State
MDEQ AWARDS GRANTS TO LOCAL COUNTIES
WTVA
JACKSON, Miss. (WTVA) - Two local counties will receive grants to help with solid waste.
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality awarded Tishomingo County with $10,871.
6 waste company proposals accepted Adams County supervisors
Natchez Democrat
NATCHEZ — Adams County supervisors accepted six proposals Monday for the county’s waste collection contract.
Bid accepted to raze Kuhn Memorial Hospital buildings
Vicksburg Post
A Jackson construction company has been hired to raze the Kuhn Memorial Hospital buildings at 1422 Martin Luther King Blvd.
Trash behind Hancock County school is no cause for concern
WLOX
In the few short weeks since school has let out, some people have been walking around Hancock County Middle School and noticing some trash buildup in the lot just behind the school.
Horn Lake sewer service in limbo
DeSoto Times-Tribune
The City of Horn Lake has a signed contract with the City of Memphis to handle its wastewater through the year 2023 but after that time it's still up in the air as to what entity will treat the city's wastewater.
Mississippi reopens 4 wildlife areas after months of flood
AP
Officials are reopening four wildlife management areas in the Mississippi Delta as floodwaters finally recede.
State Government
Governor Bryant appoints new MEMA director
WLBT
Governor Phil Bryant has appointed a new MEMA director.
Retired Colonel Greg Michel was named Director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency on Monday.
Regional
Louisiana hopes new oyster leases will ease pain of coastal restoration efforts
Times-Picayune
More than a decade ago, Louisiana stopped issuing new oyster leases in an attempt to avoid lawsuits when oyster beds are damaged by coastal restoration projects. But as the state embarks on its most expensive coastal restoration project to date, its plan to mitigate for oyster fishery losses includes opening new coastal waters for fishers to move their crop out of harm's way.
EPA seeking peer review on GenX research
Star News
RALEIGH – Federal regulators are sending their research out for peer review this month as the Environmental Protection Agency works on a GenX health goal.
How a Florida Utility Became the Global King of Green Power
NextEra became a renewable-energy Goliath using tax subsidies to help finance projects around the country and avoiding debt—staying quiet about it all
WSJ
Who is the world’s largest operator of wind and solar farms? It’s also America’s most valuable power company. Still stumped? It’s by design.
National
White House thought Pruitt’s climate idea was ‘out of control’
The Hill
The White House thought Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt was going rogue last year when he was planning an exercise to formally challenge climate change science.
EPA shifts oversight of coal waste to a state for 1st time
AP
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday approved the first state permit program for disposal of toxic ash from coal plants, a switch from federal oversight that the coal industry had sought.
EPA stops policy of having press aide review grants
The Hill
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rescinded a policy last month that had a political appointee in the press office review the agency’s grants before they could be approved.
Illinois, other states hit roadblocks pursuing environmental claims against VW
Chicago Tribune
Nearly three years after Volkswagen was caught marketing “clean diesel” vehicles equipped with software to beat emissions testing, Illinois and other states are hitting legal obstacles in their attempts to get restitution from the German automaker for allegedly violating state environmental regulations.
Studies show groundwater holding own against drilling boom
AP
New research suggests drinking water supplies in Pennsylvania have shown resilience in the face of a drilling boom that has turned swaths of countryside into a major production zone for natural gas.
Big Oil Tries to Take the Fracking Boom Global
BP’s Khazzan natural-gas project in Oman marks a breakthrough for fracking projects outside the U.S.
WSJ
A BP project deep in Oman’s desert shows how big-oil companies are taking hydraulic-fracturing techniques perfected in Texas to the global stage, where they had long struggled.
PRESERVE IT NOW
Pilot project to help improve soil, water quality
High Plains Journal
Ed Hakes subscribes to the theory that they aren’t making any more black dirt.
“If my son is going to farm here,” the New Market, Iowa farmer explains, “we have to preserve it now.”
Opinion
Possumhaw: Why I'm giving up plastic straws
Commercial Dispatch
"The home should be a sanctuary. We ... have the right, if not the duty, and certainly the power, to bring positive change to the world through our daily decisions and actions."
Bea Johnson, author of "Zero Waste Home"
My good friend, we'll call him Richard, caught up with me at church. "Girl," he said, "did you see this issue of National Geographic? It's about all that plastic ending up in the ocean. I think you should write something about it, but you have to give the magazine back. I have every issue I ever got."
Press Releases
EPA Approves First-in-the-Nation State Coal Ash Permit Program for Oklahoma
06/18/2018
WASHINGTON — Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved Oklahoma’s application to operate a permit program for disposing of coal combustion residuals – commonly known as coal ash – in landfills and surface impoundments.
