‘Telling the Public to Drink Poison’: Trump EPA Targets Drinking Water Limits for ‘Forever Chemicals’

“You cannot make America healthy again while allowing toxic PFAS to flow freely from our taps,” said the Environmental Working Group’s president.


This man’s water delivery is shown in Westminster, Massachusetts on June 24, 2022. His household’s tap water is contaminated with high levels of “forever chemicals.”
(Photo by Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
May 18, 2026
C0MMON DREAMS

President Donald Trump is yet again facing accusations of breaking his campaign promise to “Make America Healthy Again” after the US Environmental Protection Agency on Monday proposed repealing and delaying some landmark limits on “forever chemicals” in drinking water.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are commonly called forever chemicals because they persist in the environment, humans, and wildlife for long periods. Despite their links to various health issues, including cancer, they have been used in products such as firefighting foam, food packaging, nonstick pans, and water-resistant fabrics for clothing and furniture.

The Biden administration was praised for its historic steps to reduce PFAS contamination of tap water and urged to go even further. However, the Trump EPA is now pushing to delay those limits for two common contaminants, PFOA and PFOS, and abandon the restrictions for four others: PFBS, PFHxS, and PFNA, and HFPO-DA—also known as GenX.

Announcing the proposed rules on Monday, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed not only that the Biden administration failed to follow federal law in implementing its restrictions, but also that the new proposals are part of the president’s Make America Healthy Again pledge. They highlighted “innovative” technologies plus funding for states to address PFAS in tap water.

However, campaigners who have long called for stricter PFAS policies excoriated the Trump administration over its two proposed rules—which are set to be published in the Federal Register with a 60-day public comment period, and the subject of an EPA hearing scheduled for July 7.

“Zeldin and Kennedy are trying to sell potions out of the back of a covered wagon. The millions of Americans demanding safe drinking water are not going to fall for their hocus pocus,” said Anna Reade, director of PFAS advocacy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, in a statement. “By repealing and delaying PFAS standards, EPA is abandoning communities in desperate need of drinking water protections, especially those who live near polluting industries.”

Food and Water Watch’s water program director, Mary Grant, declared that “with today’s proposals, the Trump administration is telling the public to drink poison. It has once again shown that it represents the interests of billionaire corporate polluters—not the health of people in this country.”

“One thing is absolutely clear, we cannot roll back or delay protections against PFAS,” she said. “For decades, communities have been sounding the alarm and demanding action on these toxic forever chemicals. Instead of implementing commonsense regulations, Trump’s EPA has doubled down on weakening our drinking water protections. Every person deserves and needs clean, safe water, and today’s proposed rules are threats to millions of people.”

Grant argued that “EPA must not delay or roll back these hard-won limits on toxic PFAS contaminants in drinking water. It must immediately cease these deregulatory actions, stop approving new PFAS chemicals, ban all nonessential uses, hold polluters accountable for clean up, expand protections to regulate the entire class, and ramp up support to ensure that every community has access to safe, affordable water.”




Ken Cook, president and co-founder of the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which has tracked PFAS contamination across the United States and publicly released its findings, was similarly outraged by the EPA proposals.

“You cannot make America healthy again while allowing toxic PFAS to flow freely from our taps,” Cook said. “The Trump EPA is caving to chemical industry lobbyists and water utility pressure—and in doing so, it is condemning millions of Americans to drink contaminated water for years to come.”

“The price of this decision will be paid by ordinary people, in the form of more PFAS-related diseases,” he warned.

While Trump’s agency leaders claimed Monday that the Biden administration ran afoul of the Safe Drinking Water Act, EWG accused them of violating that same law, given its requirement that any revision to a tap water standard “maintain, or provide for greater, protection of the health of persons.”

Melanie Benesh, vice president of government affairs at EWG, said that “this is a deliberate decision to expose American families to chemicals linked to cancer and other serious health harms. Rolling back limits on four PFAS and then allowing water systems to push compliance deadlines to 2031, when contamination is ongoing, is unconscionable.”

“The communities least able to protect themselves will pay the highest price,” she added. “That is not regulatory reform. It is an environmental injustice.”

Can sugar cane waste replace plastic? The Kenyan firm pushing sustainable packaging

In a bid to replace single-use food packaging with a more sustainable alternative, one Kenyan company is making use of the waste left behind by the country's sugar industry.


Issued on: 18/05/2026 - RFI

Green Stem uses waste from Kenya's sugar industry to produce packaging for the country's booming takeaway and delivery food sector. © Green Stem

By: Anne Macharia in Nairobi


In the sugar-growing regions of western Kenya, harvest season leaves behind more than just refined sugar.

After extracting the juice from sugar cane, large amounts of fibrous residue – known as bagasse – lie piled next to processing plants.

This residue is often treated as industrial waste – burned, discarded or used in low-value applications.

However, one manufacturer in Nairobi believes this waste could help address one of the world's fastest-growing environmental issues: single-use food packaging

Green Stem Products is turning sugar cane residue into compostable takeaway containers to replace plastic food boxes, plates and trays.

As governments, restaurants and consumers look for alternatives to oil-based packaging, the company is part of a rising movement relying on agricultural waste rather than fossil fuels.

A resource waiting for a market

Inside Green Stem’s factory, stacks of moulded fibre containers glide along production lines. Steam rises from heated presses while workers check newly formed trays before packing them for restaurants and food vendors across Kenya.

For the company’s founders, the idea came from a contradiction they kept seeing: Kenya generates vast amounts of agricultural waste while still relying heavily on imported or plastic packaging.

“When we examined sugar cane waste, we saw untapped value,” says Anita Shah, Green Stem’s founder. “The material was already there. The question was whether we could create something practical and scalable from it.”

The production process starts with raw bagasse collected from sugar mills. The fibres are cleaned, pulped and then moulded under pressure into food containers that can hold hot meals and liquids.

Unlike many standard disposable containers, Green Stem claims its products are free of PFAS – "forever chemicals" that linger in both ecosystems and the human body.

According to environmental policy researchers, the pressure on businesses to cut plastic waste has surged dramatically over the last decade as evidence of plastic pollution in oceans, rivers and food systems continues to mount.

“Single-use packaging has become one of the most visible signs of the waste crisis,” said Professor Simon Onywere, an environmental scientist focusing on sustainable materials at Kenyatta University. “Governments are responding, consumers are responding, and industries are under pressure to find alternatives.”

The limits of 'compostable'

While compostable packaging is often promoted as a direct answer to plastic pollution, waste management experts warn the environmental benefits depend heavily on disposal systems.

“A compostable container only provides its full advantage if it ends up in composting conditions,” said Nairobi waste management consultant Dr. Ezekiel Ndunda. “If it goes to landfill with regular trash, the outcome becomes a lot more complicated.”

Kenya still struggles with limited industrial composting facilities. Some experts argue that simply replacing plastic won’t solve broader waste management problems without parallel investment in collection and disposal systems.

Tobias Alando, CEO of the Kenya Association of Manufacturers, said: "The challenge is bigger than material substitution alone. Without stronger collection systems, sorting capacity and recycling infrastructure, we risk shifting the problem rather than solving it.”

He also highlighted the financial implications for manufacturers transitioning to sustainable packaging.

“Many businesses support sustainable packaging goals, but the transition comes with significant operational and cost pressures, particularly for small and medium manufacturers.”

Affordability challenge

Duncan Nzioka of EcoCare Consultants emphasises the importance of circular economy planning and end-of-life waste management systems.

“Sustainable packaging only works effectively when there is a functioning system to recover, process and reintroduce materials back into the economy.”

He added that affordability too remains a challenge. “There are still economic realities around sourcing, compliance and disposal that companies must navigate as they adopt environmentally sustainable alternatives.”

Plastic is cheap to produce, thanks to decades of global petrochemical investment. Sustainable alternatives often cost more, especially during early production stages when output volumes are lower.

For restaurants and food vendors working with tight profit margins, these costs are significant.

“Businesses want environmentally friendly packaging,” said Nairobi restaurant owner Mama Oliech, who recently switched to moulded fibre takeaway boxes. “But they also need packaging that’s affordable, durable and always available.”

How Environmental Destruction is Built Into Corporate Design

By Saskia Karges

May 15, 2026

Source: Resilience

Protests in front of Citi’s headquarters in Manhattan on June 10, the first day of the Summer of Heat on Wall Street campaign. (Summer of Heat/Luigi W. Morris)

A century ago, Henry Ford attempted to lower the price of the Model T and pay his workers better, famously saying:

“My ambition is to employ still more men, to spread the benefits of this industrial system to the greatest possible number, to help them build up their lives and their homes. To do this, we are putting the greatest share of our profits back into the business.”

The Dodge brothers, minority shareholders, sued. They demanded that Ford stop lowering prices and instead distribute the surplus as dividends. The court ruled in their favor, cementing the idea that a business is carried on primarily for the profit of the stockholders.

That logic hasn’t disappeared; it has instead been absorbed into the everyday mechanics of the market, punishing strategic decisions that fail to maximize shareholder value faster than any court could ever rule. In the cold logic of traditional US corporate law, a CEO who spends the company’s money without a clear business case is seen as a thief stealing from the shareholders’ wealth.

Fast forward today, and we find ourselves at a breaking point: the climate is heating up, “forever chemicals” like PFAS and BPA are being found in the soil, even in areas as remote as Antarctica, and the ocean has become a plastic soup. Just 100 companies are responsible for 70% of global emissions, while a mere 20 corporations account for over half of the world’s single-use plastic waste. 

How is it possible for organizations to operate in total defiance of the basic values we instill in our children: to clean up after ourselves and to care for the world around us? What creates such a distance between the values we hold at home and the boardroom decisions that drive environmental destruction?

To understand this, we have to look at the systems that govern corporations and their leaders alike: the CEOs of publicly traded global corporations. While they represent only a fraction of businesses worldwide, their sheer scale gives them a disproportionate impact on our global ecology.

The dictatorship of shareholder primacy and the externalization of costs

In the United States, the epicenter of the shareholder philosophy, representing about 40% of the global market capitalization, a CEO is legally and fiduciarily bound to their shareholders. Their primary mandate is simple: drive the stock price up. 

CEOs operate under a structural pressure to justify decisions in terms of long-term shareholder value, meaning that if they choose, for example, an environmentally friendly alternative that isn’t legally required but causes the stock price to drop significantly, they risk being ousted or sued by their shareholders.

In Delaware, a US state known for its business-friendly policies and where many global firms are incorporated, a central concept in economics becomes visible: externalization. In this system, if plastic bottles are cheaper to produce and logistically more efficient than glass deposit systems, the shift to plastic is treated as a competitive necessity. A company reaps the profits from the efficiency of a product, while the subsequent costs (waste management, health issues, ecosystem collapse) fall on local communities.

The absurdity of this system is perfectly illustrated by the Deepwater Horizon disaster: while BP calculated the total cost of the oil catastrophe at $62 billion, tax effects and write-offs effectively slashed that bill to $44 billion — in the end, the public essentially subsidized a significant portion of the reparations for a self-inflicted environmental nightmare.

An example closer to us as consumers: fast fashion companies can sell cheap garments, while discarded textile waste from massive overproduction accumulates in the Atacama Desert in Chile, washes up on beaches in Ghana, or burns in dumps just outside Karachi or Nairobi. 

But the pressure does not come only from legal duties or market discipline; it is reinforced by the physical and economic structures in which corporations are already embedded. Even a new CEO or one with a sudden change of heart faces the daunting wall of a company locked into its existing investments and established infrastructure.

The psychology of the machine

If the legal and economic structures are the bones of the problem, psychology is the muscle, leaving us with a haunting question: How do decent people live with the catastrophic results of their collective labor? 

Within a massive organization, we see a diffusion of responsibility. The larger the company, the more silos exist: The logistics manager focuses on cutting transport costs. The marketing manager focuses on the brand image. The CEO focuses on the quarterly earnings report. The actual ecological impact — even within the company environment — disappears in the division of labor. It doesn’t show up directly in any corporate spreadsheet. No one person feels responsible for the whole.

This is often accompanied by cognitive dissonance,a frequent reality for many executives. To make tough decisions, leaders develop a high capacity for self-immunization. If a CEO views corporate survival as the top priority, the brain automatically treats ecological concerns as secondary. To live with themselves, executives often pivot the blame. They say they are “creating jobs” or that the “responsibility lies with the consumer” for buying the product or failing to recycle the waste.

Finally, we must acknowledge that capital is fluid while laws are often static. Companies frequently act most recklessly where the guardrails are the lowest. In regions with strict environmental laws, corporations invest in sustainability to avoid fines. But in regions with weak regulation or political instability, they follow the path of least financial resistance.

Redesigning the architecture: from destruction by design to restoration by rule

If we accept that the destruction of our planet is not a result of individual malice but a systemic output, then the solution cannot lie in moral appeals alone. We cannot simply wait for better people to occupy the corner offices; good people are already sitting there, often with their hands tied by the very structures they serve. Instead, we must redesign the legal, economic, and psychological frameworks that govern corporate behavior worldwide.

To flip the switch from a system that rewards extraction to one that mandates restoration, the first priority is dismantling the absolute reign of shareholder primacy. We need a legal evolution where a corporation’s duty is tied to a triple bottom line of profit, people, and planet. This shift moves environmental responsibility from a niche certification to a global mandate, ensuring directors are legally protected — and required — to prioritize ecological health even when it impacts short-term dividends. Once true cost accounting is integrated into tax law, the era of externalization ends. If the price of a plastic bottle reflects the actual cost of its removal from the ocean, the supposed efficiency of plastic vanishes, and the commons is no longer a free dumping ground.

Breaking the efficiency trap further requires a radical shift in what a company actually sells. By transitioning to product-as-a-service models — where firms sell lighting instead of bulbs or mobility instead of cars — the incentive structure reverses. Durability and repairability become profit centers, while planned obsolescence becomes a direct financial liability for the manufacturer. This structural change must be reinforced by radical transparency. Just as every cent is tracked in real-time by a CFO, ecological footprints must be integrated into departmental dashboards. When environmental impact becomes a hard metric in performance reviews rather than an abstract externality, the executive psychology shifts from self-immunization to genuine innovation.

Is that really all there is to systems change?

The honest answer is no. These steps address the mechanics of the corporate machine, but they do not necessarily change the engine. If we remain grounded in reality, we have to acknowledge three deeper systemic layers that are often omitted from green discourse. First, even a world full of benefit corporations operates within a financial system based on interest and compound interest, which mandates exponential growth. On a finite planet, the concept of infinite growth — even if labeled green — is a physical impossibility. True systemic change would require decoupling societal success from GDP and moving toward a steady-state economy, a transition for which we currently have no clear global political precedent.

Second, systems are designed to protect themselves through power dynamics and regulatory capture. Corporations frequently use their profits to influence the very rules meant to govern them. As long as it remains more profitable to lobby against a regulation than to comply with it, the invisible architect will continue to fight for the status quo. Redesigning the architecture, therefore, requires breaking the link between concentrated capital and political decision-making. 

Finally, we must confront the capital engine itself. CEOs are often just the pilots; the true architects are the algorithms of investment funds and the demands of pension schemes. As long as the retirement savings of millions are tied to the short-term performance of extractive industries, the entire system remains in a state of mutual hostage-taking. We would need to rewrite not just corporate law, but the fundamental ways in which global capital is valued and deployed.

This article was originally published by Resilience; please consider supporting the original publication, and read the original version at the link above.Email

Saskia Karges

Saskia Karges, PhD is a Chemist, a Corporate Strategist for Fortune 500 companies and a Solarpunk author. She specializes in bridging the gap between industrial operations and radical visions for a resilient future. Her work focuses on dismantling systemic failures and identifying anthropogenic mines within global waste streams. Her latest novel, AMATEA – Memoirs of the Last City (2026), explores the boundary between sustainable utopia and eco-fascist dystopia.

 

A startup confronts water shortages by pulling it out of the air

Bloomberg News | May 12, 2026 | 

Stock image.

The large metallic white box sits in a Southern California parking lot, looking unremarkable until water starts flowing from a hose attached to it. Peer inside, though, and it’s nearly empty but for some wires, tubes and a container of light-colored material. 

The water isn’t being conjured out of thin air by magic but by MOFs— metallic organic frameworks. MOFs are nanocrystalline structures engineered at an atomic level to attract specific molecules. In this case that’s H2O and the machine made by startup Atoco is silently harvesting molecules from the surrounding air and storing them in the material’s porous cavities that serve as microscopic water tanks.

Atoco founder Omar Yaghi shared the 2025 Nobel Prize in chemistry for pioneering MOFs and on an April morning he gave Bloomberg News an exclusive demonstration of the commercial prototype of its atmospheric water harvester in the lot outside the company’s Orange County laboratory. 

In the wake of the Iran war, interest in the technology has risen as the giant desalination plants that supply water to tens of millions of people in the Middle East have become military targets. “There’s a new realization of the vulnerability and security risk of centralized water systems,” said Samer Taha, Atoco’s chief executive officer, who is based in Irvine, California.

Set to go into production later this year, the shipping container-sized machine will produce up to 4,000 liters (1,057 gallons) of water daily and can be installed at data centers, hospitals and other critical infrastructure. An off-the-grid model that operates on ambient sunlight and produces less water can be deployed to communities where water must now be trucked in. 

“This becomes absolutely essential in alleviating the problems we are facing on our planet in terms of water scarcity,” said Yaghi, 61, a University of California at Berkeley chemistry professor who started Atoco in 2021.

Climate change is only intensifying those risks as drought and heat waves dry up rivers and reservoirs, with half the global population experiencing water shortages, according to the United Nations. In the US, Colorado River flows that supply water to 40 million people are declining dramatically amid record-low snowpack. Communities across the country are battling artificial intelligence data centers that threaten to drain already depleted aquifers while nearly a million Californians lack access to safe drinking water  largely due to agricultural pollution. Some 500,000 people in Corpus Christi, Texas, face running out of water next year from a lack of rain.

“You’re going to see more Corpus Christis around the world,” said Wendy Jepson, who researches water security at Texas A&M University, adding that crumbling infrastructure and poor policy decisions are exacerbating the water crisis.

