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As Hurricane Helene roared through the mountains of western North Carolina in September 2024, Devon ran from one side of his house to the other, listening to the sound of trees snapping in the dark.

The wind whipped the steep hill his family lived on in Asheville, rattling the windows and cracking limbs. Pine trees fell like dominos, 20 in all. Five of them took the porch and a corner of the house with them. The creek behind the family’s home was rising fast, and anything caught in it was swept away.

Inside, Devon’s wife and their daughter, who is now five,  hid in a closet, crying as the house shook. Devon shouted over the wind as he tried to figure out what would fall next. He was inside the house, but also somewhere very far away, reliving memories he had been trying to put away.

“For me, it was very triggering,” he said. “I felt like I was in a war situation.”

Devon, an Iraq war veteran who moved to the mountains from Florida in 2019, asked to be identified by only his first name, as anonymity is a core component of 12-step programs. The 41-year-old had returned from the Middle East in 2006 with post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury that pushed him to numb himself however he could. It started with pills, then heroin, and eventually a combination of heroin and cocaine. “I was so physically addicted,” he said. “The sickness was unbearable. I couldn’t imagine life without drugs.”

In Asheville, he slowly found his way back from the precipice. He joined Narcotics Anonymous, attended regular meetings, and began to confront his trauma in therapy. He and his wife, who had moved to Asheville with him, had a daughter in 2020. It wasn’t always easy, but life with his family, in their house in the woods, felt like it was creeping toward stability. 

Everything changed after the storm.

Hurricane Helene fractured many of the support systems that people in recovery, like Devon, relied on to stay sober. Jesse Barber / Grist

Disasters like Hurricane Helene level communities and upend even the stablest lives. For people recovering from addiction, they can also fracture so much more: 12-step meetings, treatment programs, transportation, and the social networks that are essential to maintaining sobriety. When that scaffolding breaks down, the risk of relapse and overdose rises. 

Penn State University sociologist Kristina Brant has spent the past few years studying the long-term impacts floods can have on communities, finding “an increase in overdose deaths that persists for a decade after a flood.” Grief and trauma can linger for years, she said. “Those are significant triggers that can derail recovery.”

The threat is especially acute in the Appalachian region, a mountainous swath of the country that includes 13 states stretching from New York to Mississippi. Throughout the region, a long-running drug crisis has already taken a devastating toll. Though overdose death rates in Appalachian counties have declined slightly alongside national trends, mortality for people in their prime working years still exceeded the national average in 2023 by 52 percent. These trends are driven by limited access to health care, physically demanding work, and economic hardship. In six western North Carolina counties, including Buncombe, for example, overdose mortality was more than 36 per 100,000 residents as of 2022. 

Increasingly severe storms and flooding, fueled by a warming world, are compounding those vulnerabilities, damaging not just infrastructure but the support systems people rely on to stay alive.

For people like Devon, the weeks and months after Helene unraveled lives they’d spent years building.

Recovery from substance use disorder hinges on stability. Routine keeps people connected to the relationships and services that make long-term sobriety possible, and builds the kind of network where someone notices if a chair is empty.

Across Appalachia, that support system is already stretched thin. Rural communities don’t have the redundancies that make it easy to hit another meeting, find another clinic, or line up another therapist. Long travel distances and high poverty rates create additional barriers.

Disasters further strain the system. Annual hospitalizations for substance use disorders jumped 30 percent after Hurricane Katrina and continued rising for years afterward, especially in neighborhoods that experienced the greatest destruction and displacement. 

“When you factor in a disaster like Helene or other flooding where infrastructure is really impacted, we’re just amplifying that existing barrier a billion-fold,” said Erin Major, a doctoral candidate in health services research at Boston University who studies substance misuse in Appalachia. “It became genuinely impossible for quite a few of these patients to access their care.”

Keep reading Helene frayed the safety net for people who use drugs. This community wove it back together. Katie Myers

In Devon’s walk-up apartment in Arden, a town just south of Asheville, his pit bull, Qball, trotted across the gray carpet to meet him. Devon is tall and thin, with close-cropped hair and an understated, honest way of putting things. He said he understands how much routines matter, because he had spent years building his.

He returned from Iraq in 2006 after two years in a scout platoon. Back at a base in coastal Georgia where he enrolled in college, he began to understand what he’d brought home with him. His brain injury and PTSD plagued him with nightmares and made it difficult to hold a job. He began to self-medicate. “Once I started using, you know, the harder opiates, I would say I was using against my will at that point,” Devon said, scratching his dog’s ear. He overdosed and nearly died several times.

Devon’s formal dress jacket hangs on a door of his apartment.
Jesse Barber / Grist

His relationships frayed under the strain, and for a time he lived on the street. He and his wife separated; her job didn’t pay well, he’d lost his, and they were in debt. In a bid to save their marriage and finances, the couple moved to Asheville, where his wife’s family lived, in 2019. The city’s recovery resources, which are abundant compared to elsewhere in the South, offered the promise of support, consistency, and a fresh start. 

Over time, Devon began building a new life. He is on disability and can’t work, but he and his wife were able to buy a house. Suboxone, a daily prescription medication available at most pharmacies, eased his cravings for opioids. Twelve-step meetings allowed him to find support and celebrate progress. He and his wife welcomed their daughter into the world in 2020. While marriage and recovery were sometimes bumpy, he felt he was building something lasting.

Hurricane Helene blew all of that apart.

In the weeks and months after the storm, the routines that had anchored Devon’s recovery began to shift. His 12-step group moved its meetings online for a couple of weeks. When it resumed gathering in-person, he struggled to attend, bogged down by the demands of repairing his house. With his time consumed by cleaning up from the storm, he stopped regularly going to individual therapy. Financial worries took the place of personal goals.

“There was a huge interruption,” Devon said. Online meetings are “not the same as being in person. You know, like when I like to go in-person in my home group… I can do service like either chair a meeting, help set up literature, help greet people, help set up chairs.”

That kind of service is central to the recovery pathway that’s worked for Devon, and it had become a vital part of his life. He tried to fulfill it by helping neighbors rebuild from the storm. He spent his days clearing debris, organizing disaster supplies at community spaces, and delivering them to people in harder-hit areas. “We were just pitching in the best we can, and I feel like I was using my experience in the program,” he said.

He also met new people along the way — including church volunteers who helped remove the five trees that had fallen onto his house. At first, the spirit of cooperation brought people together. But as the months passed, that warmth faded and the losses began to settle in. The Federal Emergency Management Agency gave his family an emergency stipend of $750 to cover immediate expenses, like food and water, but they’d already spent $20,000 on repairs. Even with insurance, they realized they’d have to refinance the house to keep it. 

By last summer, the strain had become too much. Devon and his wife decided to sell the house,  for $30,000 less than they’d hoped. Amid the back-and-forth with the insurance company, their own fights escalated, and they filed for divorce — not uncommon after a life-changing disaster. Because North Carolina law requires a couple to live separately for one year before a divorce can be finalized, Devon moved into a hotel. He found himself alone more often. 

He managed to avoid relapse, but that meant treading carefully with hobbies that summoned the urge to drink, like playing poker. As the summer of 2025 dragged into fall, he felt spiritually adrift. Between his divorce and the costs of the storm, he’d lost about $100,000. It was all too much. It had been years since he’d felt this hopeless. “I was suicidal,” he said.

For many people in recovery, relapse can be more dangerous than their initial drug use. After a few days of sobriety, tolerance starts to drop. Those who have gone through treatment are sometimes more likely to overdose, with the immediate first few days of relapse being the most dangerous. Over time, the mental health impacts and compounding losses of a disaster can push people further off course. 

In the early days after the storm, communities, volunteers, and recovery groups across the region sprang into action, temporarily filling the gaps left by upended routines and the slow trickle of federal help.

Researchers often observe a curious “honeymoon phase” after a disaster: A time of intense social cohesion as people united by shared loss come together to help each other. It’s months or years down the line when the pileup of trauma and loss begins to complicate that cohesion. 

John Kennedy saw that shift unfold in Buncombe County.

John Kennedy sits in front of boxes of Narcan, which his organization, Musicians for Overdose Prevention, helps distribute. Jesse Barber / Grist

Kennedy, a guitarist, and his wife Cinnamon Kennedy, a drummer, spent years distributing naloxone, which can quickly reverse an opioid overdose, to nightclubs, music halls, and other venues throughout the county. Such work is called harm reduction — providing the education and tools to help people who are actively using drugs prevent infection, illness, and death. The project began after John lost several friends and his brother to overdoses. The Kennedys rely on the tight network of musicians and venues to get those supplies to the people who need them.

John Kennedy drove me around Swannanoa, a small, largely working-class town outside of Asheville. Even a year and a half after the storm, there are reminders of how the social fabric has frayed. 

The last music venue in Swannanoa closed after the storm, and others in the area also have closed or aren’t booking bands.. One survey found that across 23 counties, small businesses lost an average of $322,000 during Helene, and many couldn’t withstand it. The closures of bars and venues has left fewer places to congregate. Kennedy worries that may mean more people are using alone. Research shows that hurricanes and tropical storms can cause excess mortality for as long as 15 years, so the region is still only at the beginning of the aftermath.

John Kennedy walks among what is left of Salvage Station outdoor music venue along the French Broad. Jesse Barber / Grist

Kennedy can’t help but reflect on what’s been lost. “Just the ability for people — like a church service, like a job — to show up and come in and be able to check on everyone, check in on everyone, see how people were doing,” he said, driving past Silverados, one of the venues he relied on to carry naloxone until it closed permanently. One after the other: shuttered, shuttered, shuttered. 

Kennedy pointed out the dozens of RVs parked along the roadways, all hosting people who lost their homes to the storm. A field where there was once a trailer park. Ossified muck and debris where there was once a gas station, a farmers market, a woodworking shop, a veteran’s clinic.  “It’s not what it was.”

Kennedy still delivers naloxone, but more often to venues in Asheville, where it’s easier to find people. The community feels battered, he said, but he hopes it is slowly regrowing.

In the immediate aftermath of the storm, many opioid treatment providers struggled to track patients and keep records up to date, said Major, the Boston University doctoral candidate. Some providers reported that the number of people in treatment remained stable, or even increased as street drugs became harder to find. Others have lost patients — one provider saw 15 patients drop out or move away. Just some eventually returned.

How to support people with substance use disorder during and after disaster 

Learn how to recognize and respond to opioid overdoses. Harm reduction groups or syringe exchanges may offer first aid and sensitivity training, as does the Red Cross.

Have naloxone (also known by the brand name Narcan) on hand and know how to dispense it. 

Understand the medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), to help reduce stigma around their availability and use. Buprenorphine is an evidence-based treatment, but requires healthcare providers and pharmacies to maintain an adequate supply to ensure access when disasters hit. 

Ask your local officials how people with substance use disorder are considered in disaster planning. Do shelters have low barriers to entry and no abstinence requirements? Are volunteers trained on how to reduce stigma and respond to overdoses? 

Grist’s Disaster 101 Toolkit — a comprehensive guide to extreme weather preparation, response, and recovery — includes a detailed section on how people with substance use disorder can stay safe during disasters and how community members, volunteers, and other responders can best support them. Read, share, and easily customize it for your community.

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FIRST at Blue Ridge, a halfway house in nearby Black Mountain, saw about 30 residents leave to deal with the aftermath of Helene, though record-keeping was difficult in the chaos. Some residents lost the homes they’d hoped to return to. Others, placed there as a condition of probation, had to navigate spotty cell service to notify court officials and get permission to go assist their families. A few simply walked off, hoping to hike home. Most eventually came back, but one or two never returned. The center administers drug tests when people come or go, and found that several had relapsed during their time away.

Similar disruptions have been reported across the mountains, especially where the legal system is involved. Cordelia Stearns, chief medical officer at High Country Community Health in Watauga County, said displacement can set off a chain of events that ends in incarceration for the patients treated at her clinic.

One had been living in a shed after Helene and accidentally burned it down trying to stay warm through the winter. He walked hours to reach the clinic and keep up with treatment for opioid addiction. “He did actually make these heroic efforts to stay in care,” Stearns said.

Despite that, he was incarcerated multiple times for nonviolent drug offenses. He’s currently out of touch again, and, she assumes, probably in jail. She hopes he’s OK, she said, choking up. “It’s always a little nerve-racking when you can’t reach people.” 

Stearns has seen similar patterns play out repeatedly, particularly among people who are unhoused. Access to medications like Suboxone or methadone often depends on the policies of individual jails, and incarceration can bring people back into environments where drugs are readily available. “I’m not totally sure who it’s supposed to be helping,” she said.

In Buncombe County, community health worker Brandi Hayes has seen how quickly this turmoil can unravel recovery. She works with the county’s Post-Overdose Response Team, which checks on people who have recently survived an overdose and steers them toward treatment. Like many in this field, she has a family history with addiction that makes the work personal.

Brandi Hayes (left) works for the Buncombe County Post-Overdose Response Team, which works with recent overdose survivors. Her organization offers treatment services, like Suboxone (right). Jesse Barber / Grist

In the weeks after Hurricane Helene, she and her colleagues slogged through the muck to check on patients, deliver essentials like food and water, and keep people connected to treatment and care. Some stayed on track. Others disappeared. One case in particular has stuck with her: A man who had been doing well in his treatment for opioid use, and had even gotten his license and a car back after a period of suspension for legal issues.

“Then the storm came,” Hayes said. “He had to take care of someone else that wasn’t in the sober mind state that he was in.” He quit going to treatment, started using drugs again, cycled through jail several times, and lost his car. 

“I don’t even know where he’s at right now or what he’s doing, ’cause he’s fallen off so bad and not going to appointments and things like that,” Hayes said. When that gets harder for the people she serves, she takes notice. “It’s very easy to backslide.”

The same pattern has played out across Appalachia before. When floods tore through eastern Kentucky in 2022, Jeremy Haney lost nearly everything: his apartment, most of his belongings, and Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Company, where he built mandolins by hand. He is in recovery from addiction to painkillers and methamphetamines. A recovery-to-work program had led him to the factory in 2019, and building the instruments had become the bedrock of his life. When the floodwaters receded, the factory was temporarily closed, and it didn’t look likely to reopen soon. He wondered what he’d do next.

“My first initial thought is, ‘OK, our factory’s gone. We’ve got no job,’” Haney recalled thinking. He didn’t want to go back to where he was from in Morgan County, all the way across the state. “I’ve put all this work and effort into relocating and rebuilding my life here in Knott County, and now I’m going to have to start all over again.”

Doug Naselroad, who runs the recovery-to-work program, dreaded telling roughly a dozen men that their jobs had disappeared. Instead, he found funding from the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, a combination of state and federal Department of Labor funding, that allowed them to work in disaster relief. “Nobody missed a paycheck,” Naselroad said. “But they had to rethink what they did for a living, you know, and for months they just slogged away in the mud.”

Haney spent that time cleaning and reorganizing the luthiery and its instruments, determining what could be kept and what had to be thrown away. But the flood had upended the rest of his life. He received $1,800 from FEMA to replace his lost possessions. But after his landlord opted into a FEMA program designed to reduce future disaster risk, the building was cleared and everyone had to move out. Haney spent months searching for a new place to live. The factory eventually reopened, allowing him to return to his usual job as a luthier, but much had changed.

Nearly 9,000 houses and apartments were destroyed in the Kentucky flood, and about 31 percent of the homes in Knott County were damaged. Rental housing was scarce. Even after being approved for federal homeowners’ loans, he struggled to find something within his budget. “There just ain’t that many homes around here that would be cheap enough for me to be able to afford the payment,” he said. His landlord had another apartment come open, but the situation felt unstable.

He worried he might have to return to Morgan County, where he could fall back into addiction. The cleanup job helped keep him grounded. He eventually qualified for an unusual state post-disaster housing program for flood survivors that allowed him to buy his first home last year. He moved in just before Christmas, more than three years after the flood. He credits his support network with helping him get through the long stretch in between — helping him move, find new furniture, and giving him social support.

“That’s a big thing in recovery,” Haney said. “Asking for help.”

For Devon, community connections have made all the difference. He has struggled with depression and long bouts of hopelessness over the last year and a half, but he hasn’t gotten high. 

The waning afternoon light moved across the gray carpet of Devon’s apartment as he tried to recall a time when he really felt tempted to use again.

“I’ve thought about it, but very rarely,” Devon said. “If I do, I have a support system where I can call somebody. I would really have to be in a bad place to use.”

Devon sits in his apartment. Jesse Barber / Grist

He leans on people who’ve survived their own crises — divorces, bankruptcies, other disasters. While some friends have returned to drug use, he’s been grateful for his sponsor and fellow members of Narcotics Anonymous. “This is, like, why we do what we do — when shit hits the fan,” he said. 

His life now is quieter. He keeps up with appointments and stays in touch with friends in recovery. He attends weekly meetings, which he sometimes leads. He’s also returned to individual therapy, which helps him cope with lingering anxiety from the hurricane.

It isn’t the life he once imagined, but for now he has made peace with it. “I try to focus on my daughter,” Devon said. “I’m just doing the best I can.”

Being with her gives his days purpose. He looks after her while his ex-wife is at work, and he’s structured his life and routines around her activities — ballet, gymnastics, kickboxing. For Devon, the structure helps him keep moving forward.

This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist and BPR, a public radio station serving western North Carolina. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Hurricane Helene shattered lives — and the systems that keep people sober on May 4, 2026.

Kimberly Treadaway hoped she was prepared for the storm. Hurricane Helene was heading right for her home in Weaverville, North Carolina, and she worried about having enough food and water, and about her 5-month-old son. But something else weighed on her — access to Suboxone, a prescription medication she must take daily to reduce the cravings and withdrawal symptoms associated with opioid use.

“If I didn’t have my medication, I wouldn’t feel OK,” she said.  

Treadaway is about a decade into her recovery. Maintaining sobriety depends upon a great many things remaining consistent: relationships, housing, employment, and, especially, access to the treatment she needs to avoid a relapse.

She wasn’t just concerned for herself. Her partner was also on Suboxone, as were “a lot of our friends.” Many had a stockpile, or a plan to taper their dosage if they suddenly lost access. Withdrawal is always unpleasant and often dangerous. The thought of navigating the aftermath of a natural disaster with fever, chills, vomiting, and other symptoms was frightening.

 “Helene just made it really, really real,” she said.

Treadaway recounted the story in the office of Holler Harm Reduction, alongside fellow staffer Hush Sinn and volunteer Oscar Smith. The grassroots organization in Marshall, often known simply as “Holler,” strives to meet people who use drugs where they are, providing clean needles, naloxone, and other supplies to minimize the threat of an overdose or infection. Treadaway joined the staff in November 2024, right after Helene hit. In the wake of the storm, Holler was part of a loose network of similar organizations that mounted an ad hoc but essential response — to ensure that people who use drugs or are maintaining sobriety got the care and supplies they needed.

Kimberly Treadaway, left, and Oscar Smith, sit beside a stack of needle boxes at Holler Harm Reduction in Marshall, North Carolina.
Jesse Barber / Grist

As the initial barrage of rain and wind gave way to isolation and infrastructural breakdown, the systems Treadaway and so many others rely on remained interrupted for weeks. 

But something else took their place. Across western North Carolina and beyond, people like Treadaway joined doctors, nurses, and others on ATVs, in trucks, and occasionally on foot in delivering care and supplies. They did so in ways that official emergency responders, constrained by training, resources, logistics, or mandate, could not. They did what they felt was urgent and right, and in that, they revealed what disaster response might look like if it were designed with those realities in mind.

For people in recovery or still actively using drugs, survival depends on a connection to care, routine, and the people and systems that make such things possible: pharmacies; clinics, rehabs, therapists, and 12-step meetings. 

Across Appalachia and the South, that web is already strained. A flood of prescription opioids, followed by heroin, fentanyl, amphetamines, and other drugs, brought skyrocketing addiction rates and death in the early 2000s. Though efforts to combat overdose have reduced death rates since 2022, rural areas hit by hospital closures and dwindling access to basic health care still see high rates of these and other so-called “deaths of despair.” With climate-fueled disasters growing more frequent, the same fragile system is tested again and again.

Keep reading Hurricane Helene shattered lives — and the systems that keep people sober Katie Myers

Treadaway, who is 33, grew up in a rural area outside Boone, near the Tennessee state line. Shy and raised on an abstinence-only education, she had been taught to avoid drugs at all costs without ever learning how they differed or how they affected the body. All she knew was that they felt good and made her more at ease in life and at parties. She began using opiates and other substances in high school, alongside friends and romantic partners. She eventually dropped out of school, and stopped doing other things she loved, like art, theater, and dance. One day, when she was 19, she awoke to find her partner lifeless in bed next to her. It shook her into seeking help.

