Articles by Grist staff

Old Disgraceful

Yellowstone National Park’s aging sewage system is overwhelmed and dilapidated, a condition that on July 2 led to several thousand gallons of raw sewage spilling into a meadow in the park. Last year, raw sewage leaks contaminated Yellowstone Lake and a creek near the Old Faithful geyser. The park has some 3 million annual visitors […]

Rising Tempura-tures

A Japanese nuclear reactor on the coast of the Sea of Japan was shut down yesterday because the facility leaked an estimated 20 tons of radioactive cooling water, one of the worst such leaks in the nation’s history. The reactor was manually shut down, and cooling facilities are being refilled to normal capacity. A spokesperson […]

Allen Wrench in Pollution Monitoring

The administration of former Virginia Gov. George Allen (R) concealed information about river pollution and refused to release data on water contaminants to the U.S. EPA, according to a report released yesterday by state auditors. In 1994, the year Allen became governor, the state’s database on river pollution was erased from personal computers and backup […]

Getting Turtles Out of the Soup

Philippine officials are pressing the nation’s congress to declare six islands on the Philippine-Malaysian sea border a wildlife sanctuary. The Turtle Islands contain some of the few remaining nesting grounds of endangered sea turtles in the world, but the creatures are increasingly threatened by coastal development, poaching, and illegal fishing methods like the use of […]