespread and urgent than anyone in power is admitting.

This new map is intended to give us all a bird’s-eye view. It shows where these centers are operating, where they’re being built, and where communities like yours are already raising alarms. Go look at it. Report your concerns. Because the first step to protecting your community is knowing what’s in it.

Learn more here —> Brockovich Data Center

What’s the Problem, Exactly?

A data center is a physical facility that houses and runs large computer systems. Right now, Virginia, Texas, and California lead in the number of data centers they house. Companies choose data center locations based on many factors, like the availability of power and water, properly zoned land, and high-quality network access.

Let me be clear about something: this is not about attacking AI. AI isn’t going away, and honestly, it can be a powerful tool, even for answering some of the very questions we’re raising here.

The issue is about living in communities that support our well-being. We need to make sure that the infrastructure powering AI doesn’t come at the expense of the people living around it.

Here’s what I’m hearing from communities coast to coast:

Energy. These facilities consume enormous amounts of power. That doesn’t just mean higher utility bills; it means pressure on the grid, and in some places, pressure to bring in more fossil fuel generation to keep up. In Maine, the prospect of spiking electricity rates was one of the biggest reasons lawmakers moved to pump the brakes.

Water. Cooling systems for data centers can require staggering volumes of water. In drought country, such as California and the Southwest, that’s a major concern. And it’s not just the quantity. Remember Hinkley? The contaminated water that ran through those swamp coolers? Data centers are already being flagged for emitting PFAS plumes. We’ve seen this movie before.

E-waste. The hardware inside these facilities gets upgraded constantly. What happens to what’s left behind? Not enough people are asking that question.

Fire and safety. A fire at a lithium battery storage facility near Monterey reminded everyone: these aren’t neutral facilities. They need buffers. They need distance from homes and schools. They need to be somewhere that, if something goes wrong, it doesn’t become a community catastrophe.

Jobs vs. resources. Here’s the math that nobody wants to say out loud: data centers consume huge amounts of local resources including power, water, land, and they create very few permanent local jobs. Communities deserve to weigh that trade-off with open eyes. When developers come to your town promising an economic boom, ask them how many permanent positions they’re actually committing to. Then get it in writing.

What Can You Actually Do About It?

Here’s where I want to talk directly to city councils, county commissioners, and every concerned community member who thinks they don’t have any power. You have more power than you think.

Zoning and Land Use — Your Most Powerful Tool

Cities decide where these facilities are allowed to go. Full stop. You can restrict data centers to industrial zones only. You can require conditional use permits (CUPs) that force case-by-case approval, giving your community a seat at the table for every single project. You can set distance buffers, keeping these facilities away from housing, away from schools, away from sensitive areas. This slows projects down and gives you leverage to impose conditions. Use it.

Water Permitting, Especially if You’re in California

Water permitting authority is enormous, and in drought-affected states, it may be the single most effective lever you have. Cities can limit or deny high water-use cooling systems. You can also require that facilities use only recycled or non-potable water. Cap water usage and force detailed impact studies before a single permit is issued. Require air cooling or closed-loop systems. In the right circumstances, water restrictions alone can stop or redirect a project entirely.

Environmental Review

In California, CEQA exists for exactly this kind of situation. Projects can be challenged on energy use, emissions, water consumption, and noise because yes, data centers run fans around the clock, and that’s not nothing for the families living nearby. Environmental review won’t always stop a project, but it can delay it by years and force meaningful redesigns. That time matters. Use it to organize.

Power & Grid Accountability

Your city doesn’t run the electrical grid, but you influence the approval process for what’s built to support it. Require proof that new facilities won’t be powered by new fossil fuel generation. Push utilities to disclose the source of electricity going to these facilities and the projected impact on local rates. Some states are already exploring requirements that new loads must be matched with clean energy. Find out where your state stands and push it forward.

Tax Incentives — Don’t Give Them Away for Free

A lot of these projects depend on tax breaks and fast-track approvals to pencil out financially. You can refuse those incentives. Or you can attach strings: local jobs guarantees, renewable energy commitments, and contributions to local infrastructure. Make them earn it. Maine just passed a law prohibiting data centers from accessing the state’s business development tax incentive programs, and it’s a model other states and localities should follow.

Show Up & Speak Out

I cannot overstate how much community pressure matters. More than 140 local groups around the country have managed to block or delay more than $64 billion worth of data center investment, not by hiring expensive lobbyists, but by showing up.

Attend the public hearings. Bring your neighbors. Make your city council understand that their constituents are watching. The elected officials who sit on those councils are accountable to you, and you can remind them of that.

Maine: A Lesson in How Close We Can Get

Maine’s legislature made history earlier this month. Lawmakers gave final approval to a moratorium on data centers larger than 20 megawatts, what would have been the first statewide ban of its kind in the country, blocking new projects until November 2027. The bill passed with bipartisan support. That alone should tell you something: this isn’t a left or right issue. It’s a people issue.

The debate focused on the real trade-offs. On one hand, there were the potential benefits to a former mill town desperate for economic reinvestment, and on the other was the documented impacts on electricity rates, water supplies, and communities across other states where these centers have already landed.

Then the governor vetoed it.

Governor Janet Mills said she would have signed the bill, she called a moratorium “appropriate given the impacts of massive data centers in other states on the environment and on electricity rates,” but vetoed it because the final version lacked an exemption for a specific project in the Town of Jay, a former mill community still reeling from major job losses.

So let me be clear about what happened in Maine: the governor didn’t say the moratorium was wrong. She said the bill needed one carve-out, the legislature wouldn’t add it, and she pulled the plug. Maine Conservation Voters said she was “siding with AI data center developers over the bipartisan will of the Maine Legislature.” Source: Maine Public

That’s not a reason to give up. That’s a reason to get more organized. Because the next vote, in Maine or in your state or city, could go the other way.

Even a governor who vetoed the moratorium felt compelled to sign legislation stripping tax incentives for data centers and promised to establish a commission to draft new regulations. The pressure is working. Keep applying it.

Without a statewide moratorium, data center proposals are now moving forward in multiple Maine communities with local residents left to fight these battles one permit at a time. That’s exactly the situation we’re trying to prevent everywhere else.

Don’t wait for your state to act. Start at your city council. Start tonight.

A Note on What Comes Next

Some of these fights will end up in court. If your community has already experienced pollution, contamination, or health impacts tied to a data center, document everything. Future litigation around data centers is coming. The pattern is too familiar.

For our friends in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, the same dynamics are playing out in your communities too. The goal isn’t to ban these facilities outright.

The most effective strategy, everywhere, is to slow the expansion and force it to be done right: conditional use permits, strict water limits, distance buffers, and environmental reviews. Find the balance.

Don’t let urgency become an excuse to skip accountability.

Take Action

Report & Track

• Brockovich Data Center Map — report your community’s concerns and see what’s happening nationwide

Toolkits & Organizing

• NAACP: Stop Dirty Data Centers — community benefits agreement templates, guides, and the People’s Report

• Coalition for Responsible Data Center Development — free Data Center Resistance 101 Toolkit and connections to other fighting communities

Read the Research

• Data Center Watch: The $64B Pushback — case studies on how communities have successfully blocked and delayed projects

• Harvard Gazette: Why Communities Are Pushing Back — expert analysis on the jobs myth and the transparency gap

• CNN: The Moratorium Movement — how the fight went statewide

Track Legislation in Your State

• MultiState: State Data Center Policy 101 — updated 2026 guide to moratoriums, tax incentive battles, and zoning fights across all 50 states

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. Go to brockovichdatacenter.com, check the map, and report what you’re seeing. We’ll keep updating on you on everything we learn and ways to continue to advocate for sustainable, secure, and efficient AI data center practices.

The 1960s were a decade of upheaval with civil rights battles, political assassinations, and a deeply unpopular war, and by the end of it, many Americans felt the country was coming apart at the seams. Out of that turbulence came something else: a reckoning with the world beneath our feet, above our heads, and running through our cities.

It started with a book. In 1962, marine biologist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, a damning indictment of the chemical industry and its assault on the natural world. It was controversial and it was attacked. But it also lit a fuse.

Seven years later, a river caught fire.

The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, was so choked with industrial waste and sewage that, as Time magazine put it, it “oozed rather than flowed.” When it ignited in 1969, the images were impossible to ignore. How does water burn? The question forced a nation to confront what it had been willing to look away from for generations.

The outrage that followed was real and swift. The Clean Water Act passed. Environmental protection agencies were created at the state and federal level. On April 22, 1970, millions of Americans took to the streets, college campuses, and town halls for the very first Earth Day, the largest environmental demonstration the country had ever seen.

Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, the event’s chief architect, said the goal was simple but audacious: to generate “a nationwide demonstration of concern for the environment so large that it would shake the political establishment out of its lethargy” and force the issue permanently onto the national agenda.

It worked. The question now, more than fifty years later, is whether we’re willing to be shaken again.

The Myths We Need to Leave Behind

The environmental movement has never been more necessary or more misunderstood. A stubborn set of myths continues to cloud public conversation, slow meaningful action, and let the industries most resistant to change off the hook.

It’s time to name them, examine them, and let them go.

Myth 1: The movement is for “saving trees.”

The “tree hugger” label has long been used to dismiss environmentalists as sentimental and out of touch. Protecting the environment has always been about protecting people, and nothing makes that more clear than water.

In Flint, Michigan, a cost-cutting decision to switch the city’s water supply exposed tens of thousands of residents, mostly Black and low-income, to dangerous levels of lead. Children suffered irreversible neurological damage. Families couldn't drink from their own taps. It wasn’t a nature story, it was a human rights crisis. And it happened here in the United States (under a Democratic president).

Air pollution remains the leading environmental risk factor for death around the world, contributing to 7.9 million deaths in 2023, with the largest health impacts seen in low- and middle-income countries where people have higher exposures and limited access to healthcare and other services.

In the U.S., nearly half of us breathe unhealthy levels of air pollution, according to the American Lung Association’s 2025 “State of the Air” report. The report finds that 156 million people live in communities that received an “F” grade for either ozone or particle pollution. Extreme heat and wildfires contributed to worse air quality for millions of people across the U.S. as well.

Clean air, clean water, and a stable climate aren’t fringe concerns, they are fundamental human rights.

Myth 2: Environmentalists are out-of-touch elites.

I’ve met a lot of people in my work and most of them would not identify as “environmentalists” or “activists.” However, people’s perspectives change rapidly when they can’t drink their water.

One of the most contentious talking points from the current administration is the idea that the environmental movement is a product of rich elites and that regulations hurt working-­class people.

I speak with these same people every day, and I can tell you that they are not suffering because of regulations. Instead, they have been harmed by neglected infrastructure updates, corporate misdeeds, and bureaucratic hurdles.

The environmental movement’s most powerful voices have long come from frontline communities bearing the heaviest burden of environmental harm. The environmental justice movement emerged in 1982 in Warren County, North Carolina, when a predominantly Black community rose up against a hazardous waste landfill being built in their neighborhood.

Myth 3: Environmentalists want to drag us back in time.

This concept may be the most backward myth of all. Environmentalists aren’t trying to reverse progress. We are working to accelerate it beyond the limitations of outdated and polluting infrastructure.

Consider water treatment: modern filtration systems, green infrastructure like wetlands restoration, and smart monitoring technologies can deliver cleaner water more efficiently than aging industrial-era systems that leak, corrode, and contaminate.

The movement champions innovation. Solar panels, wind turbines, and advanced water purification aren’t a retreat from modern life.

They are modern life, upgraded.

Myth 4: Environmental protection kills economic growth.

I’ve never understood the idea that we must choose between a healthy planet and a healthy economy. Clean water itself is an economic engine. Tourism, fishing, agriculture, and real estate all depend on healthy waterways.

In 2025, global renewable energy generation surpassed coal for the first time, with roughly 91 percent of new renewable projects now cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives.

Bill Mckibben has been writing about it in his Substack.

“…solar last year supplied more power to the Texas grid than coal for the first time, and that new plans have been announced for a 21-gigawatt solar and battery project in California, much of it on land that’s been ruined by over-irrigation, and that coal generation has now fallen in India and China for the first time in a half-century.”

Clean energy jobs in the U.S. now outnumber oil, gas, and coal jobs by more than three to one. The cost of inaction is becoming impossible to ignore: weather-related disasters caused $55 billion in damages in 2025 alone.

The real economic risk isn’t going green. It’s waiting too long to start.

Myth 5: Going green means giving up.

Environmental action is too often framed as sacrifice. But in most cases, greener choices are simply smarter ones.

On water alone, the math is striking. The bottled water industry record $29.9 billion in sales in 2025. We spend billions each year on bottled water to avoid tap water we don’t trust, while generating mountains of plastic waste that end up back in our waterways.

Investing in clean, reliable public water systems and carrying a reusable bottle isn’t deprivation. It's a better deal. The assumption that our current way of doing things is optimal mistakes the familiar for the ideal.

Reusable water bottles, food containers, and shopping bags aren’t just for reducing waste; they also help us avoid microplastics that harm our health.

Myth 6: One person can’t make a difference.

It’s easy to feel small in the face of a crisis this large. But individual action is not just symbolic, it’s structural.

The Clean Water Act was born from public outrage. Ordinary citizens showed up to city halls, wrote letters, and marched through the streets until their government acted. Research published in Science suggests that when a committed minority reaches roughly 25 percent of a population, it can shift majority behavior.

Every conversation about water quality, every vote cast for infrastructure investment, every demand for corporate accountability over a polluted river or aquifer moves the needle.

Progress, however imperfect, compounds. Inaction, however comfortable, also compounds.

The Truth These Myths Are Hiding

These myths don’t circulate by accident. They serve the interests of industries resisting change and politicians avoiding hard choices. For everyone else, they simply delay solutions we already have.

The environmental movement has never been about going backward. From the burning of the Cuyahoga River to the crisis in Flint to the clean energy and clean water innovations underway right now, it has always been about building something better—a future where people and planet can thrive together.

The only thing standing in the way is what we’re willing to believe.

The Environmental Movement Is For Everyone

Since the first Earth Day in 1970, people from every walk of life from farmers and ranchers to faith leaders and scientists to students, families, and communities on the frontlines of environmental disasters, have driven action that prevented countless illnesses and saved millions of lives worldwide.

Economic prosperity and environmental protections are not competing goals. They are part of the same path forward.

Clean energy and sustainability have already created millions of jobs, lowered costs, and delivered healthier air and water. Governments will delay, corporate interests may distract, but they cannot ignore an organized, determined public.

Losing Our Right to Protest

We’re now facing a new and serious threat. Fossil fuel companies and their political allies have spent the last decade quietly working to make protest itself illegal.

Eighteen states have passed laws making it a crime to demonstrate near oil and gas pipelines and other “critical infrastructure.” Five states have approved legislation that can define an active protest as a “riot.”

Congress is now considering proposals that could criminalize protestors who wear masks, block traffic, and impede pipeline construction. Offenders who aren’t citizens could be deported. Nonprofit groups supporting protests could lose their tax-exempt status.

This wave of legislation traces directly back to the Standing Rock protests of 2016, when Indigenous-led resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline drew national and international attention, cost its developer billions, and briefly succeeded in halting construction.

The industry’s response was to buy influence in state legislatures, using groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to spread model “critical infrastructure” laws across the country.

Most recently, a North Dakota jury handed down a $660 million verdict against Greenpeace, later reduced to $345 million, for its role in supporting those protests. If Greenpeace is forced to pay, it could end 55 years of environmental advocacy. The message being sent is unmistakable: speak up, and we will bankrupt you.

The right to protest has always been one of the most powerful tools in the environmental movement. Earth Day itself was born from it. Protecting that right is now inseparable from protecting the water, land, and climate we march for.

Earth Day’s enduring legacy is people working together to shape a livable future and to never doubt that a dedicated group of people can change the world. That legacy depends on those people still being allowed to show up.

To learn more, check out the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL), a Washington-based research group that tracks legislation in the U.S. that criminalizes public dissent.

This essay was inspired by this one from earthday.org and this piece from Circle of Blue.

Which myth about environmentalism did you once believe, and what changed your mind? Keep the conversation going in the comments below.

Ever wonder why good bills pass but nothing really changes? You might have an industry lobbyist to thank for that.

For decades, cigarette companies employed lobbyists who also worked for hospitals, medical associations, and cancer research groups. The arrangement wasn’t accidental. Tobacco lobbyists played both sides enjoying access to health-focused legislators who might otherwise have shown them the door.

The deal was transactional and corrupt. Ease off on the smoking bans, and they would help get funding for that hospital in your district.

That same dynamic is playing out today with PFAS, the “forever chemicals,” that have contaminated our water, our food, and our blood. PFAS stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. This family of manmade chemicals are known for their stamina, stain resistance, and more. They persist in the environment and in our bodies for decades or longer, accumulating over time, raising long-term concerns for ecosystems and public health.

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A new report by the watchdog organizations F Minus and Mothers Out Front, titled Bad Chemistry, has mapped the web of lobbying conflicts at the heart of the PFAS crisis in extraordinary detail. What they found should make us all furious.

The report looks across states and in Congress at lobbying firms representing the industries fighting to keep PFAS in our consumer products and working with the hospitals, water agencies, local governments, school districts, cancer organizations, and wildlife groups that are paying the price for that contamination.

Sounds like a double standard, right?

Take a look at the lobbying firm Holland & Knight, which in 2025 collected $520,000 from the American Chemistry Council (ACC), one of the most powerful forces in the country fighting to keep PFAS in consumer products and out of federal regulation.

That same year, Holland & Knight collected $80,000 from the City of Philadelphia.

Those two clients were not working toward the same goal. The Philadelphia Water Department had a $2 billion plan in place to comply with Biden-era drinking water standards for PFAS, standards that the ACC was simultaneously lobbying the Trump administration to roll back. The ACC won. The EPA weakened those standards in May 2025.

Philadelphia’s residents, who had been promised cleaner water, are now on the hook for whatever contamination costs follow.

Holland & Knight never had to choose sides. The firm didn’t have to, as no law requires it. It simply cashed checks from both sides of the issue.

This arrangement is a business model, and it is the central mechanism by which the PFAS industry has successfully delayed, weakened, and killed legislation that would protect public health across the country.

The new report documents the full scope of it, and the picture it paints is a direct echo of one of the darkest chapters in American lobbying history.

The Firms Playing Both Sides

The numbers are stark.

132 local governments and government agencies, including the cities of Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Atlanta, share lobbying firms with PFAS industry lobbyists, even as those local governments face staggering future clean-up costs that could be passed on to residents through higher taxes and utility bills.

11 public school systems in areas with PFAS-contaminated water are in the same boat.

26 hospitals and healthcare systems share lobbying firms with the trade associations fighting PFAS regulation, as do major cancer organizations including the American Cancer Society, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center.

Don’t forget that a 2025 study found that PFAS in drinking water was responsible for up to 6,800 cancer cases a year in the U.S.

Even 15 wildlife conservation groups are unwittingly entangled, sharing lobbyists with the industry coalitions that are letting PFAS leach into the ecosystems these groups are trying to protect.

As mentioned above, Holland & Knight lobbies for the ACC but also the City of Philadelphia, Atlanta Public Schools, the American Cancer Society, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Brandeis University, Case Western Reserve University, the Black Women’s Health Imperative, and the National Parks Conservation Association.

And that’s just one firm.

The American Chemistry Council’s Web of Denial

The American Chemistry Council has long served as the command center for PFAS denialism. Emboldened by the Trump administration, which has appointed multiple former senior ACC staffers to key positions at the EPA, ACC now openly supports federal preemption of all state PFAS laws and regulations.

The revolving door is not subtle. Nancy Beck, a current senior EPA adviser on chemical safety, is a former ACC director and lobbyist. In a prior EPA stint, she worked to weaken regulations that track PFAS health consequences.

“Nancy Beck, E.P.A.’s ‘toxics czar’ during the first Trump Administration, is back to fulfill the chemical industry’s wish list,” Daniel Rosenberg, director of federal toxics policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told New Edge Times in 2025. “The weakening of health protections” from toxic chemicals “is just around the corner,” he said.

Lynn Dekleva, another former ACC lobbyist who spent more 30 years at DuPont, was placed in charge of approving new chemicals for market at the EPA, and federal reports documented that she retaliated against employees who raised concerns about chemicals she wanted to greenlight.

Steven Cook, a former lawyer representing PFAS polluters, now works as a principal deputy within the EPA and is actively seeking to scrap the “polluter pays” rules that would hold PFAS manufacturers financially responsible for cleanup.

The financial firepower behind this effort is staggering.

Almost 20 industry trade groups and companies representing PFAS polluters, the fossil fuel industry, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s pro-PFAS deregulation coalition collectively spent up to $60 million lobbying the EPA and more than $12 million lobbying the White House on PFAS-related issues in just the first half of 2025 alone, according to a September 2025 analysis by Food & Water Watch.

Since 2023, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce coalition against PFAS regulation has spent up to $272.8 million in PFAS-related lobbying. Major PFAS producers increased their EPA-focused lobbying spending by 25 percent compared to the first half of the prior year.

In September 2025, the Trump EPA asked a federal appeals court to throw out the regulations limiting four types of PFAS in drinking water, regulations that the Biden administration had spent years developing.

Internal EPA documents leaked to the New York Times revealed that the agency changed its position after meeting with industry representatives. The public will be left footing the bill for cleanup costs, and polluters are off the hook.

What This Looks Like on the Ground

The Bad Chemistry report traces these conflicts state by state, and the examples are damning.

In California, an estimated 25 million people are exposed to PFAS through their water systems, with health impacts costing the state between $5.5 billion and $8.7 billion annually.

When California’s legislature advanced SB 682, a bill that would have banned PFAS in several categories of consumer products, lobbying firms were simultaneously lobbying for the bill on behalf of water agencies and against the bill on behalf of chemical industry clients.

KP Public Affairs, for instance, lobbied for the PFAS clean-up fund on behalf of Western Municipal Water District while opposing the PFAS ban for the California Restaurant Association.

It collected $281,400 from the City of Los Angeles, a city with a 30 percent PFAS contamination rate in parts of its water system and $73,700 from its chemical industry clients.

California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed SB 682 in October 2025, allowing those double-dipping lobbying firms to claim a win with both sides.

In New York, five PFAS-related bills passed the State Senate overwhelmingly in 2025, one of them 53-0, only to die without a vote in the Assembly, blocked by Speaker Carl Heastie. Chemical and plastic industry lobbyists were widely blamed.

The firm Ostro Associates lobbied against a PFAS consumer products ban for the American Chemistry Council and the Cookware Sustainability Alliance, while simultaneously lobbying for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

The firm Actum lobbied for the Cookware Sustainability Alliance while also representing DoorDash, meaning a firm working to keep PFAS in cookware also represents the company delivering food in containers that may be contaminated with PFAS.

In Oregon, lobbying firm Tonkon Torp opposed a bill that would have phased out PFAS in consumer products (HB 3512) on behalf of Oregonians for Food and Shelter, a position co-signed by the ACC. At the same time, a Tonkon Torp lobbyist testified in favor of a bill to fund newborn disease screening.

