Selected Stories

For Inside Climate News: After shuttering two wells for recurring nitrate contamination, the riverside community of Princeton may face yet another costly fix.

For Inside Climate News: More than a decade of voluntary farm conservation programs hasn’t gotten the state far enough on water quality, the Lobe Rangers say.

For Inside Climate News: The pivot reveals a company adapting to Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda and looking to cash in on recently boosted tax incentives for enhanced oil recovery.

For Inside Climate News: Linn County has adopted some of the nation’s strictest data center zoning rules. Residents say the protections aren’t enough.

For Inside Climate News: The tech giant is attempting to skirt Linn County’s environmental and economic zoning requirements by redrawing a nearby city’s boundaries.

For Inside Climate News: Facing staunch local opposition and federal roadblocks, new wind project development is teetering on the brink, despite growing power demand. Even Iowa, the nation’s most wind-powered state, is “closed for business,” experts say.

For Inside Climate News: Manure management planning could prevent fertilizer pollution. But an antiquated system isn’t doing enough to track manure, a former state employee says.

For Inside Climate News: The state’s environmental agency has the authority to investigate and issue fines for illegal spills, but lacks sufficient staff and resources.

For Inside Climate News: Efforts to save the Topeka shiner have restored hundreds of oxbow lakes across Iowa. Now, those wetlands are helping to improve the state’s water quality.

For Inside Climate News: Corn monocropping emits higher levels of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas which traps heat in the atmosphere more than 300 times as effectively as carbon dioxide. Simple interventions could drastically reduce emissions, experts say.

For Inside Climate News: Rising temperatures have caused as many as 4.6 million extra dengue cases each year, and will cause many more by 2050, a new study finds.

For the Inside Clean Energy newsletter: Solar energy has been slow to get off the ground in Iowa. Utilities may finally be realizing its potential.

For Inside Climate News: Residents fear the legislation would worsen the state’s already poor water quality, while reducing red tape and cutting costs for industries.

For Inside Climate News: The beloved annual bike ride across Iowa is a test of endurance and, increasingly, climate resilience.

For Inside Climate News: A study by the Waterkeeper Alliance across 19 states documented elevated PFAS concentrations downstream of wastewater treatment facilities and fields treated with biosolids. Unregulated discharge from industry sources are to blame, the group says.

For Inside Climate News: It’s a first for the Central Iowa Water Works, which is worried about maintaining compliance with EPA nitrate standards.

For GBH News: Mattapan has Boston’s shortest life expectancy and highest age-adjusted rates of heart disease mortality, yet lacks any hospital or emergency care facilities.

For Inside Climate News: In the state with the second-highest cancer rate in the nation, the legislation would have made it harder for residents to sue pesticide companies for illnesses linked to their products.

For Inside Climate News: Intense weather left farmers with small harvests in 2024—and warnings about soil resilience.

For Inside Climate News: Cuts to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service could unintentionally thwart efforts to control populations of the destructive sea lamprey.

For Inside Climate News: As one of its first acts, the Trump administration removed the online data tool used to allocate money to environmental justice communities. In two days, a coalition of data scientists had restored it on an independent internet domain.

Our memory of drought — and climate change — is fleeting.

For Rootstalk: For many, the coyote is a symbol of America’s wide-open spaces. So why is it appearing in our cities, our parks, our back yards? An essay about coyotes, change, and becoming unrooted.

For the Grinnell College Magazine. A thriving environmental field station on land that both teaches and inspires.