"The owners of the Keystone Pipeline System entered into a settlement Friday with the Environmental Protection Agency and Kansas under which they agreed to pay more than $26 million in damages for a 2022 oil spill."
"A South Dakota mining company has canceled a drilling project in the Black Hills after opposition from Native American tribes and local groups."
"Nine Native American tribes in South Dakota, North Dakota and Nebraska are suing the federal government in a bid to stop exploratory drilling for graphite near a sacred site in the Black Hills."
"After years of worsening water quality, the move marks Gov. Kim Reynolds’ first official action to tackle harmful agricultural nutrients in state waterways. Critics say it’s “too little too late.”"
"The Trump administration is moving ahead with a uranium mining project in South Dakota that’s drawn years of pushback from the Oglala Sioux Tribe." "Federal regulators are preparing an environmental review for a project opposed by members of a nearby tribe and conservation groups."
"Public health officials in Omaha, Nebraska, say not enough kids who live near the country’s largest residential lead cleanup site are tested for the metal. Faced with similar crises or concerns, 13 states have passed laws requiring all kids to get a blood test for lead early in life."
"For two decades, Nick Pehle's grapes, pressed and distilled, have filled glasses at wineries across Missouri. ... Last year was different. In May, before the vines could bloom, their leaves started curling into the shape of small bowls."
As the Trump administration and its allies seek to stifle free speech and paint protest as domestic terrorism, Voices columnist Yessenia Funes argues that environmental journalists must heed the impact on the environmental movement we cover. Start with what happened in Standing Rock, which swept back into the news this spring. Funes explains the connection, and where we may be headed.
"When pollution gets bad enough in the rivers supplying Iowa’s largest city with drinking water, it costs Des Moines around $16,000 a day to run a special system to filter out dangerous nitrates. It’s a fact of life in the agriculture-dependent state — and climate change is making the water quality problem even worse."