The irony is not lost on anyone who has read the science: a January 2025 study found that exposure to PFAS in utero and through breastmilk is associated with birth defects, reduced birth weight, diminished immune response, and increased risk of cardiometabolic problems in children.

Tonkon Torp is helping to fund tests for one set of childhood diseases while working to block legislation that would reduce children’s exposure to the chemicals causing those diseases.

In Michigan, where PFAS contamination in drinking water is widespread and school districts sit within miles of contaminated military bases, the lobbying firm Kelley Cawthorne represents both the ACC and the Michigan Chemistry Council, and also represents multiple public school districts, Wayne County, and the Michigan Council on Foundations, which has called clean freshwater “essential for our health, environment, and economy.”

Michigan’s lobbyist disclosure laws are so weak that the full extent of these conflicts can’t even be fully documented.

Minnesota Showed What’s Possible. Now Industry Is Trying to Dismantle It.

Minnesota passed Amara’s Law, the strongest ban on toxic PFAS in the nation, in 2023. By January 2025, the law began implementation. Its goal: eliminate nonessential PFAS use by 2032 and create a public reporting system so consumers can know what’s in the products they buy.

Minnesota is not a fringe state acting recklessly. Japan, England, and France have sent documentary filmmakers to study Amara’s Law. Lawmakers from New South Wales, Australia have come to learn from Minnesota’s approach. The state has become a global model for confronting PFAS contamination at its source.

And yet, since the law passed, industry groups have been working methodically to dismantle it. They’ve pushed for loopholes, exemptions, and extended timelines, arguing for “flexibility” and “feasibility” while the chemicals keep contaminating groundwater and bodies.

State Representative Josh Heintzeman is carrying a bill that would further delay implementation of the requirement that companies report PFAS content in their products, information that is supposed to be publicly available so that parents can make informed decisions about what they bring into their homes.

The industry argument always looks the same. Delay, obscure, exempt, and run out the clock. Meanwhile, communities need new water treatment systems, filtration upgrades, and landfill mitigation. Taxpayers foot the bill to clean up contamination that manufacturers knew about, in some cases for decades.

Internal documents from multiple PFAS manufacturers show that companies knew these chemicals were toxic and persistent and continued to produce and sell them anyway. PFAS is, in the most direct sense, a Minnesota-made problem: 3M pioneered these chemicals, and Minnesotans are still living with the consequences.

Delaying Amara’s Law won’t make contamination disappear. It won’t make cleanup cheaper. It will only guarantee more exposure, more illness, and a larger tab for taxpayers.

The Disclosure Problem

One reason these conflicts have gone largely unexamined is that state lobbyist disclosure laws are profoundly weak.

Only 16 of the 36 states tracked in the Bad Chemistry report require lobbyists to disclose the specific bills they lobby on. Michigan discloses no compensation figures and no bill numbers. Oregon requires no disclosure of bills lobbied or positions taken, and its compensation disclosure system is described as confusing and opaque.

Even in California, which has one of the better disclosure systems in the country, lobbyists are not required to disclose what position they take on each bill, making it easy to play both sides without being caught. F Minus discovered firms lobbying simultaneously for and against SB 682 only by filing a public records request with the Senate Committee on Environmental Quality.

This opacity is not accidental. The regulatory environment is often shaped in part by the very industries that benefit from secrecy.

What Can Be Done

The Bad Chemistry report ends with a clear prescription: local governments, public school districts, hospitals, cancer organizations, and wildlife groups that are clients of PFAS-lobbying firms have the power to disrupt this dynamic.

By adopting policies that prohibit contracting with firms that also lobby for PFAS clients, these institutions can force lobbying firms to choose sides. That choice, multiplied across hundreds of clients, will impose real economic and reputational costs on firms that continue to represent the industries driving the contamination crisis.

That is how Tobacco’s double-agent strategy eventually broke down. It can break down here too, but only if the institutions being harmed by PFAS stop funding the firms fighting on behalf of the polluters.

We need the political will to hold the responsible parties accountable and stop letting them play both sides of the table while communities drink poisoned water and pick up the bill.

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Go to the Sources

F Minus and Mothers Out Front, “Bad Chemistry: The PFAS Lobbyists Who Also Lobby For PFAS Victims,” March 2026

Food & Water Watch, “PFAS Lobbying: Mid-2025 Update, September 2025

Clean Water Action, “Lobbying in PFAS: Big Money is Poisoning our Water,” April 2026

In Other News…

The EPA wants to weaken protections for groundwater near coal ash dumps.

Coal ash, the toxic waste from coal-fired power plants, is stored in massive unlined pits that leach arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and other heavy metals into groundwater, rivers, and lakes. U.S. coal plants produced roughly 63 million tons of it in 2024 alone, according to industry estimates.

The agency’s proposal, made at the behest of electric utilities, would allow site-by-site exemptions from national standards, eliminate volume limits on coal ash spread on land, push groundwater monitoring points further from the pits, and grant more time to remove ash from waste sites. The EPA is already structuring the rule to be legally “severable,” so that courts can’t strike it down all at once.

You can fight this. Public comments are open through June 12. Submit yours at regulations.gov, docket number EPA-HQ-OLEM-2020-0107.

Alright, everyone. That’s a lot to digest! Be kind in the comments to one another, and let us know if you have questions or just want to keep the conversation going down below.

Toxic & Vulnerable

When you live in California, like I do, fire season is always on your mind. Research from last year showed that it is indeed starting earlier and lasting longer in almost every region of the state than it did two decades ago.

Mild winter weather combined with hotter temps this spring mean wildfires could start even earlier this year, particularly in Southern California.

Not only is that a problem for the neighborhoods and businesses in the Golden State but also for the toxic waste. You see, it doesn’t stay put when disaster strikes.

You can bury it, cap it, fence it off, and slap a government seal on it, but the earth doesn’t care about your paperwork—and neither does a wildfire or a flood.

The EPA's own watchdog is sounding the alarm

Across the country federal Superfund sites, places so contaminated that the federal government has designated them national emergencies, are sitting in the path of disasters. We all know that wildfires and floods have become worse, more frequent, and more destructive. You can read more about it here and here.

The EPA’s own internal watchdog (the Office of Inspector General) released a series of three reviews last month to identify Superfund sites that may be at risk from sea-level rise or increased storm surge, inland flooding, and wildfires.

That means the agency itself wasn’t saying it loud enough.

The numbers tell a frightening story

Of 155 federal Superfund sites analyzed for wildfire exposure, 31 of them, or one in five, face real wildfire risk.

Seventy-one percent of those are out West, where anyone with eyes has watched the skies turn orange and entire towns disappear overnight. Of the sites that were supposed to be reviewing their wildfire vulnerability, two out of three hadn’t adequately addressed it. Two out of three. Uhhhh, WTF?!

On flooding, it’s even worse.

About one in three federal Superfund sites with sufficient data for analysis could be at risk from inland flooding. Most of them are on the Atlantic coast, which, last I checked, is not exactly known for being dry.

We already have a real-world preview of what this kind of disaster looks like. When Hurricane Harvey slammed Texas in 2017, floodwaters picked up dioxin chemicals from the San Jacinto River Waste Pits and carried them into neighborhoods. Into streets. Into yards. Into homes.

After the storm, officials checked dioxin levels in the river sediment nearby and found it was more than 2,000 times higher than EPA standards.

Your neighbors are in the crosshairs

I want to be clear about something. The contamination at these Superfund sites doesn’t disappear just because someone puts a fence around it.

These are federal facility sites, owned and operated by the U.S. government, and they average more than 6,000 acres each. About 3 million Americans live within a mile of one and 13 million live within three miles. These are your neighbors. Your kids. Your parents.

These sites are prioritized for environmental cleanups to contain or remove hazardous substances. They are full of asbestos, lead, radiation, and other hazardous materials, and they are not getting cleaned up fast enough.

When a wildfire rips through a site loaded with toxic materials, those contaminants don’t just burn up, they become airborne. They travel. They get into lungs.

When a flood overruns one of these sites, the poisons don’t stay put. They hitch a ride downstream into the water table, into the soil, into communities that had no idea the risk was coming.

The rules exist. Nobody's enforcing them.

The EPA guidance already requires that these sites conduct five-year reviews that address natural disaster threats. The rule exists. It’s on the books. The problem isn’t that nobody wrote it down. The problem is that nobody is making sure it’s being followed, and in the meantime, the climate is not waiting for anyone to get their act together.

It’s the same story, over and over. Someone knows. The data is sitting in a drawer somewhere. Yet the people who live in the shadow of these sites, the ones who drink the water and breathe the air and let their kids play outside, they’re the last to find out and the first to pay the price.

How did we get here?

The EPA’s Superfund program began in 1980 to help clean up some of the country’s worst hazardous waste sites and to respond to local and national environmental emergencies. But since then, how many areas have been thoroughly cleaned? How many people are even aware that they exist?

A Superfund site is any land that has been contaminated by hazardous waste and identified by the EPA as a candidate for cleanup because it poses a risk to human health and/or the environment.

Most of these sites are “discovered” when the presence of hazardous waste is made known to the EPA, meaning communities usually find them first because people get sick. Then, these sites get placed on the National Priorities List (NPL).

This is not a partisan issue. Toxic plumes don’t check your voter registration before they settle in your lungs. Floodwater doesn’t ask your income level before it carries poison into your basement. This is about whether the people we put in charge of protecting us are actually doing their job.

The fix isn’t complicated, even if it isn’t easy.

Every federal Superfund site needs a genuine, rigorous review of its climate vulnerabilities, wildfire, flooding, storm surge, all of it, and that review needs to drive actual action, not just paperwork.

The remedies that have already been put in place, often at enormous public expense, need to be protected from the disasters that are coming. Because the question is no longer whether these disasters will arrive. They’re already here.

Get loud before it's too late

We know what happens when we look away. We’ve seen it. We’ve lived it. I’ve spent my career sitting across from families who were told everything was fine, right up until it wasn’t.

The difference between a community that gets justice and one that gets poisoned is almost always this: whether enough people get loud before it’s too late.

So here’s what I’m asking you to do.

Find out if you live near a Superfund site. You can look it up right now at the EPA’s website. If you do, contact your local representatives and demand to know whether that site has had a current five-year review, and whether that review actually addresses natural disaster risks.

Don’t accept a form letter. Don’t accept “we’re looking into it.” Ask for the report. Read it. Share it. And if your representatives can’t answer you? That’s your answer.

The EPA has the authority to require these reviews. Congress has the authority to fund and enforce them. The only thing that’s ever made either of those institutions move is people who refused to be ignored.

I was a single mom with no law degree when I helped hold a corporation accountable for poisoning an entire town. I turned my anger into questions, and those questions into evidence, and that evidence into accountability.

You can do the same thing. The reports are public. The risks are documented. The people in charge are on the record.

Now they need to hear from you.

Source: Review of Federal Superfund Site Risks Due to Natural Disasters and Extreme Weather, U.S. EPA Office Of Inspector General, Reports 25-N-0040, 26-E-0019, and 26-E-0020 (March 2026).

I was out in Northwest Georgia last week holding town hall meetings on the ongoing PFAS contamination crisis there. Northwest Georgia carpet manufacturers used PFAS in their manufacturing process for years, discharging millions of gallons of toxic “forever chemicals.”

Communities can't defend themselves when they don't know the truth. Town halls help get information to the people.

PBS also produced a great documentary about the toxic legacy of the carpet industy. You can watch it here.

As always, thanks for reading and sharing this information with your friends and neighbors! Have a question or comment? Drop it in the comments below.

Laura McNamara-Smith has lived in Ashville, Ohio, for 50 years.

Three generations of her family call the village home along with more than 4,800 other residents. They all drink water drawn from the Teays Valley Aquifer, an ancient underground formation that flows beneath Pickaway County, less than 50 feet below the surface.

Now a global corporation wants to build an 800-megawatt industrial natural gas energy facility directly above the area’s aquifer—its sole source of drinking water. The facility would take up about 110 acres and provide power to the data center on the same site.

Ashville is a quiet place just 20 miles south of Columbus with a strong community bond, and the proposed EdgeConneX data center threatens to disrupt that tranquility.

Laura recently wrote to me expressing her overwhelm and concerns about the pace and scope of the project.

She said her goal in speaking out was simple: to ensure transparency, accountability, and a clear understanding of what is being proposed and how it may affect her community.

Laura wrote:

I know you understand what it feels like to be a regular person who knows something is wrong and cannot get anyone to listen. That is exactly where we are.

I am not asking you to solve this for us. I am asking you to shine a light on it. Our community is fighting as hard as we can. But we need someone with your voice to help people understand what is at stake, not just for Ashville, but for every community sitting above a vulnerable aquifer that a corporation decides it wants to use.

Laura, I hear you.

And I want you to know, what you are describing is not unusual. It is not a local quirk. It’s a pattern. Even before the data center boom, big corporations used a similar playbook for any project with questionable environmental values.

It looks something like this: identify a resource, move fast, work quietly through local channels, and by the time residents understand what’s happening, the paperwork is already done.

You’re not alone in these struggles. Ohio ranks 5th in the nation for data centers with about 200 sites, according to the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel.

Just 6 hours away in Joliet, Illinois, plans are moving forward to build the largest data center in the state. It also sits on top of an underground aquifer that has been steadily dwindling for the last 150 years.

In fact, reports say the aquifer that supplies Joliet’s drinking water is likely going to run too dry by 2030—a problem more communities face as the climate changes and groundwater declines.

While project supporters welcome advances in data center technology, many Joliet residents have expressed alarm over the potential environmental impact.

Another hastily built supercomputer in South Memphis sits on top of an aquifer with some of the best drinking water in the world. We wrote about it here:

So how do we balance economic and environmental priorities?

I tend to be a fan of the precautionary principle, which is a strategy used to prevent harm to the public or the environment when scientific knowledge is incomplete. It suggests taking preventive action in the face of uncertainty, rather than waiting for conclusive evidence of harm.

Corporations tend to take the opposite approach. Promise local government an influx of jobs and/or tax revenue and get a deal done with as little environmental assessment as possible.

Back To The Water in Ashville

The village’s own Consumer Confidence Report, the annual water quality document that public water systems are required to publish under federal law, tells you something important before you even look at what EdgeConneX is proposing.

The Ohio EPA has rated the Teays Valley Aquifer as having “high susceptibility to contamination” in 2023. The aquifer is separated from whatever happens above ground by a thin layer of clay. Ashville’s 2023 report identifies an existing natural gas line as contamination source number five within the one-year capture zone of the village’s wells, and that’s before any new industrial construction begins.

In February 2026, the Ohio EPA issued a Notice of Violation to Ashville’s water system following a routine inspection, citing a leaking 100,000-gallon storage tank, a well that has been offline since August 2024 with no backup in place, and multiple operational deficiencies. The village’s water infrastructure, in other words, is already under strain.

Now consider what an 800-megawatt natural gas power plant requires on top of that. I’m spit balling here but probably some transmission-scale pipelines, fuel storage, chemical treatment systems, and continuous industrial operations running 24 hours a day, every day.

The routing of the gas pipeline that would serve the facility has not been publicly disclosed. No one in the community has been shown a map of whether it crosses the one-year capture zone of their wells.

Resolution 06-2026, the development agreement the village council voted on, is 8 pages long. It contains zero binding groundwater protections, zero monitoring requirements, and zero enforceable standards for the aquifer.

There Is a Public Meeting. Show Up.

On Wednesday, April 1, PowerConneX is hosting its first public information meeting about the Ashville Energy Center at the Teays Valley High School Cafeteria from 5 to 7 p.m. It will be an open house format.

A second public information meeting will be held at a later date. PowerConneX has stated it anticipates filing its application with the Ohio Power Siting Board within 90 days of that second meeting.

Here is what I want you to do at that meeting: Ask the questions that haven’t been answered yet.

Ask where the gas pipeline goes.
Ask whether it crosses the one-year capture zone of your wells.
Ask what binding protections for the aquifer will be written into any permit.
Ask why those protections weren’t in Resolution 06-2026.
Ask them to show you the map.

You can also reach the project team ahead of the meeting at (703) 935-2452 Ext. 10141 or pcxenergyashville@edgeconnex.com.

The Ohio Power Siting Board is the agency that will ultimately decide whether this facility gets built. The OPSB accepts written public comments at any time. You do not have to wait for a hearing. Case No. 26-196-EL-BGN.
Send comments to: Ohio Power Siting Board, 180 E. Broad St., Columbus, OH 43215. Email: contactOPSB@puco.ohio.gov. Phone: 1-866-270-6772.

Every individual comment matters. Volume matters. Specificity matters. Don’t just say you’re worried. Cite the EPA’s rating, cite the absence of independent hydrogeological studies, and ask the Board what standards will protect the aquifer. Make them answer on the record.

If you want to do more: seek out independent technical expertise. Environmental law clinics, organizations like Earthjustice or the Ohio Environmental Law Center, and university hydrogeology departments are places to start. The company will have its own experts. You need yours.

And tell your story. To your local paper. To your state legislators. To your neighbors. The aquifer is in the floor of your school. It is 50 feet below the ground where your families have lived for generations. That is worth fighting for.

Congress Is Starting to Pay Attention

Ashville is not alone, and the pattern Laura is describing is now registering at the federal level.

Last week Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced the AI Data Center Moratorium Act, legislation that would place an immediate federal pause on new AI data center construction until strong national safeguards are in place.

“Data center construction inflate electric bills in communities across the country,” Ocasio-Cortez said in announcing the bill. “Congress has a moral obligation to stand with the American people and stop the expansion of these data centers until we have a framework to adequately address the existential harm AI poses to our society.”

Sanders was equally direct.

“We cannot sit back and allow a handful of billionaire Big Tech oligarchs to make decisions that will reshape our economy, our democracy and the future of humanity,” he said. “We need a federal moratorium on AI data centers.”

The legislation would require that before development resumes, AI must be demonstrated to be safe and effective, that its economic gains benefit workers and not just tech investors, and that data centers do not increase utility prices, harm communities, or damage the environment.

The bill is part of a broader national reckoning. More than 100 local communities around the country have already enacted moratoriums on data centers, and 12 states are currently advancing statewide moratorium proposals.

In 2023, more than 1,000 industry leaders and scientists called for AI labs to pause development for at least six months. Since then, prominent voices inside the industry itself, including the heads of Google DeepMind and Anthropic, have said they would support slowing AI development if other countries and companies did the same.

What’s happening in Ashville isn’t a local anomaly. It’s one instance of a national problem that Congress is only now beginning to confront.

Upcoming Opportunities To Show Up & Use Your Voice

The first public information meeting will be held:
Wednesday, April 1, 5–7 p.m.
Teays Valley High School Cafeteria, 3887 State Route 752, Ashville, OH 43103

Written comments to the Ohio Power Siting Board may be submitted at any time. OPSB Case No. 26-196-EL-BGN. Contact: contactOPSB@puco.ohio.gov or 1-866-270-6772.

The final village council vote is on Monday, April 6th. I’m always telling people to get to local meetings and show your elected officials that you care about these issues.

See our tips for attending a town hall meeting here.

What’s happening in your community? Are you concerned about data centers? Do you support putting a pause on new facilities?

Spring cleaning? Good. While you're at it, check the tags on your kids’ shirts because researchers just revealed something wild.

At a recent meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), undergraduate researchers from Marian University presented findings that many kids clothes contains an unwanted, toxic ingredient: lead.

They tested fabric from children’s fast fashion shirts sold by multiple retailers and found that every single sample exceeded U.S. federal regulatory limits for lead. Every. Single. One.

Let me say that again. Not some of them. All of them.

The researchers also estimate that even briefly chewing on these fabrics (which young children tend to do) could expose them to dangerous lead levels.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission sets a lead limit of 100 parts per million for children’s products which includes toys, clothing, and more. These shirts blew past that.

Unfortunately a good wash doesn’t get the lead out. The metal binds with dyes and fibers in a way that a typical washing machine cycle cannot eliminate.

And here’s the thing: we already know what lead does to children. Lead exposure at any level can cause behavior problems, brain and central nervous system damage, and a host of other devastating health effects. Children under 6 are considered the most vulnerable.

So why is it in their clothes?

Some manufacturers use lead(II) acetate as a cheap way to make dyes stick to fabric and keep colors bright and long-lasting. Cheap for them. Not so cheap for your kid’s developing brain.

The researchers didn’t stop at measuring lead levels. They simulated stomach digestion to calculate what a child could actually absorb, modeling the kind of mouthing behavior that young children do every day, like sucking, holding, or chewing on fabric.

Their findings suggest that this kind of exposure could exceed the daily lead ingestion limit set by the FDA. Kids chew on their shirts. We all know this. And apparently the industry has been betting that no one was paying attention.

Brightly colored items, especially reds and yellows, showed the highest lead levels, though no color was completely off the hook.

Now here’s what really gets me. Safer alternatives already exist such as natural mordants from plants like oak bark, pomegranate peel, and rosemary, which are environmentally safe. But switching costs money. And without pressure from consumers or policymakers, the industry has zero incentive to change.

This is the same story I’ve seen my entire life. The harm is known. The alternatives exist. But until someone forces the issue, nothing moves.

The good news? This research was driven by a principal investigator who got into this work after her own daughter showed elevated blood lead levels, along with undergraduate students on pre-medicine tracks who saw an overlooked health issue and decided to act. That’s how change starts. Regular people who refuse to look away.

So here’s what I’m asking you to do: share this. Talk about it. Ask the retailers where your kids’ clothes come from and how they’re dyed. Demand answers. Because as one of the student researchers said, “Everything that we’re doing is only important and helpful if we talk about it.”

She’s right. So let’s talk.

Research presented at ACS Spring 2026, March 22–26, 2026. Study title: “Lead contamination in fast fashion children’s clothing,” Marian University.

What To Do Now

Listen, I know a lot of parents need budget-friendly options for fast-growing kiddos. I’ve been there! So here’s a few alternatives to consider.

Buy secondhand first. Thrift stores, consignment shops, Facebook Marketplace, ThredUp, and Poshmark are goldmines for kids’ clothes. Since children outgrow things so fast, secondhand items are often barely worn. You can frequently find name-brand, better-quality pieces for a fraction of the price.

Organize or join a clothing swap. Many communities, schools, and parent groups host kids’ clothing swaps where families trade outgrown items. It costs nothing and you walk away with a new wardrobe.

Shop end-of-season sales at quality retailers. Stores like Land’s End, L.L. Bean, and similar brands run deep discounts (50–70% off) at the end of each season. Buy the next size up in coats, boots, and basics for next year. These items are built to last and often hand-me-down well.

Embrace hand-me-down networks. If you have friends or family with slightly older kids, get yourself on the hand-me-down list. Offer to return the favor when your child grows out of them.

Focus spending on quality basics, not trends. Kids don’t need trendy pieces. They need sturdy everyday basics. Spend a little more on well-made jeans, a good coat, and durable shoes, then fill in the rest secondhand. Trendy tops are exactly what fast fashion does worst from a safety and durability standpoint.

