Articles by Grist staff

The Daily Load

The Bush administration could slash a key program of the Clean Water Act requiring federal oversight of states’ efforts to restore polluted bodies of water. About 300,000 miles of rivers and shorelines and 5 million acres of lakes in the U.S. are categorized as “impaired water bodies” in need of remediation, but for decades, some […]

Whoa, Mexico

A standoff between farmers and the Mexican government over the construction of a new international airport is threatening to become a national crisis. The $2.5 billion, six-runway project has irked environmentalists since it was first proposed, because the airport is slated to be built on a former lake bed that is an important nesting ground […]

I’ll Do the Thinning Around Here, Baba Looey

Fanning a different kind of flame, Republican lawmakers are blaming environmental groups for contributing to the fires that destroyed more than 3.1 million acres of U.S. forests this year by blocking federal projects to thin undergrowth. Thinning removes brush and dead trees from the forest understory, thereby eliminating some of the dry matter and reducing […]

Balkan Death Grip

Fleeing extreme poverty, thousands of Albanians are squatting in and near the abandoned Porto Romano chemical plant — one of the most severely contaminated sites in the Balkans, with soil and groundwater pollutants at 4,000 times the levels considered acceptable by the European Union. Despite admonitions from United Nations experts, the Albanian government has failed […]