News Feeds

No city dealing with a lot of lead pipes spends as much as Chicago does to replace them. 

With more than 400,000 lead water service lines, Chicago has the largest known inventory of lead pipes of any city in the country. Officials say replacing each one costs about $31,000 on average — more than six times the Environmental Protection Agency’s national estimate of $4,700 a line.

Grist, WBEZ, and Inside Climate News surveyed other cities with the most lead service lines in the country — including Detroit, Milwaukee, and New York — about the cost of fully replacing a lead service line. The 18 that responded provided averages between $6,000 and $25,000, with most less than half of Chicago’s figure. Engineering firm CDM Smith, which works with cities across the country, pegs the national average at $12,500 per line. 

Now, with a federal mandate to remove every lead pipe within roughly 20 years, Chicago is facing a daunting timeline and an astronomical price tag. Replacing the city’s inventory at the current rate will cost more than $12 billion. 

“It is absurd,” said Cyndi Roper, a senior policy advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council’s safe water initiative. “You can’t play victim to your own policies. … You actually can make changes to bring the cost down.”

A review over seven months of hundreds of pages of program documents and contracts, plus dozens of interviews with city officials, policy experts, contractors, and homeowners, found several key contributors. The most significant include inefficient early contracts, cumbersome permitting requirements, and the city’s reliance on one-off replacements rather than undertaking whole blocks at once.

A glaring lack of clarity from the Department of Water Management, which oversees the city’s replacement program, has also made it difficult to pinpoint the exact reasons for the high cost. Its officials were unable to provide Grist, WBEZ, and Inside Climate News with consistent figures for replacement costs and the number of lines replaced, or make clear whether the water department is tracking these costs systematically.

“It seems like the story here is how hard you have to work to get information that’s needed in order to figure out why the costs are so high,” Roper added.

More in this series

• Chicago residents risk daily lead exposure from toxic pipes. Replacing them will take decades.
• Chicago was supposed to warn residents about toxic lead pipes last year. Most still have no idea.
• Chicago has the most lead pipes in the nation. We mapped them all.

A spokesperson for Mayor Brandon Johnson said in an emailed statement that he is committed to accelerating replacements and minimizing the burden to residents, but did not respond to specific questions about the city’s unusually high costs. 

“The Johnson administration is working across departments in coordination with local, state, and federal partners to accelerate replacements, streamline processes, and maximize every available dollar so more residents can access safe, reliable drinking water,” said the statement. 

Officials with the water department said they see some room to bring expenses down as work ramps up. But they’ve also disagreed with outside experts who say Chicago’s high costs are unreasonable, and they don’t appear to be treating the drastic cost differential with other cities as a high priority to address.

“There’s a lot of people that claim they know lead service line replacement,” said a senior official with the water department, who spoke with Grist, WBEZ, and Inside Climate News on the condition of not being named. “They don’t know what they’re talking about.” 

Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat who has been working to secure federal funding for lead service line replacements across the state, said she wasn’t aware of the cost discrepancy but hoped the city would be transparent with the public about why costs are so high. 

“Cities just need to get their act together and get this done, and we’ve been slow to do this in Chicago,” Duckworth said. “Other cities have moved much faster than us.”

Replacing pipes on an entire block

Chicago replaces lead service lines through several programs, including emergency repairs, capital improvement projects, and equity initiatives targeting low-income neighborhoods and daycares.

It also replaces entire blocks of lead pipes at once. But that program accounted for just 3 percent of the approximately 15,000 lines swapped out between 2021 and the end of 2025, according to analysis of city replacement data by Grist, WBEZ, and Inside Climate News. Instead, nearly all of those lines were fixed piecemeal, mostly when crews were sent out to fix leaks and breaks. 

