I wrote the cover story to the special September edition of "Green Building + Design," a design-porn glossy that doesn't shy away from hard questions about its subjects. (I, for one, balk at the consumerist trend to "be green.") I wrote about the mantra--and standards--called Passive House, which uses modelling and analysis to incorporate remarkable … Continue reading A glimpse at the ideas re-shaping building design from the science up
pollution
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The City of Springfield says no one has applied to its new program to award a kind of tax break to those who minimize runoff from their properties. (The city's often forced to process said runoff as sewage, an expensive proposition.) Like very few others, I read the credit manual from cover to cover. It … Continue reading For the privilege of saving 6 cents a month, please pay $50
False info from a source, and how we dealt with it
As it turns out, my source for a story that ran in Tuesday's paper -- the Ohio EPA -- gave me incorrect information. To compensate, we're correcting the original story on the web (although it looks like the sub-headline hasn't been changed) and we're running a second story in the same place, 1A downpage, that … Continue reading False info from a source, and how we dealt with it
Coverage of anti-fracking group
Three members of an anti-fracking group based in Yellow Springs have traveled around the state and the country to teach others about the possible dangers of fracking and to join protests against it. Photo by Brandon Smith-Hebson, used courtesy of Dayton Daily News. To accompany a Sunday front-page centerpiece on fracking, once again I joined … Continue reading Coverage of anti-fracking group
Pollution hasn’t invaded drinking water wells, testing in response to our article shows
Today's paper features the results of health district tests of private drinking water wells near pollution seeping from a New Carlisle landfill. Good news: the comprehensive VOC test returned negative results, so people aren't drinking vinyl chloride. The landfill is a U.S. EPA Superfund site, and is leaching the carcinogen into … Continue reading Pollution hasn’t invaded drinking water wells, testing in response to our article shows
New Carlisle landfill on ODH’s watch list
An employee speaks with the owner of Scarff's Wholesale Nursery. Scarff's drilled four wells in an attempt to avoid pollution seeping from a nearby landfill, and still had to be connected to city water. Photo by Marshall Gorby, courtesy of the Springfield News-Sun Big splash on the front of today's News-Sun: my story on a … Continue reading New Carlisle landfill on ODH’s watch list
A setback for the truck-maker in Navistar v. EPA
International trucks on display at a show in China, April 2011. Creative Commons-licensed photo by Flickr user SimonQ. In a followup to my story last month, I just wrote about a development in Navistar v. EPA, the lawsuit that the truck company with the local manufacturing arm filed against the environment agency. How this setback … Continue reading A setback for the truck-maker in Navistar v. EPA
Mercury poisoning saga
Joel Hogue tests mercury vapor in bags containing clothes removed from the Moore family home. Some bags tested around 100 times the limit considered safe. Photo by Barbara J. Perenic, courtesy of the Springfield-News Sun. Hey everyone. Check out my initial article and followup to the story of the family that had to leave its … Continue reading Mercury poisoning saga
Ohio EPA called out U.S. EPA — at *my* meeting!
The time I had to write this report could have been rounded to zero. The space I had to write this report was 1/4 what I would have written if I had all the space I wanted. But it turned out beautifully, as my editors kept all the needed details, which, frankly, were astounding. I … Continue reading Ohio EPA called out U.S. EPA — at *my* meeting!
Chicago: the greenest city *snicker*
Based on the frequency of news coverage about polluted soil or buildings in Chicago, you might think there really isn't much of that here. After all, only a single EPA National Priorities List site exists in Chicago. But it was tough to get listed because the city would rather not have those blemishes on its … Continue reading Chicago: the greenest city *snicker*
Protected: For decades, Pullman man cleaned up others’ messes
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Protected: CPS sends kids to look at pollution
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Protected: The Toxic Dump Next Door
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Jensen nonviolent, after all
Art I made for the large open wall of my apartment. The metal numbers were someone else's garbage. (My Dad's, in fact.) This month Derrick Jensen took a step back from his usual extreme tone in his Orion Magazine column. (Orion represents the literary and philosophical side of the environmental movement.) Normally he advocates a … Continue reading Jensen nonviolent, after all
Quick shout-out
Annie Leonard lectures at a sustainability conference. (Creative Commons photo from the Flickr account of Kevin Krejci) Annie Leonard released a long-anticipated followup to her "Story of Stuff" video, called "The Story of Cap and Trade." It's more complex than the first (I, an environmental reporter, had to rewind a couple times), but it does … Continue reading Quick shout-out
Links
I kept writing but haven't posted in a while, so I just wanted to fling a link your way before I hopped a bus to Columbus, Ohio to see the fam. (Look for more posts to come soon, however.) The Yes Men, a group of nationally-known pranksters, did some protesting of the Fisk power plant … Continue reading Links
Who are these corrupt scientists? Leachates nearly unavoidable
Gladware, the type of food storage I have at home. I've heard soft plastics are more prone to have dangerous leachates, and this stuff is as soft as you get. (Creative Commons-licensed photo from Timothy Valentine's Flickr account) Nick Kristof's column Saturday dealt with Bisphenol-A, the chemical lots of people are worried about because, hey, … Continue reading Who are these corrupt scientists? Leachates nearly unavoidable
Bobby Kennedy, Jr. liveblog transcript
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke at my school this morning, at an environmental conference. Had to post a stock photo because I don't yet have a camera... I ate breakfast with him before his speech, basically a preview of the kinds of things he was gonna say, then live-blogged the speech itself on twitter.com/greenletters. The … Continue reading Bobby Kennedy, Jr. liveblog transcript
Light green, dark green, in between? Off the deep end?
Someone recently asked me this question: Do you think we should change our lifestyles to be more environmentally friendly? Or are you more dark green, like we should drop everything we're doing and start completely over, radically changing our entire lives? Or are neither of those solutions? The questioner is a smart cookie, and loves … Continue reading Light green, dark green, in between? Off the deep end?
Wind farm stories
It occurs to me I never linked to two stories I wrote about possible wind farms in Clinton County. My friends who head up the local green energy/green jobs advocacy group would be appalled. Here's the first, about the drive to get people interested in a possible wind farm. Here's the second, about the very … Continue reading Wind farm stories
Brandon Smith 