She went back to school and tried to bring balance to her life. It wasn’t until around 2017 that she found a welcoming place in the harm reduction community, where she could share her experiences and wisdom. Harm reduction aims to reduce the risks associated with drugs — infection, illness, death — and promote understanding, respect, and compassion for people who use them. She found its philosophy of helping people without judgment appealing. Treadaway felt accepted for sometimes existing in a gray area between active use and recovery, a process that’s rarely linear. 

“It wasn’t a clear-cut journey,” she said. “But after that, I let go of certain substances and then let go of some others, and worked my way into a place in life that felt good.”

Treadaway first volunteered with The Steady Collective, a harm-reduction group based in Asheville, and later served on its board. There, she found like-minded people who embraced her first-person perspective on complex health and social issues. She now works as the organizational director for Holler.

Holler Harm Reduction distributes supplies like Naloxone and drug testing kits (left), comfort items like lip balm (center), which treats dry-mouth symptoms caused by withdrawal medications like Suboxone, and clean supplies to prevent infection (right).

Many of her friends navigate the same space between use and recovery, occasionally moving back and forth between the two. In the harm reduction community, Treadaway said, they find forgiveness, patience, and love that the greater world doesn’t always have for them.

She and others in the community brought that approach to the aftermath of Helene, seeking to show their neighbors that they were there, loved them, and wouldn’t let them fall. The organization, along with other western North Carolina groups like Steady Collective and Smoky Mountain Harm Reduction, quickly mobilized. As soon as the roads were passable, truckloads of basic supplies arrived from all over. A region’s worth of people, increasingly accustomed to the disruptions of flooding, got to work distributing them.

“The scope of mutual aid is just like harm reduction,” said Hush Sinn. “The norm in mutual aid is that we show up for each other. That nobody says, ‘That’s not my problem.’”

Flooding had washed out roads and cut communications, making it difficult or impossible to reach clinics or refill prescriptions. Those who could often found drugstores and clinics closed, or unable to verify insurance because of internet outages. For people in treatment for opioid addiction, the consequences were dire: Methadone typically must be dispensed daily at a clinic, while Suboxone is tightly regulated as a controlled substance.

“It was like hundreds of dollars” that people had to pay if they couldn’t apply insurance, Treadaway said. Most couldn’t afford that. With supplies uncertain, she reduced her own dosage. Some people pooled what they had and shared it with friends — helping each other through a crisis felt more important than following laws that prohibit such actions.

How to support people with substance use disorder during and after disaster 

Learn how to recognize and respond to opioid overdoses. Harm reduction groups or syringe exchanges may offer first aid and sensitivity training, as does the Red Cross.

Have naloxone (also known by the brand name Narcan) on hand and know how to dispense it. 

Understand the medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), to help reduce stigma around their availability and use. Buprenorphine is an evidence-based treatment, but requires healthcare providers and pharmacies to maintain an adequate supply to ensure access when disasters hit. 

Ask your local officials how people with substance use disorder are considered in disaster planning. Do shelters have low barriers to entry and no abstinence requirements? Are volunteers trained on how to reduce stigma and respond to overdoses? 

Grist’s Disaster 101 Toolkit — a comprehensive guide to extreme weather preparation, response, and recovery — includes a detailed section on how people with substance use disorder can stay safe during disasters and how community members, volunteers, and other responders can best support them. Read, share, and easily customize it for your community.

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Treadaway ended up leaving for her son’s safety. Others, like Sinn and Smith, remained. They found people were doing surprisingly well, given the circumstances — not because the system was holding, but because many were accustomed to its failures. They were used to interruptions in electricity, water, or housing.

“People who use drugs are scrappy,” Treadaway said. “They are used to having to fight for their basic needs, which isn’t a good or correct thing, but I had this really deep sense of faith and trust in their survival skills that maybe other community members haven’t had to ever use.”

Sinn, who is on the staff at the Steady Collective and has a history of substance use, was drawn to harm reduction not only to save lives but to ensure no one faces the crushing loneliness that can come with substance use. That seemed particularly important in the wake of Helene. “There’s nothing worse than feeling like nobody gives a shit about you,” Sinn said.

State health officials also found themselves scrambling to meet urgent needs. Tyler Yates, the state opioid coordinator for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, watched treatment centers across the state suddenly also become depots for first aid supplies, clean water, and gasoline, filling the community’s basic survival needs.

Yates, like many in his line of work, comes to the job with personal experience: He started using opioids and other substances when he was 11. He went to treatment in 2017, for what he said may have been the eighth time. It was around then that he found a home in harm reduction work. 

After the storm, Yates knew what people who use drugs needed to survive, and was frustrated by how bureaucracy stood in the way. For instance, he wanted to quickly get sterile water to intravenous drug users, fearing that without it, they could face infection, sepsis, or death from water containing bacteria and other contaminants. But the request went nowhere. According to Yates, state emergency officials were reluctant to fund supplies beyond the usual disaster checklist. “When we submitted the order, it was denied by the emergency response folks because they didn’t think that FEMA would reimburse them,” he said.

North Carolina Emergency Management declined to comment and referred all questions to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Summer Tonizzo, a spokesperson for that agency, told Grist in an email that it collaborates with local jurisdictions, health departments, and community organizations to assist those with substance use disorder during disasters by helping provide naloxone and offering crisis counseling in shelters.

“The State Emergency Response Team makes decisions regarding the distribution of emergency health supplies based on the immediate public health needs and circumstances at hand,” wrote Tonizzo. “The reimbursement process occurs after the response phase has ended and involves separate processes.” 

After a month of back and forth, Yates and his team ended up receiving supplies donated by local and regional harm reduction groups and delivering them throughout western North Carolina. “There’s so much red tape,” he said. His team did its best to fill supply and training gaps, like distributing naloxone to rural volunteer fire departments and first responders who often lacked the training and supplies. 

The state also saw more contamination in the illicit drug supply, driven by a drop in availability of fentanyl and other opioids due to damaged roads and landslides. In places like Haywood County, health providers said xylazine — a cheap, widely available tranquilizer that slows breathing and can cause severe tissue damage — flooded the supply. Health care professionals and harm reductionists scrambled to warn people of the risk, and provide test strips to keep them safe.

Training and preparation were also an issue when it came to longer-term disaster relief volunteers. Several health providers in western North Carolina told Grist they saw people who used drugs — or even those taking medications for opioid use disorder — being turned away from shelters by volunteers who believed they were keeping others safe.

Tonizzo said her agency received no reports of people being wrongfully ejected from shelters for being on medications used to treat opioid use disorder, but that use of illegal drugs “can be restricted” and is grounds for removal.

Buncombe County officials said the county’s response plan prioritizes access to water, sanitation, and shelter for everyone, and it works with harm reduction groups to maintain access to safe use supplies. Although the county handled the initial coordination of emergency shelters, it handed that task off to the Red Cross, which did not respond to written questions, in the weeks after the storm. “Coordinating the various needs of the shelter population was no small challenge,” a Buncombe County spokesperson said in an email. “As the needs of shelter residents became more apparent, the Red Cross and our teams worked to relocate individuals needing specialized support to a more appropriate shelter setting.”

Wreckage from Hurricane Helene in Swannanoa, North Carolina. Jesse Barber / Grist

The storm’s overall effect on public health was mixed. Hospitalization data showed some illnesses worsened, particularly chronic illnesses such as diabetes and mental health conditions like anxiety. Emergency room visits for overdoses and alcohol use also rose, with opioid overdoses up about 21 percent in the three months after the storm, according to an analysis by Appalachian State University geographer Maggie Sugg and environmental epidemiologist Jen Runkle, who works for the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies, a research arm of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. Because ER data reflects only those who needed and could access care, the real impact may have been greater.

Still, more than a dozen health care providers, harm reductionists, and peer counselors told Grist they were astonished that things weren’t worse, given the multitude of health risks the people they care for face. Some even said they saw fewer overdoses and cases of severe withdrawal than they expected.

“Some of my patients fared way better than they had in years,” said Cassie York, a peer support counselor at a Mountain Community Health Partnership clinic in rural, low-income Mitchell County. “Because there was food available, there were resources available, no questions asked.” 

After disasters, a safety net of free emergency health clinics blooms and fades. But between those moments lies what many described as a glimmer of possibility — a kind of equality in access to care among people caught in addiction or early recovery, who are often uninsured or avoid seeking medical care due to fear of stigma and arrest.

Red Cross workers distribute supplies at Asheville-Buncome Technical Community College after Hurricane Helene. Jesse Barber / Grist

Doctors worked out of community centers and churches, writing prescriptions more freely as patients bypassed the usual restrictions on access. The state Board of Pharmacy, acting on Governor Roy Cooper’s declaration of an emergency and Drug Enforcement Agency approval, allowed doctors and pharmacists to provide emergency refills of regulated medications , including some of those used to treat opioid use disorder.

People came in with chronic infections, injuries, and diseases like AIDS — conditions that can arise from intravenous drug use — and were treated, free of charge. For a brief moment, many experienced what it meant to have free, nonjudgmental care. “Word of mouth spreads fast, you know? ‘Hey, there’s a doctor at the church, go get your prescription,’” York said. 

But if that access was easier than usual, it was because there were people who made the decision to make it happen, and local and state officials willing to provide the resources. In other states throughout the Appalachian region, communities with high overdose rates and growing disaster risk face a very different set of political circumstances.

Not every county, or state, in the region provides harm reduction programs with the same level of support found in Buncombe County. Some actively inhibit it. West Virginia, for instance, passed restrictions in 2021 that threaten needle exchange programs, and a bill banning them is under judicial review. In Tennessee, state laws prohibit these exchanges, which help intravenous drug users avoid infection and disease by providing sterile injection supplies, from operating near schools or parks. Such restrictions limit how many syringe exchanges can operate, and often push them into less accessible areas. Many people in rural Tennessee drive across the state line seeking help, further straining services in western North Carolina.

The myriad challenges of meeting immediate needs make it difficult for harm reductionists to plan for the next crisis. Health workers in West Virginia, which has the nation’s highest overdose rate, described feeling as though their heads are being held underwater. “It can be hard to think about climate emergency, because so many people who I see are in a state of emergency all the time,” said Lake Sidikman, who coordinates harm reduction programs at the Charleston Women’s Health Center.

Even in Buncombe County, widely cited as a lodestar for substance use services, gaps remain. Helene highlighted the lack of a concrete plan for providing services during a crisis. 

That gap has sparked efforts to rethink disaster planning. Harm reductionist Kathryn Humphries works with others in her field and officials at all levels of government and grassroots groups on disaster response. She said such plans often overlook people who use drugs and the unhoused, despite their heightened vulnerabilities and overlapping needs. She is among those helping lead a national conversation about how to better draw community organizations and those with direct experience with drug use into preparedness efforts.

To Dr. Shuchin Shukla, a physician and addiction medicine researcher who previously practiced family medicine in Buncombe County, disaster preparedness starts with the pillars of overdose prevention: naloxone to reverse overdoses, medications and supplies such as Suboxone and clean needles, and peer support from trusted people in the community. Strangers cannot arrive after a disaster and expect people in active addiction or early recovery to trust them. “You have to bring a ton of support to the people they already know and rely on,” he said.

He’d like to see family members, trusted neighbors, and others with firm connections in the community trained to be first responders and given the necessary resources. Such methods worked after Hurricane Helene; the challenge is institutionalizing and funding these programs, which are just as important as access to food, water, and shelter when disaster strikes, at the state and federal level. “People will go through withdrawal from medication and fentanyl before they’ll go through withdrawal from food,” he said.

A medical professional with Respite at Haywood Street Congregation gives wound care to a community member in Asheville, North Carolina. Addiction researcher Shuchin Shukla thinks organizations with strong community ties should be included in disaster response plans.
Jesse Barber / Grist

He also wants states to maintain emergency reserves of medications and safe-use supplies, and to provide basic first aid and medical resources. Ideally, he’d like to see trained staff, volunteer organizations, and federal emergency response teams prepared to distribute these resources.

Shukla sees this as increasingly urgent. Opioid settlement funds — more than $57 billion that drugmakers, distributors, and pharmacy chains paid to all 50 states for their role in the overdose crisis — are abundant now, but annual disbursements will decrease each year and expire in 2038. Federal support for substance use services has fluctuated under the Trump administration. After the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration saw as much as $1.9 billion in grants cut and later reinstated, the agency faced a wave of layoffs and resignations; the 2027 federal budget proposes further consolidation and reductions. 

“We can’t predict what’s going to happen,” he said, “but we can make sure that if stuff were to happen, we have various levels of resilience.”

For people who work in harm reduction, the long tail of Helene has been hard to watch. The people they rushed to serve, and who benefited from the sudden abundance of free health care, have begun to fall back into isolation.

“When all of that finished, it was like, not only did they go back to being uncomfortable, but it was even harder because they’d kind of gotten used to having needs met as we all should, you know?” Treadaway said.

As quickly as a health care safety net unfurled, it began to fray.

“There are now folks where their living situations with like five to seven people are falling apart, and they’re just ending up with nothing,” Smith said. “Now they have to pick up the pieces and figure it out.”

The donations have slowed, but the need hasn’t. Last winter, the Holler crew and other nonprofits delivered propane and water alongside harm reduction supplies. A year and a half after the storm, they are still meeting basic needs for survivors even as they brace for the next disaster. They can only hope they’re ready when it comes.

This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist and BPR, a public radio station serving western North Carolina. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Helene frayed the safety net for people who use drugs. This community wove it back together. on May 4, 2026.

Since 2018, when it bought the chemical manufacturer Monsanto, the German conglomerate Bayer has set aside billions to settle legal claims that the active ingredient in the company’s weedkiller Roundup has caused cancer and other health issues among its users. More than 100,000 plaintiffs across the U.S. have filed lawsuits alleging a cancer link, and in February, the company agreed to settle a class action lawsuit for $7.25 billion.

Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in one case that didn’t reach a settlement. John Durnell first sued Monsanto in 2019, arguing that he developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma because of persistent exposure to glyphosate in Roundup, which he had regularly sprayed throughout his neighborhood for 20 years. In 2023, a Missouri jury found Monsanto liable for failing to warn users of the cancer risk from glyphosate, and awarded Durnell $1.25 million in damages. The company has denied the claims and issued a series of appeals ever since.

Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act — known as FIFRA — the Environmental Protection Agency is authorized to govern the sale and labeling of pesticides. The federal law bars pesticides that are “misbranded,” or lack warnings that may be necessary to protect health and the environment. According to the law, states cannot impose labeling requirements that differ from or go beyond what federal law already mandates for these products. Manufacturers must register pesticides and herbicides with the EPA before selling them, and when a product is registered, the agency signs off on its labels. 

Durnell’s case rests on a Missouri law that bans the sale of dangerous products without adequate warnings. Monsanto argued those claims should have been preempted by FIFRA, since the company registered its product with the EPA and received approval for its label. The central legal question before the Supreme Court, then, is whether the EPA’s approval of that label overrides the Missouri state law. 

The justices appeared divided on the case during oral arguments. Several, including Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, pressed attorneys on whether preemption would block states from responding to changing research. “Could we have a world in which a product that has been registered, the label is consistent with what the agency has said is appropriate at the time of registration, but let’s say a new research study comes out at some point between when the EPA is statutorily required to look at it again that casts doubt on the safety of this product?” Jackson asked Paul Clement, a former solicitor general and a lawyer for Monsanto, appearing skeptical of the company’s claim.

Clement responded by saying, “I think the way that you deal with that and the way the agency deals with that is either through some amended registration or some cancellation process which could be subject to judicial review.” Justice Amy Coney Barrett then put a finer point on Jackson’s inquiry: “But could the agency come after you for misbranding if you didn’t comply with your statutory obligation to give the updated information to the EPA?” 

“Absolutely,” Clement responded. “But it wouldn’t be a misbranding action.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared to side with Monsanto’s argument that varying state requirements undermine federal uniformity. “Do you think it’s uniformity when each state can require different things?” Kavanaugh asked Ashley Keller, the attorney representing Durnell. 

The EPA’s handling of pesticides has been fraught and shapes the stakes of the case considerably. Glyphosate is America’s most-used herbicide on agricultural crops — more than 280 million pounds of the chemical are applied to roughly 300 million acres of farmland every year, according to the EPA. In 2021, the EPA did a biological evaluation on glyphosate and found 1,676 endangered plant and animal species are likely to be harmed by the chemical. J.W. Glass, a senior EPA policy analyst at the conservation nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, which contributed to an amicus brief filed in support of Durnell, said the sheer scale of glyphosate use is the problem, and the ripple effects can show up not only in the environment, but in people’s bodies. Farmworkers face some of the most acute exposure risk, a byproduct of working on farmland where the use of herbicides like Roundup is a routine part of crop production, according to Nezahualcoyotl Xiuhtecutli, a senior grassroots advocacy coordinator at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. 

“The indiscriminate use of it, and how much we use it, is the environmental issue,” said Glass. “You have these cases where people are spraying it directly into waterways for weed control.”  

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Glass said there are “plenty of issues” in the EPA’s pesticide labeling process. Two analyses his organization co-released with the Center for Food Safety in March found that the EPA has routinely left cancer warnings off pesticide products even when its own assessments have identified cancer risks. “Does EPA actually label pesticides when they are found to be a carcinogen? And the answer is, it’s very rare. But that’s only one part of it. There are all sorts of, I would say, loopholes that have been exploited within the pesticide law,” he said.

As reported by Mother Jones, the EPA spent more than a decade reviewing Roundup before clearing the herbicide in 2020 under the federal standard that its agricultural benefits outweighed its societal harms — only for that assessment to be swiftly challenged in court by environmental groups. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the EPA’s assessment in 2022, finding serious “errors in assessing human-­health risk.” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin told Congress last Tuesday that a new ruling on the herbicide is coming by the year’s end. 

At that same hearing, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat in New York, cited internal EPA emails that noted Bayer promised to “provide a small thanks” to Zeldin for the agency updating its webpage on glyphosate after an appeals court struck down a California label warning against the chemical’s cancer risk. The emails, according to Ocasio-Cortez, also show that the company “wanted to thank you and your agency for removing support for California’s warning because their case before the Supreme Court right now hinges on you not warning the American people and withdrawing your support on glyphosate.” 

“Do you understand the conflict of interest that is before the American people right now, Mr. Secretary?” Ocasio-Cortez asked the EPA administrator. According to transcripts of the hearing, Zeldin did not explicitly respond.

The Durnell case has become a national flashpoint for environmentalists, public health advocates, and Trump voters who consider themselves a part of the Make America Healthy Again movement. Some of that friction can be traced back to last year, when the administration urged the Supreme Court to take up Bayer’s case. Then, in February, the president issued an executive order deeming glyphosate-based herbicides key to national security and calling for more domestic production of the chemical, which was met with serious backlash within the MAHA coalition. Trump’s administration also sent a lawyer to argue last Monday on behalf of the chemical company. 

As justices heard oral arguments, a crowd of protesters gathered outside of the Supreme Court for what they called “The People vs. Poison” rally. At the same time, members of the U.S. House of Representatives debated provisions of the farm bill that would have blocked states from passing pesticide label requirements that differ from federal labels. Those provisions were stripped in a House amendment vote last Thursday, and the Senate is expected to vote in the coming weeks on the farm bill.

Kelly Ryerson, the prominent MAHA activist and founder of the website Glyphosate Facts who helped organize “The People vs. Poison” rally, said the Durnell case amounts to a litmus test for whether the administration is truly serious about the MAHA agenda. 

A ruling that strips people’s ability to file state-level failure-to-warn claims would be “catastrophic for public health,” said Ryerson. “It would be entirely because of this administration, and it will be unforgivable.” The Supreme Court is expected to render its decision this summer, giving voters just months to reckon with the ruling before heading to the midterm polls. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The Supreme Court is deciding whether Roundup, America’s most-used herbicide, needs a cancer warning on May 4, 2026.

From ecosystem destruction to climate instability, today’s environmental crises are rooted in a deeper assumption: that humans stand apart from nature. This essay argues that addressing that divide requires a broader cultural and economic shift toward ecological responsibility.

In this interview with 15/15\15 magazine, Richard Heinberg argues that current transition strategies ignore a central reality: replacing fossil fuels is not enough without reducing overall energy use.

Nate Hagens expands on the case for holding a distribution of possible futures rather than a single preferred one, and walks through a structured scenario-building exercise.

A little-known federal insurance requirement could soon bring American trains to a halt — even though commuter rail is far safer than other modes of travel.

The commuter railroad industry is bracing for the impending publication of a new federal “passenger rail liability cap,” which will start a 30-day doomsday clock for every rail operator in America to either secure millions of dollars in additional insurance, or immediately cease operations.

Even more troubling: It’s unclear whether the insurance industry will be able to issue the requisite policies. Experts said it almost certainly won’t.

Rail advocates have repeatedly warned that global insurance companies have struggled for years to write policies for railroads, thanks to a rise in climate change-related claims straining the insurance market as a whole and the sheer scale of the liability coverage that Congress forces railroads to secure.

Worse, the level of those liability caps has little to do with the actual probability of insurable incidents, which is significantly lower than cars. And because many rail fans are unfamiliar with the wonky world of underwriting, few have spoken up about a potentially existential threat to their favorite mode of getting around.

“What we really need is a public groundswell,” said Jim Mathews, President and CEO of the National Rail Passengers Association. “You need the public to comment in the docket and send letters to their members of Congress … Regular people [need to know that] train services are potentially threatened because very safe train operators, who have never had a wreck, are facing the reality that their insurance is going to go up — just because the law says it has to. And the insurance market doesn’t want to do it.”

How we got here

The rail industry’s looming insurance crisis traces back to 1997, when the Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act first mandated that railroads secure $200 million in excess liability insurance to cover the maximum allowable settlement that all passengers can secure from a single incident. (That requirement also functioned as the minimum allowable liability insurance policy railroads can hold and still run trains, making the “cap” both a ceiling and a floor.)

At the time, the number seemed fair to many rail advocates, who recognized that serious train crashes are rare compared to serious car crashes, but can be devastating and costly for surrounding communities. What wasn’t fair, though, was how the cap continued to increase — even if the number of train crashes held steady.

Under the FAST Act of 2015, the liability cap ballooned to $294 million — a development some advocates attributed to the influence of trial lawyers chasing bigger settlements rather than any meaningful analysis of the current costs of railway disasters.

“[It’s] a little self serving, if I will say,” said KellyAnne Gallagher, CEO of the Commuter Railway Coalition. “The more that railroads have to carry, the higher a trial lawyer can push for a jury verdict.”

Visit the National Safety Council for an interactive version of this graphic.

Worse, federal law requires Congress to adjust the cap every five years; in 2021, the legislative body raised it to $323 million. The next adjustment is due any day now, and advocates believe the cap will rise to around $400 million — an increase of nearly 24 percent.

Some larger carriers will be able to adjust their budgets to cover the gap; smaller carriers, who are already paying a tenth or more of their budget on insurance, may not be so lucky.

Other modes of travel, meanwhile, have it far easier. The liability cap for freight truck companies, for instance, hasn’t budged since Congress set it at just $750,000 in 1980 — a staggering 46 years ago. This is particularly notable given the surging number and associated costs of truck crashes, which often leave victims and survivors destitute, especially when a big rig causes a grisly, multi-car pile-up with damages comparable to train crashes.

Furthermore, the federal government imposes zero liability minimums on the individual drivers of passenger cars, who cause the vast majority of transportation tragedies in America, and largely leaves insurance matters up to the states. Legislators in New York are actually working to reduce motorists’ insurance costs, even as advocates warn that crash victims will pay the price.

How a broken insurance market is getting worse

Even if the pending liability cap increase is arbitrary, both Mathews and Gallagher said that railroads have tried to prepare to pay it. If the insurance market isn’t ready to provide the necessary policies, however, rail operators may not be able to secure new policies anyway, which could take the trains entirely offline.

Mathews explained that, due to the sheer size of the liability coverage that railroads are obligated to secure, no single insurance company can afford to offer them a single, comprehensive policy. That forces operators to cobble together insurance “towers” of more than a dozen different policies that collectively reach the federal cap.

Because there are simply not enough American insurers to fully assemble these teetering “towers,” railroads are forced to rely on foreign insurance markets in places like Bermuda and London to cover the gap. That means a significant portion of railroad budgets, most of which heavily rely on local tax receipts, flow directly to overseas entities — all because Congress dictated an arbitrarily high liability cap.

“Even when we’ve gone on the Hill and pointed out how much has to be spent overseas to acquire this insurance, it doesn’t seem to resonate that tax dollars are being sent abroad,” Gallagher added. “We would have thought that that would be a trigger, and it hasn’t really triggered anyone.”

Recommended Op/Ed: Oil Shocks Will Keep Coming. High-Speed Rail Can Boost Our Resilience.  Alan Minsky April 21, 2026

With the insurance market across all sectors buckling under the weight of climate disasters, Mathews fears the Londons and Bermudas of the world will think twice before insuring a U.S. railroad. If that happens, and Congress doesn’t relax its unrealistic standard, American trains could stop rolling.

“Wildfires in Madagascar will affect the rate that you as a commuter operator in San Diego are paying for insurance,” he told Streetsblog. “We’re reaching a point where the insurance market just does not want to sell policies to these railroads anymore. And as the cap gets higher, the insurance just becomes out of reach.”

What to do — and why to do it now

An industry-wide insurance crisis would be a disaster for commuter rail passengers. But Gallagher said it would be a particular tragedy given the mode’s recent gains in service and ridership.

Commuter rail largely recovered its pre-pandemic ridership by 2024, and some systems, like Caltrain, even doubled weekend passenger counts. Railroads have made massive investments in safety since the cap was last raised, too, and they’re just starting to record the long-term benefits of innovations like “positive train control” systems, which advocates said make trains safer every year they operate.

Rail advocates hoped that this summer’s World Cup games would be an opportunity to show the world how far we’ve come on the rails. They now wonder if trains will run at all.

“We would have hoped that market forces would have had a positive impact on the premiums we pay for this insurance,” added Gallagher. “We would have hoped that a drop in ridership during COVID would have had a positive impact on the premiums. It is not so … Our safety record and our safety investments have no bearing [on what we pay].”

Recommended Ask An Insurance Industry Insider: Safe Streets Are The Best Way To Bring Down Insurance Costs DJ Falkson April 15, 2026

As Congress drafts the next major federal transportation bill, Gallagher is lobbying legislators to defer the recalculation of the liability cap by four years, and to provide railroads (and the overwhelmed insurance market) year to comply with it.

Mathews said Congress could explore more radical solutions, too, such as requiring the Federal Railroad Administration to use actuarial science when estimating the costs of rail disasters, and creating tiered minimums to accommodate a diverse range of operators. Authorizing state-level transportation departments and commuter rail agencies to create their own insurers to pool risks regionally is another idea he supports; so is the creation of a “risk-sharing backstop” at the federal level, and giving the Surface Transportation Board more power to help set fair requirements rather than forcing Congress into the weeds on such a complex issue.

As wonky as all that might sound, though, Mathews said the stakes of this conversation couldn’t be higher — and the time to call your Congressional representative is now.

“It’s very esoteric and nerdy, and people don’t really want to talk about insurance because it seems bizarre,” he added. “But at the same time, you’re going to care if your commuter operator has to suspend service because they can’t get insured.”

• Replacing a second car with a cargo e-bike can save a family thousands of dollars a year. While the initial purchase price and storage for apartment-dwellers can be a concern, buyers save on fuel, car repairs and insurance, reduce their carbon footprint and live a healthier lifestyle. (Momentum)
• Voters in one suburb voted Saturday to withdraw from Dallas Area Rapid Transit, but two others voted to stay in the system. (Texas Tribune)
• Sound Transit is moving forward with the West Seattle Link light rail project, but will need to make improvements to dangerous Fourth Avenue to shift bus traffic there from the SoDa bus corridor. (The Urbanist)
• Seattle reached a $9.25 million settlement with a cyclist who was severely injured in a crash in a protected bike lane and sued the city arguing that it was poorly designed. (Seattle Times)
• A driver drove onto an Oakland sidewalk and injured seven people, then abandoned the vehicle at the scene (SFGate). In Las Vegas, a driver who killed one person on a sidewalk along the Strip and injured dozens more in 2015 was sentenced to at least 18 years in prison after reached a plea agreement (8 News Now).
• A coalition of San Diego transportation, business and climate advocates jointed together to oppose proposed eliminating the city’s multimodal team. (Circulate)
• The Knoxville City Council approved a $22 Vision Zero project on Chapman Highway, one of its most dangerous roads. (WATE)
• Asheville needs a strong bus system as its economy continues to recover from Hurricane Helene. (Citizen Times)
• Albemarle County, Virginia, is boosting funding for Charlottesville transit by $700,000. (29 News)
• At a conference in Columbia — a major coal exporter that’s trying to diversity its economy — representatives from more than 50 countries gathered to discuss transitioning away from fossil fuels. (NPR)
• Former Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo and British architect Norman Foster participated in a discussion on the benefits and challenges of removing cars from public spaces. (CityLab)
• Montreal residents once used an abandoned railbed as an informal trail, and now the city has turned it into an official linear park. (Landscape Architecture)

Pooja Kishinani and Satakshi Gupta

An interview with visual artist Anuja Dasgupta, whose practice sits at the intersection of eco-art, ethnobotany and community. Using plant-based emulsions, cameraless photography, and repurposed wood, she creates art that refuses to represent the land, …

It’s the 56th anniversary of the killings at Kent State University. In a special encore episode, we’re reposting our episode from 2020. In this episode, we commemorate the anniversary of…

Vermont Senate advances landmark ban on Parkinson’s pesticide Anthony Lacey May 3, 2026

Vermont’s Senate today gave its initial approval to landmark legislation that would ban the use and sale of the highly toxic herbicide paraquat, bringing the state to the cusp of becoming the first in the nation to enact such a prohibition.

The legislation, H. 739, would end Vermonters’ exposure to paraquat, an extremely dangerous weedkiller linked to serious health harms, including Parkinson’s disease. Despite these risks, the U.S. still allows its use, even though more than 70 countries have banned it.

Vermont’s House passed a nearly identical measure in March and must now vote to concur with the Senate’s version, before sending the bill to Gov. Phil Scott (R).

“With today’s vote, Vermont is on the verge of making history by becoming the first state to ban paraquat,” said Geoff Horsfield, legislative director at the Environmental Working Group. “Lawmakers in both chambers have recognized the urgent need to protect public health. The House should act swiftly to send this bill to the governor’s desk.”

Horsfield thanked Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike for their work on the bill, led by Rep. Esme Cole (Windsor-6) and Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick (Chittenden-Central District). “They have made clear that safeguarding farmers, rural communities and children must take precedence over continued use of one of the most hazardous pesticides still on the market,” he added.

Paraquat has been extensively studied for its links to Parkinson’s disease and other serious illnesses, and even small amounts of exposure can pose significant health risks, including death. The chemical can travel through the air for more than two miles and persist in the environment, raising concerns for rural communities and agricultural workers alike.

If enacted, the legislation would position Vermont as a national leader at a moment of growing momentum to phase out paraquat.  At least 12 other states have introduced similar bans, and California is considering new regulatory restrictions. These efforts are clear signs of escalating concern over the chemical’s well-documented health risks.

“If signed into law, this bill will prevent needless exposure to a chemical tied to a devastating disease and set a powerful precedent for states across the country to follow,” Horsfield said.

###

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.

Areas of Focus Farming & Agriculture Paraquat Vote puts state on brink of being first-in-nation to prohibit toxic herbicide paraquat Press Contact Alex Formuzis alex@ewg.org (202) 667-6982 May 6, 2026

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 26, 2026 thru Sat, May 2, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category:

Climate Change Impacts (8 articles)

• Why delaying climate action now means higher seas by 2100 The Conversation, Helen Millman, Martin Siegert, Richard Alley, Apr 24, 2026.
• Next El Niño could be tipping point for a hotter climate Pacific heat pulse is temporary, but scientists warn that its climate impacts are not. Ars Technica, Bob Berwyn, Apr 27, 2026.
• The world is getting too hot to feed itself A new UN report maps how extreme heat is tearing through every layer of the global food system — and mostly overlooks the people at the heart of it. Grist, Ayurella Horn-Muller, Apr 27, 2026.
• Red Alert: India Heat Index Turns Dangerous As Viral Reddit Post Shows 42-44°C Glow Red Amidst Urban Heat Crisis Record-breaking heat and urban heat islands intensify India's heatwave crisis, posing severe health risks International Business Times, Rohit David, Apr 27, 2026.
• Europe is warming more than TWICE as fast as the global average, report reveals - as scientists warn 'climate change is not a future threat, it is our present reality' Experts say that Europe's rapid warming is driving a wave of extreme weather, heat-related deaths, and devastating wildfires. Daily Mail UK, editorial@mailonline.co.uk (Editor), Apr 29, 2026.
• Major hurricanes in the Northeast are rare. Could climate change make them common? Nuanced analysis of possible changes in hurricane behavior by expert Jeff Masters Yale Climate Connections, Jeff Masters, Apr 29, 2026.
• Surgeon warns that climate change can disrupt cancer care Wildfires, storms, and floods can lead to missed appointments and hospital closures – with life-and-death consequences. Yale Climate Connections, YCC Team, Apr 30, 2026.
• Climate Change is Destroying Lives... Now ClimateAdam on Youtube, Adam Levy, Apr 30. 2026.

Miscellaneous (5 articles)

• China`s solar exports reach "gigantic" record in March as energy crisis bites China exported a record amount of solar components and photovoltaic panels last month, as the Iran war drives stronger demand for clean energy technologies. Climate Home News, Chloé Farand, Apr 22, 2026.
• 2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #17 A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 19, 2026 thru Sat, April 25, 2026. Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler, John Hartz & Doug Bostrom, Apr 26, 2026.
• World `will not see significant return to coal` in 2026 - despite Iran crisis A much-discussed ''return to coal'' by some countries in the wake of the Iran war is likely to be far more limited than thought, amounting to a global rise of no more than 1.8% in coal power output this year. Carbon Brief, Josh Gabbatiss, Apr 28, 2026.
• What fossil fuels really cost us in a world at war 'Governments are under pressure to respond to rising fuel and food costs and deepening energy poverty. It’s time for a power shift'' Climate Home News, Megan Rowling, Apr 29, 2026.
• `A study showed…` isn`t enough - scientific knowledge builds incrementally as researchers investigate and revisit questions A professor of geography offers tips on how to make skepticism genuine and useful. The Conversation, Jeffrey A. Lee, Apr 30, 2026.

Climate Science and Research (4 articles)

• Rivers worldwide reveal greenhouse gas rise that's been overlooked for decades Researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) quantify how rivers worldwide are under severe stress as they warm, losing oxygen and as a result emitting increasing amounts of greenhouse gases. Phys.org, KIT press office, Apr 27, 2026.
• Antarctica`s ice shelves are vulnerable to melting from below - knowing how far ocean heat reaches is crucial A rare dataset collected by instruments at the point where Antarctica’s largest ice shelf begins to float reveals ocean processes that drive melting at this critical part of the continent. The Conversation, Craig Stevens, Apr 28, 2026.
• Skeptical Science New Research for Week #18 2026 Skeptical Science's latest survey of climate research includes 114 academic research articles in 55 journals by 1150 contributing authors, and 14 government and NGO reports. Skeptical Science, Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack, Apr 30, 2026.
• Higher warming predictions for 2026 and 2027 An update to my December estimates of global temperatures over the next two years The Climate Brink, Zeke Hausfather, Apr 30, 2026.

Climate Education and Communication (3 articles)

• Climate policy isn`t partisan - research suggests more on the right support it than oppose it The Conversation, Emily Huddart, Tony Silva, Apr 28, 2026.
• If it feels like the world is rejecting science and truth, here are five ways to fight back | Helen Pearson All of us can choose to consider facts, not vibes, in our next decision. One simple hack is go and look up some easily accessible peer-reviewed studies The Guardian, Helen Pearson, Apr 28, 2026.
• How an army of volunteers is fighting climate misinformation online Instead of arguing with trolls, they’re amplifying the truth. Yale Climate Connections, YCC Team, May 01, 2026.

International Climate Conferences and Agreements (3 articles)

• Colombia hosts talks on exiting fossil fuels as global energy crisis deepens More than 50 countries, including oil producers and major consumers, are converging in Colombia for a fossil-fuel exit conference. Los Angeles Times, Fabiano Maisonnave, Apr 26, 2026.
• Six nations at Santa Marta could shape fossil fuel futures A small but critical handful of countries attending the conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels remain deeply committed to expanding their fossil fuel output. Climate Home News, Megan Rowling, Apr 29, 2026.
• Santa Marta: Key outcomes from first summit on `transitioning away` from fossil fuels Countries attending a first-of-its-kind summit have walked away with plans to develop national roadmaps away from fossil fuels, along with new tools to address harmful subsidies and carbon-intensive trade. Carbon Brief, Daisy Dunne, Apr 30, 2026.

Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation (2 articles)

• How better weather forecasts could save lives New research finds improved weather forecasts could reduce heat deaths as the climate warms. Futurity, U. Arizona, Apr 26, 2026.
• Peatlands are vital for tackling climate change, yet scientists still haven`t found them all English - The Conversation, Alice Milner, Apr 28, 2026.

Climate Policy and Politics (2 articles)

• Fossil-Fuel Funded GOP Leaders Claim a Renowned Scientific Institution Has `Potential Conflicts of Interest` Republican allies of the oil and gas industry question the objectivity of an independent report from the nation’s top science advisers on the harms of human-caused climate change. Inside Climate News, Liza Gross, Apr 24, 2026.
• Germany`s climate U-turn is the worst possible response to the oil shock 'Prices at the pump have leapt since the start of the conflict – but clinging to fossil fuels will only prolong the pain.'' The Guardian, Tania Roettger, May 01, 2026.

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Science (1 article)

• Climate Science Under Siege: Dr. Michael Mann on Fighting Fossil Fuel Disinformation Youtube, David Fenton, Apr 19, 2026.

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The new data center proposed for a quiet city about 115 miles east of San Diego came across people’s radars in different ways.

For patrons of the deli on West Aten Road, it was the white “Not In My Backyard” signs jutting out of lawns.  

For local irrigation district workers, it was something called an “electric service application.” 

For Margie Padilla, it was a rant on Facebook.

The 43-year-old mom came across a post online while she had a few minutes to scan social media last spring after a day spent tending her garden and taking care of her two boys.

“Somebody was complaining about this center,” Padilla said. “I was like, ‘Whoa, what’s going on here?’” 

What’s going on is the second-largest new data center being considered statewide, which would be less than half a mile from Padilla’s stucco home in the center of Imperial Valley. If finished by 2028, as the developer expects, the at least 950,000-square-foot, two-story data center could be the largest operating statewide, taking up 17 football fields’ worth of land. 

The roughly $10 billion, 330-megawatt data center would require 750,000 gallons of water a day to operate, said developer Sebastian Rucci, who insists electricity and water costs won’t rise due to the data center. 

The proposed 330-megawatt data center in Imperial, Calif., is slated to take up 17 football fields of land and needs 750,000 gallons of water a day. Courtesy of Sebastian Rucci

“We have studies on the air. We have studies on the water. The electricity could be handled,” Rucci said. “We did our homework.” 

Imperial officials haven’t quelled local concerns, only noting that the project is facing litigation and that the center’s long-term impacts on utilities haven’t been determined. 

On top of the financial burden of maintaining her family’s health, gas and grocery expenses strain Padilla’s budget, and she’s worried a new data center will only increase water and power costs. Padilla, who first heard of the data center a year ago, has only grown more concerned, and she’s not alone. 

Some residents would see it from their backyards.

“I can only imagine the rates going up once that data center is up and running,” she said, shading her eyes from the beaming sun.

This is one of two dozen data centers expected to open in California in the next few years.

Growing concern and regulatory gaps

A majority of respondents to a nationwide poll by the US Water Alliance’s Value of Water campaign share Padilla’s worries, with 54 percent extremely or very concerned about the effect data centers will have on water quality, water supply, and costs in their area. 

In its first question about data centers since the poll began in 2016, two-thirds of voters said it was important for their state to have a plan for the effects of data centers on water in the coming years.

“I suspect that as data centers continue to be part of the broad conversation, then these numbers will probably continue to go up as people are more concerned about the impacts they have on the things that affect them and their communities, like supply, quality and cost,” said Scott Berry, the senior advisor on policy and external affairs at the US Water Alliance, from Water Week in Washington D.C. this month.

More than 90 percent of data centers in the U.S. get most of the water they need for cooling from municipal systems, estimated Shaolei Ren, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Riverside. 

During the hottest summer days, a large 100-megawatt facility can use about 1 million gallons of water for evaporative cooling. That amount is the same as about 10,000 people’s daily water use at home, Ren said. 

But those centers require “zero water for many days of the year when it’s cool outside,” he said.

Some data centers are exploring alternatives like treated wastewater or graywater for cooling instead of drinkable water, providing residents and officials with options that could reduce strain on local water supplies.

California doesn’t require AI data centers to report water usage, and the state’s Water Resources Control Board does not maintain a specific list of water rights held by data centers. Although residents are working to require more transparency about water use from data centers, recent efforts to require the facilities’ owners to report how much water they use to the state have faltered.

On top of the data center boom in California, the hundreds of water districts, a deepening Southwestern megadrought and the diminishing of the Colorado River increasingly complicate water issues. 

Also, while data centers can take as little as two to three years to build, developing new water sources can take as long as 20 years, said Ren.

Plans for the steep increase in water demand from California data centers inevitably focus on infrastructure, experts said.

“Water is not purely an environmental issue,” Ren noted. “In many places, it is fundamentally an infrastructure challenge.”

Across the country, water infrastructure upgrades are estimated to cost between $10 billion to $58 billion, Ren’s research team found. How many more facilities are built and where will be a big factor in future infrastructure costs.

The site of the proposed data center in Imperial, California. Steven Rodas / Inside Climate News

The amount of electricity a data center uses, to some degree, determines how much heat it produces, and consequently how much cooling it requires and, in turn, how much water it needs.

The Imperial County data center is one of 24 planned for completion across California by 2030, according to the latest information gathered by analysts at Cleanview, a market intelligence platform. 

Based on the about 1.7 GW of electricity the proposed data centers would use, with at least two projects for which there aren’t energy consumption figures, water infrastructure upgrade costs just for the demands of the centers in the state could run from about $200 million to $800 million, Ren said.

“This number assumes that California data centers’ water use intensity is the same as the national average,” he explained.

There is no central permitting authority for data centers in California, and most are overseen by city and county governments, according to the California Public Utilities Commission. Data Center Map shows 286 of the facilities currently operating in California.

While California’s size and tech focus lead some to expect many more data centers here, the cost and availability of power and land, as well as the general tax and regulatory climate, have been hurdles to building them out, according to the Data Center Coalition, which represents big corporations like Amazon, Meta, Google, and Microsoft.

Read Next Texas is giving data centers more than $1 billion in tax breaks each year Paul Cobler, The Texas Tribune

Nonetheless, California trails only Virginia and Texas in the number of individual data center locations, but its centers have much lower total new electricity capacity, which may also indicate lower water demand.

A research team at the University of California, Riverside, recently found that data centers could collectively require 697 to 1,451 million gallons per day (MGD) of new water capacity nationally through 2030. New York City’s average daily supply is about 1,000 MGD.

Currently, data centers are estimated to use about 39 billion gallons of water nationally each year, Khara Boender, the senior manager for state policy at the Data Center Coalition, said, citing market research from Bluefield. 

“I know when we start to talk about billions of gallons of water in a year, that sounds absolutely crazy,” Boender said. “Looking at how that falls into context with some of these other large water users, I think that that kind of contextualization could be surprising to folks.”

Alfalfa irrigation in California’s Imperial Valley alone uses more than 800 billion gallons a year, an April essay in Outside highlighted. The beverage industry uses 533 billion gallons of water a year, and the semiconductor industry uses 59 billion gallons, Boender noted.

But spikes in water needs for data centers can lead to bottlenecks in small community water systems, Ren, at the University of California, Riverside, noted. “Only comparing the annual totals can obscure the real water challenge,” he said.

There is no single fix for the pressure data centers are placing on water supplies across the state, which will be different depending on the location and water systems where each facility is built, said Shivaji Deshmukh, the general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California — the largest supplier of treated water in the U.S. The district serves 19 million people in six California counties.

“Every community — even within our service area — is different in terms of costs, what type of supply they have. Some regions have access to groundwater. Some have access to treated wastewater or recycled water somewhere along the coast,” Deshmukh said.

So industries, most of which require water for cooling, will look to satisfy that thirst from different sources, depending on their location. 

“Imperial Irrigation District is one where I know they’re discussing … installation of data centers in their area,” Deshmukh said.

The Imperial dilemma

The plot of dirt on West Aton Road betrays nothing of the colossal data center that could one day sit on the land. Owner Sebastian Rucci hopes to have the facility up and running by the summer of 2028, he said.

Rucci, who is also a lawyer, has purchased 235 acres for his data center so far. He says the data center will allow Google to train its Gemini artificial intelligence, although Google denies any involvement “in a data center project in Imperial County.”

Before he can begin building on the site, a judge will weigh in on the city of Imperial’s lawsuit against the project, which demands that it clear higher environmental hurdles, including the California Environmental Quality Act — which often draws ire from developers who claim it can needlessly stall proposals. The local water district also has to complete its review of the project.

Rucci is determined, though, citing a series of studies conducted by survey and consulting groups, and by the district itself, which manages water and provides power. He posted those reports online to show the data center made sense — in part because water and power could be effectively provided to the data center, and the land was permitted for industrial use. 

Margie Padilla tours her garden on April 16, where she holds a carrot that she thinks hasn’t grown well due to drier temperatures in the Imperial Valley. Steven Rodas / Inside Climate News

The debate between supporters and opponents of the facility has escalated, with the next court date set for the end of April.

With that date in mind, Padilla, the Imperial mother, set out to work in her garden on a balmy Thursday morning. 

Donning a green, short-sleeved shirt and flip-flops, she checked on her squash, poked at her cherry tomatoes, and dug in her spade to move periwinkle to a better spot for watering. And through it all, she wondered what the thirst of the proposed data center would do to her garden. And her monthly water bill.

Her payment for water, sewer, and trash services currently ranges from $90 to $130 a month — more than double what she paid six years ago. 

“I’m also afraid they’re going to put [water] restrictions for us, for the residents,” said Padilla, who estimates her family of four uses about 300 gallons of water a day. “That’s going to be harsh on me, particularly, because of my garden. I grow my own food, my own vegetables.” 

Worries over power and water price surges are misguided, Rucci said. He has been considering power and water needs for the 18 months he has worked on the project, he said, and outlined how it would bring various economic benefits to the region, including about 100 permanent jobs post-construction. 

Read Next Data centers are straining the grid. Can they be forced to pay for it? Naveena Sadasivam

Still, Padilla is thinking about other things. She says her two sons were anemic when they were younger, requiring them to eat fresh produce to supplement the iron their bodies needed. Even after treating the condition, the Imperial mom keeps her sons’ diet filled with veggies and fruits. She needs her garden for that.

The Imperial Irrigation District declined to be interviewed for this story but, in a written statement, noted that it has yet to receive a formal request for water for the project.

The District, which provides water and power to all of Imperial County as well as parts of Riverside and San Diego counties, did not have specific estimates of how demand from the data center could impact its costs.

“Water was very concerning to us from the beginning,” Rucci said.

He’s spoken with city officials in Imperial and El Centro to arrange a water deal for the facility, he said, and proposed getting 6 million gallons per day of reclaimed water from both cities.

“Our plan was we would do all the municipal upgrades at our cost, and then we would take the excess water and run it clean to the Salton Sea,” he said. 

Those conversations have not paid off, although Rucci said he remains hopeful municipal officials will help him get water for his facility. 

“We first tried to do reclaimed water. I still prefer that, but that seems to be taking months, and I don’t know if that … will happen,” Rucci said. “Probably we’ll just get it from the [Imperial Irrigation District]” by purchasing it for industrial use.

How the center obtains its water may change as its plans are updated, he added. 

Through it all, he remains confident the data center will be built in Imperial County and be good for the area.

Carolina Paez disagrees.

The 46-year-old mother’s backyard abuts the data center site. She says she’d be able to hit it with a rock from her property. 

Both she and her son have asthma, and she’s worried about the construction dust, potential pollution, and noise from the data center. And higher bills.

“I’m not just thinking about the expenses that are going to increase, but also about the things that are going to lose value — for instance, my house,” Paez said in Spanish.

“What am I going to do with this property? Who would even want to live here?”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline California will soon have more than 300 data centers. Where will they get their water? on May 3, 2026.

Headline News:

• “Maritime Decarbonization Is Closer, Cheaper, And More Practical Than It Looks” • The IMO’s Net-Zero Framework came out of the latest meeting bruised, delayed, but still alive. That is not victory. The US has not been passive. Formal adoption is now scheduled for November 30 to December 3, 2026, after the US midterm elections. [CleanTechnica]

Ships in the Port of Singapore (Shawn, Unsplash, cropped)

• “Lessons from Chernobyl, 40 Years Later” • The Chernobyl Disaster had seismic political consequences. No less an authority than General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev speculated that Chernobyl, not his policy of perestroika, or economic reform, was the “real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later.” [The National Interest]
• “New NASA Satellite Is Watching Mexico City Sink In Real Time” • Mexico City has long been recognized as one of the fastest sinking sites in the world, but researchers didn’t have the ability to track the movement from space continuously until now. It is sinking at a rate of 0.5 inches (12.7 mm) each month, as water is removed from groundwater. [ABC News]
• “Solar Power Shields Farmers From Energy Crisis” • Times are bad for farmers in Bangladesh. Right when they needed a steady diesel supply to irrigate vast swathes of cropland – Boro paddies, seasonal vegetables, maize – the world entered what the head of the International Energy Agency has called “the biggest energy security threat in history.” [The Daily Star]
• “Meta Platforms Enters Solar-Power Pact” • Meta Platforms wants to get some of its solar power from space. The Facebook parent has agreed to purchase up to 1 GW of solar power from Overview Energy, a startup that aims to deploy satellites to provide power to customers on Earth’s surface. Overview plans for an in-space demonstration in 2028. [MSN]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

05-06 * 13:00 - AT Meeting (franco)

Each week, Food Tank is rounding up a few news stories that inspire excitement, infuriation, or curiosity.

Green Roofs Can Restore Nature in Cities

A new report from the European Commission (EC) is calling attention to a key opportunity to help cities deliver climate solutions: green rooftops and walls. They confirm that better integration of greenery can improve biodiversity, climate adaptation, stormwater management, energy efficiency, and social well-being in urban environments, all of which can make cities more livable as urban populations continue to grow. 

Green roofs, also called living roofs or eco-roofs, are not new, but in the 1980s, the technology for widespread installations became more readily available. Despite the many benefits, their integration is uneven across Europe. Regulatory challenges, skill gaps, funding shortages, and limited integration in mainstream planning and building practices can hold cities back from scaling these green spaces.

But the report offers a way forward. Targeted incentives and funding schemes, biodiversity-oriented design and monitoring requirements, and stronger planning and building regulations can help cities move in the right direction. 

Although it is an investment upfront, Steven Peck, Founder and President of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, says it’s worth it: “They’re going to be healthier places to live in the face of ongoing climate change impacts. And that’s where the money is going to be. That’s where the creativity is going to be.”

Is the MAHA Movement Becoming Disillusioned with the Trump Administration?

Supporters of Make America Healthy Again seem to be losing faith in the Trump-Vance Administration and members of the Republican Party, the New York Times reports.

Six of MAHA’s most prominent leaders have, in separate videos, announced that they are so disappointed with President Donald Trump that the party risks losing them. Many are upset by contradictory messaging or inaction that they’re seeing. This includes the recent executive order to boost domestic production of the herbicide glyphosate despite Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s earlier promises to ban or restrict agri-chemicals and the failure to secure enough votes for Casey Means to become Surgeon General. 

But this doesn’t mean that MAHA supporters are flipping to the Democrats. Zen Honeycutt, Founder of Moms Across America, says, “The only thing that matters is action. Not a political party.” And some, feeling that their vote is useless, may ultimately sit out of the next election in November.

But this shouldn’t keep Democrats from trying to win them over, according to Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster. She has seen independent and undecided voters tip elections in close races. Congressmember Chellie Pingree sees the opening and is telling her colleagues that they’re “missing a big opportunity” if they’re not talking about pesticides and healthy food. “The reason Donald Trump ran on them, the reason he put R.F.K. in office is because people care about them,” Pingree says. “We should be all over this.”

New York Acts to Close GRAS Loophole

New York legislators recently passed the New York Food Safety and Chemical Disclosure Act, banning several food additives from products manufactured, distributed, or sold in the state. 

In March, the bill passed in the Senate with unanimous bipartisan support, and it now heads to Governor Kathy Hochul for her signature. 

The legislation will eliminate three additives—potassium bromate, propyl paraben, and Red Dye No. 3—that have been linked to cancer, hormone disruption, and reproductive toxicity from foods. Red 3 has been banned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration since the legislation was first introduced. The law also requires companies to disclose the safety data for all food chemicals in a publicly available database. 

According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, this progress represents “significant strides” toward closing the GRAS loophole, which currently allows companies to decide which chemicals are “generally recognized as safe” for us in food. 

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vowed to close the GRAS loophole nationally, but advocacy groups are still waiting for action at the federal level, prompting Jessica Hernandez, Environmental Working Group’s Legislative Director, to declare, “New York is stepping up where Washington has slowed down.”

Hunger Is Becoming Concentrated in Conflict-Hit Countries

The United Nations finds that of the 266 million people in 47 countries who experienced high levels of acute food insecurity, two-thirds are concentrated in just 10 countries. Conflict is the major driver of this crisis, accounting for more than half of all cases of severe hunger. 

The severity of hunger is also worsening. The number of people experiencing catastrophic hunger has increased ninefold since 2016. Young people are the most vulnerable, with 35.5 million children acutely malnourished, including nearly 10 million suffering from severe acute malnutrition, a life-threatening condition. 

U.N. Secretary General António Guterres says the new report is “a call to action to summon the political will to rapidly scale up investment in lifesaving aid, and work to end the conflicts that inflict so much suffering on so many.”

Aid organizations also warn that unless the world changes its strategies for addressing hunger, the world may become trapped in a cycle of deepening crises. FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu says that we can’t rely solely on food assistance, and must prioritize the protection of local food production that builds long-term resilience over time. 

Bolivia’s Farmers Are Protecting Their Land—And Future

The Guardian reports that cacao producers are pushing back against the gold mining industry to protect their land. 

In 2017, residents in Palos Blancos and Alto Beni, situated in the northwest region of Bolivia that are reliant on organic agriculture, noticed a mining dredge appear on the nearby Boopi River. Gold mining hadn’t touched the municipalities yet, but farmer Roberto Gutierrez says that he and his neighbors saw the environmental destruction it caused in other areas. 

Communities responded quickly, pushing back against the miners, and they left. Four years later, thanks to persistent organizing efforts, the two municipalities passed mining bans. Three years after that, in 2024, a departmental law further legitimized their stance. “We showed people that mining does more harm than good. People have realized that gold is temporary, but agriculture and conservation are for life,” Ulises Ariñez, former environment secretary for Palos Blancos, says. 

In the last five years, the price of gold has skyrocketed, driving miners into new regions. At least 10 other municipalities and Indigenous territories are exploring bans like those in Palos Blancos and Alto Beni even as the national government seeks to loosen regulations for the industry. 

Pablo Solón, an environmental activist, says that the local bans may represent their best hope to protect the Amazon. And there is reason for optimism. Just last year, four new areas in Bolivia were established to keep them free from mining. And on Peru’s side of Lake Titicaca, a court suspended mining outside authorized areas along Bolivia’s Madre de Dios River. 

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Photo courtesy of Arlington Country, Wikimedia Commons

The post Food Tank’s Weekly News Roundup: NY Acts on GRAS Loophole, Green Roofs Offer Climate Solutions, Bolivia’s Farmers Protect their Future appeared first on Food Tank.

In March, a month traditionally known for heavy mountain snows and dreary lower-elevation weather, a heat wave settled across the West, shattering temperature records from Tucson, Arizona, to Casper, Wyoming.

The heat wave’s intensity and early arrival shocked many climate scientists. “It is exceptionally difficult for the Earth system to produce temperatures this warm so early in the season,” wrote Daniel Swain, a climatologist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources who runs the Weather West blog.

Yet not only did Western locations set new March highs; many exceeded temperature records for May. And those high temperatures kept hanging on, said Zachary Labe, a climate scientist at the nonprofit science center Climate Central, for nearly two weeks.

While heat waves are a natural phenomenon, this was the earliest and most widespread one ever recorded in the Southwest. And it was caused by climate change, which is making intense heat waves much more likely. Researchers say this means understanding their fallout is even more important.

Scientists are just now beginning to understand the ramifications of a devastating 2021 heat wave, when a massive heat dome brought 120-degree temperatures to the Pacific Northwest, causing widespread ecological damage. Tens of thousands of trees died. Baby birds that could not yet fly plummeted to the ground as they tried to escape the heat. Salmon and trout suffocated in small streams. Millions — perhaps even billions — of mussels and barnacles cooked.

Number of daily record highs broken in March 2026

This year’s heat wave may not have had the same immediate ecological impacts, but it comes on the heels of an already record-breaking hot, dry winter. Researchers say 2021 holds lessons about what lies ahead for both vulnerable and resilient species. Ecosystems, they warn, are likely to permanently change as some species simply can’t handle the heat.

Fully understanding the impact that events like heat waves have on long-lived tree species takes time. Research is now trickling out from places like Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia, and it’s not good.

The 2021 heat wave either killed or otherwise harmed more than three-quarters of species surveyed, including by limiting their reproductive success, according to Julia Baum, a professor at the University of Victoria who co-wrote a recent paper on the long-term impacts. The hardest hit, perhaps unsurprisingly, were those unable to move to seek shade or cooler temperatures. Marine species like acorn barnacles and green rope seaweed fared the worst, as did kelp, surfgrass, and rockweed.

“The rocky shorelines they live on heated up to [122 Fahrenheit]. Think of being glued to hot concrete on the most scorching summer day: They essentially baked and died,” said Baum. “On land, wildflowers wilted and died, preventing entire populations from reproducing that year, and there was widespread leaf scorch and death in forests.”

Some species that could move modified their behavior: Ferruginous hawks reduced their flight time by about 81 percent, while wolves moved around more, perhaps seeking hunkered-down prey like mule deer and moose.

Read Next The world is getting too hot to feed itself Ayurella Horn-Muller

Meanwhile, species already adapted to hotter or more variable temperature ranges adjusted better than others.

The heat wave’s timing also mattered, said Adam Sibley, a remote sensing scientist and co-author of a 2025 paper that examined the impact on trees and forests. Plants tend to acclimate to heat throughout a season, so the triple-digit temperatures that struck in June hit harder than they would have in August.

So many tree needles died, in fact, that when Sibley drove to the Oregon coast with friends a few days after the heat wave ended, the tree canopy looked as though it had been dusted with orange snow.

New buds and needles are fragile for a number of reasons, said Christopher Still, a forest ecology professor at Oregon State University. Many contain fatty membranes that, when super-heated, will melt and cause the leaf to fall apart. Young leaves and needles also lack “heat hardening” mechanisms like specialized proteins that stabilize mature leaves and needles when it’s hot.

Many larger, more well-established trees, such as Douglas fir, lost a growing season: Their needles fell off, but grew back the following year. Other trees died, especially younger ones and species like Sitka spruce and western red cedar that require cooler, wetter temperatures.

The 2021 heat wave also rapidly dried grasses, flowers, and other fine fuels, leading to record-breaking wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, according to a 2024 paper in the journal Nature.

Read Next The West’s unprecedented winter could fuel a summer of disaster Tik Root

While the timing of this year’s heat wave surprised many climatologists, the fact that it arrived in March may have ultimately saved some Southwestern plants, said Osvaldo Sala, a professor and director of Arizona State University’s Global Drylands Center.

During the hottest period, he explained, many plants were still dormant. Desert plants tie their growing cycles to rain and moisture instead of heat or sun duration. That means that, unlike in places like Wyoming, where cherry trees started blooming in March instead of May, desert plants were still waiting for rains to come.

Unfortunately, that early blooming has left the cherry trees and other flowering plants particularly susceptible to spring frosts, Still said.

The effects of this year’s heat dome have only exacerbated the winter’s record-setting heat and drought, Still added. Snowpack across much of the West was abysmal; in many places, it was the worst in recorded history. 

“The heat dome put an exclamation point on the worst winter in a century,” said Still. “It was the worst possible way to end the winter that was already worse than normal.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The ramifications of record-shattering heat on the West’s ecosystems on May 2, 2026.