Global Rundown
- Dozens of people have fallen ill and one has died following an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in London, Ontario.
- After the Trump administration cancelled a mandate requiring the state of Alabama to install sanitation systems in rural counties, residents without them could now face punishment.
- The prevalence of illegal pesticides is rising across Europe as farmers opt for cheaper, more damaging substances.
- Scientists are monitoring the health of Zambia’s Kafue River, where non-native plant and animal species abound.
The Lead
For some farmers across the European Union, purchasing pesticides amounts to 50 percent of their annual expenses. As pesticide costs rise, growers across the continent, and especially in Greece, are instead turning to unlabeled counterfeits that arrive smuggled across borders, Reuters reports.
These alternatives are cheaper, roughly half the cost of legal pesticides, and stronger. But their effect on the environment — and the humans who spray them — is likely also more detrimental. Lab tests acquired by Reuters indicate that these cocktails contain certain chemicals that have been banned by the European Union for the health risks they pose, “including links to liver, kidney, and lung damage, or as possible carcinogens.” At least 14 percent of pesticides used in EU fields today are illegal, a figure that rises to 25 percent in parts of Greece.
The potential for damage is greatest not for the consumers who eat pesticide-sprayed crops, but for the farmers themselves, scientists say. An uptick in respiratory diseases over recent years, “possibly linked to pesticide exposure,” has been recorded in Greece’s agricultural regions.
Recent WaterNews from Circle of Blue
- President Trump Wants Coal Ash in State Hands — Indiana is a test case for overseeing one of worst water pollution sources.
- Changing Crucial Definition In Endangered Species Act Undermines Purpose Of Klamath Dam Removal — Under proposed weakening of species law, world’s largest dam removal would not have occurred.
This Week’s Top Water Stories, Told In Numbers
40
Number of people who fell ill — while one person died — last week in London, Ontario, following an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, a water-borne respiratory sickness, CBC reports. It’s the second such outbreak in London in the past year. Last summer, the spread was localized to a different part of the city and afflicted roughly 30 other people, killing one. Most people become exposed to legionella bacteria in contaminated “hot tubs, cooling towers, hot water tanks, large plumbing systems or parts of air-conditioning systems.”
995 miles
Length of Zambia’s Kafue River, which begins near the country’s border with Democratic Republic of Congo, and flows to the border with Zimbabwe. But despite its great size, invasive species — with the help of humans — have found a foothold, threatening the riparian ecosystem’s long-term health, Mongabay reports. An increase in farms and homesteads on the Kafue’s shores have resulted in cattle and elephants grazing abundantly on native wetland plants; in their place, the invasive and quick-growing Mimosa pigra sprouts and spreads, altering habitat and forcing out wildlife such as waterfowl and antelopes. In the river itself, invasive crayfish first introduced by humans in 2001 have spread from source to mouth. They outcompete native crabs and eat fish eggs, threatening the total disruption of the river’s fishery and those who depend on it for their livelihoods.
On the Radar
An estimated 60 percent to 80 percent of households in Lowndes County, Alabama, are not connected to functioning sanitation systems, the Guardian reports. Instead, most of the 9,000 people in the majority-Black community rely on PVC pipes to carry wastewater out from their homes and through their yards, where the plastic systems often leak raw sewage. Trees, plants, and grasses die as a result, and families are forced to avoid these contaminated areas on their properties. In 2023, a “landmark civil rights settlement” mandated that the state resolve the sanitation crisis, though the effort was rolled back by the Trump administration on the grounds that it was an “illegal” DEI project. Alabama “could also restart enforcing sanitation laws that threaten residents without a functioning sewage system with fines and jail time.”
Fresh: From the Great Lakes Region
H2Ohio Program Cuts: Last week, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed the state’s new two-year operating budget into law, including a 39 percent funding cut — from $270 million in 2024 and 2025 to $165 million in 2026 and 2027 — to the H2Ohio water quality program, Akron Beacon Journal reports. The program “provides funding for the Ohio Department of Agriculture, Department of Natural Resources, the state Environmental Protection Agency and the Lake Erie Commission, which oversees the Lake Erie Protection Fund and protection efforts.” As a result of these changes, environmental advocates and scientists fear that Lake Erie, northwest Ohio’s wetlands, and the quality of the state’s drinking water will suffer.
Bridge Michigan, Circle of Blue, Great Lakes Now at Detroit Public Television, Michigan Public and The Narwhal work together to report on the most pressing threats to the Great Lakes region’s water. This independent journalism is supported by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Find all the work here.
- Has this freighter made its final voyage? — Great Lakes Now
- ‘We can’t regulate ourselves’ out of whitefish crisis, experts say — Bridge Michigan
- In the shadow of Kelowna’s housing boom, fragile ecosystems depend on those fighting to save them — The Narwhal
- Environmental groups, state officials could go to court over Trump admin. order on MI coal plant — Michigan Public