Those cities have few options to acquire water. One is to build plants to desalinate seawater, a multibillion-dollar, years-long undertaking that requires enormous amounts of electricity and harms marine life. 

“You have societies and economies that are highly dependent on desalination with few backups and alternatives,” said David Michel, a senior associate for water security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He said atmospheric water harvesting is unlikely to replace desalination in the near term but “seems very well placed to extend the water supply.”

Atoco’s technology, which can operate in arid climates, promises the advent of a new decentralized water source, just as solar panels and batteries have allowed homeowners and businesses to tap the sun and insulate themselves from an increasingly unreliable power grid. 

For instance, in Ethiopia, where many residents have sporadic access to water, an off-the-grid Atoco atmospheric harvester could supply about eight households in a village. It would take around a dozen of the machines to service a water-efficient data center in California.

Yaghi, the son of Palestinian refugees, grew up in Jordan in a one-room dwelling shared with nine siblings and the family’s cows. The house had no electricity or running water and his task as a child was to fill as many containers as he could find when the government delivered water to his village every week or two. 

“We want everyone on our planet to have water independence where you’re in control of your own water,” said Yaghi. “We’re showing this today to show the power of being able to harness an infinite resource of water that is the air.”

The unassuming appearance of the water harvester prototype belies its mind-bending physics. Largely constructed of common elements such as carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, copper and aluminum, an ounce of MOF material can contain the surface area of a soccer field. (Imagine crumpling up a sheet of paper. It’s now a fraction of its original size but contains the same surface area within the folds.)

After the MOFs invisibly gather H2O, the harvester rumbles to life to apply heat to the material to dislodge the molecules. A condenser converts the water vapor into liquid, which starts pouring from a slender tube. Yaghi fills a glass for Taha and then grinning, drinks from the hose before handing a glass to Gray Davis, Atoco’s legal advisor and a former California governor. 

There’s so much water in the atmosphere – more than all the world’s lakes and rivers – that’s constantly being replenished that harvesting H2O wouldn’t disrupt that cycle, according to Atoco.

Atoco expects to make and sell 200 harvesters in 2027. The company isn’t taking orders yet, but it said it has more expressions of interest in purchasing the machines than current production capacity. Samer said the company has been testing the machine with partners around the world, including in the desert southwest of the US. Atoco hasn’t disclosed pricing though it notes the production model will be capable of supplying water for a few cents a liter, which is more expensive than desalinated water.

But since the MOFs only attract H2O molecules, the water is free of PFAS, microplastics and other contaminants often found in the water supply. Atoco and competitor AirJoule Technologies are targeting data centers and semiconductor plants, which need pure water for cooling and manufacturing but often seek to operate in water-stressed communities.

“They’re under all kinds of pressure for water,” said AirJoule Chief Executive Officer Matt Jore, whose company expects to begin production later this year of a MOF-based atmospheric water harvester that can produce 2,000 liters a day. He said the company, a joint venture with GE Vernova, is testing its technology in the Middle East and has seen a spike in interest from the region since the Iran war. 

 In the US, atmospheric water harvesting could help alleviate water strains from the AI boom, according to Jepson, the Texas A&M professor. “If this kind of technology can be integrated into data centers, you’re offloading the pressure on water systems for people, which potentially is a really huge gain,” she said.

(By Todd Woody)

A New Enbridge Pipeline Spurs Opposition in Central North Carolina

Enbridge, is a Canadian company

The 28-mile conduit is part of a huge natural gas infrastructure buildout in the state that Duke Energy says is necessary to keep up with demand, especially from a coming wave of data centers.

By Lisa Sorg

May 9, 2026

Source: Inside Climate News

Image by Pax Ahimsa Gethen

SILER CITY, N.C.—John Alderman opened the letter, sent by certified mail from an attorney in New Orleans. 

This is trouble, Alderman thought. It can’t be good news.

In late April Enbridge, a Canadian company, announced its plans to build a new 28-mile natural gas pipeline through Chatham County, from Siler City to Moncure. As contractors survey potential routes, they want access to Alderman’s land.

“I resent a letter like that,” said Alderman, who lives in western Chatham County. “We are informed, without asking, that someone is planning to trespass on our land. Everything in it is an affront.”

John and Gloria Alderman live in western Chatham County. Enbridge plans to build a new natural gas pipeline, a segment of which would route through their property. Credit: Lisa Sorg/Inside Climate News

Company spokeswoman Persida Montanez told Inside Climate News the pipeline will serve the broader regional energy needs in fast-growing Chatham and Lee counties, and not specific projects, such as data centers. Preliminary routing shows the pipeline would connect to Enbridge’s existing system near Siler City, head southeast and end near Moncure.

The pipeline would bypass Pittsboro, but could potentially cross several creeks that feed the Deep River, as well as traverse other main waterways, the Rocky and the Haw.

Construction could begin in fall 2027, with a service date of spring 2028. Total project costs have not yet been determined, Montanez said.

Enbridge will have to apply for, and receive, various state permits for the project; if the pipeline crosses waterways, it will need a federal water quality permit as well.

This is Enbridge’s second major pipeline project in the state since 2024, when it bought Dominion Energy’s natural gas business in North Carolina. The first is the T15 pipeline, which will run 45 miles from Eden, in Rockingham County, to Duke Energy’s two new natural gas plants near Roxboro, in Person County. 

These projects are part of the state’s immense natural gas buildout that, if completed, will emit hundreds of tons of planet-heating greenhouse gases and other harmful pollutants into the air each year. 

Natural gas companies and Duke Energy say the projects are necessary to meet the growing power demands, especially of data centers. Critics, including environmental groups, consumer advocates and the Public Staff of the N.C. Utilities Commission, counter that those demand projections are inflated. 

The result, they say, will be hefty profits for fossil fuel interests and higher customer rates, a hotter planet and habitat destruction.

Alderman is 72, of Viking stock and tall with deep-set brown eyes and short white hair. He lives with his wife of 52 years, Gloria, off the grid in a spacious, solar-powered, modern stucco house in a 195-acre woods that once belonged to International Paper. The couple grow their own fruits and vegetables. In 2023 they received a federal grant to sequester carbon in their forest; within two years, it could store as much as 100,000 tons.

“We’re carbon negative,” Alderman said. He drove his Ford Lightning, an electric pickup truck, charged with solar panels, down an old farm road and over a 550 million-year-old fault line that is now his gravel driveway. “Everything we’ve done has been geared toward combating climate change. And here we have the irony of ironies—a stinking gas line going through our property.”

A Threat to Three Rivers

John and Gloria Alderman met as undergraduates in ecology class in 1974. Both became biologists, and he specialized in endangered species, including mussels, fish and snails.

Throughout his long career, Alderman has witnessed species on the brink of extinction—and beyond. He was the last person to see many types of  mussels alive in a four-state area. He waded, swam or dove in highly polluted waterways, including wading in radioactive water and mud up to his chest near the Savannah River nuclear site to search for rare mussels.

Inside the Aldermans’ home is a wall of framed newspaper cartoons. One shows Alderman staring down bulldozers that threaten sensitive habitats. In another, his feet are trapped in hardened concrete, as special interests threaten to push him off a pier. 

“John’s seen so much,” Gloria said, with admiration in her voice. She is petite, with shoulder-length light hair and kind eyes. “His work was fighting. John is not shy.”

John Alderman is a retired endangered species biologist who specialized in mussels, fish, snails and other aquatic life. Credit: Lisa Sorg/Inside Climate News

When the Aldermans bought the land six years ago, they knew Duke Energy had a permanent easement toward the front of the property, where the utility runs a high-voltage transmission line. But they couldn’t have known that some day a pipeline could plow through their land and some of the most pristine habitat in Chatham County.

“I think with maps,” Alderman said, projecting the proposed route, overlaid with other geographical features, on his wide-screen TV. He pointed to the route of a new water main, part of an expansion by regional water utility TriRiver, as the first domino to fall. 

No one conducted environmental impact studies for the infrastructure project, whose original purpose was for emergency backup. Instead, Alderman said, it has sparked new subdivisions and development throughout western Chatham County. And now here comes the Enbridge pipeline. 

“The water line was the catalyst,” Alderman said. “Everything is connected.”

The Rocky and the Deep rivers run through this part of the county and flow into the Cape Fear River Basin, which is besieged by PFAS, 1,4-dioxane and other contaminants. These waterways are ecologically significant, but because of pollution and habitat loss, extensive portions appear on the federally impaired waters list. The Atlantic pigtoe, a native mussel not seen since the 1970s, has been extirpated from these waters, Alderman said. 

If the Enbridge pipeline crosses the waterways, more aquatic life could be displaced or even lost, he fears.

“I’ve seen the tremendous effects of climate change on small streams and rivers,” Alderman said. “These rivers are under the gun. If we ever want to restore the Cape Fear River, it’s because we saved the Rocky and the Deep.”

The Triangle Innovation Point

The pipeline would run through a portion of County Commission District 2, represented by Amanda Robertson. She spent years fighting a different project, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would have traversed 150 miles through eastern North Carolina. After intense public opposition, project co-owners Dominion and Duke canceled it in July 2020—but not before hundreds of acres of private land had been irreparably destroyed.

“Now we’ve got yet another pipeline, and I will do everything in my power to find a way to stop that from happening,” Robertson said. “It’ll be a fight.”

About 800 people live in Moncure, an unincorporated town in far southeast Chatham County. Although rural, the area also lies along an economic development corridor that includes long-time industries: Arauco, which manufactures and laminates composite wood panels; two brick factories; a quarry; and Duke Energy’s former coal-fired power plant, now a coal ash recycling facility.

Robertson served on the county planning board when, with the help of a contractor, it developed a “small-area” growth plan for Moncure. She felt delighted that two-thirds of the area would remain as agriculture, woods, parks and conservation. 

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But over the past four years, new projects have encroached on the town. The Enbridge pipeline would terminate at the nearby Triangle Innovation Point (TIP), where more than 1,000 acres of forest were clear-cut for the Vietnamese electric vehicle company VinFast to build a factory. The project is four years behind; construction hasn’t begun, but the habitat has been destroyed. 

A 750-megawatt data center is also proposed for the TIP, but that venture is in litigation with the county over a moratorium commissioners enacted in February.

“What we’ve seen throughout North Carolina is that where the gas goes, the data centers follow, and vice versa,” said Emily Sutton, the Haw riverkeeper. “There’s an inflated energy projection because of the proposed data centers, and so if we don’t get a handle on data center expansion, we’re going to continue to see more and more of these fossil fuel projects.”

“Surviving Climate Change”

The blueberry bushes are blossoming in the Aldermans’ garden. Swaths of clay soil had been tilled in preparation for a summer garden. The sugar snap peas were sown and now just need some rain.

Gloria worked with an architect to design the Aldermans’ home, with precise measurements that align with the Earth’s revolution around the sun. To capture maximum sunlight, the house and its solar panels face due south, aligned with the South Pole. Two porch pillars signify where the sun rises on the summer and winter solstices. 

The Aldermans’ garden is framed by a fence that John laid by hand using stone from an old house that was on the property. Credit: Lisa Sorg/Inside Climate News

The house is fireproof. The walls are 9 inches thick. Concrete floors keep the inside cool, even on 90-degree days.

“Surviving climate change, that’s the key to what we’re doing,” Alderman said. “And the pipeline flies in the face of everything we’re trying to do here.” 

Eminent domain is a power usually reserved for the government to take private property to build public projects, such as roads. However, the law allows private companies to use the authority as long as the project is in the public interest. 

In both cases, the landowners must be fairly compensated for the property.

Landowners can go to court if the parties can’t agree on a price. 

Alderman sent a certified letter back to the attorneys representing Enbridge. “I told them in no uncertain terms, ‘You can’t do this. Explore the alternatives,’” he said. “Stay off my property.”

This article was originally published by Inside Climate News; please consider supporting the original publication, and read the original version at the link above.

 

Environmental chemicals may interfere in infants’ bone development

European Society of Endocrinology

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ECE 2026 takes place from 9-12 May in Prague Czech Republic and online

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Credit: European Society of Endocrinology

Infants exposed to certain environmental chemicals, including breast milk and everyday products such as personal care items, are more likely to have lower bone density in the first year of their lives, according to research presented at the 28th European Congress of Endocrinology in Prague. The findings highlight how exposure to environmental pollutants early in life may negatively affect bone development, and the use of which urgently needs to be better regulated on a national and international level.

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) used in the manufacture of plastics, cosmetics, pesticides and medicines can interfere with the normal function of our hormones, as we are constantly exposed to these in our daily lives. EDCs have previously been associated with puberty and child development, including skeletal development. However, except for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) which are well-known to have a negative effect on bone health, there is little research on bisphenols and phthalates.

 

In this study, researchers from the University of Parma, University Hospital of Parma, University of Florence, University of Messina and G. Martino University Hospital of Messina in Italy analysed 52 different chemicals in urine of 88 healthy one-month-old infants. By using Radiofrequency Echographic Multi Spectrometry (REMS) technology, they also measured the infants’ bone mineral density (BMD) — at 48 hours after birth, one month, three months, six months and one year.

The researchers found that at least 21 of the environmental chemicals analysed were detectable in one-month-old infants and only boys had a lower bone mineral density only at birth. Higher levels of Bisphenol A (BPA) were associated with lower bone density at birth, while higher levels of phthalates were linked to lower bone density at both six and 12 months of age. This association was stronger at 12 months when BPA and several phthalates were combined. In addition, several PFAS, including PFHxS, and parabens were also implicated in lower bone density at different months.

