The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "environmental pollution" ...
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C-HIT: Toxic Laundry Emissions
Industrial laundries in New England have recently come under intense scrutiny by the EPA, ever since the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) found that volatile organic compounds (VOC’s) were being released at a facility in Waterbury, CT. According to Steve Rapp, Chief of the Air Technical Unit, EPA Region 1, the problem is widespread and significant. “The industrial laundries are grossly under-reporting their VOCs,” said Rapp. “It’s a total sleeper.” The problem stems from the process of laundering shop towels, which are often contaminated with toxic solvents. When improperly cleaned, the solvents are vaporized and emitted to the surrounding air. This article investigated this little-known source of air pollution, shedding light on the industry’s practices and its impact on air quality and public health.
Tags: Volatile organic compunds; VOC's; DEEP; air quality; public health
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Poisoned Places: Tonawanda
It's difficult to definitively link any one person's illness to air pollution from a particular plant. But the concerns about the health effects of Tonawanda Coke's toxic pollution rallied a small group of people in Tonawanda -- most of them sick -- to force complacent regulators to clean up the air. The case highlights the risks posed to communities around the country by an environmental regulatory system that largely entrusts companies to voluntarily disclose how much toxic pollution they emit and that can take years to act once violations are discovered.
Tags: air pollution; toxic emission; Tonawanda; Coke; health effects;
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Washed Away
This investigation revealed the "huge environmental risk to North Carolina's lakes and rivers when you combine a poorly run state restoration program with state and federal rules that do not stress water quality improvements." It was found, among other things, that the state spent $140 million on faulty water projects.
Tags: water pollution; water restoration; development; waste
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Yellow Dirt: An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed
This book reveals how the U.S. government consciously looked away as miners, and then the neighbors, were exposed to uranium's dangers as it was mined on a Navajo reservation, in a slow-motion environmental catastrophe that last for decades and continues today.
Tags: uranium; radiation; mining; Navajo; Indian reservation; yellow cake; yellow dirt; EPA; Environmental Protection Agency; Indian Health Service; Bureau of Indian Affairs; Atomic Energy Commission; National Cancer Institute; environmental pollution; environmental disaster; nuclear power; atomic bomb
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"Barnegat Bay Under Stress"
This series of stories investigates the gradual demise of Barnegat Bay, the "largest coastal estuary" in New Jersey. Reporters found that thousands of pounds of fertilizer and other "land-borne pollution" is flowing into the bay. The investigative series resulted in Gov. Chris Christie shutting down a nearby nuclear power plant and earmarking millions of dollars for "special environmental control funding."
Tags: Gov. Chris Christie; pollution; wildlife; stormwater; Oyster Creek; nuclear power plant; estuary; fertilizer; jellyfish; Ocean Gate; Toms River; EPA
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A Quiet Hell
This story didn't focus on one specific chemical plant; instead it focuses on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). After analyzing data for individual pollutants that were emitted during non-routine operations, a number of details were revealed. Some of these details are that "more than 20 million pounds of pollutants were emitted", TCEQ infrequently enforced the laws, some penalties were never finalized, and "the plants with the most violations paid the least percentage of their fines".
Tags: pollution; chemical plants; emissions; Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ); Houston Ship Channel; pollutants; oil industry; gas industry; air; politics; atmosphere
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Red River Dumping
Millions of gallons of toxic waster were secretly being dumped into a northern Louisiana waterway. The September story started with an anonymous tip and led to the discovery of thousands of pages of online documents revealing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality concerns about the presence of dangerous toxins in waste water stored by CCS Midstream Services, LLC, hidden caches of toxic waste, falsified records and a hidden pipe leading into Red River.
Tags: toxins; public health; environmental violations; protected waters; toxic waste; pollution; dumping chemicals;
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The Smokestack Effect: Toxic air and America's schools
The air outside hundreds of schools nationwide appears to be rife with toxic chemicals. Children are as much as 10 times more susceptible to toxic chemicals than are adults.
Tags: pollution; EPA; children's health; toxic chemicals; exposure risks; Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators; air quality; industrial pollution
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Smoke and Mirrors
"This four-part series documents the slow but complete transformation of the EPA from an agency legally bound to protect and improve the environment to an agency that used an array of political tricks to avoid its Congressional mandate. The series major findings are that the Bush administration appointed an administrator who would do its bidding on behalf of the corporate community; allowed important decisions to languish in the courts, thereby delaying the implementation of various regulations for years; developed a 'voluntary' anti-pollution program that actually rewards polluters; and ignored the science that underpins sound environmental policy."
Tags: EPA; pollution; Bush administration; environment; regulations; corporate control;
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Witnesses Wait
Humans have found ways to synthesize chemicals that cause terrible damage in the human body and do not decompose; they last and last. Most companies that produce these compounds locate away from people, in industrial zones. But in one neighborhood of New Orleans, an old chemical company mixed some of the most hazardous substances ever produced by man: Agent Orange, Heptachlor, Endosulfan, Dieldrin and DDT. They produced these chemicals out in the open on a small parcel of land ringed by people's homes. The wind blew the dry chemicals onto the houses, and there has been no effort to remove the soil or the risk to people who play and raise children and gardens there. Using an EPA database and Google Earth, the reporter found that there is no place more polluted with old, canned, organo-chlorine insecticides than this tiny, black, new Orleans neighborhood.
Tags: Pollution; Agent Orange; heptachlor; endosulfan; dieldrin; DDT; New Orleans; soil contamination; EPA; Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality