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Environment

BP oil spill

After wrecking the Gulf, Big Oil is worsening the COVID-19 crisis

By Editors' Choice

By Sue Sturgis, Facing South — This week marked a decade since the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico 40 miles off the Louisiana coast, killing 11 workers and injuring 17 others and triggering the worst oil spill in U.S. history. From the initial blast on April 20, 2010, until the well was sealed four months later, 200 million gallons of crude oil poured into Gulf waters…

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For decades, people living near 'cancer alley' have breathed in some of the country's most toxic air. covid-19 has only worsened the existing public health crisis.

‘Cancer Alley’ has some of the highest Coronavirus death rates in the country

By COVID-19 (Coronavirus), News & Current Affairs

As predominately Black communities in the polluted areas along the Mississippi from New Orleans to Baton Rouge face heightened risks from COVID-19, the EPA has suspended enforcement of the environmental rules designed to protect them. By Sophie Kasakove, VICE — For Mary Hampton, social distancing is the easy part. Her biggest vulnerability during the coronavirus pandemic is beyond her control: the massive petrochemical plant just outside her home in Reserve,…

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Denmark, S.C. | Water samples collected over a decade by Eugene “Horseman” Smith, 74, and his wife Pauline Ray Brown, 77; the couple began collecting the water and having it tested when they started to suspect, correctly, that it was contaminated.

America’s Clean Water Crisis Goes Far Beyond Flint. There’s No Relief in Sight

By Editors' Choice

More than 60 million Americans are exposed to unsafe tap water each year. These striking images show the human cost of the crisis. By Justin Worland, Time | Photos by Matt Black — The wheels are still attached to the house trailer that Pamela Rush calls home, but the 49-year-old mother of two is trapped. A lifelong resident of Lowndes County, Alabama, she lives off disability checks, struggling to pay…

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Water is a human right

U.S. Civil Rights and Human Rights Groups Say Water is a Human Right

By News & Current Affairs, PAUD News, Press Releases / Statements

U.S. Civil Rights and Human Rights Groups Say Water is a Human Right — Express Solidarity with Struggle for Water Rights in Nigeria. February, 10, 2020, New York — The Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW) released a Statement today calling for a national and international movement to declare access to water a human right that should not be subject to profiteering by corporate interests. The Statement was released against the…

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Modesta Irizarry, a community leader, in Loíza, Puerto Rico

In the Afro-Caribbean heart of Puerto Rico, locals fight erosion, government indifference

By News & Current Affairs

Loíza, Puerto Rico, is filled with palm trees, unassuming bars, bomba music, beautiful beaches — and strong-willed locals who refuse to be forgotten. LOÍZA, Puerto Rico — The waves crashed loudly on the collapsed ruins of the Paseo del Atlántico, a walkway that once partially protected residents here from the volatile ocean. Erosion along this northernmost coast of Puerto Rico, nearly 20 miles east of San Juan, precipitated the promenade’s destruction…

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