“Evidence has suggested that EDCs may adversely affect skeletal development that begins in fetal life and continues through infancy, but hardly any studies have measured bone mineral density during the first 12 months and assessed these chemicals at such a young age as we did in ours,” said lead investigator, Professor Maria Elisabeth Street from the University of Parma.

She added: “Measuring the bone mineral density in infants is very difficult due to technical, biological and practical barriers.”

“Our study shows that early exposure to some EDCs — such as PFAS and a combination of Bisphenol A, phthalates and parabens — is associated with a lower bone mineral density at 12 months after birth, suggesting that infancy is a vulnerable window for environmental exposure and skeletal development,” said Professor Street. “This calls for protection and action to reduce exposure during pregnancy and after delivery for better bone health in future generations.”

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Abstract
OC8.5

Bone mineral density (BMD) evaluated using REMS is associated during the first year of life with early life exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs)

Background: Human data on early exposure to EDCs and bone outcomes remain limited. This study-clinical trial (NCT06750523) evaluated bone status from intrauterine life and investigated factors affecting BMD in infants. We present data on early-life exposure to EDCs and BMD from birth to 12 months of age.

Materials and methods: This prospective, longitudinal cohort study analyzed urinary concentrations of EDCs in 88 full-term, healthy AGA infants at 1 month of age. 52 compounds were analyzed, including bisphenols (BPA, BPS, BPF, BPFDGE), phthalates (DBP, BBP, DEHP, DEP, DMP, DnOP, MBP, MBzP, MEHP, MEHHP, MEOHP, MEP, MMP, MnOP), parabens (EtPB, MePB, PrPB, iBuPB, iPrPB) and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS: 11Cl- PF3OUdS, 4-2_FTS,8-2_FTS,6-2_FTS,9Cl-PF3ONS, ADONA, FBSA, FOSA, GenX_HFPO-DA, PFBA, PFBS, PFDA, PFDS, PFDoDA, PFHpS, PFHxS, PFNA, PFNS, PFOA, PFOS, PFPHpA, PFPHxA, PFPeA, PFPeS, PFTrDA,PFTreDA, PFUnDA) by UPLC-MS/MS. BMD was assessed using Radiofrequency Echographic Multi Spectrometry (REMS), and BMD z-scores were defined at 48hours after birth(V0), at 1 (V1), 3 (V3), 6 (V6) and 12 months of life (V12). Associations between urinary EDC concentrations and BMD z-scores across time points were evaluated by correlation and principal component (PCA) analyses.

Results: At V0, BMD z-score was 1.31+0.87; -0.09+0.61at V1; -0.06+0.99 at V3; -0.03+0.97at V6, and -0.04+1.01 at V12. At birth, BMD z-scores were different in males and females (p:0.028), but this disappeared thereafter. In the infant’s urine, BPA was detected in 62.5% of samples, BPS in 19.3%; EtPB in 1.1%,MePB in 21.6%,PrPB in 9.1%. Among PFAS,6-2_FTS was detected in 73.9% of samples, PFBA in 70.5%, PFDA in 3.4%,PGHxS in 29.5%, PFNA in 15.9%, PFOA in 69.3%, PFOS in 76.1%, PFPHpA in 78.4%, PFPHxA in 63.6%. DBP was detected in 2.3%, MBP in 100%, MBzP in 22.7%, MEHHP in 62.5%, MEHP in 1.1%, MEOHP in 42.0% and MEP in 98.9%. BPA and PFDA were associated with BMD z-score at V0 (r: -0.31,p:0.025 and r:0.99,p:0.038, respectively). MePB was associated with BMD z-scores at V6 and V12 (r:-0.52,p:0.044 and r:-0.738,p:0.009). PFHxS,PFNA and PFOS presented associations with BMD z-scores at V6 (r:-0.49, p:0.015; r:-0.615, p:0.037; r:-0.287,p:0.030). Phthalates showed the most consistent associations with BMD at both V6 and V12. DEP showed a linear association with BMD z-scores at 6 (r:-0.557,p:0.039) and 12 (r:-0.703, p:0.035) months. MBP,MBzP and MEOHP were associated with BMD z-scores at V12 (r:-0.346, p:0.015; r:-0.654,p:0.040; r:-0.501, p:0.021). Notably, PCA found a cluster (19%) of BPA and phthalates(MBzP, MBP, MEOHP) with BMD z-score at V12, suggesting that higher exposure is associated with lower BMD at 1 year of age. Additionally, PFHxS contributed to BMD z-scores at V1,V3 and V6 (13.4%).

Funding: PNNR-MAD-2022–12376819; Project funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP, M6/C2_CALL 2022 Italian Ministry of Health funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU).