TV News LIES

The Environmental Protection Agency has set the country’s first federal limits on forms of PFAS in drinking water, a class of “forever chemicals” that have been tied to negative health outcomes and have been found in one form or another in nearly half of the US’s tap water supply.

The policy could help improve the water quality of as many as 100 million people.

Having a standardized federal policy will eventually take the pressure of monitoring drinking water off of individuals, who currently have to do so in most states. The proposal, however, falls short of calling for companies that have utilized PFAS heavily — like DuPont and 3M — to curb their usage or cover cleanup costs, a move that experts say is needed to fully address the problem of these contaminants.

“The issue and the cost and the burden of all this shouldn’t fall on communities, it shouldn’t fall on the consumer. It’s the polluter that needs to pay,” Tasha Stoiber, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group, told Vox last year.

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Political leaders who present themselves as “grownups” while slowing the pace of climate action are pushing the world towards deeper catastrophe, a former US climate chief has warned.

“We are slowed down by those who think of themselves as grownups and believe decarbonisation at the speed the climate community calls for is unrealistic,” said Todd Stern, who served as a special envoy for climate change under Barack Obama, and helped negotiate the 2015 Paris agreement.

“They say that we need to slow down, that what is being proposed [in cuts to greenhouse gas emissions] is unrealistic,” he told the Observer. “You see it a lot in the business world too. It’s really hard [to push for more urgency] because those ‘grownups’ have a lot of influence.”

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Workers hurriedly tried to shore up a rural Utah dam after a 60ft (18-meter) crack sent water pouring into a creek and endangering the 1,800 residents of a downstream town.

State and local leaders don’t think the Panguitch Lake dam is in imminent danger of breaking open but have told residents to be prepared to evacuate if conditions worsen. Emergency management officials passed out a list of evacuation procedures to worried residents at a Wednesday evening town meeting meant to mitigate panic.

“I can’t say that the emergency situation is entirely averted, but I’m very, very encouraged by the progress we’ve made today,” Everett Taylor, an assistant state engineer for dam safety with the Utah division of water rights, told residents of the southern Utah town.

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Trump administration officials barred experts from warning legislators that they were about to write a major environmental loophole into law, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) staffers alleged in newly revealed internal communications.

The loophole,  arising from a clause in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), enabled many companies to avoid disclosing releases of toxic “forever chemicals” to the EPA.

Internal EPA correspondence obtained by The Hill shows that career staff members attempted to make Congress aware of the issue, but they believe their efforts were rebuffed by political appointees.

Did you feel it? A magnitude 3.4 earthquake struck near Berkeley Saturday morning, according to United States Geological Survey.

The quake hit at around 11:12 a.m. It had a depth of 5.8 miles, the USGS said.

It was felt in Oakland, Richmond, El Sobrante, Richmond and San Francisco.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency said for Muni passengers to expect minor delays as it is conducting visual safety checks.

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A 4.8 magnitude earthquake recorded in New Jersey that shook residents in surrounding states and New York City on Friday morning was one of the strongest in state history.

The temblor was reported about 5 miles north of Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, at about 10:23 a.m. Friday, according to the United States Geological Survey. The epicenter was about 45 miles from New York City, where residents reported shaking furniture and floors.

“Earthquakes in this region are uncommon but not unexpected. It’s likely people near the epicenter are going to feel aftershocks for this earthquake in the magnitude 2-3 range, and there’s a small chance there can be an earthquake as large or larger, following an earthquake like this,” Paul Earle, a seismologist at the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program told reporters. “In terms of our operations, this is a routine earthquake … Immediately we knew this would be of high interest and important to people who don’t feel earthquakes a lot.”

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