Articles by Grist staff

Lower the Pollution and Back Away Slowly

BP says it will back off from releasing more Lake Michigan pollution In what’s being billed as a victory for environmentalists, oil company BP has said it will back off from dumping more pollution into Lake Michigan. The company had just weeks ago received permission from Indiana state authorities to increase the amount of sludge […]

No Peaking

Bush administration eases restrictions on mountaintop-removal mining The Bush administration has given a big thumbs-up to mountaintop-removal mining, the practice of blasting the peaks off of mountains and dumping the rubble into watersheds and valleys. A proposed rule issued today will exempt mining waste from an inconsistently interpreted 1983 rule that disallows mining activity within […]

The Branhams’ mining permit protests

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This week, Gabriel Pacyniak and Katherine Chandler are traveling throughout southern West Virginia to report on mountaintop removal mining (MTR). They'll be visiting coalfields with abandoned and "reclaimed" MTR mines, and talking with residents, activists, miners, mine company officials, local reporters, and politicians.

We'll publish their reports throughout the week.

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Driving to the north end of Mingo County, W.Va., we get lost and arrive late, which is pretty much par for the course. (Sample directions: ... after you get out of that little town make a right after the bridge, go about a mile and half, make a right after the scenic bridge ... ) Fortunately, Donna and Charlie Branham don't seem to mind, and neither do we. The six-mile drive up the hollow is a pleasure: we're listening to "Coal Country Radio" ("The best country music countdown on Earth") as we wind our way past everything from single-wide trailers with chicken coops to custom-built stone homes.

Entrance to Donna and Charlie Branham's homestead. (photo: Katherine Chandler)

The Nation reports on sustainable revitalization of the New Orleans neighborhood

This article by Rebecca Solnit is reprinted from the Sept. 10, 2007 issue of The Nation, released today, which focuses on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, two years later. Solnit is the author of a dozen books, including, most recently, Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics.

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The word "will" comes up constantly in the Lower Ninth Ward now; "We Will Rebuild" is spray-painted onto empty houses; "it will happen," one organizer told me. Will itself may achieve the ambitious objective of bringing this destroyed neighborhood back to life, and for many New Orleanians a ferocious determination seems the only alternative to being overwhelmed and becalmed. But the fate of the neighborhood is still up in the air, from the question of whether enough people can and will make it back to the nagging questions of how viable a city and an ecology they will be part of. The majority of houses in this isolated neighborhood are still empty, though about a tenth of the residents are back, some already living in rehabilitated houses, some camped in stark white FEMA trailers outside, some living elsewhere while getting their houses ready. If you measured the Lower Ninth Ward by will, solidarity and dedication, from both residents and far-flung volunteers and nonprofits, it would be among the best neighborhoods in the United States. If you measured it by infrastructure and probabilities, it looks pretty grim. There are more devastated neighborhoods in New Orleans and neighboring St. Bernard Parish, let alone Mississippi and the Delta, but the Lower Ninth got hit hard by Katrina. Its uncertain fate has come to be an indicator for the future of New Orleans and the fate of its African-American majority.