Stick to neutral and muted colors when buying new. Based on the research in the article, brightly colored items, reds and yellows especially, showed the highest lead levels. Choosing more muted tones when buying new clothing adds a small layer of caution while the industry catches up.

Wash new clothes before wearing them. This is a good general rule regardless of brand. It won’t eliminate lead if it’s embedded in the fibers, but it can reduce surface-level chemical residues from manufacturing and shipping.

Look for OEKO-TEX certified clothing. The OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certification means a fabric has been tested for harmful substances including heavy metals. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s a meaningful signal that a brand is paying attention to what’s in their textiles.

The bottom line is that kids’ clothes don’t need to be new to be safe, and often the older, more durable pieces from quality brands that end up at thrift stores are better than what’s being manufactured cheaply today.

Learn more about fast fashion and its impact on water here.

What do you think? Are you surprised that researchers found lead in kids’ clothing? Or just life as usual in the good ole’ chemical-laded USA?

Right now, across this country, something extraordinary is happening, and most people haven't heard about it yet. I know, we’ve got a lot going on these days.

States are done waiting. They are acting boldly and with mounting sophistication to protect families from the toxic chemicals that have been quietly contaminating our food, our water, our clothes, our children's toys, and the products we use every single day.

At least 15 major state laws are taking effect in 2026 alone. More than 275 policies are moving through legislatures in 33 states. These protections will reach more than 62 million people, addressing toxic chemicals and plastics.

Last month, Safer States released its 2026 Analysis of State Policy Addressing Toxic Chemicals and Plastics, finding that a wave of state health protections is moving from adoption to implementation this year.

Safer States is a national alliance of environmental health organizations and coalitions from across the nation working to safeguard people and the planet from toxic chemicals.

These state actions reflect a growing shift toward health-first, prevention-based policy and demonstrate how state leadership is reshaping national markets.

“Toxic chemicals and plastics are contaminating our lives without our consent,” Sarah Doll, national director of Safer States said in a statement. “The good news is that this harm is preventable. The protections taking effect this year show what strong, health-centered leadership can achieve and why state action is as important as ever.”

The forever chemical reckoning

For decades, PFAS have been in everything from firefighting foam and cookware to food packaging and cosmetics. These harmful substances don’t break down. They build up in our bodies. And for years, the companies making them knew it, and said nothing. I’ve met the firefighters whose colleagues died of cancer at alarming rates. I’ve talked to the farm families whose land was contaminated by sludge they thought was fertilizer.

Nine of the 15 major policies taking effect this year directly target PFAS.

States are phasing them out of consumer products, requiring disclosure, protecting highly exposed workers, and putting cleanup money on the table. They’re not addressing PFAS one chemical at a time; they’re going after the entire class.

That’s a smarter, stronger approach, and it’s working. Supply chains are already changing. Products are being reformulated across the country, not just in the states where the laws passed.

When one state sets a health-based standard, companies don’t typically make a special version just for that state. They change the product. That’s how state action reshapes national markets. Here’s what that looks like on the ground right now.

PFAS Bans & Disclosure Laws in 2026

Maine

Broad PFAS ban across clothing, cookware, food packaging, dental floss, children’s products, menstrual products, personal care, ski wax, and textiles.

Protects 1.4 million people

Colorado

Bans PFAS in artificial turf, cookware, carpeting, cleaning products, menstrual products, dental floss, and ski wax.

Protects 6 million people

Vermont

Bans PFAS in artificial turf, clothing, children’s products, menstrual and incontinence products, personal care products, and textiles.

Protects 648,000 people

New York

Bans PFAS and other toxic chemicals in menstrual products.

Protects 20 million people

Minnesota

Requires manufacturers to report their use of forever chemicals in all products sold in the state, making it the broadest PFAS disclosure requirement in the world.

Protects 5.8 million people

Rhode Island

Requires testing of biosolids for forever chemicals before land application, closing a loophole that let PFAS spread from wastewater back onto farmland and into food.

Protects 1.1 million people

Maine and Minnesota have both set a target of banning all unnecessary PFAS uses by 2032. These aren’t one-off fixes. They’re the beginning of a systematic phase-out.

Plastics are a public health crisis too.

I want you to think about everything you touched today that was plastic. Your coffee cup lid. A receipt at the pharmacy. Your child’s lunch container. You spinach container. Each of those items can leach toxic chemicals like endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, and microplastics directly into food, drink, and bodies.

States are now treating plastics as what they are: a public health problem, not just a litter problem. The policies advancing in 2026 target toxic chemical additives in plastics, restrict microplastics in everyday products, and push for upstream prevention. This action works to stop the harm before it spreads rather than managing the mess after the fact.

Some changes are already becoming visible in daily life. New Jersey is now requiring restaurants to serve dine-in customers with reusable utensils, disposable ones only available on request. Michigan is requiring filtered water refill stations in all schools, protecting 1.2 million students. Oregon’s ban on polystyrene in food packaging is in effect.

These policies succeed because they don’t ask individuals to make better choices. They make the safer option the default. That’s how you get lasting change.

Your lipstick, your lotion, your period products

Why are the products marketed most aggressively to women, such as cosmetics, personal care items, and menstrual products, had the least oversight and the most dangerous chemical ingredients? Am I the only one that thinks about these things?

Additionally, women of color are specifically and disproportionately targeted with products that contain higher levels of harmful chemicals. That is an injustice piled on an injustice.

States are fighting back. Washington State has enacted first-in-the-nation rules banning nine chemical classes from personal care products and cosmetics, including PFAS, phthalates, and formaldehyde-releasing chemicals.

California has banned all bisphenols from children’s feeding products, protecting 5 million children under 12.

Washington’s rules also ban bisphenols from receipt paper, those little slips of paper cashiers hand you that have been shown to transfer hormone-disrupting chemicals through skin contact.

Cosmetics, Personal Care & Everyday Product Laws in 2026

Washington

Nine chemical classes banned in personal care products and cosmetics, including PFAS, phthalates, and formaldehyde. Bisphenols banned in receipt paper.

Protects 8 million people

California

All bisphenols banned from children’s feeding products including bottles, cups, plates, utensils.

Protects 5 million children under 12

New York

Bans forever chemicals and other toxic chemicals in menstrual products.

Protects 20 million people

Michigan

Requires filtered water refill stations in all schools.

Protects 1.2 million students

These are not radical demands. They are basic dignity. And 19 major retailers have already restricted bisphenols in receipt paper nationwide in response to state action. The market is listening.

Washington is moving backward. States are charging forward.

I’ll be honest with you about the threat we’re facing. While states are stepping up, there are industry-backed proposals in Congress right now trying to gut the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the primary U.S. chemical safety law.

This law passed in 2016 with bipartisan support. Industry wants to kneecap the EPA’s authority to restrict dangerous chemicals, shortcut safety reviews, and strip states of their power to protect their own people.

The corporations funding those rollback efforts are the same ones that have known for years what their chemicals do to human bodies. They are not confused about the science. They are betting that we won’t fight back hard enough. They have been wrong before.

So what can you do right now?

Here’s how to start:

• Find out if your state is one of the 33 considering toxic chemical legislation in 2026, then contact your state legislator and say you support it.

• Call or email your U.S. Representative and Senators and tell them to oppose any weakening of the Toxic Substances Control Act.

• Look up Safer States and your state’s environmental health coalition, sign up, show up, speak up.

• Talk to your neighbors, your school board, your local elected officials. Local pressure is where movements are built.

• When a company claims their product is safe, ask for the evidence. You have a right to know what is in the things you bring into your home.

Know that you are not alone in caring about these issues. A 2025 poll from Environmental Defense Fund found that 92 percent of U.S. adults feel that protecting clean air and safe drinking water should be treated as a top public health priority, just like preventing disease.

We can never accept “that’s just how it is” as an answer. That’s what’s happening right now in statehouses across this country.

Mothers, firefighters, farmworkers, doctors, and yes, ordinary people who are just plain fed up are working to changing the law for the better.

The states are leading. The question is whether enough of us will follow.

Keep the conversation going. What’s happening in your state?

First, they pollute. For years. Decades, even.

Plastic pellets, powder, flakes, foam, pouring out of a 4,700-acre complex on the Texas Gulf Coast into the waterways that feed the San Antonio Bay.

Nurdles sound like something cute. But when these tiny plastic pellets wash up on the banks of the canal, they pile up in the sand right where kids swim.

Microplastics, like nurdles, do not dissolve or disappear with time. They linger downstream, impacting sealife, marine birds, and even potentially human health.

Every single day that production plants are running, the plastic goes in the water.

Then someone notices. Someone like Diane Wilson, a 78-year-old retired shrimper and Goldman Prize-winning activist, who spent a year boating up and down that canal, collecting bags and buckets full of evidence. She didn’t go to law school, didn’t work for a lobbying firm, didn’t have a corporate expense account. A woman who knew her water, knew her bay, and knew something was deeply wrong.

Then they get sued. And here’s where it gets wild.

When Dow Chemical found out that the San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper was about to take them to court, and they saw the buckets of pellets and the 25-page legal notice, they didn’t clean it up. They didn’t apologize. They didn’t even pretend.

They filed a 320-page application to make it legal.

That’s right. Dow went to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and asked them to rewrite the rules.

The current wastewater permit says chemical plants can only discharge “trace amounts” of “floating solids.” Dow’s argument? That language is “vague.” That it has “the potential to be more stringent than necessary.” They want to discharge an unspecified amount of plastic into public waterways, and they want the state’s blessing to do it.

I’ve seen a lot in my years fighting for people whose water has been poisoned and whose complaints have been ignored. But the audacity of this move still stops me cold. You spend decades fouling a bay, and when you finally get caught, your solution is to change the definition of “caught.”

And the state? Well, the state stepped right in, but not in the way you’d hope.

Just 58 days after the Waterkeeper filed its notice of intent to sue, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office swooped in with its own lawsuit against Dow.

Sounds like justice, right?

Except under the Clean Water Act, once regulators file suit, citizens can’t. The state effectively used its own lawsuit as a lid, something to slam down on top of the Waterkeeper case and smother it.

Here’s the play: Sue the polluter, then negotiate a quiet settlement, all while keeping the environmentalists out of the courtroom.

Convenient.

Wilson called the state’s lawsuit “a sweetheart deal with industry.”

And let’s talk about who’s making the decisions here. Dow’s permit amendment will eventually go to a vote by three commissioners at the TCEQ, all appointed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Learn more here.

Dow contributed $20,000 to Abbott’s inaugural committees. Another $5,000 to his 2026 reelection campaign and $100,000 to the Republican State Leadership Committee.
Source: The Texas Tribune

I’m not saying money buys outcomes. I’m saying it buys access. It buys a phone call that gets returned. It buys the kind of relationship where nobody’s in a hurry to say no.

Meanwhile, Diane Wilson and a bunch of volunteers are out on a boat.

The people who actually protect our water aren’t usually the ones with the permits and the lawyers and the campaign contributions. They’re the retired shrimpers. The volunteers collecting evidence in rubber boots. The citizen groups with nonprofit attorneys who outwork everyone in the room because they have no other choice.

Groups like Waterkeeper already proved this works. They sued Formosa Plastics in 2016, won a landmark settlement in 2019, and forced the company to pay more than $100 million into an environmental trust. Similar groups won settlements in South Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Every one of those victories started with ordinary people who refused to look away.

The science is catching up, too. We’re slowly beginning to understand how long plastics facilities have been pumping microplastics into our waterways, and how serious the damage is.

As one attorney put it, the governments are following in the wake of citizen activists on this issue. Think about that. The people who are supposed to protect us are being dragged forward by the people they’re supposed to protect.

Dow’s permit amendment is open for public comment right now. If it’s approved, it could set a precedent for plastics facilities across the state, and potentially beyond, to discharge whatever they want and call it permitted.

Legal experts say it would face serious challenges under the Clean Water Act’s anti-backsliding provisions. But challenges take time, and time is something the bay doesn’t have.

They’re counting on you not paying attention. They’re counting on the process being boring enough, technical enough, slow enough, that you tune out before the vote happens. They’re counting on Diane Wilson being alone out there on that canal.

Don’t let her be.

Texas is the nation’s largest chemical-producing state, with most industry located on the state’s Gulf Coast. About 46 petrochemical plants operate in the region—the largest concentration in the country—constituting 42 percent of the U.S. petrochemical capacity.

More than 400 million tons of plastic are produced globally each year by converting fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas into tiny plastic pellets called nurdles, which are used for manufacturing every kind of plastic from water bottles to car parts.

An estimated 230,000 tons of nurdles enter the world’s oceans annually due to spills and discharge from petrochemical facilities. By 2050, experts predict that there may be more plastic by weight than fish in the world’s oceans.

What To Do

If you live in Texas, you can help by requesting a public hearing on Dow’s permit. Please fill out the form at this link.

Tell the TCEQ what you think about legalizing plastic pollution.

Follow and support the work of San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper for updates here. Show up for the people who’ve been showing up for all of us.

Because here’s the truth they never want you to know. You have more power than they want you to think. And every single time ordinary people have used it, things have changed.

The water is worth fighting for, as are the people who’ve been fighting for it alone for far too long.

Learn more about nurdles here:

Read more about this issue in The Texas Tribune.

Have you heard of nurdles? Concerned about plastic pollution? Keep the conversation going in the comments below.

Let me tell you something I don’t say very often. I’m cautiously hopeful about something the government just did.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has launched the California Water Plan 2028, and for the first time in this state’s history, there’s a real, measurable target attached to it—9 million acre-feet of additional water supply by 2040.

That’s not a press release talking point. That’s a number. And numbers, unlike promises, can be held to account.

Now, I have been publicly critical of Newsom and his administration on many issues in the state through the years, so I do stress the cautious part of my optimism.

I’ve spent decades watching communities get handed official-sounding documents while their tap water turned every color of the rainbow. When Sacramento starts talking about “the most ambitious water plan in state history,” I don’t reach for the champagne. I reach for my reading glasses and a highlighter. Because the devil, as always, is in the details.

But here’s the thing, what I’m reading in SB 72 and the framework around the 2028 Water Plan is different from the usual political theater. It’s got measurable benchmarks, a mandate to set localized targets, and an advisory committee that’s supposed to include tribal representatives, environmental justice groups, and labor, not just the water districts and agricultural lobbyists who’ve been running the show for generations.

That’s real.

Why This Plan Matters

California is in a genuine water crisis, whether or not you live in a county that’s feeling it yet. The state swings between biblical floods and multi-year droughts with almost nothing in between. Snowpack, the natural reservoir that’s fed this state’s farms and cities for centuries, is shrinking. And a shrinking snowpack isn’t just an inconvenience for skiers; it’s an existential threat to the 4th largest economy in the world.

“California’s hydrology is changing,” Department of Water Resources (DWR) director Karla Nemeth said in a statement. “We’re living that now. Extreme wet swings to intensely dry within the same season.”

The fact that someone at the top of California’s water apparatus is saying it out loud, on the record, is noteworthy.

California State Senator Anna Caballero, who authored SB 72, put it plainly: for the first time, California is setting a clear statewide target and establishing measurable benchmarks.

The mandate to transform the Water Plan from a passive descriptive document into an action-forcing directive is real. It’s in the law. That’s not nothing. That’s significant.

The Parts That Gives Me Pause

Now. Here’s where I put down my cautious optimism and pick up my magnifying glass. Because there are real questions this plan does not yet answer—and the communities that need clean, reliable water the most can’t afford to wait until 2028 to find out the plan has gaps in it.

Who enforces the targets? The 9 million acre-feet goal is described as an “interim statewide planning target.” Planning targets without enforcement teeth have a long history of being quietly set aside when they become inconvenient. What happens if California is 2 million acre-feet short in 2039? Who pays? Who’s held accountable?

Environmental justice isn’t window dressing. The advisory committee is supposed to include EJ representation, and that’s a step forward. But historically, these seats get filled with organizations that are well-networked in Sacramento but disconnected from the communities actually drinking polluted water. Hinkley wasn’t on anybody’s committee. Make sure the right voices are in the room, and that they have real power, not just a seat.

Agriculture’s water footprint needs honest math. The plan talks about supply, conservation, recharge, and storage. Agriculture accounts for roughly 40 percent of California's total water use, and about 80 percent of all developed water, the kind that gets collected, managed, and conveyed by agencies.

On top of that, agriculture draws on vast quantities of groundwater, with about 40 percent of its needs met through subterranean sources. That overdraft is hollowing out aquifers that communities depend on for drinking water and causing measurable ground subsidence across the Central Valley. If those realities aren't woven explicitly into the localized targets and cost-benefit analyses, this plan risks being a masterwork of creativity around the edges of the real problem.

Data collection is not the same as action. One of the three primary workstreams is improving data. We need that, absolutely. But data collection has a way of becoming a substitute for decision-making. I want to see aggressive timelines that prevent “we’re still gathering data” from becoming a decade-long delay tactic.

2040 is 14 years away. Not all communities have 14 years to wait. They need interim milestones that matter now, not just a finish line that politicians in 2040 may never have to answer for.

What Gives Me Hope

Despite those concerns, which I raise not to tear this plan down but because I’ve earned the right to ask hard questions, there are genuine signals that something different is happening here.

The language coming from DWR Deputy Director Joel Metzger gives me pause in a good way.

“The new California Water Plan is where vision meets accountability,” he said in a statement. “I’m inspired by the partnerships forming around this work and the shared commitment to long-term water resilience. Relationships, trust building, and compelling storytelling will be essential to moving this work forward successfully.”

He’s right. The communities that have been left out of water planning don’t need another technical document dropped on their doorstep. They need to be part of crafting the story. If DWR actually means that, it changes the nature of what this plan can become.

What You Can Do Right Now

The thing about these plans is that they become what the public makes them. The advisory committee holds its inaugural meeting in April, and those meetings are public. CaliforniaWaterPlan.com is live. The engagement window is open right now.

If you live in a community that’s been dealing with contaminated water, inadequate infrastructure, or systematic exclusion from water policy decisions, show up. Bring your neighbors. Make sure the people crafting this plan understand that accountability isn’t a footnote; it’s the whole point.

California is staring down a water future that is genuinely frightening if we don’t act with both ambition and honesty. The 2028 Water Plan represents a real attempt to do both. Governor Newsom and Senator Caballero deserve credit for putting a number on the wall and a legal mandate behind it.

Now comes the harder part. The follow-through. Fourteen years of follow-through, across changing administrations, in the face of drought years and flood years and all the lobbyists and competing interests that will try to water this plan down—pun fully intended!

I’ve been fighting for clean water long enough to know that the difference between a plan and a result is people who refuse to let the plan die quietly. Be those people. California’s water is worth fighting for. It always has been.

Meanwhile in Mississippi…

U.S.EPA and Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) will hold a community meeting on Thursday, March 5, to inform the community of the agencies’ response to trichloroethylene (TCE) contamination in private drinking water wells.

EPA is assisting MDEQ by working to provide bottled water and whole house filters to properties with TCE contamination above the Federal Drinking Water Maximum Contaminant Level for TCE of 5 parts per billion (ppb). EPA is continuing to sample residential wells in the area of interest and MDEQ is working to determine the source and extent of contamination.

When:
Thursday, March 5 at 6 p.m.

Where:
Byhalia Town Hall    
225 MS-309
Byhalia, Miss. 38611 

In Case You Missed It:
Community members in Marshall County are dealing with contaminated well water issues after high levels of TCE, a known carcinogen, were found when a resident recently tested their well water and detected dangerous.

EPA has distributed bottled water to homes with high levels of TCE and met with concerned homeowners. This water contamination specifically impacted those with private well water.

The mayor of Byhalia said that those on the public water system in Byhalia are safe.

Trichloroethylene, also known as TCE, is a colorless, nonflammable liquid solvent used in commercial, and consumer products, such as industrial cleaners, degreasers, lubricants, adhesives, automotive care products, and cleaning and furniture care items.

EPA issued a final rule regulating TCE under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in December 2024 to help protect people from health risks including liver cancer, kidney cancer, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. TCE also causes damage to the central nervous system, liver, kidneys, immune system, reproductive organs, and causes fetal heart defects.

Let this be a reminder to everyone with private well water to regularly get your water tested at least once a year.

For those in the area impacted, our friends at MyTapScore have told us they’ve been fielding calls from residents about how they are being tossed from company to company trying to track down reliable testing for this contaminant.

They recommend that private well owners in the impacted areas use the VOC Water Test, which includes TCE in addition to a range of other VOCs.

Many well owners have either never tested their wells or have not tested in decades. If that’s the case, you might want to consider a more comprehensive test such as the Advanced Home Water Test, which also includes TCE.

This is not any kind of sponsored ad, we just know the people over there, and that their tests work. You can also check out this U.S. EPA site for more information about private water wells.

Stay safe, everyone! Suzanne always talks about a saying she leaned in journalism school, “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”

The same applies to your water. Always check your water report, and if you have private well water, it’s on you to get it tested and make sure it’s safe.

I’ve spent much of my life standing next to rivers that people told me were “fine.”

Rivers where the water looked a little off, smelled a little wrong, and the officials kept saying, “don’t worry about it.” I know what it looks like when a community is being failed by the very systems built to protect it.

And right now, I want us all to take a good hard look at the Potomac River.

More than 200 million gallons of raw sewage poured into one of the most storied waterways in America after a section of the Potomac Interceptor collapsed in January.

It’s the largest spill in U.S. history. To attempt to visualize it, you’d have to picture 300 Olympic-sized swimming pools filled with untreated wastewater.

People in Cabin John, Maryland, are calling it the “Pooptomac” now, and I get it. Dark humor is how you cope when your government lets you down.

I want to shine a light on what’s really been lost here, because this crisis isn’t a punchline. It’s a catastrophe unfolding in slow motion, and the American people deserve better.

George Washington could have built his home anywhere on the Eastern Seaboard. He chose the Potomac River, forever identifying it as the Nation’s River. It has earned that name in every generation since.

This river—all 380 miles of it, running from the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia through the hills of Virginia and Maryland, draining a watershed of nearly 15,000 square miles—feeds the Chesapeake Bay, the most important estuary on the East Coast.

It provides 90 percent of the drinking water to the Washington, D.C. metro area. Four million people a year come to its banks just to be near it. Olympic paddlers train on it. Families tube down it on hot summer afternoons. Fly fishermen. Kayakers. Wildlife watchers. This river is not just beautiful; it’s alive, and it’s essential.

David Hearn, an Olympic canoeist who has paddled these waters for almost 60 years, told the media he is “heartbroken” over what happened. That word broke something open in me as well. It’s not just one man’s loss. A whole community’s soul has been washed away in filth.

This contamination didn’t have to happen, and most times it doesn’t. The Potomac has been fighting for its life for decades.

President Lyndon Johnson stood on its banks in 1965 and called it “a national disgrace” because of the pollution choking it. He was right. Wetlands bulldozed. Algae blooms. Trash. The river that carries the weight of this nation’s history was being treated like a dump.

Then the Clean Water Act of 1972 came along, and slowly—painfully, imperfectly slowly—the Potomac started to breathe again. Bass came back. Shad returned. White perch too. The Potomac Conservancy started giving it better marks. It was working.

And now a 60-year-old pipe that collapsed, because nobody replaced it, and millions of gallons of human waste are flowing through what was supposed to be a crown jewel of wilderness. Researchers are already finding E. coli. Staph bacteria. The kind of pathogens that don’t care what party you vote for. They just make you sick.

I’ve heard the official reassurances. I’ve heard “no new sewer overflow has gone into the river since January 29.” But I’ve also heard residents say the smell still wafts into their homes. I’ve heard them say they won’t let their dogs or their kids near the water. And I’ve heard a community leader say that hope “has dimmed a little bit.”

I know what it sounds like when people have been told to wait long enough that they’ve stopped believing things will change.

The real repairs to the collapsed pipe can’t even begin yet. The rocks blocking the line have to be removed one by one. The bypass system has to be strengthened first. This is going to take months. Months, while fecal bacteria seeps into the ecosystem. While underwater grasses, already slow to recover from decades of damage, absorb the blow.

What are we doing about it politically? Fighting over who to blame. The president is pointing fingers at Democrats. The governor’s office is firing back. Meanwhile, the people of Cabin John just want to be able to walk their dogs by the river again.

I’ve been called a troublemaker. I’ve been told I don’t understand science, don’t understand law, don’t understand how these things work. But I understand that when a community stands next to a river full of sewage and the people in charge are holding a press conference instead of a wrench, something has gone very wrong.

The Potomac doesn’t belong to any politician. It doesn’t belong to any utility authority. It belongs to the millions of people who visit its banks every year. It belongs to the millions of others downstream whose drinking water flows through it. It belongs to the shad and the bass and the white perch who spent 50 years coming back from the brink. It belongs to every child who has ever dangled their feet in its current.

President Clinton recognized the Potomac as an American Heritage River in 1998. Heritage. That means it belongs to the future too. To our kids. To their kids.

I’m asking you not to let this moment pass. Don’t let them spin it or bury it or wait until the cameras move on.

Make The Ask

Ask who was responsible for maintaining that pipeline. Ask why a 60-year-old pipe was carrying an ever-increasing load with no long-term plan. Ask why a community is being told to wait, again, while their river suffers.

Demand that the rehabilitation of that pipeline, all 2,700 linear feet of it, is done right and done with urgency. Demand a real long-term plan for aging infrastructure before the next collapse, because there will be one.

The Potomac has survived coal country runoff. It has survived nitrogen and phosphorus loading from farms. It survived being called a national disgrace and came back from it. It is resilient. But resilience has limits.

They nicknamed it the “Pooptomac,” but this river was named after a people who lived along its banks for centuries before anyone built a nation around it. It deserves better than 200 million gallons of waste and a political argument.

It deserves what every river in this country deserves. It needs to be treated like it matters. Because it does. Because you depend on it, whether you know it or not.

And I, for one, am not going to let anyone forget that.

Rivers Aren’t Just Scenery…

Let me tell you something that gets lost in the political noise every single time something like this happens. Rivers aren’t just scenery. They aren’t just recreational assets or tourist attractions or pretty backdrops for real estate listings.

Rivers are the original infrastructure—the one that every other system we’ve built depends on, whether we acknowledge it or not.

Right now, about 70 percent of all the freshwater used in the United States comes from surface water such as rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. More communities in the U.S. get their tap water from surface water systems than from groundwater.

Think about that the next time you turn on your tap to fill a glass, brush your teeth, or boil water for your kids’ pasta. That water might have come from a river. And if that river is compromised—by sewage, by runoff, by neglect—the treatment systems downstream are working that much harder, and the margin for error gets that much thinner.

We’ve been lulled into a false sense of security by the miracle of modern water treatment. We trust that the water coming out of the faucet is safe.

But treatment plants aren’t magic. They are designed to handle a certain load, a certain type of contamination. Dump 200 million gallons of raw sewage into a watershed, introduce E. coli and staph bacteria at scale, and you’re stress-testing a system that was never meant to absorb that kind of shock.

The people of Flint, Michigan, know what happens when water infrastructure fails, and officials look the other way. The people who worked and lived at Camp Lejeune know. The people of Hinkley, California, know. Ask the people of Jackson, Mississippi, too.

Beyond drinking water, rivers hold communities together in ways that are harder to measure and just as real. A healthy river is an economic engine thanks to all the fishing guides, the outfitters, the riverside restaurants, the marinas, and hotels.

In the Potomac basin alone, recreational water use generates hundreds of millions of dollars annually. When a river gets sick, those livelihoods get sick too. When parents won’t let their kids swim, when anglers can’t eat what they catch, when paddlers stay off the water, the damage ripples out far beyond the riverbank.

Something that’s even harder to put a dollar figure on is how rivers give people a reason to show up for where they live. They create belonging. They are where families spend Sunday afternoons ,and where kids learn that the natural world is something worth protecting.

When a river is poisoned, something in the community’s sense of itself gets poisoned too.

That’s why we can’t treat this incident as an isolated infrastructure failure and move on. Every river in this country is downstream of every decision we make whether that’s about development, about funding, or what we’re willing to demand from the people who manage our public systems.

The Potomac is telling us something right now. It’s telling us that aging pipes and political finger-pointing are no match for the basic needs of millions of people who depend on clean water to live.

It’s telling us that the progress we’ve made since 1972 is real but fragile. It’s telling us that rivers remember everything we do to them, and so do the communities that love them.

We must LISTEN.

The Potomac Conservancy is calling on DC Water to:

Immediate & Short-Term Actions:
Provide transparent, ongoing updates regarding the volume of sewage released, the duration of the spill, and the effectiveness of the containment measures.

Investigation & Accountability:
Identify other known or potential weak points within the system and provide a clear, swift timeline and plan for addressing them.

Restoration, Mitigation, & Long-Term Prevention:
Commit to comprehensive environmental mitigation and restoration efforts to address ecological harm to the C&O Canal and Potomac River, both in the immediate aftermath and over the long term.

You can learn more here.

Keep the conversation going in the comments below. What does your local river mean to you?

Before we get into the “meat” of today’s story, I want to address two other oil spills that occurred in the last month, in addition to our last story:

Newport News, Virginia. More than 7,700 gallons of jet fuel spilled into the James River last Friday near Newport News Shipbuilding during a transfer to an aircraft carrier.

The spill happened around 1 p.m. on February 13, and as you can see from the news story below, over the weekend, residents started to smell it.

The city of Newport News confirmed in a statement Sunday evening that the cause of the spill was under investigation and that nearby residents may smell the odor.

“Out of an abundance of caution, residents and boaters are advised to avoid areas of the river where fuel sheen is visible or where odors are especially strong,” the statement advised. “Individuals who experience persistent symptoms are encouraged to seek medical guidance.”

SMH. 🤦‍♀️

Local drinking water remains safe, according to the Virginia Department of Health.

Wayne, West Virginia. About 2,400 homes were without water service for 3 WEEKS because of alleged vandalism at a substation that led to the leak of nearly 5,000 gallons of oil into Twelvepole Creek, which runs through Wayne before draining into the Ohio River.

Wayne water customers were under a Do Not Consume order from January 16 to February 6. Hydrocarbons were found in the Wayne water system, according to the state Department of Health.

A class action lawsuit claims the town knew its water system was vulnerable to contamination because of the substation location. The plaintiffs say the town’s water system has been subject to failures, leaks, breaks and maintenance conditions that hat could delay or complicate mitigation and restoration of water service following contamination.

The Fight For Who Should Pay For Increasing Insurance Premiums

Let me tell you something I’ve learned after decades of fighting corporate giants who think they can poison our communities and walk away clean: they always know. And they always count on us being too tired, too broke, or too scared to fight back.

Well, guess what? We’re not backing down anymore.

Right now, families in California, Hawaii, and New York are getting crushed by skyrocketing insurance premiums. Not because they did anything wrong. Not because they’re bad at managing their money. But because the fossil fuel industry has spent the last 50 years turning our planet into a tinderbox while lying about it every step of the way.

And who’s paying the price? You are. The single mom in Altadena who lost everything in the Eaton fire. The condo owner in Maui watching their premiums shoot up 50% in a single year. The Brooklyn family whose insurance just doubled in three years. Meanwhile, ExxonMobil posted more than $28 billion in profits last year.

It’s sick.

That’s why lawmakers in California, Hawaii and New York have introduced measures to authorize their attorneys general to sue fossil fuel companies on behalf of residents whose insurance premiums have soared amid climate disasters.

They Knew What They Were Doing

These oil companies knew exactly what they were doing. Internal documents show they understood the climate crisis they were creating back in the 1970s. Their own scientists warned them that burning fossil fuels would warm the planet and cause exactly the kind of catastrophic weather we’re seeing now.

And what did they do with that information? They buried it. They launched massive PR campaigns to sow doubt. They spent billions convincing the public that climate change was a hoax while they quietly prepared their own facilities for rising seas and extreme weather.

Every time I talk about climate and weather in this newsletter, I get a barrage of folks telling me I’ve been “compromised” and that climate change is a “not real.” Kids, follow the money!

What incentive do I have to talk about these insane, worsening weather events and what incentive does Big Oil have to bury this critical information?

They protected themselves and left the rest of us to drown, sometimes literally.

Insurance companies are fleeing California so fast it makes your head spin. In less than ten years, reliance on California’s Fair plan, the insurance of last resort, has grown 500%.

Five. Hundred. Percent.

That’s what happens when private insurers decide covering climate disasters isn’t profitable enough and just abandon people.

“They just packed up and left,” Hawaii State Senator Jarrett told The Guardian. He’s talking about insurers fleeing Hawaii after the devastating 2023 Maui fires caused more than $2.3 billion in claims.

But he could just as easily be talking about how fossil fuel companies have abandoned any sense of responsibility for the crisis they created.

The Real Refugees

Rasheed Ali stood at a press conference in California earlier this month and said something that should shake every one of us, “We became refugees overnight.”

This is America. And we’re creating climate refugees in our own country.

Rasheed had insurance. He did everything right. But his decades-old policy never got adjusted to reflect his home’s real value. So when the Eaton fire took everything, insurance didn’t come close to covering it. There’s a “massive financial gap” his family is struggling to fill, a gap that shouldn’t exist. That gap was created by an industry that knew this was coming and did it anyway.

You know what the American Petroleum Institute (API) had to say about bills that would hold their member companies accountable? They called it a “coordinated campaign against an industry that powers everyday life.”

Are you kidding me?!?

You know what else powers everyday life? Having a roof over your head that doesn’t burn down in climate-fueled wildfires. Having insurance you can actually afford.

California housing prices are already outrageous, and now many families face challenges affording their home insurance due to rising premiums and limited options, especially in high-risk areas affected by wildfires.

It’s time to make polluters pay for the mess they created—a mess they knew all about.

Here’s how it would work: These new state bills target fossil fuel companies worth at least $500 million that do business in those states. Money recovered in court would go directly to covering residents’ rising insurance rates. It would help fund the Fair plans that have become the only option for thousands of families after private insurers bailed. In California, funds could even help to fire-proof low- and middle-income homes.

In Hawaii and New York, the bills go even further, giving insurance companies themselves the legal right to sue the fossil fuel industry after a climate disaster. That’s important. Because when insurance companies have to pay out billions for climate-fueled disasters, they either raise everyone’s rates or they leave. Either way, regular people get screwed while oil companies count their profits.

The LA wildfires in January 2025 destroyed more than 18,000 homes and properties. The fires were named the most destructive in the modern history of the city of Los Angeles and estimated to be one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history.

California’s Fair plan expects to pay out $4 billion in losses. To cover that, they had to ask insurers for $1 billion, and half of those costs will likely be covered by jacking up rates.

Sierra Kos, who founded the disaster survivor network Extreme Weather Survivors, put it perfectly, “Survivors should not be the ones forced to carry the financial burden of disasters that fossil fuel companies knowingly helped create.”

The Usual Playbook

Of course, the oil industry is fighting back. They always do. It’s the same tired playbook.

We’re talking about an industry that made hundreds of billions in profits while creating an existential crisis. They can afford to pay their fair share. They just don’t want to.

The API’s spokesperson said these bills would set “a dangerous precedent of state overreach” by “retroactively penalizing companies for meeting consumer demand.”

Meeting consumer demand? They created the demand! They spent decades making sure we stayed dependent on fossil fuels, while hiding what it was doing to the planet. That’s not meeting demand. That’s manufacturing dependence while suppressing the truth.

“There’s going to be a lot of pushback. We know that the oil companies have tons and tons of money, and they are going to put a lot of pressure on our legislators and policymakers not to pass this legislation. So that means that we now have a big job to do. We have got to get out there. We’ve got to organize,” said Dolores Huerta, the legendary labor organizer who’s fought corporate power for longer than most of us have been alive, at a California press conference.

She’s right. This is going to be a fight. Big Oil doesn’t give up easy. They’ll spend millions lobbying against these bills. They’ll run ads. They’ll make threats. They’ll do whatever it takes to avoid accountability.

But here’s the thing they always forget: we’ve got something they don’t. We’ve got the truth on our side. We’ve got families who’ve lost everything. We’ve got communities that have been abandoned. We’ve got mountains of evidence that they knew exactly what they were doing.

And increasingly, we’ve got lawmakers who are fed up with watching their constituents get destroyed while oil executives give themselves bonuses.

State Senator Scott Wiener, who introduced California’s bill, said, “We know that the years ahead are going to be dramatically more dangerous, tragically, when it comes to climate disasters, and we can’t allow Californians, our residents, our small businesses, to be left holding the bag.”

He’s absolutely right.

Then EPA Made It Worse

Just as states are trying to hold polluters accountable, the EPA decided to throw gasoline on the fire.

Last week, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin stood in the White House Roosevelt Room and announced what he called “the single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history.” He eliminated the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and all federal emission standards for vehicles.

They’re calling it a win for taxpayers. They claim it’ll save Americans $1.3 trillion.

Let me tell you what it’s really going to cost us.

Zeldin called the Endangerment Finding the “Holy Grail of the climate change religion.”

Religion. As if the science of climate change is some kind of faith-based belief system instead of documented fact. As if the families losing their homes in wildfires or giant, once-in-a-lifetime storms and floods, are just making it up. As if insurance companies fleeing entire states is mass hysteria.

Here’s what the Trump EPA won’t tell you: eliminating vehicle emission standards doesn’t make climate disasters go away. It makes them worse.

When those disasters get worse, you know who pays? Not the EPA. Not Trump. Not the oil companies celebrating this decision.

You do! Through your insurance premiums. Through your tax dollars when disaster relief runs out. Through your home equity when your neighborhood becomes uninsurable.

The Real Math

The EPA claims they’re saving Americans more than a trillion dollars by eliminating vehicle emission standards. They say it’ll cut $2,400 off the cost of each new car.

But they’re not counting the other side of the ledger. They’re not counting what it costs when we make climate change worse instead of better.

California’s Fair plan is expecting to pay out $4 billion just from the January 2025 LA wildfires. The Maui fires caused $2.3 billion in claims. And those disasters are happening in a world where we HAD emission standards trying to slow climate change.

Now imagine what happens when we accelerate it instead.

Your insurance premium isn’t going to drop $2,400 because your neighbor bought a cheaper car. But it sure as hell is going to keep climbing when the wildfires get bigger, the hurricanes get stronger, and the floods get worse because we decided to pump even more carbon into the atmosphere.

The EPA claims that “even if the U.S. were to eliminate all GHG emissions from all vehicles, there would be no material impact on global climate indicators through 2100.”

Let’s review.

We’re ignoring that vehicle emissions are a major contributor to overall U.S. emissions, accounting for nearly 30% of our total greenhouse gas output.

Second, let’s get back to the classic polluter’s playbook: “Well, we’re just one country, so why bother?” as if that excuses making things worse.

Most importantly, it completely ignores that every bit of warming we prevent matters. Every tenth of a degree matters. Every wildfire we don’t have matters. Every home that doesn’t burn down matters.

Who Really Pays?

Here’s what’s going to happen now that the Trump administration has eliminated federal vehicle emission standards.

More carbon in the atmosphere means worse climate disasters. Worse climate disasters mean higher insurance payouts. Higher insurance payouts mean insurance companies either raise premiums or flee the state entirely. When they flee, residents are forced onto Fair plans funded by taxpayers.

The EPA says they’re “returning the American Dream” by making cars more affordable. But what good is saving $2,400 on a car if you lose your $300,000 home because it became uninsurable?

What good is a cheaper vehicle if you’re paying an extra $5,000 a year in insurance premiums? Or your property taxes go up because your state has to bail out the insurance system?

This is exactly the kind of short-term thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.

Administrator Zeldin also eliminated “off-cycle credits” including the start-stop feature he calls “almost universally despised.” Fine. I don’t care about the start-stop button.

But gutting emission standards entirely? That’s not about consumer choice. That’s about letting automakers pollute more while Americans pay the price through climate disasters.

The Timing Couldn’t Be Worse

Think about the timing here. States are introducing bills to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the insurance crisis their emissions created. And the Trump administration responds by... making it legal to emit even more?

It’s like watching someone’s house burn down, and instead of helping put out the fire, you show up with a can of gasoline.

A few states are trying to recover costs from past climate damage, but the Trump EPA just guaranteed there will be a lot more damage in the future.

Because here’s the thing about climate change: it’s a multiplier. It makes everything worse. Worse air quality during heat waves. Worse flooding that spreads pollutants. Worse wildfires that fill the air with toxics. You can’t separate climate from public health. They tried to pretend you could, and people are dying because of it.

And It Gets Even Worse

You thought your insurance premiums were the only thing fossil fuels were destroying? Think again.

While we’re talking about holding Big Oil accountable for the insurance crisis, let’s not forget about the other ways they’re poisoning us. Fossil fuels aren’t just burning down our homes through climate disasters. They’re also contaminating the water we drink.

See the examples of spills we talked about at the beginning of this article.

Fossil fuels make up about 79% of total U.S. primary energy production. That’s a lot of drilling, a lot of mining, and a whole lot of opportunities to pollute our water supply.

Look at fracking, a process where they inject high-pressure chemical fluids into the ground to extract natural gas. Those chemicals don’t just stay put. They leach into aquifers. They contaminate groundwater. A study found that in areas with shale gas development, there’s 17 times more methane in the drinking water.

The EPA has identified more than 1,000 contaminated sites related to coal ash in the U.S. alone. Coal ash ponds, which contain arsenic, mercury, lead, and other heavy metals, leak into rivers and streams. They seep into groundwater. They poison wells. Communities living near these sites have elevated cancer rates, but the coal companies keep operating because cleaning up their mess would cut into their profits.

And oil spills? Don’t even get me started. The Exxon Valdez disaster released millions of gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989. That was 35 years ago, and they’re still finding contaminated areas. Marine ecosystems destroyed. Fishing industries devastated. Water that was clean for thousands of years, ruined in a matter of hours.

But big spills like that make headlines. You know what doesn’t? The everyday contamination. The pipeline leaks. The storage tank ruptures. The runoff from mountaintop removal mining that’s laden with heavy metals and toxins. All of it flowing into streams, into rivers, into the water supply.

And don’t forget industrial runoff discharges heavy metals, hydrocarbons, and toxins directly into waterways.

As many as 1 in 10 American deaths today are caused by air pollution from fossil fuels, according to Bloomberg. But water pollution from the same industry? That’s harder to track, harder to prove, and a lot easier for companies to deny. Which is exactly why they keep doing it.

Gasoline and oil spills from vehicles seep into soil and eventually make their way into water supplies. Small spills seem insignificant, but they add up. Across millions of vehicles, across decades, it’s massive contamination that we’ve just normalized.

So when we talk about holding fossil fuel companies accountable, we’re not just talking about insurance premiums. We’re talking about the air our kids breathe. The water they drink. The food they eat. The planet they’re going to inherit.

The fossil fuel industry has been poisoning us for decades, and they’ve known about it the whole time. They studied it. They documented it. And then they buried the evidence and kept drilling.

States Are On Their Own

The EPA’s latest action sends a clear message to states: you’re on your own.

The federal government isn’t going to help slow climate change. It isn’t going to help make cars cleaner. It isn’t going to help prevent the disasters that are bankrupting your insurance markets.

Good luck with that insurance crisis! We’re too busy eliminating “climate change religion” to care that your residents are losing their homes.

This is exactly why the bills in California, Hawaii, and New York are so critical right now. With the federal government actively making things worse, states have to take matters into their own hands. They have to hold polluters accountable because the EPA sure isn’t going to do it.

These three bills are part of something bigger. Seventy state and local governments across the US have already sued Big Oil for deceiving the public about the climate crisis. Vermont and New York passed “climate superfund” bills requiring the largest oil companies to help pay for climate adaptation.

Now, with the federal government abandoning any pretense of addressing climate change, these state-level actions aren’t just important, they’re essential.

The walls are closing in.

For decades, fossil fuel companies privatized the profits and socialized the losses. They made money hand over fist while the costs of their business model--the fires, the floods, the hurricanes, the uninsurable homes—got dumped on regular people.

That’s not capitalism. That’s not free market economics. That’s theft.

They stole our climate stability. They stole our sense of security. And they’re trying to steal our ability to hold them accountable.

What You Can Do

If you live in California, Hawaii, or New York, call your state legislators. Tell them you support these bills. Tell them about your insurance premiums. Tell them you’re tired of paying for a crisis you didn’t create.

If you live anywhere else, demand similar legislation in your state. Because this isn’t just a California or Hawaii or New York problem. Insurance premiums are rising everywhere. Climate disasters are hitting everywhere. And fossil fuel companies are profiting everywhere.

Get loud. Get organized. Get involved.

The oil industry is counting on us being too overwhelmed to fight back. They’re counting on us accepting that skyrocketing insurance premiums are just the “new normal.”

But I’ve learned something fighting corporate polluters for the last thirty years. They can only get away with what we let them get away with. The moment we stand up, the moment we organize, the moment we demand accountability, that’s when things start to change.

The Bottom Line

The EPA claims they’re saving you money by making cars cheaper. But they’re costing you a fortune in insurance premiums, disaster recovery, climate damage, water treatment, healthcare costs from pollution-related illnesses, and environmental cleanup. They’re just hiding those costs and pretending they don’t exist.

That’s the polluter’s playbook, and it’s worked for decades. But not anymore.

The fossil fuel industry needs to pay. Not with meaningless PR campaigns about how green they’re becoming. Not with token investments in renewable energy while they keep drilling and keep poisoning our water. With actual money. Money that goes to the people whose lives they’ve destroyed. Money that helps communities adapt to the crisis they created. Money that fire-proofs homes and funds insurance programs and rebuilds what their business model burned down. Money that cleans up contaminated water and treats the illnesses their pollution caused.

Senator Keohokalole said something that really resonated with me, “Without a doubt, the increasing incidence of really devastating natural disaster events is what’s driving the insurance crisis. Whose fault is that? We know.”

We have the receipts. We have the science. We have the truth.

And more importantly, we have each other. We have survivors who are willing to stand up and tell their stories. We have lawmakers who are willing to take on Big Oil and Big Energy. We have organizers who know how to build movements.

The insurance crisis isn’t just about premiums. It’s about power. It’s about who gets to profit from destroying the planet and poisoning our water and who gets stuck with the bill. It’s about whether we’re going to let corporations get away with knowingly creating multiple crises and then walking away clean.

I’ve spent my life fighting for communities that powerful corporations thought they could ignore. Communities whose water was poisoned. Communities whose children got sick. Communities who were told their health problems were their own fault, not the fault of the companies dumping toxins in their backyard.

And I can tell you this: they always think they’re going to win. Right up until they don’t.

Additional Resources

How ‘Big Oil’ works the system and keeps winning

Oil & Gas Action Network

Center for Climate Integrity

350.org

Fossil Fuel Industry’s Influence on Public Opinion, Policy, and Media Narratives

Fossil fuel companies’ climate communication strategies: Industry messaging on renewables and natural gas

Networks of climate obstruction: Discourses of denial and delay in US fossil energy, plastic, and agrichemical industries

U.S. Senate Committee On The Budget

Let’s keep the conversation rolling in the comments below!

Last week, while most people in Griffin, Georgia, were getting ready for work, pouring coffee, and brushing their teeth—someone at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport had a little problem.

A fuel spill. How much fuel? They would’t say for days.

[Earlier today, the EPA said it was 10,000 gallons.]

Why did it happen? They can’t tell you that either.

But here’s what I can tell you: more than 20,000 people in Griffin were suddenly told not to drink their tap water. Not even if they boiled it. Do NOT Drink.

Think about that for a moment. You turn on your faucet, the same faucet you’ve used your whole life, and suddenly the water that comes out might poison you.

This Isn’t the First Time (And That’s the Problem)

This incident isn’t some freak accident. The Flint River’s headwaters start right near the airport. Actually, let me be more specific—they’re under the airport, hidden in pipes beneath one of the world’s busiest airfields. Jet fuel and sewage from Hartsfield-Jackson have “repeatedly” contaminated these headwaters, according to reports.

Repeatedly.

That’s not the word you use for an accident. That’s the word you use for a pattern. That’s the word you use when nobody’s been held accountable.

The spill is still being quietly cleaned up. But news reports continue to point out the visible sheen of petroleum contamination can still be seen on the Flint River.

Gordon Rogers, the Flint Riverkeeper, told CBS News that both airport and Atlanta city officials have been unusually tight-lipped about the spill.

“The longer this goes, the more concerned we are about the magnitude of it,” he said. “We don’t know its duration and we don’t know its volume.”

The “do not consume” advisory in Griffin has been lifted but questions remain.

The Timeline of a Cover-Your-Ass Operation

Let’s walk through Friday’s events, because the timeline tells you everything you need to know about priorities:

8:30 a.m. - County fire officials notice something’s wrong

11:00 a.m. - Emergency management finally gets looped in (two and a half hours later)

Sometime after that - Griffin’s 20,000+ residents get told their tap water might poison them

Meanwhile, airport spokesperson Alnissa Ruiz-Craig said, that cleanup and mitigation were underway. That’s corporate-speak for “we’re really hoping this blows over quickly.”

Who Pays the Price?

Griffin shut down their water intakes from the Flint River. They scrambled to pull water from a Pike County reservoir instead. They opened fire hydrants to flush their entire system. They’re running tests to see if the water is safe.

All of this costs money. Money that comes from a city budget, which means it comes from taxpayers. The same taxpayers who can’t drink their water. The same taxpayers who have to buy bottled water for drinking, cooking, brushing teeth—all the things we take for granted every single day.

And who’s footing the bill for the airport’s “cleanup and mitigation”? I’d love to know.

The River Keeps Flowing

Here’s the kicker: the Flint River doesn’t stop at Griffin. It flows southwest, becomes one of Georgia’s major rivers, and eventually merges into the Apalachicola River in Florida.

How many more communities downstream are at risk? How far does this contamination spread?

When you dump jet fuel into a river system, you don’t just poison the water at the spill site. You send a toxic wave downstream to every town, every family, every kid who plays in that water.

What “Repeatedly” Really Means

Let’s go back to that word: “repeatedly.”

When something happens repeatedly, it means:

• Someone knew it could happen

• Someone didn’t fix it

• Someone decided the risk was acceptable

• Someone was wrong

The Flint River’s headwaters are buried under the airport. This isn’t a design that happened by accident—someone built it that way. And when you put critical water sources under an operation that uses jet fuel and generates sewage, you better have a failsafe. You better have a system so airtight that contamination is impossible.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is one of the busiest airports in the world. They have the resources to fix this mess. They have the engineering expertise. They have the money.

What they apparently don’t have is the will to fix this.

The Questions Nobody’s Answering

Since the airport can’t (or won’t) tell us how much fuel spilled or why it happened, let me ask the questions they should be answering:

1. What systemic failures allowed this to keep happening?

2. What’s the total environmental cost of this spill and all the previous ones?

3. What communities downstream have been exposed to contamination over the years?

4. What are you doing—RIGHT NOW—to make sure this never happens again?

This Is About Trust

When you tell 20,000 people they can’t drink their tap water, you’re not just creating an inconvenience. You’re breaking a fundamental social contract.

We pay our water bills. We pay our taxes. We trust that when we turn on the tap, what comes out won’t hurt us. That trust is sacred. And once it’s broken, it’s almost impossible to rebuild.

Ask the people of Flint, Michigan. They’ll tell you.

What Happens Next

Griffin is testing their water. The airport says cleanup is underway. Officials are monitoring the situation.

But let me clear monitoring isn’t preventing. Testing isn’t protecting. And “underway” isn’t the same as “completed and will never happen again.”

The people who live nearby this spill deserve answers. They deserve accountability. They deserve a guarantee that their tap water will never again carry jet fuel from an airport that can’t even tell them how much spilled or why.

And every community downstream on the Flint and Apalachicola rivers deserves the same.

We’ve Seen This Movie Before: The Red Hill Disaster Should Have Been Atlanta’s Wake-Up Call

If you think what happened in Atlanta is an isolated incident, let me tell you about Hawaii.

In November 2021, the U.S. Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility in Hawaii leaked jet fuel into the drinking water system serving thousands of military families and Oahu residents. Nearly 20,000 gallons of JP-5 jet fuel spilled when a cart hit and cracked a fire suppression pipe—a pipe that had been holding fuel from an earlier leak that same year.

Sound familiar? It should.

The parallels between Red Hill and Atlanta:

1. “Repeatedly” is the operative word

Just like Hartsfield-Jackson has “repeatedly” contaminated the Flint River, the Navy’s records show at least 72 documented fuel releases from Red Hill its 80-year history. That’s more than 180,000 gallons of fuel released into Hawaii’s groundwater. The Navy has accepted 58 of those claims as legitimate spills.

Seventy-two releases. Let that sink in.

And just like Atlanta, officials kept assuring everyone it was fine. In 2014, after a 27,000-gallon spill at Red Hill, Navy officials looked concerned citizens in the eye and said, “We drink from the same aquifer as everyone, we would never poison our own people.”

Then in 2021, thousands of people got poisoned anyway.

2. The warnings were ignored

As far back as 2017, the EPA warned that Red Hill posed a “significant environmental threat” to Oahu’s groundwater. In 2019, the Navy’s own risk analysis found a 27.6% chance of a fuel release between 1,000 and 30,000 gallons.

They knew. Just like someone at Hartsfield-Jackson had to know that burying the Flint River’s headwaters under an active airport was a disaster waiting to happen.

In both cases, warnings were issued. In both cases, nothing changed. In both cases, people paid the price.

3. Critical water sources put at risk by design

Red Hill’s 20 massive underground fuel tanks—each 250 feet tall, capable of holding 12.5 million gallons—were built directly above Oahu’s aquifer. The Flint River’s headwaters run in pipes underneath Hartsfield-Jackson’s runways.

In both cases, someone made a conscious decision to put vital water sources in harm’s way. And in both cases, when the inevitable happened, thousands of people suddenly couldn’t drink their tap water.

4. The same health nightmare?

In Hawaii, families reported the same terrifying symptoms we should be watching for in Georgia: neurological issues, skin problems, respiratory distress.

Mai Hall, a Native Hawaiian military spouse, described putting tape over her faucets because she couldn’t believe the water—water that had been there for centuries—was poisoned.

“We were all fighting over water,” she said. “The system has failed us.”

5. The victims are still suffering

Here’s the part that should terrify all of us: As of April 2024—more than two years after the 2021 spill—Red Hill victims are still in court seeking compensation. Many are still dealing with health impacts. Children are still sick.

The DOJ admitted the U.S. “does not dispute” the spill “caused a nuisance” and that the government “breached its duty of care.” But admission isn’t the same as accountability. Admission doesn’t make sick kids healthy again.

6. It takes a catastrophe to force action

Despite 72 documented releases, despite EPA warnings, despite a 2014 spill of 27,000 gallons, it wasn’t until the 2021 disaster that officials finally ordered the permanent closure of Red Hill.

Seventy-two times wasn’t enough. It took thousands of sick people—including military families who were supposed to be protected—before anyone with power said “enough.”

How many spills will it take at Hartsfield-Jackson? How many communities like Griffin have to be told their tap water is poison before someone shuts this down permanently?

7. The cover-up is standard operating procedure

After the 2014 Red Hill spill, the Navy didn’t verbally notify the EPA for three days. Written notification took 10 days. In 2012, Navy facilities were fined $80,000 for disposing of hazardous waste in the trash and storing hazardous materials in open containers.

In Atlanta, airport officials can’t (or won’t) tell us how much fuel spilled or why. The pattern is identical: when something goes wrong, minimize, delay, and hope it blows over.

If we don’t learn from Red Hill & Atlanta, here’s what we can expect:

• More spills (because “repeatedly” means it’s not going to stop on its own)

• More communities affected (because rivers flow and contamination spreads)

• More sick people (because the health effects are real and long-lasting)

• More legal battles (because getting accountability and compensation takes years)

• More excuses (because powerful institutions protect themselves, not people)

Since April 2024, most of the 104 million gallons of fuel in Hawaii have been removed, but cleanup will take years. There’s still an estimated 28,000 gallons of sludge in 14 tanks and 4,000 gallons of residual fuel in nearly 10 miles of pipelines.

That’s what “cleanup” looks like: years of work, millions of dollars, and a community that will never fully trust their water again.

The question we should be asking:

Here’s what I want to know: How many Red Hills do we need before we stop putting critical water sources under facilities that handle millions of gallons of toxic fuel?

Atlanta has already had multiple contamination events that we know about.

Are we really going to wait for our own catastrophic spill—one that sickens thousands, contaminates the water for years, and requires decades of litigation—before we decide that “repeatedly” is too many times?

Because that’s the choice we’re making right now. We can learn from Hawaii’s nightmare, or we can wait to live through our own.

I know which one I’d choose.

What You Need to Know About Jet Fuel Spills

Before we talk about what to do, let’s talk about what you’re actually dealing with when jet fuel spills into your water. Because “fuel spill” sounds abstract. What’s really happening is a lot more specific—and a lot scarier.

What’s actually in jet fuel?

Jet fuel isn’t just one chemical. It’s a complex cocktail of hundreds of different hydrocarbons. The specific types used at commercial airports like Hartsfield-Jackson include JP-5, JP-8, and Jet A. These fuels contain dangerous components you might have heard of:

Benzene - A known human carcinogen that causes leukemia

Toluene - Damages your nervous system, liver, and kidneys

Ethylbenzene - A possible human carcinogen

Xylene - Affects your nervous system, heart, liver, and kidneys

These four chemicals are often grouped together and called BTEX. When they contaminate drinking water, health effects include dizziness, headache, nausea and vomiting, fatigue, blurred vision, loss of muscle coordination, and irregular heart rate. That’s just from short-term exposure. Long-term exposure is worse.

What happens when jet fuel hits water?

When jet fuel spills into a river or stream, several things happen fast:

1. It spreads quickly - Jet fuel spreads very quickly to a thin film on water, covering massive areas almost instantly.

2. Some of it evaporates - The volatile components evaporate from spills to open water, which sounds good until you realize people downstream might be breathing those fumes.

3. Some of it dissolves - The chemicals that don’t evaporate can dissolve in water. These dissolved chemicals are what contaminate drinking water supplies.

4. The rest sinks or sticks - The chemicals that bind to sediment may settle to the bottom of the water and stay there for a long time. This creates long-term contamination even after the visible fuel is gone.

5. It kills wildlife - Fish and invertebrates in small streams can be affected for miles downstream of a jet fuel release into the water.

What about when it soaks into soil?

This is where it gets really nasty. When jet fuel spills onto soil—like, say, under an airport—it seeps into the ground, contaminating local soil and aquifers. And according to environmental engineers, that type of contamination can be very difficult to remediate and can create water quality problems for years for local communities relying on well water.

Some of the components evaporate. But many don’t. Components that do not break down easily and components that stick to soil particles may stay in the soil for a long time. We’re talking months to years, especially if the fuel has penetrated deep into the soil where there’s less oxygen to help break it down.

Health impacts you should know about

The research on jet fuel exposure is extensive, and most of it comes from studying military personnel and airport workers who handle these fuels regularly. Here’s what we know:

Short-term exposure can cause:

• Skin, eye, nose, and throat irritation

• Respiratory problems (especially for people with asthma)

• Neurological effects like dizziness and headaches

• Liver and kidney damage at high doses

Long-term exposure is associated with:

• Liver dysfunction, emotional dysfunction, abnormal electroencephalograms, shortened attention spans, and decreased sensorimotor speed

• Nervous system damage

• Damage to the liver, immune system, and the skin

• Potential cancer risk (especially from benzene)

• Reproductive effects

You can learn more here and here.

Very little data exists on the toxicity of kerosene-based jet fuels in humans. Most studies focused on workers, not on communities drinking contaminated water. So when someone tells you the water is “probably safe,” understand that we don’t actually have great data on what happens when regular people—kids, pregnant women, elderly folks—drink water contaminated with jet fuel.

The BTEX problem

Remember those four chemicals—benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene? They’re particularly nasty because:

1. They dissolve in water easily - Unlike some petroleum products that just float on top, BTEX chemicals actually dissolve, making them harder to see and remove.

2. They affect multiple body systems - BTEX exposure impacts the respiratory, cardiovascular, digestive, urinary, hematologic, hematopoietic, immune, reproductive, and nervous systems.

3. Benzene causes cancer - Not “might cause” or “possibly causes.” Benzene is a known human carcinogen that causes leukemia. There is no safe level of benzene exposure.

4. The effects add up - When you’re exposed to a mixture of these chemicals (which is what happens in a fuel spill), the effects are generally additive. They make each other worse.

Why “repeated” contamination is a disaster

The fact that Hartsfield-Jackson has “repeatedly” contaminated the Flint River headwaters means this isn’t a one-time exposure event. Repeated contamination means:

• The soil and groundwater have had multiple chances to absorb these chemicals.

• Cleanup between spills was probably incomplete.

• There’s likely cumulative contamination that hasn’t been fully assessed.

• Communities downstream have been exposed multiple times without knowing it.

Bottom line on health risks

If you’ve been drinking water potentially contaminated with jet fuel:

• Document any health symptoms, especially neurological ones (headaches, dizziness, memory problems, attention issues).

• Tell your doctor about the exposure.

• Keep records for potential future health claims.

• Don’t assume that because you feel fine now, there won’t be long-term effects.

The research on chronic, low-level exposure to jet fuel through drinking water is limited. We’re essentially in uncharted territory and that’s not reassuring.

What You Can Actually

Look, I didn’t write all this just to make you mad. I wrote it to make you move. Here’s how you fight back:

If you live near a spill or in downstream communities:

1. Document everything. Take photos of bottled water receipts. Keep records of every expense related to this contamination. Screenshot official warnings. Save news articles. You might need this evidence later for class action lawsuits or compensation claims.

2. Get your water tested independently. Don’t just trust official testing. Keep those results. Compare them over time.

3. Attend every city council meeting. Show up. Bring your water bills. Make them look you in the eye and explain why your tap water isn’t safe. Record these meetings if it’s legal in your state.

4. Form a community coalition. There’s power in numbers. Create a Facebook group, organize neighborhood meetings, collect stories from affected families. When you speak as a unified group of thousands, politicians listen.

For everyone who cares about clean water:

5. Contact your representatives—and be specific. Don’t just say “I’m concerned.” Demand:

• A full public accounting of every contamination incident at Hartsfield-Jackson

• Independent oversight of airport environmental compliance

• Mandatory infrastructure upgrades to prevent future spills

• Compensation for affected communities

• Criminal investigations if negligence is found

Find your Georgia state representatives at www.legis.ga.gov. Call them. Email them. Show up at their offices.

6. Support environmental watchdog groups. Organizations like the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper and Georgia River Network already monitor water quality. They have lawyers, scientists, and political connections. Support them financially if you can, or volunteer. They’re fighting this battle every day.

7. Follow the money at airport authority meetings. The airport is run by the City of Atlanta Department of Aviation. Their meetings are public. Attend them. Ask questions during public comment periods:

“What’s the total cost of environmental remediation from spills in the past decade?”

“Why hasn’t infrastructure been upgraded to prevent repeated contamination?”

“What personal accountability exists for officials who oversee this?”

8. Support affected businesses. Restaurants, coffee shops, any business that relies on water. Support them. They’re victims too, and they have economic leverage to push for change.

9. Educate yourself on environmental law. The Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act—these exist to protect you. Learn what they say. Learn when they’ve been violated. Knowledge is power, and legal knowledge is the kind of power that makes officials very nervous.

The long game:

14. Vote. Every official who oversees that airport, every legislator who could strengthen environmental protections, every judge who hears environmental cases—they’re all elected or appointed. Vote for people who treat clean water as a non-negotiable right, not a luxury.

15. Run for office yourself. Seriously. City council, county commission, state legislature—these positions are often won by a few hundred votes. If you’re fed up enough to read this whole essay, you’re fed up enough to do something about it.

The Bottom Line

This story is about clean water. Safe water. Water you can give your kids without wondering if it’s poisoned.

How many more spills will it take before someone in power decides that human health matters more than operational convenience?

This story isn’t over. Not by a long shot. Because the next spill is already waiting to happen—unless someone with power decides that “repeatedly” is a word that should never be used again.

When something happens repeatedly, it’s not an accident anymore. It’s a choice.

Got more questions or concerns? Keep the conversation going down below.

A story this week in Newsweek caught my eye. It highlights another map of the U.S. with all the drinking water violations.

See the map here.

It’s not the data that’s surprising it’s the fact that Afina, a company that sells filtered showerheads, just released the study. Sure, they want to sell more filters, but this kind of data should be available to all of us. It’s public health info.

The study reveals that West Virginia has the worst drinking water violations in the country. West Virginia scored zero out of 100 for water cleanliness, with nearly 29 violation points and more than 5 contaminants exceeding legal limits per 100 residents served.

Oklahoma, Alaska, and Pennsylvania weren’t far behind. And here’s the kicker: this isn’t news. A peer-reviewed scientific study published in Risk Analysis in 2025 already told us that Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Washington were water quality disaster zones. That study found eight of the ten worst counties for “water injustice” were in Mississippi.

So why did it take a company selling products to protect us from contaminated water to sound the alarm again? Where the hell is our government?

The Numbers Don’t Lie

At least two million Americans don’t have running water in their homes. Read that again. In 2026, in the wealthiest nation on Earth, two million people are living without indoor plumbing.

Another 30 million live in communities where water systems operate unsafely. That’s roughly one in ten Americans drinking water that violates federal safety standards.

The Afina study used EPA data to calculate violation points, where the most serious infractions involving deadly contaminants like coliform bacteria or nitrate get ten points, other violations get five, and reporting failures stack up year after year. West Virginia’s 28.80 violation points weren’t an anomaly.

The 2025 scientific study confirmed similar patterns, identifying hotspots where low-income communities and communities of color bear the brunt of water injustice.

These aren’t just statistics. These numbers show how U.S. children are drinking water laced with arsenic. Families are bathing in water contaminated with PFAS, the forever chemicals linked to cancer, thyroid disease, and developmental problems. Elderly residents on fixed incomes have to choose between buying bottled water and paying for medication.

The System Is Broken By Design

The Safe Drinking Water Act handed states the responsibility for monitoring and reporting water quality, but here’s what they didn’t give them: adequate funding, adequate staffing, or adequate oversight.

A 2011 Government Accountability Office report found that states had up to a 49 percent error rate in reporting violations. Nearly half. And that was more than a decade ago. The audit system the EPA used to catch these errors? Defunded in 2010.

Dr. Upmanu Lall, a professor of engineering at Columbia University, told reporters he’s been warning about this for years. He estimates that 40 to 50 percent of water quality violations aren’t even reported. Utility operators say they lack the money, the staff, and the technical capacity to implement proper controls. Meanwhile, federal investment in water infrastructure has been gutted for decades.

And it’s getting worse. The current administration sought to completely eliminate federal funding for State Revolving Funds in its 2026 budget proposal. These funds are the primary way states pay for water infrastructure improvements. Without them, the pipes will keep corroding, the treatment plants will keep failing, and the violations will keep piling up.

The 2025 scientific study didn’t mince words: it identified systematic “water injustice.” The communities hit hardest are overwhelmingly poor and overwhelmingly Black and Brown. Mississippi. Tribal lands. The U.S.-Mexico border.

These aren’t accidents of geography. These are the consequences of deliberate policy choices that prioritize profit over people and protect wealthy communities while abandoning vulnerable ones.

West Virginia, Oklahoma, Alaska, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Arizona. What do these states have in common? They serve large populations in small, rural, underfunded water systems.

As Dr. Lall explained, when you divide violations by smaller population sizes, the numbers explode. These communities can’t afford the infrastructure upgrades they need. They can’t hire enough qualified operators. They can’t fight back against the industries poisoning their water.

So they get left behind. And they get sick.

The Profit Motive Problem

Now, I’m not knocking Afina for doing this research. They used publicly available EPA data and highlighted a crisis that our government should have been screaming about from the rooftops.

Let’s be crystal clear about what’s happening here: a company that profits from selling filtration systems is highlighting the information gap for federal agencies.

Ramon van Meer, Afina’s CEO, said it himself, “This explains why we’re seeing growing demand for home filtration solutions as people take water quality into their own hands.”

And he’s right. People are taking it into their own hands because they have no other choice. Because their government has failed them.

The solution to poisoned public water should not be forcing every American household to buy private filters. That’s not a solution. That’s surrender. That’s accepting that clean water is a luxury product instead of a human right.

Dr. Natalie Exum, a professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at Johns Hopkins, raised valid methodological concerns about the Afina study, noting that violations can stem from many factors and that normalizing by population size might inflate scores for smaller systems. Fair enough.

But you know what her concerns don’t change? The fact that millions of Americans are drinking contaminated water. The methodology might be imperfect, but the crisis is undeniable.

What Needs to Happen Now

First, the EPA needs to do its damn job. Not the job a showerhead company is doing. The EPA’s job. That means comprehensive, transparent, real-time reporting of every water quality violation in every community in America.

No more relying on states with 49 percent error rates. No more letting 40 to 50 percent of violations go unreported.

Second, Congress needs to stop gutting water infrastructure funding and start treating this like the national emergency it is.

The State Revolving Funds need to be expanded, not eliminated. Every small, rural, underfunded water system needs technical assistance, training, and the resources to upgrade aging infrastructure and meet modern safety standards.

Third, we need enforceable consequences.

Dr. Phil Brown, director of the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northeastern University, told Newsweek that violations resolved through enforcement are less harmful than violations that linger. But too many violations do linger because there’s no meaningful penalty. Utilities need to know that poisoning their communities will cost them more than the price of fixing the problem.

This Is Personal

I’ve spent my life fighting for communities dealing with contaminated water. I’ve seen what it does to families. I’ve held the hands of mothers whose children are sick with cancer. I’ve watched entire towns abandoned by the corporations and governments that were supposed to protect them.

So when I see that a private company had to tell us what our own government won’t admit—that millions of Americans are drinking poisoned water—it doesn’t just make me angry. It breaks my heart.

Because this is fixable. We have the knowledge. We have the technology. We have the wealth. What we lack is the political will to treat clean water as what it is: a non-negotiable human right.

Clean water isn’t a partisan issue. It’s not a Republican problem or a Democratic problem. It’s a U.S. problem that demands a solution that is bold, comprehensive, and just.

Our government needs to stop forcing private companies to do its job. Our communities need to stop being poisoned.

It’s that simple, and it’s that urgent.

The water doesn’t lie. And neither should we.

Keep the conversation going in the comments below!

A Community Organizing Toolkit

For years in this newsletter, we’ve highlighted various communities throughout the country doing the hard work of fighting for clean water, and we also wanted to provide a guide that puts all the information in one place.

This toolkit is designed to help communities organize and advocate for clean water and environmental protection. Whether you’re facing contamination, pollution, or environmental health threats, this guide provides practical steps to build power, demand accountability, and protect your community.

Phase 1: Identifying the Problem

Recognize the Warning Signs

Water and environmental issues often announce themselves in ways that are hard to ignore. Your tap water might taste metallic or smell like chemicals. See this story: https://open.substack.com/pub/erinbrockovich/p/does-your-drinking-water-smell-like?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

You might notice an unusual color when you fill a glass. Sometimes the signs are more subtle, like a pattern of unexplained illnesses in your neighborhood, dead vegetation where plants used to thrive, fish kills in local waterways, or other noteworthy changes.

Industrial facilities or dumpsites near residential areas often signal potential problems, as do government notices about water quality or contamination that arrive in the mail with bureaucratic language that obscures the urgency of what’s happening. Many communities that live near landfills deal with terrible smells or discolored water.

Document Everything

The moment you suspect something is wrong, start keeping records. This isn’t paranoia; it’s preparation. Create a simple health survey for your neighborhood noting symptoms, diagnoses, and addresses. Take dated photos and videos of contamination, industrial facilities, and environmental damage. Build a timeline documenting when the problems started and how they’ve changed over time. Keep a communication log recording every contact with officials, companies, and agencies. These records can become a foundation for your case, the evidence that transforms individual concerns into undeniable patterns.

Understand Your Rights

You have the right to know what’s in your water under the Safe Drinking Water Act. You have the right to access public records and environmental data. You can participate in public meetings and comment periods. You can request testing and inspections.

Most importantly, you have the right to organize and advocate without retaliation. These privileges are not always granted by those in power; they’re legal protections that belong to you as a citizen.

Phase 2: Research & Investigation

Gather Environmental Data

The internet has democratized environmental investigation in ways that would have seemed impossible even a generation ago. The EPA’s Envirofacts Database lets you search for facilities, violations, and releases in your zip code. The Environmental Working Group’s Tap Water Database reveals contaminants detected in your local water system. The CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry helps you research health effects of specific chemicals. State environmental agency websites provide access to permits, violations, and inspection reports. Your local health department can share data on health trends and complaints.

All this information is public.

Request Official Testing

Contact your water utility for their Consumer Confidence Report, which they’re required to provide annually. Don’t stop there. Request additional testing for specific contaminants that concern you. Consider independent lab testing, though make sure to collect samples properly following EPA protocols. Official testing carries weight, but independent verification can reveal what official testing might miss or downplay.

Investigate Potential Sources

Look at what surrounds your community. Industrial facilities operate under permits that regulate what they can discharge. Landfills, dumps, and Superfund sites leach contaminants into soil and groundwater. Agricultural operations use pesticides and fertilizers that run off into waterways. Underground storage tanks corrode and leak. Wastewater treatment plants sometimes fail. You can listen to this podcast about two facilities that broke down in Baltimore, Maryland, causing the surrounding waterways to fill with sewage

Understanding the potential sources of contamination can help you decide where to direct your investigation.

File Public Records Requests

Public records requests are powerful tools that citizens often underutilize. Request inspection reports and violations from regulatory agencies. Ask for discharge permits and monitoring data from facilities. Obtain correspondence between agencies and polluters, which can reveal cozy relationships or regulatory capture. Pull complaint records from other residents to understand the scope of the problem. Get testing results and risk assessments that officials have compiled but may not have shared proactively. These documents often contain the smoking guns that prove wrongdoing or negligence.

You can learn more about making a FOIA request here.

Phase 3: Building Your Organization

Start With Your Network

Every movement begins with a conversation. Start with trusted neighbors, friends, and family who share your concerns. Host informal gatherings with coffee or snacks to discuss what people are experiencing and what you’ve discovered. Create a group chat or email list for coordination. Out of these early conversations, leaders will emerge. Some people are natural spokespeople. Others excel at research or organizing logistics. Pay attention to who steps up and what strengths they bring.

Establish Your Structure

As your group grows, you’ll need basic structure to function effectively.

• A spokesperson handles media and represents the group publicly. An organizer coordinates meetings and mobilizes members for actions.

• A researcher gathers data and tracks developments.

• A secretary takes notes and maintains records so institutional memory doesn’t depend on any one person.

• If you’re collecting any money for supplies or legal fees, a treasurer manages those funds transparently.

These roles can rotate and overlap, but having clear responsibilities prevents confusion and burnout.

Expand Your Base

Moving beyond your initial circle requires intentional outreach. Door-to-door conversations in affected areas let you hear people’s stories and invite them to join the effort. Community meetings at churches, schools, or community centers provide neutral ground where people feel comfortable speaking up. Social media groups and pages help you reach people who might not attend in-person meetings. Flyers and fact sheets distributed in affected neighborhoods raise awareness. Local news coverage amplifies your message beyond what you could reach directly. Partnerships with existing community organizations bring credibility and resources.

Build a Diverse Coalition

The strongest movements bring together people from all parts of the community. Residents directly affected provide the moral authority and personal stories that make the issue real. Medical professionals lend expertise on health impacts. Environmental experts help interpret technical data. Faith leaders bring moral framing and their congregations. Local business owners show that this isn’t just about one group. School officials and parent groups highlight impacts on children. Labor unions understand power and organizing. Environmental justice organizations offer experience and connections. This diversity makes your coalition harder to dismiss or divide.

Phase 4: Taking Action

Create Clear Demands

Vague complaints are easy to ignore. Specific demands intensify the ask. You might ask for immediate provision of clean drinking water while contamination is addressed.

You’ll want to consider:

• Comprehensive testing for all contaminants of concern, not just what’s convenient

• Public health assessment and medical monitoring for affected residents

• Cleanup and remediation with a concrete timeline, not open-ended promises

• Stronger regulations and enforcement to prevent future contamination

• Accountability for responsible parties, whether that’s fines, criminal charges, or civil liability

• Long-term monitoring and prevention measures so this doesn’t happen again

Pressure Campaign Tactics

Power responds to pressure, and pressure comes in many forms. Direct engagement means attending and speaking at city council and county meetings, requesting meetings with elected officials, meeting with water utility managers and regulators, and participating in public comment periods. Show up consistently and in numbers. Officials notice when meeting rooms fill with angry constituents.

Public pressure amplifies your voice beyond official channels. Organize rallies and demonstrations that attract media attention and show community support. Collect petition signatures demonstrating how many people care about this issue. Write letters to the editor that shape public opinion. Launch social media campaigns with hashtags that trend locally. Document and share personal stories that put human faces on the statistics.

Your media strategy can determine whether your issue stays local or breaks into broader awareness. Write press releases for local media announcing actions and developments. Pitch stories to journalists who can dedicate time to deep dives. Create compelling visuals like infographics and photos that communicate instantly. Prepare talking points for interviews so your message stays consistent. Use video testimonials from affected residents that are harder to ignore than written statements.

Legal and regulatory channels can help provide formal mechanisms for accountability. File complaints with the EPA and state agencies documenting violations. Request EPA oversight or federal investigation when state agencies are unresponsive. Consult with environmental attorneys about your options. The Clean Water Act includes provisions for citizen lawsuits, giving communities legal standing to enforce environmental laws when regulators won’t.

Learn more here.

Maintain Momentum

Environmental campaigns often take months or years. Holding regular community meetings keeps people engaged and informed. Celebrate small victories rather than waiting for a final resolution. Keep members informed of progress, even when that progress feels incremental. Rotate leadership responsibilities to prevent burnout among your core organizers. Practice self-care and mutual support, recognizing that sustainable organizing requires sustainable organizers. Don’t forget to bring food and drinks to meetings to keep everyone nourished and engaged. Plus, ordering pizza or bringing a homemade dish can make the hard work of organizing a little more fun.

Phase 5: Working with Experts and Allies

Find Technical Support

You don’t have to understand every technical detail yourself. Environmental justice nonprofits often provide technical assistance to communities. University environmental science departments may conduct studies or provide graduate students as resources. Public health schools and researchers can investigate health impacts. Legal aid societies and public interest law firms offer free or low-cost representation. National organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, and others have experience with similar battles and can provide strategic guidance.

Engage Medical Professionals

Health impacts provide some of the most powerful evidence of environmental harm. Request health assessments for affected residents from qualified professionals. Connect with toxicologists and environmental health specialists who can establish links between exposures and illnesses. Document health impacts thoroughly for legal and regulatory purposes. Medical validation transforms anecdotal reports into scientific evidence.

Secure Legal Support

Environmental law is complex, but legal support may be more accessible than you think. Environmental law clinics at law schools often take on community cases as learning opportunities for students under professional supervision. Public interest law organizations specialize in environmental justice cases. State bar association referral services can connect you with private attorneys. Many contamination cases are taken on contingency, meaning attorneys only get paid if you win, because the potential damages are substantial.

Phase 6: Communicating Effectively

Craft Your Message

Effective communication combines emotion and fact. Personal stories humanize the issue in ways that statistics alone cannot. A mother talking about her child’s asthma is more powerful than charts about particulate matter. Clear, specific facts and data provide the evidence that illustrate the stories. Visual evidence cuts through complexity and skepticism. Concrete solutions and demands give officials something to respond to. A sense of urgency without catastrophizing maintains credibility while conveying seriousness.

Frame for Different Audiences

Different audiences respond to different appeals. For media, lead with human impact. Journalists tell stories about people, not policy. Use clear, jargon-free language that their audiences can understand. Provide expert validation so they’re not just taking your word for it. Offer exclusive access to affected residents for compelling interviews.

For officials, emphasize legal obligations and liabilities. Reference regulatory standards and violations specifically. Demonstrate broad community support with petition signatures and meeting attendance. Highlight political consequences of inaction, not as threats but as realities about how voters respond to leaders who ignore them.

For the public, make it relatable and local. Explain how this could affect anyone, not just those immediately impacted. Create emotional connection through stories and images. Provide easy ways to help, whether that’s signing a petition, attending a meeting, or contacting their representatives.

Use Social Media Strategically

Social media can amplify your message exponentially, but it requires strategy. Create a unified hashtag that ties your content together and makes it discoverable. Share regular updates and action alerts so followers stay engaged. Post photos, videos, and infographics that stop people mid-scroll. Tag relevant officials and organizations to increase visibility and pressure. Build your following by engaging with supporters’ comments and shares. Social media isn’t a substitute for organizing, but it’s a force multiplier.

Phase 7: Protecting Your Group

Safety and Security

Environmental organizing can attract unwanted attention and even intimidation. Never confront polluters alone. Be aware of surveillance at demonstrations, particularly from security hired by companies you’re targeting. Document any harassment or intimidation immediately. Know your rights when dealing with law enforcement, who can show up at protests or respond to complaints from those you’re pressuring. Secure your digital communications, when necessary, particularly if you’re dealing with powerful corporate or political interests.

Legal Protections

The First Amendment protects your right to organize, protest, and petition government. Whistleblower protections exist for those who report environmental violations, though they vary by jurisdiction. Document any retaliation against members meticulously. Consult attorneys about potential legal risks before taking major actions. Understanding your legal protections helps you operate boldly but wisely.

Emotional Well-being

Fighting environmental injustice takes an emotional toll. You’re not just dealing with technical and political challenges; you’re confronting the reality that your health and your community have been sacrificed for someone else’s profit or convenience. Build in breaks and time for rest. Share the workload to prevent burnout. Celebrate progress and small wins often. Access mental health support if you need it. Remember that sustainable organizing requires sustainable organizers. You can’t help your community if you destroy yourself in the process.

Resources & Templates

Sample Documents

Health survey questions:

• Name and address (optional for privacy)

• Duration of residency

• Health conditions and when they started

• Household members affected

• Concerns about environmental exposures

Meeting agenda template:

1. Welcome and introductions

2. Updates on ongoing efforts

3. New information or developments

4. Discussion and decision-making

5. Action items and volunteer assignments

6. Next meeting date

Press release template:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

[Date]

[HEADLINE: Community Demands Action on Water Contamination]

[City, State] - [Your organization name] representing [number] residents today [action taken] demanding [specific demand] following [problem description].

[Quote from community member with personal impact]

[Key facts and data about the problem]

[Quote from organizer with call to action]

[Background information]

For more information contact:

[Name, phone, email]

Key Contacts to Build

• Local elected officials (mayor, council, supervisors)

• State legislators

• Congressional representatives

• EPA regional office

• State environmental agency

• State health department

• Local health department

• Water utility management

• Local media contacts

• Environmental organizations

• Legal resources

Final Thoughts

Environmental advocacy is about the fundamental right to clean air, water, and a healthy environment. Your community deserves to be heard, protected, and prioritized. Organizing is not easy, but when communities come together with persistence and strategy, they can win meaningful change.

Remember, you don’t need a fancy degree or title to make a difference. You need determination, solidarity, and a refusal to accept that any community is disposable.

stick-to-itiveness: a propensity to follow through in a determined manner; dogged persistence born of obligation and stubbornness. (It’s my favorite word for a reason!)

Stay strong. Stay organized. Stay together.

This toolkit is for educational purposes. For specific legal or medical advice, consult qualified professionals. For urgent health concerns or environmental emergencies, contact local emergency services and health departments immediately.

[Watch Diana speak at 0:52 mark in the video]

The Washington County Planning Commission met earlier this month to vote on a proposed rezoning requested by BWXT to expand and build a new facility at its Jonesborough plant to produce high-purity depleted uranium (HPDU).

The public comment portion of the meeting lasted for more than an hour, as community members raised questions about the health and environmental risks of the proposal.

A Seven-Year-Old Shouldn’t Have to Beg Adults to Protect Her Home…

Of note was Diana Wright, Anna’s seven-year-old daughter, who bravely spoke up at the public hearing.

“You are the grownups,” she said. “You are the ones who get to decide what happens to my home, my neighbors, and the beautiful places I love.”

Let that sink in. A seven-year-old child shouldn’t have to plead with grown men and women to protect her from radioactive dust in the air she breathes. She shouldn’t have to worry about contaminated water. She shouldn’t even know what high-purity depleted uranium is.

But here we are.

Gabriel Wilson, co-founder of Protect Jonesborough, told local press, “I don't want Jonesborough to become a dirty uranium town. There are places that have hedged their bet that this would actually work and all that's happened is they become cleanup sites.”

He’s not wrong. History is littered with communities that trusted assurances of safety, that believed economic promises, that were told “this will be done safely”—only to become cautionary tales and Superfund sites.

Wilson didn’t start as an activist. He started as a neighbor who got a letter in the mail and went door to door talking to people. Nobody knew what was happening, and when they found out, hundreds showed up to fight back.

That’s how grassroots movements begin. One person refuses to stay silent and says “this isn’t right” loud enough that others start listening. Then, they go knock on neighbors’ doors.

The Corporate Playbook (We’ve Seen Before)

BWX Technologies wants to rezone land to build a new facility producing high-purity depleted uranium right next to homes, farms, a high school, and the floodplain of Little Limestone Creek, which feeds into the Nolichucky River and the region’s water supply.

Their response to community concerns? A corporate statement praising “national security” and “good paying jobs” while maintaining everything will be “safe.”

Sound familiar?

A former nuclear engineer who spoke at the hearing shared, “Depleted uranium is not the issue. It’s the chemicals that are the issue in our plants. I think this can be done safely. Not necessarily that it will be done safely.”

That distinction—between can be and will be—is everything. The burden of proof should never fall on seven-year-olds or their worried parents.

What You Can Do (Because Silence is Complicity)

If you’re reading this and thinking “this could never happen where I live,” you’re wrong. Corporate interests banking on public ignorance and government complicity are everywhere.

Here’s how you fight back:

1. Know Before They Go: Monitor your local planning commission meetings and rezoning requests. Most people find out too late. Sign up for notifications, check agendas, stay informed. Wilson found out from a letter—many of his neighbors never got one.

2. Organize Immediately: Don’t wait for the “perfect” moment. Wilson hoped for 10 people and got hundreds. Go door to door. Start petitions (Wilson’s has more 5,000 signatures). Create social media pages. Make noise.

3. Make Them Visible: Protect Jonesborough created bright yellow shirts, signs, water bottles, and masks. Visibility matters. When commissioners see a sea of concerned citizens, it’s harder to ignore.

4. Demand Real Answers: Don’t accept corporate PR speak. Ask specific questions: What chemicals will be used? What’s the emergency response plan? Who pays for cleanup if something goes wrong? What independent environmental review has been conducted?

In Jonesborough’s case, while the Planning Commission voted to recommend denial, the final decision rests with the County Commission, set to vote on January 26 without any independent environmental or cumulative-impact review.

5. Use Your Voice (All of Them): Speak at public hearings. Write letters to editors. Contact commissioners directly. Vote. One commenter at the hearing said it perfectly: “You, commissioners, are the last line of defense these people have.”

Make them remember they work for you.

6. Don’t Give Up After One Vote: The Planning Commission voted 4-2 to recommend denial—a victory, but not the final word. The full County Commission meets January 26, and commissioners have already said their positions could change.

If the rezoning passes, it’s permanent. Families will be forced to leave. The land will be contaminated. And that seven-year-old girl? She’ll learn that sometimes the grownups don’t protect the things we love.

The Bottom Line

This issue isn’t about one community in Tennessee. It’s about every community where corporations believe profits matter more than people, where “jobs” are used as a weapon against legitimate safety concerns, where the burden falls on children to beg adults to do the right thing.

The people in this town are fighting for their farms, their water, and their way of life. They are speaking up because if they don’t, who will?

You can learn more at protectjonesborough.com

Learn more about how BWX Technologies is becoming a nuclear super contractor across defense, energy, and space here.

Why This Guide Matters Now More Than Ever

The president started the new year with veto to kill funding for the Arkansas Valley Conduit project—a bipartisan initiative to help bring clean drinking water to more than 50,000 people in rural southern Colorado.

The bill passed unanimously in both the House and Senate. It had support from across the political spectrum: Democratic Governor Jared Polis, Democratic Senator Michael Bennet, and Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert all backed the project.

The communities it intended to serve currently face groundwater contaminated with high salt levels and radionuclides.

In his veto letter, the president called the project “expensive and unreliable,” stating his administration is “committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding expensive and unreliable policies.”

Representative Boebert responded bluntly: “Nothing says ‘America First’ like denying clean drinking water to 50,000 people in southeast Colorado, many of whom enthusiastically voted for him in all three elections.”

This guide exists for these times.

When government fails you, whether through political retaliation, corporate influence, budget cuts, or simple neglect, you need to know how to protect your family. Clean water is a fundamental right, not a privilege that can be vetoed away.

This guide won’t replace the municipal infrastructure these Colorado communities (and all communities) deserve. It won’t hold politicians accountable for choosing politics over people’s health, but it will give you practical tools to protect your family while you fight for the systemic solutions that should never have been necessary in the first place.

Clean water is a fundamental right, not a privilege.

Whether you’re facing a water crisis in your community or simply want to take control of your family’s water quality, this guide provides practical, affordable solutions you can start using today—even on a tight budget.

First Things First: What’s in Your Water?

You can’t fix what you don’t know about. Before spending money on filters, find out what you’re dealing with:

Free or Low-Cost Testing Options:

1. Call your water utility and request your Consumer Confidence Report (CCR). They are required by law to provide this annual water quality report. It’s free.

2. Contact your local health department. Many offer free or subsidized testing, especially if you’re on well water or in a known problem area.

3. Basic home test kits ($15-30 at hardware stores) can detect common issues like lead, bacteria, and pH levels. More advanced testing can be found at Tap Score and Cyclopure both recommended by Consumer Reports.

4. EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Hotline: Call 1-800-426-4791. They can direct you to testing resources in your area.

5. Look up your Zip Code. Environmental Working Group’s Tap Water Database shows water quality data collected from nearly 50,000 water systems and identifies 324 contaminants in drinking water across the country.

If money is extremely tight: Start by requesting your CCR and talking to neighbors. If multiple households have the same concerns, you can sometimes pool resources for professional testing or get help from advocacy groups.

The Contaminants

Every community is different, but there are a few big contaminants of concern right now.

PFAS (”Forever Chemicals”): Don’t break down naturally. Linked to cancer and immune problems. Found near military bases, industrial sites, and firefighting training areas.

Lead: Leaches from old pipes. Damages children’s brains and development. No safe level, especially for kids and pregnant women.

Hexavalent Chromium (Chromium-6): The Hinkley pollutant. Causes cancer. Often from industrial pollution.

Trihalomethanes (THMs): Created when chlorine (used to disinfect water) and other disinfectants (usually ammonia) reacts with organic matter in water. Linked to cancer and reproductive problems. Common in chlorinated municipal water systems, especially in summer when chlorine levels are higher.

Bacteria: E. coli, Giardia, and others cause serious illness and can enter water sources during floods, pipe breaks, or sewage problems.

Emergency Solutions: When You Need Clean Water NOW

Boiling Water (Free)

What you need: A pot and a stove

What it kills: Bacteria, viruses, parasites

What it DOESN’T remove: Lead, PFAS, chromium, or any chemicals

How to do it:

1. Bring water to a rolling boil

2. Keep it boiling for 1 full minute (3 minutes if you live in the mountains)

3. Let it cool

4. Store in clean containers

Best for: Boil water notices, E. coli warnings, flooded areas

Real talk: This method only handles germs. If your water has lead or chemical contamination, boiling actually makes it worse by concentrating the chemicals. But in an emergency bacterial situation, it’s free and it works.

DIY Bucket Filter ($25-$40)

A simple system you can build in less than an hour.

What you need:

• Two 5-gallon food-grade buckets with lids (ask at bakeries or delis—they often give these away free)

• 1-2 pounds activated carbon ($15-25 at pet stores in the aquarium section)

• Clean cotton cloth or several coffee filters

• A drill or hammer and nail to make holes

How to build it:

1. Make holes in bucket #1: Punch or drill 10-15 small holes (about pencil-width) in the bottom of one bucket.

2. Create filter layers:

   • Put a cloth or coffee filters in the bottom (over the holes)

   • Add 2-3 inches of activated carbon

   • Cover with another cloth layer

3. Stack them: Set bucket #1 inside bucket #2

4. Use it: Pour water slowly into the top bucket. It drips through into the bottom bucket. Takes 30-60 minutes to filter.

What it helps with: Chlorine taste, some chemicals, some PFAS, bad smells

Limitations: Not perfect. Not tested or certified. But it’s better than nothing and costs less than buying a week’s worth of bottled water.

Maintenance: Change the carbon every 2-3 weeks or when water starts tasting bad again.

When You’re Buying Bottled Water

If you’re stuck buying bottled water temporarily:

• Cheaper options: Buy gallon jugs instead of small bottles—you’ll save up to 70%

• Refill stations: Many grocery stores have filtered water refill stations at $0.25-0.50 per gallon (bring your own clean containers)

• Food assistance programs: If you’re on SNAP/EBT, you can use benefits for bottled water

• Community resources: Check if local churches, food banks, or community centers are distributing water

But remember: Bottled water costs a family of four anywhere from $150 to $400 per month.

Affordable Long-Term Solutions

Pitcher Filters ($25-$35, then $8-$15 per month)

Brands: Brita, PUR, store brands

What they filter: Chlorine, some lead (if certified), bad taste, some copper and mercury

What they DON’T filter well: PFAS, chromium-6, bacteria

How to use:

1. Buy pitcher and filters

2. Fill top reservoir

3. Water filters down into pitcher (takes 5-10 minutes)

4. Keep in refrigerator

Change filters: Every 2 months or 40 gallons (whichever comes first)

Money-saving tip: Store brand filters often fit name-brand pitchers and cost half as much. Check compatibility.

Best for: Basic water improvement on a very tight budget, renters who can’t install anything, improving taste in areas with decent water quality.

Reality check: These are the cheapest option, but they’re also the most limited. If you have serious contamination (lead, PFAS, chromium-6), you’ll need something stronger.

Faucet-Mounted Filters ($20-$45, then $30-$60 per year)

Brands: PUR, Brita, Culligan

What they filter: Chlorine, lead (if certified), some pesticides, better than pitchers for most contaminants

Installation:

1. Unscrew your faucet aerator (the screen on the end)

2. Screw on the filter adapter

3. Click filter into place

4. Takes 5 minutes, no tools needed

Must work for: Standard faucets (not pull-out sprayers or unusual shapes)

Change filters: Every 3 months or 100 gallons

Best for: Renters, people who want better filtration than pitchers but can’t afford or install under-sink systems.

Look for NSF 53 certification on the box, which means it’s actually tested for lead removal.

Under-Sink Filters ($50-$150, then $40-$100 per year)

These units give you much better filtration at an affordable price.

What you’re getting: Larger filters that last longer and remove more contaminants than pitchers or faucet filters.

Basic installation (you can do this):

1. Turn off the water under your sink (turn the valve clockwise)

2. Disconnect the cold water line from the faucet

3. Install the diverter valve (comes with the kit)

4. Connect filter between diverter and faucet

5. Turn water back on and check for leaks

6. Flush the filter by running water for 5 minutes

Video tutorials: Search “install under sink water filter” on YouTube and you’ll find dozens of step-by-step guides.

Don’t have tools? Ask at a tool library, borrow from neighbors, or check if a local hardware store loans tools.

Best for: Homeowners or renters with landlord permission who want good filtration that lasts.

What to look for:

• Carbon block filters (better than granular carbon)

• NSF certified for the contaminants you have

• Good flow rate (at least 0.5 gallons per minute)

The Gold Standard: Reverse Osmosis (RO) Systems

Reality check on cost: $150-$300 for the system, plus $100-$150 per year for new filters.

Why we’re including this: Yes, it’s more expensive upfront. If your water has serious contamination—especially lead, chromium-6, or PFAS—these systems offer the most effective protection for your family. And it still costs less than buying bottled water for a year.

What RO removes: Almost everything. Lead, chromium-6, PFAS, arsenic, bacteria, fluoride, nitrates and 95%-99% of contaminants.

How it works: Water is forced through a super-fine membrane that catches almost everything. The pure water goes to your faucet. The contaminated water goes down the drain.

The downside: It wastes water (2-4 gallons down the drain for every 1 gallon you drink). If you’re on a metered water bill, this method adds cost, but newer models waste less.

Installation: Most systems come with everything you need and step-by-step instructions. If you can install an under-sink filter, you can install this. It just has more steps:

1. Mount the system under your sink

2. Connect to your cold water line

3. Connect the drain line

4. Install the storage tank

5. Drill a hole for the dedicated faucet (or use an existing hole if you have one)

6. Connect everything and test

Time needed: 2-4 hours for your first time

Video help: Search “install RO system” on YouTube for your specific brand

Finding deals:

• Check big-box hardware stores for sales

• Online retailers are often cheaper than stores

• Refurbished systems (test carefully)

• Some communities offer rebates or assistance programs for water filters

Best for: Families facing serious contamination who need the highest level of protection.

Targeting Specific Contaminants

If You Have PFAS

Best options in order:

1. Reverse osmosis system (90%-99% removal)

2. Carbon block filter with long contact time (50%-90% removal—look for filters specifically certified for PFAS)

3. Activated carbon pitcher or faucet filter (some removal, better than nothing)

What doesn’t work: Boiling, standard water softeners, or basic sediment filters

If You Have Lead

Best options in order:

1. Reverse osmosis (95%-99% removal)

2. Carbon block filter certified for lead (NSF 53 certification—look for this on the box)

3. Distillation (99%+ removal, but slow and requires energy)

Also do this (free):

• Always run cold water for 30-60 seconds before using it for drinking or cooking (flushes lead that sat in pipes overnight)

• Never use hot tap water for cooking or drinking (hot water pulls more lead from pipes)

• If you have a child under 6 or you’re pregnant, consider testing your child’s blood for lead

What doesn’t work: Boiling makes lead worse by concentrating it. Pitcher filters only work if specifically certified for lead.

If You Have Hexavalent Chromium (Chromium-6)

Best options in order:

1. Reverse osmosis (95%-98% removal)

2. Ion exchange filter (90%+ removal)

3. Distillation (99%+ removal)

What doesn’t work well: Regular activated carbon (some reduction but not reliable)

Real talk: Chromium-6 is tough. If you have this, you really need RO or you need to push for municipal solutions.

If You Have Bacteria

Best options in order:

1. Boiling (100% effective, free)

2. Reverse osmosis (99%+ removal)

3. Ceramic filter with 0.2 micron rating (99.99% removal)

4. UV light system (99.99% kill rate, but doesn’t remove chemicals)

Budget option: Boiling is free and works perfectly for bacteria. This is one case where the cheapest method is also the most effective.

If You Have Trihalomethanes (THMs)

Best options in order:

1. Carbon filters (granular or block activated carbon—80%-90% removal)

2. Reverse osmosis (can reduce THMs, though not its primary strength)

3. Boiling for 15+ minutes with the lid off (allows THMs to evaporate, but this is impractical for daily use)

Good news: THMs are one of the easier contaminants to filter and even basic carbon pitcher filters can reduce them significantly.

What doesn’t work: Standard boiling (quick boil actually concentrates THMs). You need extended boiling with ventilation.

Real talk: If your water has high chlorine taste and smell, you likely have THMs. This is common in municipal water systems. A simple carbon filter makes a big difference.

Making It More Affordable

If money is really tight, it’s tough out there right now, I want you to think about your priorities.

Priorities:

1. Start with testing. Don’t spend money on filters until you know what you’re filtering.

2. Filter drinking and cooking water only. You don’t need to filter water for washing dishes or clothes. Focus your budget on the 2-3 gallons per day your family drinks and cooks with.

3. Look for assistance programs:

   • Some water utilities offer filter rebates or free filters for low-income households

   • Community action agencies sometimes help with water filters

   • Local nonprofits or churches may have programs

4. Start small, upgrade later. A $25 pitcher filter isn’t perfect, but it’s better than nothing. Use it while you save for something better.

5. Check for recalls or settlements. If your water contamination was caused by a company or municipal failure, there may be settlement funds for filters.

Splitting Costs

If you can’t afford a system alone:

• Share with a neighbor. If you live in a duplex or have a trusted neighbor, consider splitting the cost of a system and filling containers.

• Community buying. Some communities organize group purchases of filters at wholesale prices.

• Extended family. If your parents, siblings, or adult children are nearby and can afford it, ask if they’d contribute to a system at your house in exchange for filling jugs there.

Maintenance: Don’t Waste Your Investment

The #1 mistake people make: They install a filter and forget about it. A dirty, expired filter can make your water worse than no filter at all.

Old filters can:

• Release contaminants back into your water

• Grow bacteria and mold

• Reduce water pressure to nothing

• Completely stop working

Set yourself up for success:

1. Write the installation date directly on the filter with permanent marker

2. Set phone reminders for 2 weeks before filters need changing

3. Buy replacement filters when you install the system so you have them ready

4. Watch for warning signs:

   • Water tastes or smells bad again

   • Water flow gets really slow

   • Water looks cloudy or has particles

Filter change schedule (typical):

• Pitcher filters: Every 2 months

• Faucet filters: Every 3 months

• Under-sink carbon filters: Every 6-12 months

• RO system: Pre-filters every 6-12 months, membrane every 2-3 years

Save money on replacement filters:

• Buy off-brand filters that fit your system (often half the price)

• Buy in bulk online (usually 20%-30% cheaper than buying one at a time)

• Set up subscriptions for automatic delivery and discounts

What DIY Filtration Can’t Fix

Let’s be honest about what home filters can and can’t do.

Home filters CAN:

• Protect your family’s drinking water

• Give you control over your immediate water quality

• Provide peace of mind

• Work while you fight for bigger solutions

Home filters CANNOT:

• Fix contamination in shower or bath water (unless you install whole-house systems that cost thousands)

• Replace municipal responsibility for clean water

• Hold polluting companies accountable

• Make the underlying contamination go away

You shouldn’t have to pay to filter pollution you didn’t create. These solutions are survival tactics, not justice.

Fighting Back: This Isn’t Just About Filters

Document everything:

• Keep all water testing results

• Save receipts for filters and bottled water

• Photograph discolored water

• Write down any health symptoms in your family

• Keep records of any official communications

Connect with your community:

• Talk to neighbors—you’re not alone

• Attend city council or water board meetings

• Start a community Facebook group or group chat

• Create a paper trail by filing formal complaints

Get help:

• Local advocacy groups: Search for environmental justice organizations in your area

• Legal aid: Many organizations offer free legal help for water contamination cases

• Media: Local news loves these stories. Contact reporters.

• State environmental agencies: File complaints with state regulators

• EPA: File a Safe Drinking Water Act complaint at www.epa.gov

The Brockovich Report community: Connect with others fighting the same battles. Share information. Support each other. That’s what the comment section is for!

Remember: Every major water justice victory started with regular people who got tired of being poisoned and decided to fight back.

Real Talk: Making This Work

“I’m renting and my landlord won’t let me install anything.” Start with pitcher or faucet filters (no installation required). Document your water quality issues. In some states, landlords must provide safe water—check your local tenant rights.

“I can’t afford even a $50 filter right now.” Boil water if bacteria is the concern. Contact local community organizations for assistance. Start with just filtering drinking water, not cooking water, to reduce volume. Look into water refill stations.

“I don’t know how to install anything and I can’t afford a plumber.” YouTube tutorials walk you through every step. Borrow tools from neighbors or a tool library. Start with faucet filters (they just screw on, truly no skills needed). Ask friends or family if anyone has basic DIY skills to help.

“I live in an apartment with 20 families facing this—we can’t all buy individual filters.” Organize. Collective action is powerful. Approach your landlord as a group. Contact local advocacy groups. Media attention on multiple families can create real pressure for solutions.

“The contamination is in our well and affects our whole house.” This is harder with DIY solutions. Focus on drinking water first with point-of-use filters. Push for state assistance programs for well contamination. Document everything for potential legal action.

You Deserve Better

You shouldn’t be reading this guide. You shouldn’t have to become an amateur water treatment expert to keep your family safe. You shouldn’t have to pay to filter contamination you didn’t cause.

Until polluters are held accountable and our water systems are fixed, you deserve to know how to protect your family.

This guide is about empowerment, not acceptance. Filter your water, protect your family, and fight like hell for real solutions.

Clean water is not a privilege. It’s a right.

Key Resources:

• EPA Safe Drinking Water Hotline: 1-800-426-4791

• CDC Water Information: www.cdc.gov/healthywater

• EWG Tap Water Database: www.ewg.org/tapwater (see what’s in your area)

• Find NSF certified filters: www.nsf.org/consumer-resources

Learn more about the history of federal water investments:

• https://atlaspolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/A-Review-of-Federal-Water-Investments.pdf

• https://www.pew.org/en/trend/archive/spring-2019/how-development-of-americas-water-infrastructure-has-lurched-through-history

This guide is for educational purposes. DIY filtration provides significant protection but is not a substitute for safe municipal water or for holding polluters accountable. Share this guide. Fight for justice. Protect each other.

And a little something funny, because we need laughs too:

What’s the biggest hurdle for you when trying to figure out a water filtration solution for your home? Keep the conversation going below!

While you’re decking the halls and trimming the tree, there’s a not-so-jolly reality we need to talk about: what’s lurking in your drinking water. I’ve spent decades fighting for communities poisoned by corporate greed and government negligence, and let me tell you, the gift of clean water is not a luxury.

“I think maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store. I think maybe Christmas means a little bit more.” ~Cindy Lou Who

Millions of Americans are exposed to drinking water containing harmful contaminants nationwide. From California to Maine, Americans continue to drink water that violates federal safety standards.

So, this holiday season, let’s focus on what you don’t want showing up at your tap. Consider this your naughty list of water contaminants—and more importantly, how to kick them to the curb.

1. Lead: The Ghost of Christmas Past (That Won’t Leave)

Old lead pipes are like that relative who overstays their welcome, except way more dangerous. Cities across America are still using outdated infrastructure, and this toxic metal could leaching into your drinking water while you sleep. Some communities have documented lead pipes still in service and replacing them isn’t happening fast enough.

Just this week, the New York State Health Department said water sources at roughly 44 percent of Long Island school buildings exceeded the new lead levels being enforced. Previously, the standard for the state was at 15 parts per billion, but it was made far more strict for 2025, tightening levels down to 5 parts per billion.

How to fight back:

• Get a water filter certified specifically for lead removal

• Clean your faucet aerator regularly to remove sediment buildup

• Drink more cold water, as hot water absorbs more lead from pipes

• If water’s been sitting in your pipes overnight, flush them first by running the tap for a few minutes

2. Microorganisms: Uninvited Holiday Guests

Bacteria, viruses, and other nasty microorganisms don’t care about your holiday plans. Heavy storms, aging sewage systems, and accidental overflows can introduce these dangerous pathogens into supposedly “treated” water. We saw this devastation after Hurricane Helene, as entire communities were left without safe drinking water.

Your defense strategy:

• Boil, filter, or disinfect water if you suspect contamination

• Set your water heater to at least 140°F to prevent Legionella growth

• Stay informed about local water advisories, especially after storms

Nobody should have to worry about getting sick from a glass of water. Period.

3. Emerging Contaminants: The New Kids on the Naughty Block

Here’s what really gets me fired up: pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and chemicals like PFAS, or “forever chemicals” are showing up in our water supply. These contaminants aren’t even fully regulated yet because bureaucracy moves slower than molasses.

A rural Oklahoma water district has sued more than two dozen companies for concerns about long-term contamination of PFAS. The water district’s lawsuit is part of a larger attempt to reach a settlement against companies that produced and used products containing PFAS, and among the companies named in the lawsuit are the 3M Company and DuPont.

The EPA is supposed to evaluate new emerging contaminant candidates every few years, but communities are drinking this stuff right now while we wait for the wheels of government to turn.

Take control:

• Look for filters certified under NSF/ANSI 401 for emerging contaminants

• Don’t assume “treated” water means “safe from everything”

4. Arsenic: The Silent Killer in Your Glass

This one gets me fired up. Arsenic is a known carcinogen, meaning it causes cancer, and it’s contaminating water systems in every state.

California, New Mexico, Michigan, and Texas have some of the worst violations, with levels significantly above what’s legally allowed for this heavy metal. And here’s the kicker. Even levels below the EPA limit have been linked to low birth weight and preterm births.

Arsenic is especially hard on small, rural communities that don’t have the resources to filter it out. Low-income families on private wells? They’re getting hit the hardest, and nobody’s helping them.

What you need to know:

• Arsenic causes cancer, cardiovascular disease, and developmental problems in children

• It’s difficult and expensive to remove from water

• Even “legal” levels may not be safe

• Look for NSF/ANSI Standard 53 certified filters specifically rated for arsenic removal

5. Radium: Radioactive Water Is NOT a Christmas Miracle

Yes, you read that right. Radioactive contamination occurs in all 50 states. Radium occurs naturally in groundwater, but it’s also elevated by oil and gas extraction. More than 100,000 Americans are drinking water with radium levels above the EPA limit.

In parts of Texas and Colorado, radium levels have been found at double the legal limit. This radioactive element can cause bone cancer and other cancers, and it’s particularly prevalent in smaller, rural water systems that lack proper testing and treatment.

Fight back:

• Radium contamination is most common in rural areas, if you’re on well water, test annually

• Reverse osmosis systems can remove radium

• Don’t assume “natural” groundwater is safe

6. Total Trihalomethanes (TTHMs): The Not-So-Good Tidings “Treatment”

Trihalomethanes are formed during the disinfection process for tap water. They’re human carcinogens found in nearly all public water supplies—and more than 400,000 Americans are drinking water that exceeds the EPA limit of 80 micrograms per liter.

Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and California have some of the highest levels. These chemicals are associated with bladder cancer, liver and kidney toxicity, and developmental harm.

Let that sink in. The water treatment process itself is creating cancer-causing chemicals in your water.

Take control:

• Activated carbon filters and reverse osmosis systems remove TTHMs

• Point-of-use filters (on your faucet or in a pitcher) can make a huge difference

Your Holiday Action Plan

This season, give yourself and your family the gift of knowledge and protection:

1. Read your water quality report. Your local utility is required to provide one annually. The EPA even has a guide on how to read them here.

2. Test your water. Home test kits can range in price, but many can detect lead, bacteria, and more. If you’re on well water, test it at least once a year.

3. Know your vulnerabilities

   • Pregnant women should take extra precautions

   • Immunocompromised individuals need additional protection

   • Children are especially vulnerable to contaminants like arsenic and lead

4. Invest in proper filtration. Look for NSF-certified filters that target the specific contaminants in YOUR water.

5. Speak up. Contact your local representatives. Demand infrastructure improvements. Support legislation for water system upgrades. Make noise.

The Bottom Line

We’re not protecting our source waters. We’ve allowed industries to dump waste in the environment that has permanently contaminated drinking water sources. Our infrastructure is aging and crumbling. And the people who suffer most are those who can’t afford to fight back, such as rural communities, low-income families, and people on private wells.

You have the power to protect your household right now, today, while we keep fighting for the systemic changes that every community deserves.

Water is life. Clean water is a fundamental human right. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Now go kiss your kids, hug your pets, and pour yourself a glass of properly filtered water. You’ve earned it.

Stay vigilant this season! 🎄🎄🎄

Your water might look clean, but looks can be deceiving. Test your water. Get the right filter. Stay informed. And demand better from the people in power.

Jim Roberts pictured a simple life when he bought 20 acres in Franklin County, Missouri: a small head of cattle and a garden with kids playing in the creek. What he got instead was a toxic nightmare seeping from the ground in neon orange streams, poisoning his spring water with arsenic, lead, and cancer-causing chemicals.

And not a single government agency will fix it. Not at the federal, state, or local level.

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For more than a year, Roberts has been trapped in a bureaucratic hell, the kind that only happens when you have the audacity to ask the government to do its job.

He’s made the phone calls. Filed the sunshine requests. Attended the town halls. Gotten the testing done. The results came back damning with elevated levels of iron, copper, arsenic, PFOA, and PFOS.

The orange goo bubbling up on his property isn’t just ugly. It’s poisonous. And it’s flowing directly into a creek that feeds into the Meramec River less than two miles away, a waterway that winds through three Missouri counties before emptying into the Mississippi River.

But here’s the kicker. Roberts’ 1.5-year-old son and pregnant wife are living on this property. They can’t run cattle anymore. They’ve had their private drinking well water tested, and while it came back safe, they live with the possibility of it getting contaminated. It’s literally seeping into the creek and spring on their land.

They installed a high-dollar water filtration system, taking every precaution they can to keep their family safe. But why do so many hard-working people in this country have to pay out of pocket to ensure that their drinking water is safe?!

The Landfill Nobody Owns

The source of Roberts’ misery is the Generally Landfill, a festering 40-acre wound on the landscape that’s been abandoned since 1993 and border his farm. Its history reads like a case study in regulatory incompetence.

Originally permitted in 1975 to Franklin County, the landfill changed hands in 1979 to John R. Generally. Later, it was operated, and eventually purchased, by Interstate Disposal Systems Inc., run by James Zykan Jr. This is where things went predictably, catastrophically wrong.

Zykan had already been involved with a problematic landfill in Wright City. When his permit was denied for the Generally site in 1991, he didn’t close shop. He kept operating illegally for two more years, accepting god-knows-what and dumping it into unlined trenches and ravines.

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources says there’s “no telling what’s dumped in there.”

When IDS finally abandoned the site in 1993, it was never properly closed or maintained. The cover was inadequate—full of rock, not soil. Waste stuck out of the ground. Erosion gullies four feet deep opened up, exposing more refuse. Vegetation ran wild. The leachate, that toxic soup of decomposing garbage and chemicals, started seeping out.

DNR inspection reports from 2020 describe “several large leachate outbreaks” on the north and south slopes, flowing into drainage ditches and straight into tributaries of the Meramec. There’s even a leachate collection sump at the site, likely still full, with a storage tank that may contain more contaminated liquid. Nobody knows for sure. Nobody’s checking.

The property has changed hands through tax sales multiple times—but here’s where it gets truly bizarre. The current property is still in the name of a deceased individual, according to an email Robert’s shared with TBR. The winning bidder at the most recent tax sale refused to take ownership once they discovered what was actually on the land.

And this isn’t the first time. According to Roberts’ sunshine requests, Franklin County has sold this property at tax auction multiple times, and every single time, the winning bidder has refused to take possession once they learned about the landfill. The county refuses to return money to these unsuspecting bidders, even though they know full well there’s a toxic landfill on the property.

Despite being a known environmental disaster, the landfill’s existence was never properly disclosed on the property deed when the county sold it at auction, as required by state regulations.

It’s a masterclass in how to create an environmental time bomb with nobody to blame, and nobody willing to defuse it.

The Circle of Finger-Pointing

When Roberts first called the Missouri DNR in August 2024 after noticing the orange goo, he got the most unexpected response.

“We’re understaffed. We’re underfunded. The landfill is abandoned. There’s nothing we can do for you.”

Only after Roberts in his own words, “raised hell” did DNR conduct testing. The results confirmed hazardous contamination. Then DNR said, once again, there was nothing they could do.

Why? Because the landfill is abandoned and “Subtitle D” solid waste landfills fall under state jurisdiction. But the state claims it has no authority or funding to clean up abandoned sites.

Fine, Roberts thought. If the state won’t act, surely the federal government will.

Wrong.

The EPA’s response was swift and unhelpful. EPA has no plans for the Generally Hauling site and no funding for it, because Subtitle D landfills are delegated to state authorities.

So, Roberts turned to Franklin County. The county said it has no funding or jurisdiction to clean up the site and that DNR is the agency with oversight, punting the ball right back to the state agency that already said no.

In late July, Franklin County sent a letter to DNR asking for cost estimates and cleanup processes. DNR’s response: the county should hire engineers to assess the situation. In other words, you figure it out and pay for it.

It’s a perfect circle of bureaucratic buck-passing, each agency pointing at the others while Roberts’ family breathes, drinks, and lives with the consequences.

I call it agency hot potato. Not a fun a game!

DNR does at least acknowledges the scope of the problem.

Abandoned landfills across Missouri “have been a problem for decades,” the agency admitted to local news. In fact, this landfill is just one of 30 contaminated landfills identified in Missouri.

But here’s the part they won’t say out loud. They have no plan to fix any of them.

The EPA Just Made Things Worse

If Roberts’ story sounds bleak, it’s about to get bleaker. Because while he’s been fighting his local battle, the federal government has been busy making sure cases like his become even more common.

In November, the EPA announced how it’s planning to redefine the scope of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) under the Clean Water Act, significantly limiting the wetlands it used to cover.

The proposal says wetlands and streams that are seasonal or flow inconsistently would no longer be protected under the act, which was originally passed in 1972 to address rampant water pollution.

The rule builds on the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Sackett v. EPA, which dramatically narrowed federal jurisdiction over wetlands. The Court ruled that wetlands must have “a continuous surface connection to bodies that are ‘waters of the United States’ in their own right’ to be protected under the Clean Water Act.

Translation: If the water isn’t visibly, continuously connected to a major waterway, it’s no longer the federal government’s problem.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin calls this action “cutting red tape” and providing “regulatory certainty” for farmers and landowners. The rule will focus federal jurisdiction on “relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water” and wetlands directly connected to them.

Sounds reasonable, until you realize what it means in practice.

According to analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council, 38 to 70 million acres of wetlands are at risk of pollution or destruction under post-Sackett decisions.

These waterways aren’t just pretty bird habitats. Wetlands help filter pollutants, recharge aquifers, and prevent flooding. They’re nature’s kidneys, and we’re about to leave half of them unprotected.

The new rule specifically excludes groundwater—you know, the stuff people actually drink—from federal protection. It also removes protections for ephemeral streams that only flow after rainfall and seasonal wetlands.

Let that sink in. In a country where climate change is making droughts and floods more severe, the federal government is deciding that water bodies affected by precipitation don’t deserve protection.

For Roberts, the timing couldn’t be more cruel. His contaminated spring feeds into a creek that flows to the Meramec River. Under the old interpretation of the Clean Water Act, there might have been an argument for federal intervention because of that connection. Now?

The EPA has already made clear it considers this a state matter, and this new interpretation of the law may offer them the legal cover to keep saying no.

The Human Cost

Back in Missouri, Roberts keeps fighting. He’s organized a Facebook group called “Close Generally Landfill.” He’s done interviews with local news, where viewers watched toxic orange goo bubble up from his land like something out of a horror movie. The Missourian has run five stories on the disaster. State Senator Ben Brown held a town hall in November where the landfill dominated the discussion.

None of it has produced action.

Roberts has test results showing his water contains known carcinogens. He has inspection reports documenting massive leachate outbreaks. He has maps showing the contamination flowing toward a major river system. He has a toddler and a pregnant wife who deserve better than this.

And he has three levels of government telling him the same thing in slightly different ways: Not our problem.

“What’s it going to take, my family to get cancer before this gets addressed?” he asked.

It’s the kind of question that shouldn’t need asking in 2025, more than 50 years after the Clean Water Act was supposed to guarantee Americans’ right to clean water. But here we are.

Who Pays When Nobody’s Responsible?

The Generally Landfill represents a perfect storm of regulatory failure. The operator ran it illegally, then abandoned it. The property changed hands through tax sales to buyers who likely didn’t know what they were getting. The state says it lacks authority and funding. The feds say it’s not their jurisdiction. The county says it’s someone else’s job.

Meanwhile, the contamination spreads. The chemicals don’t care about jurisdictional boundaries or budget constraints. Arsenic doesn’t pause its leaching schedule because three agencies can’t agree on who should pay for cleanup.

This mess is what happens when we build a regulatory system designed not to solve problems, but to avoid responsibility for them. We create overlapping authorities with conflicting mandates, ensuring that when something goes wrong, everyone can point at someone else.

We pass sweeping environmental laws, then systematically defund and hamstring the agencies tasked with enforcing them. Missouri DNR is “understaffed and underfunded” by its own admission. But that’s a political choice, not an inevitable fact.

We appoint EPA administrators who view the agency’s mission not as protecting public health, but as reducing “red tape” for industry. Zeldin has traveled to all 50 states since taking office, he says, listening to complaints about the invasive nature of water regulations.

Has he spent equal time with families like the Roberts, living downstream from abandoned toxic waste?

When courts narrow the scope of environmental protection, as the Supreme Court did in Sackett, we act as if this is neutral legal interpretation, not a policy choice with material consequences for real people.

The result is predictable: families like the Roberts get poisoned, and nobody does anything about it.

The Big Picture

This story is not unique. It’s just unusually well-documented, thanks to Jim’s persistence. How many other families across the country are living next to abandoned landfills, breathing contaminated air, potentially drinking tainted water, and getting the same runaround?

Missouri has identified 30 contaminated landfills, and Generally is just one of them. How many more haven’t been identified? How many property owners don’t have Roberts’ tenacity?

As the federal government continues to narrow the scope of water protections, cases like this one could multiply.

The Clean Water Act was supposed to be a promise that we wouldn’t tolerate poisoned rivers and toxic dumps. It was passed in an era when the Cuyahoga River literally caught fire from pollution, when industrial waste flowed freely into waterways, and when environmental disasters were routine.

Now, more than 50 years later, we’re watching that promise erode. Not with dramatic fanfare, but with bureaucratic shuffling and legal hairsplitting. With budget cuts and jurisdictional disputes. With agencies pointing fingers while families deal with the consequences.

If government can’t protect its citizens from poisoned water, what’s the point of having one?

What Happens Next?

As of December 2025, the Generally Hauling Landfill continues to leak. Roberts’ family continues to live with contamination. The EPA’s new Waters of the United States rule is open for public comment until January 5, 2026*, before being finalized.

*Comments can be submitted here.

Missouri DNR says it’s working with communities to find long-term solutions for abandoned landfills but provides no specifics on when or how. Franklin County says it’s in conversations with state legislators about funding. The EPA says this is a state issue.

The leachate keeps flowing. The Meramec River keeps accepting it. Somewhere downstream, someone else’s drinking water is getting a little more toxic.

But at least we’re not letting overzealous bureaucrats micromanage puddles and ponds.

The Roberts family continues to seek help addressing contamination from the Generally Hauling Landfill. Anyone with information about potential legal remedies or funding sources for abandoned landfill cleanup is encouraged to contact the family through their public advocacy page.

Every single year, California farmers dump 2.5 million pounds of PFAS-containing pesticides onto the very fields that grow the fruits and vegetables we eat, according to a new analysis and interactive map from the Environmental Working Group.

Let me tell you why this matters so much.

Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) are a group of more than 15,000 human-made chemicals dubbed as “forever chemicals.”

We know these chemicals are dangerous. We know they cause cancer, reproductive harm, developmental problems in kids, high cholesterol, and weakened immune systems.

We know they never break down—not in a hundred years, not in a thousand years. They sit there in the soil, seep into the groundwater, and build up in our bodies. About 99 percent of Americans already have PFAS in their blood. Newborn babies are born with these chemicals already inside them.

Want to know what part of California is getting hit hardest? Fresno County. An agricultural heartland. The place that feeds not just California, but the entire nation.

Between 2018 and 2023, Fresno alone got doused with 2.1 million pounds of these toxic pesticides. Kern County took 1.6 million pounds. San Joaquin got nearly a million pounds. We’re talking about the San Joaquin Valley—one of the most productive agricultural regions on Earth—being turned into a toxic waste dump.

“Every pound of forever chemicals used on farmland presents a risk of contamination of our food, our water and soil,” Jared Hayes, EWG senior policy analyst and co-author of the report said in a statement. “It doesn’t make sense when plenty of non-PFAS pesticides are readily available.”

That’s right. Non-PFAS pesticides exist, and they work just fine. So why are we still poisoning our land and our people with these toxic chemicals?

In the new report, EWG reviewed 66 PFAS registered as active pesticide ingredients permitted in the U.S. for use to kill fungi, insects, or weeds. EWG found that 52 of those PFAS were used in 58 California counties from 2018 to 2023.

PFAS can also be found in pesticides as inert, or inactive, ingredients, which means they don’t address pests directly but can enhance how well a pesticide works. Manufacturers aren’t required to disclose individual inert PFAS in their products, so it’s hard to know the extent to which they play a role in the effects of pesticides that are sprayed.

The EPA’s Dangerous Double-Talk

Now, the EPA wants you to believe everything’s just fine. In a November 2025 press release, they rolled out their standard playbook of bureaucratic spin and technical jargon designed to confuse you into compliance. They claim these single fluorinated compounds aren’t “real” PFAS because they only have one fluorinated carbon instead of two. They say there are “no human health risks of concern when used according to label.”

Let me translate that for you: The EPA is playing word games with chemistry definitions while California farmers spray millions of pounds of fluorinated chemicals onto our food supply.

They’re hiding behind the phrase “when used according to label” as if agricultural workers always follow every precaution perfectly, as if chemicals never drift, and as if nothing ever goes wrong.

The EPA brags that these pesticides are “safer than alternatives,” and that they’ve been approved by administrations on both sides of the aisle. You know what? That’s not the reassurance they think it is. It just states the obvious. Both parties have been looking the other way while chemical companies profit from poisoning us.

And then, they have the audacity to say that if you’re still concerned, you can just buy organic. As if every family in Fresno, where the median household income is barely above $50,000, can afford to shop at Whole Foods. As if the farmworkers getting directly exposed to these chemicals have that luxury.

EPA’s Reckless Rush to Approve More PFAS

But wait—it gets worse. While the EPA was busy writing reassuring press releases, the current administration was quietly fast-tracking approval for even more PFAS pesticides. In 2025 alone, they approved five new ones, which includes isocycloseram, a forever chemical approved for use on golf courses, lawns, and food crops including oranges, tomatoes, almonds, peas, and oats.

Let that sink in. They approved a chemical that breaks down into 40 smaller PFAS compounds, some even more persistent than the original. It’s a compound that causes reduced testicle size, lower sperm counts, and liver toxicity in studies.

And here’s the truly criminal part—the EPA found that children could be at risk from dietary exposure but chose not to implement the child-safety buffer that’s standard for other pesticides.

They knew the risks, and they approved it anyway.

“For all of the rhetoric about caring about children’s health and well-being, this administration is quick to throw them under the bus whenever it suits their polluting benefactors,” said Nathan Donley from the Center for Biological Diversity in a statement.

A 2024 report from researchers at the Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Working Group, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility found that forever chemicals are increasingly being added to U.S. pesticide products, contaminating waterways and posing potential threats to human health.

Maine is the first U.S. state to ban intentionally added PFAS in pesticides, but that ban doesn’t take effect until 2030. That’s five more years of exposure with contamination building up. And California, despite being the biggest user of these toxic pesticides, hasn’t moved to regulate them at all.

Killing the Bees That Feed Us

It’s not just our kids who are at risk. Isocycloseram is devastatingly toxic to bees and pollinators, according to the EPA’s own assessment. They found that bees collecting nectar and pollen near treated fields could be exposed to 1,500 times the lethal dose of this pesticide.

And that really matters because one out of every three bites of food you eat comes from plants pollinated by bees. Almost all the nutrient-dense foods we need—fruits, vegetables, nuts—require pollinators. We’re approving chemicals that could wipe them out while contaminating the very crops they help produce. It’s insanity.

Who’s Really Running the EPA?

Want to know why this is happening? Look at who’s running the pesticide office under Trump: Nancy Beck and Lynn Dekleva, both former lobbyists for the American Chemistry Council, and Kyle Kunkler, formerly with the pro-pesticide American Soybean Association. The foxes aren’t just guarding the henhouse; they’re running it.

These people decide whether forever chemicals are safe for your children to eat. These are the people creating new webpages to assure you of their “robust review procedures” while fast-tracking approvals for chemicals that persist forever, harm reproduction, damage livers, and kill the pollinators we depend on for food.

The EPA even published a “Make America Healthy Again” strategy report that, after pressure from the pesticide industry, shifted from highlighting pesticide harms to convincing the public of how thorough their approval process is. It’s not about protecting health. It’s about protecting industry profits and providing cover for dangerous decisions.

You can read more about the EPA’s revolving door here.

What We Can Do Right Now

The scientists and advocates are telling consumers not to stop eating fruits and vegetables, as the health benefits still outweigh the risks. But that shouldn’t be the standard we accept. We shouldn’t have to choose between nutrition and poison.

Here’s what you can do:

Wash your produce thoroughly. Not a light rinse—really scrub it. Check out this Guide to Washing Produce for tips.

Buy organic when you can. PFAS pesticides can’t legally be used on organic crops.

Filter your water. Not all filters remove PFAS, so do your research.

Demand action. Call your representatives. Make noise. Tell California lawmakers that the people of Fresno and the Central Valley deserve better than being America’s toxic dumping ground.

Time to Stop Playing Games

The EPA can issue all the press releases they want, full of technical language and reassurances. Chemical companies can keep selling their products. But the facts don’t lie. These chemicals cause cancer and harm children’s development. They never go away. Safer alternatives are available, and we need to use them.

This issue isn’t complicated. It’s about whether we prioritize corporate profits over human health. Do we have the political will to protect the families who grow our food or sacrifice them for convenience and cheap produce?

The people of California, especially those in Fresno, Kern, San Joaquin, and across the Central Valley, deserve clean water, safe soil, and a future that isn’t poisoned by chemicals that will outlast their grandchildren’s grandchildren.

It’s time to stop the spray. We can demand better and fight like our lives depend on it—because they do.

Keep the conversation going in the comments below. What steps are you taking to avoid pesticide and PFAS exposure?

This Thanksgiving week, I can’t stop thinking about cranberries and what they’re teaching us about second chances.

You know those cranberries sitting on your table Thursday? In Massachusetts, they’re not just food, they are a $1.7 billion industry.

For more than 150 years, families on Nantucket and across the state have coaxed these ruby berries from sandy soil that barely grows anything else. The Wampanoag people harvested them for thousands of years before that. Cranberries are woven into the fabric of this place.

But something to discuss at your Thanksgiving dinner is how some of those bogs are dying. Not because the farmers failed. Because the world changed on them.

You see climate change doesn’t give a damn about tradition. Those cranberry plants need cold winters to bloom and crisp fall nights to turn that perfect red. But Massachusetts now feels like New Jersey, maybe even Delaware. Early springs trick the plants into blooming too soon, and late frosts kill those premature blossoms. New insects and fungi move in.

At Windswept Bog on Nantucket, cranberries thrived for a century. It’s a spot that holds 100 years of family knowledge, calculated flooding and draining, and harvest seasons that brought the community together. In 2018, the Nantucket Conservation Foundation had to make a choice that would’ve broken hearts 30 years ago. They had to shut it down.

Here’s where it gets interesting and even hopeful.

Instead of abandoning those 40 acres to become a wasteland, they decided to give the land back to itself. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Massachusetts Division of Ecological Restoration, and others stepped up with money to make it happen.

They ripped out 2,500 feet of berms, removed 28 water-control structures, filled in ditches, and hauled away a one-to-three-foot layer of sand that had accumulated. They “roughened up” the surface to wake up native wetland plant seeds that had been lying dormant in the soil, waiting.

“Setting the stage for nature to come in and take over and do the rest of the work... it’s really awe-inspiring,” Karen Beattie, vice president of science and stewardship at the Nantucket Conservation Foundation said. “I’m looking forward to seeing how the site responds.”

Talk about wisdom.

What We Get Back

Let’s talk about return on investment. Let me tell you what a functioning wetland gives you that a failing cranberry bog doesn’t.

Clean water. Before restoration, Windswept was a highway for pollutants, such as fertilizers, bacteria from septic systems, road runoff, all flowing straight into Polpis Harbor and Nantucket Harbor. That pollution was killing the scalloping and boating industries. A natural wetland helps filter that out.

Climate resilience. Wetlands absorb storm surge. They buffer waves. With sea levels rising, saltwater is predicted to reach Windswept’s northwestern edge by 2100. That restored bog will give salt marsh habitat, which is becoming scarce, somewhere to migrate as it retreats from rising seas.

Carbon capture. Wetlands lock up massive amounts of carbon dioxide in their soil. Massachusetts needs every tool in the toolbox to meet net-zero emissions goals. These restored bogs are climate warriors.

Wildlife habitat. They tracked turtles at Windswept with radio transmitters during restoration. Data showed the animals were active there in the spring, summer, and fall and traveled to nearby wetlands to hibernate in winter. Birds, fish, amphibians; they all need these spaces.

The Bigger Picture

Massachusetts has already restored nearly 500 acres of wetlands with 17 more projects in the pipeline. They’re on track to restore 1,000 acres of cranberry bogs in the next decade.

Since 1992, the National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant program has contributed more $530 million to conserve and restore 600,000 acres of wetlands. That money comes from taxes on fishing equipment, boat motors, and recreational fuel. How cool that the people who love the water help pay to protect it.

Gratitude as Action

This Thanksgiving, yes, I’m grateful for cranberry sauce. But I’m more grateful for the people who had the guts to admit when something wasn’t working anymore, and the vision to imagine something better.

“These projects will transform degraded former cranberry bogs into thriving wetlands that will provide habitat to important species, flood control in time of storms, and access for all to beautiful natural areas,” Governor Maura Healey said in a statement.

I’m grateful that we’re finally understanding something Indigenous peoples knew all along. Sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do is get out of the way and let the land heal itself.

Those cranberry bogs served Nantucket for more than a century. The restored wetlands will serve it for centuries more.

Sometimes, moving forward means getting back to our roots. Progress means restoration. Sometimes, the bravest thing we can do is admit that what worked before isn’t working now—and choose transformation over stubbornness.

The land remembers what it’s supposed to be. We just have to give it the chance.

Happy Thanksgiving. Now pass the cranberries and remember where they came from.

Native American Heritage Month is celebrated each November, as a time to celebrate the traditions, languages, and stories of Native American communities and ensure their rich histories and contributions continue to thrive.

Yes, Thanksgiving is a time to celebrate everything we are grateful for and get together with loved ones for a feast. Many of us learned the Thanksgiving story that involved Pilgrims and Indians sitting down to a happy meal together and becoming fast friends.

The harvest celebration of 1621 was not actually called Thanksgiving. The next official “day of thanksgiving” was after settlers massacred more than 400 Pequot men, women, and children. Learn more here.

Here are a few resources to help you celebrate and honor the Native American experience.

Watch

This May Be The Last Time

An investigation into Native American filmmaker Sterlin Harjo’s family history, namely the mysterious 1962 disappearance of his grandfather and the songs of encouragement sung by those who searched for him.

Rumble

This documentary brings to light the profound and overlooked influence of Indigenous people on popular music in North America. Focusing on music icons like Link Wray, Jimi Hendrix, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Taboo (The Black Eyed Peas), Charley Patton, Mildred Bailey, Jesse Ed Davis, Robbie Robertson, and Randy Castillo.

Read

There, There by Tommy Orange is a novel that grapples with the history of a nation. After noticing a lack of stories about urban Native Americans, Orange created a remarkable work that explores those who have inherited a profound spirituality, but who are also plagued by addiction, abuse, and suicide.

This book was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and received the 2019 American Book Award. In October 2025, Orange was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Orange is a citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma.

Since 1984, Louise Erdrich has established herself as one of the most prominent and decorated authors in literature thanks to her thought-provoking, intricately written books.

Inspired by her grandfather, Erdrich’s sixth standalone novel The Night Watchman is a fictionalized version of his fight to resist the Indian termination policies of the 1940s and 1960s. An undeniably powerful work that grapples with the best and worst of human nature, Erdrich captivates readers’ minds and hearts with great ease. Critically acclaimed, the novel earned her the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Biologist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer shares the importance of being a voice for ecological justice and the need for all of us to recognize our individual gifts and responsibilities.

She is a mother, plant ecologist, and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) in Syracuse. She is also founding director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. Interested in the restoration of ecological communities and the restoration of our relationships to land, she draws on the wisdom of both Indigenous and scientific knowledge to help us reach sustainability goals. For Kimmerer, however, sustainability is not the end goal; it’s merely the first step of returning humans to relationships with creation based in regeneration and reciprocity.

Listen

Charly Lowry is a dynamic singer-songwriter from Pembroke, North Carolina. She is proud to be an Indigenous woman belonging to the Lumbee and Tuscarora Tribes. She considers her work a platform for raising awareness around issues that plague underdeveloped and underserved Native communities.

Multi-award-winning musician Martha Redbone is one of the most vital voices in American roots music. This charismatic songstress sings a tasty gumbo of roots music embodying both the folk sounds of her childhood in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky and the eclectic grit of her teenage years in pre-gentrified Brooklyn. In her performance, Redbone embraces her identity as Cherokee, Chocktaw, European and African-American, and enchants the audience in her musical journey.

Keep the conversation going in the comments below. Did you know the significance of cranberry bogs and wetlands? What traditions do you bring to your Thanksgiving table?