dakota-protest

Native youth and supporters protest in New York against Dakota Access Pipeline. By Joe Catron. Used under Creative Commons 2.0.

These are some of the stories we’ve been following this week.

  • Seattle is building a unique electrical substation that will look and function differently than the typical substations found in other cities. It will also run almost entirely on renewable energy.
  • Nearly 1,200 residents are leaving their homes in East Chicago, Indiana, after high levels of lead were reported in the surrounding soil.
  • Residents in Flint, Michigan are hoping a federal judge will order city and state officials to make sure that all residents have access to clean water. The push comes as the city continues to deal with the discovery that lead pipes had been contaminating the local water supply.
  • The Northern Territory in Australia announced it is placing a moratorium on all hydraulic fracturing operations. An independent inquiry will look into the fracking process and assess the effects and whether they pose a danger to residents or the environment.
  • Officials with Dartmouth College apologized for how the college improperly disposed of tons of test animals on land it owned that was used by the medical school in the 60s and 70s. Dartmouth is in the process of remediating the property, including installing a system that will clean the groundwater of contaminants that originated from the property.
  • Protests against the Dakota Access pipeline have spread to other cities. Opponents of the oil pipeline say the pipeline has the potential to contaminate nearby water sources and harm burial grounds and sacred sites that are important to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
  • A couple in North Dakota was victorious in its fight against an oil company’s easement on their property to make way for the proposed Sandpiper Pipeline.
  • The latest Water Resources Development Act will continue to fund program’s protecting the country’s water. However, the version set to be passed by the Senate would also undo the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent coal ash disposal regulations.