The Plutonium finishing plant ins Hanford, WA has been cleaned up of nuclear contamination.  $1.2 billion was spent, including $179 million to remove 4 buildings.  Now, where did all that rubble go?

Newark NJ is replacing 18,000 lead service lines in 2.5 years as a means to reduce lead exposure to its citizens.  Has Flint finished its lead service line replacement program yet?  Started it?

Oregon’s Senators have introduced legislation to upgrade tribal water and sewer systems that have been in place over 50 years.  I think the native American need it.

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Facts for rural roadway funding:

• 20% of the population lives in rural areas
• 46% of roadway fatalities occur on rural roadways
• 39%of all rail/road crossing deaths occur in rural areas
• 80% of bridges closed to traffic due to structural issues are rural
• The cost of bring roads up to code in in the hundreds of billions.

With potential reductions in federal and state funding on the horizon, the solution for this is?  ItOn is clear why people continue to move away from rural areas and into cities where health care, education, job opportunities and income levers are greater.  It means we will continue to see the decline of rural communities and a lagging of the economic condition of rural citizens.

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The new strain appeared in February in Europe, migrated quickly to the East Coast of the United States and has been the dominant strain across the world since mid-March, the scientists wrote.
— Read on www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/sns-mutant-more-contagious-coronavirus-has-emerged-20200505-lr5pctceo5bltbh2mjkiajbxwq-story.html

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I use a video in the environmental engineering class that I periodically teach that is an advertisement for DDT.  I recall my grandmother has several of the items shown in the video in her cabin in northern Michigan.  I never saw her use them, but I found it interesting that years after I last saw these items, I found the video.  DDT is still a persistent problem in the world – found everywhere – even in Antarcticca.  But it is not the only “bad guy.”

DDT was banned in the US nearly 40 years ago.  We also banned carbofurans in the US but the manufacturer continued to sell the compound overseas.  Like DDT, carbofuan poisoning in wildlife are on the rise.  Which means it is in our raw water sources.  And who tests for these regularly?  Do they move in groundwater?  Can they taint fish and birds (if they don’t die first).  Scientists find areas in the wilderness with bottles of the stuff “to keep the Jaguars away” as one person said.  The illegal and continued use of pesticides and hazardous chemical like this places us all at risk.  Once illegal, these compounds should not be manufactured any longer.  Its only going to make things better.