.apple-news-ignore-an .lead-replacements { --color-primary: #3c3830; --color-secondary: #777; --color-orange: #F79945; --color-turquoise: #12A07F; --color-fuchsia: #AC00E8; --color-bluey: #3977F3; --color-earth: #3c3830; --color-red: #F5515B; --typography-primary: "PolySans", Arial, sans-serif; --typography-secondary: "Basis Grotesque Pro", Arial, sans-serif; --spacing-base: 10px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: var(--typography-secondary); margin: 1.5rem auto; padding: 0; position: relative; width: 100%; } .lead-replacements * { box-sizing: border-box; } .lead-replacements__title { font-family: var(--typography-primary); font-size: 24px; margin: var(--spacing-base) 0; } .lead-replacements__subtitle { font-family: var(--typography-secondary); color: var(--color-primary); font-size: 18px; margin: 0 0 var(--spacing-base); } .lead-replacements__axis-label { color: var(--color-primary); font-size: 14px; } .axis-grid line { stroke: #e0e0e0; stroke-opacity: 0.7; shape-rendering: crispEdges; } .axis-grid .domain { stroke: none; } .line { fill: none; stroke-width: 3.5px; stroke-linecap: round; stroke-linejoin: round; } .legend { display: grid; grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr 1fr; gap: 8px 20px; margin-top: 15px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: fit-content; max-width: calc(100% - 90px); } @media (max-width: 600px) { .legend { grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr; column-gap: 10px; max-width: calc(100% - 24px); } } .legend-item { display: flex; align-items: center; font-family: var(--typography-secondary); font-size: 12px; color: var(--color-primary); cursor: pointer; transition: opacity 0.2s ease; } .legend-item:hover { opacity: 0.4; } .legend-color { width: 12px; height: 3px; margin-right: 6px; } .lead-replacements__footer { display: flex; justify-content: space-between; align-items: flex-end; margin-top: 8px; } .lead-replacements__credits { display: flex; flex-direction: column; } .lead-replacements__source { color: var(--color-secondary); font-size: 12px; margin-top: 0; display: inline-block; } .lead-replacements__credit { color: var(--color-secondary); font-size: 12px; margin-top: 3px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; display: inline-block; } .lead-replacements__logos { display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 12px; margin-left: auto; padding-right: 20px; margin-right: 0; margin-bottom: 0; } .lead-replacements__logo { height: 20px; width: auto; } Replacements under the breaks and leaks program have ramped up faster than other city initiatives Monthly lead service line replacements by program, 2021–25 Source: City of Chicago DWM Cam Rodriguez / WBEZ / Amy Qin / Clayton Aldern / Grist (function() { const INIT_KEY = '__grist_lead_replacements_initialized__'; if (window[INIT_KEY]) { return; } window[INIT_KEY] = true; const COLORS = { TEXT: 'var(--color-primary)', TURQUOISE: 'var(--color-turquoise)', ORANGE: 'var(--color-orange)', FUCHSIA: 'var(--color-fuchsia)', BLUEY: 'var(--color-bluey)', EARTH: 'var(--color-earth)', RED: 'var(--color-red)' }; const initialSvgHeight = 400; const svg = d3.select('#replacements-line-chart'); const legend = d3.select('#chart-legend'); const formatCompactWithB = (n) => d3.format('~s')(n).replace('G', 'B'); const rawData = [ { month: '2021-05', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 1 }, { month: '2021-06', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 2 }, { month: '2021-07', program: 'Equity', replacements: 1 }, { month: '2021-07', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 1 }, { month: '2021-08', program: 'Equity', replacements: 1 }, { month: '2021-08', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 1 }, { month: '2021-09', program: 'Equity', replacements: 6 }, { month: '2021-10', program: 'Equity', replacements: 5 }, { month: '2021-11', program: 'Equity', replacements: 7 }, { month: '2021-12', program: 'Equity', replacements: 3 }, { month: '2022-01', program: 'Equity', replacements: 3 }, { month: '2022-01', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 1 }, { month: '2022-02', program: 'Equity', replacements: 4 }, { month: '2022-02', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 5 }, { month: '2022-03', program: 'Equity', replacements: 23 }, { month: '2022-03', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 1 }, { month: '2022-04', program: 'Equity', replacements: 15 }, { month: '2022-04', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 2 }, { month: '2022-05', program: 'Equity', replacements: 25 }, { month: '2022-06', program: 'Equity', replacements: 28 }, { month: '2022-06', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 3 }, { month: '2022-07', program: 'Equity', replacements: 17 }, { month: '2022-07', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 1 }, { month: '2022-08', program: 'Equity', replacements: 18 }, { month: '2022-08', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 3 }, { month: '2022-09', program: 'Equity', replacements: 26 }, { month: '2022-09', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 1 }, { month: '2022-10', program: 'Equity', replacements: 27 }, { month: '2022-10', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 1 }, { month: '2022-11', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 18 }, { month: '2022-11', program: 'Equity', replacements: 40 }, { month: '2022-11', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 2 }, { month: '2022-12', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 23 }, { month: '2022-12', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 2 }, { month: '2022-12', program: 'Equity', replacements: 49 }, { month: '2022-12', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 8 }, { month: '2023-01', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 51 }, { month: '2023-01', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 1 }, { month: '2023-01', program: 'Equity', replacements: 55 }, { month: '2023-01', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 13 }, { month: '2023-02', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 72 }, { month: '2023-02', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 5 }, { month: '2023-02', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 5 }, { month: '2023-02', program: 'Equity', replacements: 60 }, { month: '2023-02', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 8 }, { month: '2023-03', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 142 }, { month: '2023-03', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 23 }, { month: '2023-03', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 7 }, { month: '2023-03', program: 'Equity', replacements: 86 }, { month: '2023-03', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 13 }, { month: '2023-04', program: 'Block Level LSLR', replacements: 1 }, { month: '2023-04', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 157 }, { month: '2023-04', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 30 }, { month: '2023-04', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 8 }, { month: '2023-04', program: 'Equity', replacements: 80 }, { month: '2023-04', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 30 }, { month: '2023-05', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 278 }, { month: '2023-05', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 68 }, { month: '2023-05', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 9 }, { month: '2023-05', program: 'Equity', replacements: 90 }, { month: '2023-05', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 26 }, { month: '2023-06', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 214 }, { month: '2023-06', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 74 }, { month: '2023-06', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 14 }, { month: '2023-06', program: 'Equity', replacements: 110 }, { month: '2023-06', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 25 }, { month: '2023-07', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 175 }, { month: '2023-07', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 40 }, { month: '2023-07', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 13 }, { month: '2023-07', program: 'Equity', replacements: 102 }, { month: '2023-07', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 42 }, { month: '2023-08', program: 'Block Level LSLR', replacements: 1 }, { month: '2023-08', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 273 }, { month: '2023-08', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 75 }, { month: '2023-08', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 10 }, { month: '2023-08', program: 'Equity', replacements: 131 }, { month: '2023-08', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 44 }, { month: '2023-09', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 166 }, { month: '2023-09', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 11 }, { month: '2023-09', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 8 }, { month: '2023-09', program: 'Equity', replacements: 92 }, { month: '2023-09', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 38 }, { month: '2023-10', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 81 }, { month: '2023-10', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 23 }, { month: '2023-10', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 10 }, { month: '2023-10', program: 'Equity', replacements: 92 }, { month: '2023-10', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 39 }, { month: '2023-11', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 181 }, { month: '2023-11', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 4 }, { month: '2023-11', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 14 }, { month: '2023-11', program: 'Equity', replacements: 44 }, { month: '2023-11', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 27 }, { month: '2023-12', program: 'Block Level LSLR', replacements: 1 }, { month: '2023-12', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 297 }, { month: '2023-12', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 2 }, { month: '2023-12', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 18 }, { month: '2023-12', program: 'Equity', replacements: 22 }, { month: '2023-12', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 29 }, { month: '2024-01', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 143 }, { month: '2024-01', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 12 }, { month: '2024-01', program: 'Equity', replacements: 9 }, { month: '2024-01', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 50 }, { month: '2024-02', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 228 }, { month: '2024-02', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 18 }, { month: '2024-02', program: 'Equity', replacements: 21 }, { month: '2024-02', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 17 }, { month: '2024-03', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 249 }, { month: '2024-03', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 19 }, { month: '2024-03', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 16 }, { month: '2024-03', program: 'Equity', replacements: 16 }, { month: '2024-03', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 45 }, { month: '2024-04', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 388 }, { month: '2024-04', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 30 }, { month: '2024-04', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 4 }, { month: '2024-04', program: 'Equity', replacements: 21 }, { month: '2024-04', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 36 }, { month: '2024-05', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 221 }, { month: '2024-05', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 27 }, { month: '2024-05', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 1 }, { month: '2024-05', program: 'Equity', replacements: 20 }, { month: '2024-05', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 36 }, { month: '2024-06', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 259 }, { month: '2024-06', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 17 }, { month: '2024-06', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 3 }, { month: '2024-06', program: 'Equity', replacements: 18 }, { month: '2024-06', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 28 }, { month: '2024-07', program: 'Block Level LSLR', replacements: 1 }, { month: '2024-07', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 254 }, { month: '2024-07', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 42 }, { month: '2024-07', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 6 }, { month: '2024-07', program: 'Equity', replacements: 22 }, { month: '2024-07', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 43 }, { month: '2024-08', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 265 }, { month: '2024-08', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 113 }, { month: '2024-08', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 13 }, { month: '2024-08', program: 'Equity', replacements: 30 }, { month: '2024-08', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 33 }, { month: '2024-09', program: 'Block Level LSLR', replacements: 2 }, { month: '2024-09', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 282 }, { month: '2024-09', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 47 }, { month: '2024-09', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 31 }, { month: '2024-09', program: 'Equity', replacements: 73 }, { month: '2024-09', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 44 }, { month: '2024-10', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 351 }, { month: '2024-10', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 57 }, { month: '2024-10', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 10 }, { month: '2024-10', program: 'Equity', replacements: 96 }, { month: '2024-10', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 34 }, { month: '2024-11', program: 'Block Level LSLR', replacements: 1 }, { month: '2024-11', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 332 }, { month: '2024-11', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 33 }, { month: '2024-11', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 19 }, { month: '2024-11', program: 'Equity', replacements: 101 }, { month: '2024-11', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 32 }, { month: '2024-12', program: 'Block Level LSLR', replacements: 26 }, { month: '2024-12', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 392 }, { month: '2024-12', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 7 }, { month: '2024-12', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 29 }, { month: '2024-12', program: 'Equity', replacements: 103 }, { month: '2024-12', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 10 }, { month: '2025-01', program: 'Block Level LSLR', replacements: 3 }, { month: '2025-01', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 234 }, { month: '2025-01', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 47 }, { month: '2025-01', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 5 }, { month: '2025-01', program: 'Equity', replacements: 17 }, { month: '2025-01', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 24 }, { month: '2025-02', program: 'Block Level LSLR', replacements: 21 }, { month: '2025-02', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 291 }, { month: '2025-02', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 39 }, { month: '2025-02', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 5 }, { month: '2025-02', program: 'Equity', replacements: 37 }, { month: '2025-02', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 31 }, { month: '2025-03', program: 'Block Level LSLR', replacements: 70 }, { month: '2025-03', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 256 }, { month: '2025-03', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 82 }, { month: '2025-03', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 2 }, { month: '2025-03', program: 'Equity', replacements: 69 }, { month: '2025-03', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 39 }, { month: '2025-04', program: 'Block Level LSLR', replacements: 54 }, { month: '2025-04', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 472 }, { month: '2025-04', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 125 }, { month: '2025-04', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 10 }, { month: '2025-04', program: 'Equity', replacements: 29 }, { month: '2025-04', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 33 }, { month: '2025-05', program: 'Block Level LSLR', replacements: 3 }, { month: '2025-05', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 351 }, { month: '2025-05', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 90 }, { month: '2025-05', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 13 }, { month: '2025-05', program: 'Equity', replacements: 5 }, { month: '2025-06', program: 'Block Level LSLR', replacements: 5 }, { month: '2025-06', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 231 }, { month: '2025-06', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 35 }, { month: '2025-06', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 11 }, { month: '2025-06', program: 'Equity', replacements: 3 }, { month: '2025-06', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 3 }, { month: '2025-07', program: 'Block Level LSLR', replacements: 12 }, { month: '2025-07', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 463 }, { month: '2025-07', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 10 }, { month: '2025-07', program: 'Equity', replacements: 16 }, { month: '2025-07', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 46 }, { month: '2025-08', program: 'Block Level LSLR', replacements: 29 }, { month: '2025-08', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 136 }, { month: '2025-08', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 21 }, { month: '2025-08', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 16 }, { month: '2025-08', program: 'Equity', replacements: 32 }, { month: '2025-08', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 5 }, { month: '2025-09', program: 'Block Level LSLR', replacements: 65 }, { month: '2025-09', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 273 }, { month: '2025-09', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 163 }, { month: '2025-09', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 27 }, { month: '2025-09', program: 'Equity', replacements: 33 }, { month: '2025-09', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 47 }, { month: '2025-10', program: 'Block Level LSLR', replacements: 76 }, { month: '2025-10', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 331 }, { month: '2025-10', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 165 }, { month: '2025-10', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 25 }, { month: '2025-10', program: 'Equity', replacements: 43 }, { month: '2025-10', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 35 }, { month: '2025-11', program: 'Block Level LSLR', replacements: 72 }, { month: '2025-11', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 277 }, { month: '2025-11', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 98 }, { month: '2025-11', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 11 }, { month: '2025-11', program: 'Equity', replacements: 39 }, { month: '2025-11', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 26 }, { month: '2025-12', program: 'Block Level LSLR', replacements: 68 }, { month: '2025-12', program: 'Breaks and Leaks', replacements: 242 }, { month: '2025-12', program: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', replacements: 181 }, { month: '2025-12', program: 'Daycare', replacements: 15 }, { month: '2025-12', program: 'Equity', replacements: 37 }, { month: '2025-12', program: 'Homeowner Initiated', replacements: 21 } ]; // Series config: the single source of truth for which programs to plot, their // legend labels, and their colors. `key` must match the `program` value in the // embedded rawData above; `label` is what shows in the legend. To rename a legend // entry, change its `label` here only — you do NOT need to touch the embedded data. const series = [ { key: 'Breaks and Leaks', label: 'Breaks and leaks', color: COLORS.TURQUOISE }, { key: 'CIP Sewer and Water Main', label: 'Sewer and water main', color: COLORS.ORANGE }, { key: 'Equity', label: 'Equity', color: COLORS.FUCHSIA }, { key: 'Homeowner Initiated', label: 'Homeowner-initiated', color: COLORS.BLUEY }, { key: 'Block Level LSLR', label: 'Block-level', color: COLORS.EARTH }, { key: 'Daycare', label: 'Daycare', color: COLORS.RED }, ]; const programs = series.map(s => s.key); const colors = series.map(s => s.color); const labelByKey = Object.fromEntries(series.map(s => [s.key, s.label])); const dataByProgram = programs.map(program => { const programData = rawData .filter(d => d.program === program) .map(d => ({ date: new Date(d.month + '-01'), replacements: +d.replacements })) .sort((a, b) => a.date - b.date); return { program, data: programData }; }); const margin = { top: 20, right: 20, bottom: 50, left: window.innerWidth < 600 ? 35 : 45 }; function renderChart() { svg.selectAll('*').remove(); legend.selectAll('*').remove(); const node = svg.node(); const styleWidth = parseInt(svg.style('width')); const containerWidth = node ? node.getBoundingClientRect().width : (isNaN(styleWidth) ? 600 : styleWidth); const width = containerWidth - margin.left - margin.right; const height = initialSvgHeight - margin.top - margin.bottom; const x = d3.scaleTime().range([0, width]); const y = d3.scaleLinear().range([height, 0]); const line = d3.line() .curve(d3.curveMonotoneX) .x(d => x(d.date)) .y(d => y(d.replacements)); const allDates = rawData.map(d => new Date(d.month + '-01')); const maxReplacements = d3.max(rawData, d => d.replacements); x.domain(d3.extent(allDates)); y.domain([0, maxReplacements]); svg.attr('height', initialSvgHeight); svg.append('g') .attr('class', 'axis-grid') .attr('transform', `translate(${margin.left},${height + margin.top})`) .call(d3.axisBottom(x).ticks(d3.timeMonth.every(6)).tickSize(-height).tickFormat('')); svg.append('g') .attr('class', 'axis-grid') .attr('transform', `translate(${margin.left},${margin.top})`) .call(d3.axisLeft(y).ticks(5).tickSize(-width).tickFormat('')); const xAxis = g => g .attr('transform', `translate(${margin.left},${height + margin.top})`) .call(d3.axisBottom(x).ticks(d3.timeMonth.every(6)).tickFormat(d3.timeFormat('%b \'%y'))) .selectAll('text') .attr('class', 'lead-replacements__axis-label') .style('fill', COLORS.TEXT) .style('text-anchor', 'end') .attr('transform', 'rotate(-45)'); const yAxis = g => g .attr('transform', `translate(${margin.left},${margin.top})`) .call(d3.axisLeft(y).ticks(5).tickFormat(d => formatCompactWithB(d))) .selectAll('text') .attr('class', 'lead-replacements__axis-label') .style('fill', COLORS.TEXT); svg.append('g').call(xAxis); svg.append('g').call(yAxis); const chart = svg.append('g').attr('transform', `translate(${margin.left},${margin.top})`); const linePairs = dataByProgram.map((programData, i) => { if (programData.data.length > 0) { const whiteLine = chart.append('path') .datum(programData.data) .attr('class', 'line') .attr('d', line) .style('stroke', 'white') .style('stroke-width', 5.5) .style('opacity', 1) .style('stroke-linecap', 'round') .style('stroke-linejoin', 'round'); const coloredLine = chart.append('path') .datum(programData.data) .attr('class', 'line') .attr('d', line) .style('stroke', colors[i]) .style('stroke-width', 3.5) .style('opacity', 1) .style('transition', 'opacity 0.2s ease') .style('stroke-linecap', 'round') .style('stroke-linejoin', 'round'); return { white: whiteLine, colored: coloredLine }; } return null; }).filter(d => d !== null); const legendItems = legend.selectAll('.legend-item') .data(dataByProgram.filter(d => d.data.length > 0)) .enter() .append('div') .attr('class', 'legend-item') .on('mouseover', function(event, d) { const programIndex = programs.indexOf(d.program); linePairs.forEach((pair, i) => { if (i === programIndex) { pair.white.node().parentNode.appendChild(pair.white.node()); pair.colored.node().parentNode.appendChild(pair.colored.node()); pair.white.style('opacity', 1); pair.colored.style('opacity', 1); } else { pair.white.style('opacity', 0.3); pair.colored.style('opacity', 0.3); } }); }) .on('mouseout', function(event, d) { linePairs.forEach(pair => { pair.white.style('opacity', 1); pair.colored.style('opacity', 1); }); }); legendItems.append('div') .attr('class', 'legend-color') .style('background-color', d => colors[programs.indexOf(d.program)]); legendItems.append('span') .text(d => labelByKey[d.program] ? labelByKey[d.program] : d.program); } if (document.readyState === 'loading') { document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', renderChart); } else { renderChart(); } window.addEventListener('resize', renderChart); })();

Both city officials and experts agree that replacing lead pipes a full block at a time is cheaper. In Milwaukee, the per-line cost to replace a full neighborhood is nearly $2,000 less than a one-off replacement. Chicago officials say they want to ramp up blockwide replacements, but there have been legal and logistical barriers to expanding that program. 

In Illinois, property owners control half the service line, and the municipality is responsible for the other. State law forbids partial line replacement because the process can flush more lead into drinking water, and municipalities willing to replace private lines must first get the property owners’ permission. That’s harder and more time-consuming than it may seem, a key reason for the city’s low number of block replacements, according to officials.

Earlier this year, state lawmakers introduced a new bill at the water department’s request to fix that, granting city plumbers access to private lines without the owner’s permission. It passed in May and now awaits Governor JB Pritzker’s signature.

“We need to accelerate, as much as humanly possible, this process,” said state Senator Ram Villivalam of Chicago, a co-sponsor of the bill. 

A Chicago resident holds a lead water test kit from the city. Anthony Vazquez / Chicago Sun-Times

Still, it’s not clear how much block-level replacements will actually decrease Chicago’s costs. Water department officials pegged the average per-line cost for block-level work, which they have said is their cheapest program, at approximately $34,000, and the average for one-off replacements at $39,000. Both figures are well above the $31,000 overall average that department officials have cited.

Asked to explain how that could be, the water department did not respond. In her last email to the news organizations in May, water department spokesperson Megan Vidis said she would not answer any more questions on the topic.

The toll on homeowners

Any lead pipe a property owner replaces on their own is one the city doesn’t have to pay for. But some homeowners are finding that far harder than they imagined — in part because of the city’s prohibitively expensive and complex permitting process. 

Craig Hines and his wife, homeowners in Chicago’s Avondale neighborhood, discovered they had a lead service line last summer when they received a letter from the city. They were immediately alarmed. They cook regularly for young nieces and nephews, and Hines knows there’s no safe level of lead exposure.

They called 14 plumbers looking for a quote. Some refused to take them on or seemed to be trying to dissuade them from doing the work altogether, saying the job would be too expensive. One preliminary quote totaled $25,000. They were told permits alone could cost between $5,000 and $7,000.

“These fees seem so exorbitant when it’s like, this was a city screw-up,” Hines said, referring to Chicago’s history of installing lead lines long after the health consequences came to light. “I just cannot believe that the permitting fees are so high to help fix a problem that the city created.”

.apple-news-ignore-an .maps-panel { --color-primary: #3c3830; --color-secondary: #777; --color-orange: #F79945; --color-turquoise: #12A07F; --color-fuchsia: #AC00E8; --color-bluey: #3977F3; --color-earth: #3c3830; --typography-primary: "PolySans", Arial, sans-serif; --typography-secondary: "Basis Grotesque", Arial, sans-serif; --spacing-base: 10px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: var(--typography-secondary); margin: 1.5rem auto; padding: 0; position: relative; width: 100%; max-width: 1200px; } .maps-panel * { box-sizing: border-box; } .maps-panel__title { font-family: var(--typography-primary); font-size: 24px; color: var(--color-primary); margin: var(--spacing-base) 0; margin-left: 0; } .maps-panel__subtitle { font-family: var(--typography-secondary); color: var(--color-primary); font-size: 18px; margin: 0 0 calc(var(--spacing-base) * 2); margin-left: 0; } .maps-panel__grid { display: grid; grid-template-columns: repeat(3, 1fr); gap: 40px 20px; margin-bottom: 30px; } .maps-panel__map-container { width: 100%; } .maps-panel__map-title { font-family: var(--typography-secondary); color: var(--color-primary); text-align: left; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0 0 8px 8px; } .maps-panel__map-image { width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; } .maps-panel__footer { display: flex; justify-content: space-between; align-items: flex-end; margin-top: 8px; } .maps-panel__credits { display: flex; flex-direction: column; } .maps-panel__source { color: var(--color-secondary); font-size: 12px; margin-top: 0; display: inline-block; } .maps-panel__credit { color: var(--color-secondary); font-size: 12px; margin-top: 3px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; display: inline-block; } .maps-panel__logos { display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 12px; margin-left: auto; padding-right: 20px; margin-right: 0; margin-bottom: 0; } .maps-panel__logo { height: 20px; width: auto; } @media (max-width: 600px) { .maps-panel__grid { grid-template-columns: repeat(2, 1fr); gap: 30px 16px; } .maps-panel__title { font-size: 20px; } .maps-panel__subtitle { font-size: 16px; } .maps-panel__map-title { font-size: 12px; } } Where have Chicago’s lead pipes been replaced — and why? Chicago has replaced more than 15,000 lead service lines since 2021. Program type determines location: emergency repairs are citywide, subsidized equity initiatives are concentrated in the South and West sides, and homeowner-initiated repairs cluster on the North Side. Breaks and leaks Equity Homeowner-initiated Daycare Sewer and water main Block-level Source: City of Chicago DWM Cam Rodriguez / WBEZ / Amy Qin / Clayton Aldern / Grist

Replacing a single line can require permits from the water and transportation departments as well as inspection-related charges, according to the city’s Department of Buildings. The fees vary based on the type of street and size of pipe.

The water department said it waives all its permit fees when the city pays for replacements. But it’s not so simple when property owners want to shoulder the cost. Some qualify for a city program waiving up to $5,000 in fees; others don’t. Water department officials could not provide an average cost for permits, saying it varies by project site. 

After more than six months of research, including contacting their alderman, district commissioner, and multiple city departments to track down answers about costs, Hines and his wife finally settled on a plumber who knew how to navigate the city’s permit waivers. He gave them a quote of $22,000 for the job, which he said will include permits. They hope their replacement will take place in July.

Several miles south, Ryan Wilson and his wife, Alaina Harkness, said they didn’t qualify for the fee waiver. They paid nearly $25,000 to replace the lead line at their Hyde Park home last year, but because they also upsized their service line while replacing it, they weren’t eligible for the waiver.

Ryan Wilson and Alaina Harkness stand next to their new water meter that was placed during the replacement of the lead pipes in their Hyde Park home. Anthony Vazquez / Chicago Sun-Times

Wilson has worked in urban planning for decades, and even so, said he found navigating the city’s permitting requirements extremely confusing. They never were able to figure out how much of their final bill was allotted to permits. If Chicago wants to improve citywide replacement efforts, Wilson said, improving the permitting process should be high on the list.

“There’s not a single person to talk to about this,” he said.

Inefficient contracts and funding woes 

Water department officials pointed to two key reasons for the high costs. First, they said that the city lacked a firm grasp of costs when launching its replacement program in 2021 and that its first round of contracts was inefficient. The early contracts also bundled jobs poorly, tasking contractors with work outside their specialization, like having plumbers work on restoration or outreach.

“Early on, the issue was … a lot of unknowns in our contracts,” the water department’s deputy commissioner, Michael Grillo, said at a webinar last fall. “We are trying to be smarter with our contracts that go out, be more specific, eliminate those unknowns.”

Plumbing companies overbid to cover worst-case scenarios in those early contracts, he said. The water department’s Vidis confirmed via email that the city has implemented four new contracts this year, focused on improving equitable access for small businesses to replace lead service lines, but said the goal of those contracts was not to reduce per-line prices. 

Grillo also blamed labor costs for part of the city’s high price tag. But that explanation doesn’t appear to pan out. 

The base prevailing wage for a union plumber in the Chicago area is $99.52 per hour. By contrast, it’s about $97 in Minneapolis and roughly $121 in New York City, both of which replace their lead pipes for less than half of Chicago’s costs.  

“I have a hard time believing that the prevailing wage would be the cost factor,” said Betony Jones, a senior researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and former director of energy jobs under the Biden administration.

The city says a lack of robust, flexible funding is compounding the problem. Chicago has to cobble together funding from a patchwork of local and federal sources in the form of grants and low-interest loans, which bring red tape and restrictions.

The Biden-era Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act delivered a historic $15 billion for lead pipe removal, with Illinois getting about $1.2 billion, according to Duckworth’s office. This month, Duckworth’s office announced a separate $22 million federal grant earmarked for Chicago’s majority-Black Austin neighborhood — where 92 percent of service lines require replacement, according to last year’s lead service line inventory. At Chicago’s price point, the state estimates that $22 million will only replace about 650 lines out of the nearly 17,000 reported in city data for Austin last year. 

“Chicago needs to explain where the money is going and justify the cost,” wrote Elin Betanzo, a national drinking water expert who helped uncover the Flint water crisis, in an email.

Read Next He’s the only comprehensive lead tester in this contaminated neighborhood. He graduates next month. Anna Mattson

Betanzo, who has done extensive research on cost-saving tactics, said she has not seen a realistic cost breakdown that demonstrates why Chicago is paying as much as it is.

“They need to figure out how to complete the most cost-efficient lead service line replacements in the country, not the most expensive,” she added.

With funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act set to run out this year, public health experts have been calling for more local, federal, and state dollars to fund replacements, especially in overburdened cities like Chicago.

“It’s a critical part of the infrastructure,” Betanzo said. “It’s that final piece of public health protection.”

Amy Qin and Cam Rodriguez contributed data analysis to this story.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Why is it so unusually expensive to replace lead pipes in Chicago? on Jun 30, 2026.

Stella Dadzie's collection of essays, poems, diary entries and speeches highlights the importance of Black feminist archival practices, writes Grace Blenkinsop

The post Stella Dadzie: A Whole Heap of Mix Up – review appeared first on Red Pepper.

In his latest Freedom 250 triumph, Pres. Fragile Snowflake launched a Great American State Fair in D.C, which is not a state, boasting tens of attendees, no shade or seats, melted ice cream, busted Ferris wheel, $25 pretzels, teenage performers, sorry-ass pavilions often sporting a mere chair, a masturbating MAGA podcaster, and a Spinal-Tap-like mini-Arc-de-Pedo that began disintegrating its first day. No wonder headliner Trump - right again! - giddily proclaimed, "This is the beginning of the golden age of America."

Fresh from miraculously transforming the iconic "reflecting lakes" into a fetid debacle, Trump launched "the most unforgettable birthday party any country has ever had," though maybe not in the way he envisioned. Many observers noted "his own Potemkin Village," billed as "a world-class exposition," sadly "sputtered out of the gate," bathed in the same "stench of kitsch and failure" as everything he touches. The “sparsely attended and shockingly boring” result was variously likened to "comedy gold," "horror movie vibes," "theater of the absurd," and a Butlins - low-rent British package resorts - "for fascists with heatstroke."

It did not have to be this way. A viral Reddit post by a former worker at the Smithsonian recalled the "millions in private philanthropy" raised years ago for a landmark 250th anniversary of what's been called "the greatest sentence ever written" declaring "all men (sic) are created equal." Planned was a month-long folk festival, "The Festival of Festivals," featuring a blend of the likes of Burning Man, Farm Aid, Grand Ole Oprey and local festivals highlighting the best of American arts, redolent of the famed Christmas Truce of World War One when "people put down their weapons and got together" in a hopeful, unifying cause.

That was before Trump "stole America's 250th birthday and threw it for himself," refusing to issue permits for the Smithsonian's version and swiftly turning what could have been a joyful historic civic celebration into a bleak, gaudy reality-TV pageant, an alleged state fair (which clearly neither he nor his minions have ever seen) without the requisite rides, games, farm animals, cotton candy, fried dough, fresh lemonade or "fun," which could be why reports surfaced of a muggy and miserable scene where bored kids were loudly complaining and at least one took to rolling in the steamy grass screaming, "I. WANT. TO. GO. HOME!!!”

Because grifters gonna grift, it also became an egregious “$100-million laundering operation" with a small Ferris wheel. Added to $80 million in our money he stole from the bipartisan, real 250 commission, he lured corporate sponsors seeking favors or contracts - Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Palantir, Oracle, ExxonMobil, United Airlines - with obscene "deals": $500,000 for “V.I.P access and seating" at all events, $1 million for a “private thank you reception” and “historic photo opportunity,” $2.5 million to be handed the mike for "a speaking role" at a July 4 event," up to $10 million for God knows what further abuse of power.

Thus did his latest round of corrupt bombastic patriotism, trailing "a sense of dread" and blaring Creed's Higher, kick off Wednesday night to a military flyover, a National Anthem badly sung by Kash Patel's girlfriend, and a speech behind bulletproof glass to a mostly empty National Mall. "I am thrilled to declare that America is back,” he said, going on to reassure himself on the greatest terror of his life. "We were a joke two years ago, but nobody's laughing at us anymore" - this, from a purported US president forced to fill in for Milli Vanilli. Then he did his cringey robot "dance" while a Marine band played YMCA. Oof.

Despite a relatively, mercifully brief speech, a viral video showed people streaming out as he droned on. Later he posted the rally was "packed to the brim with 45,000 happy people. Everybody stayed right until the end of my speech - they loved hearing about a truly successful America." Uh huh. "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears": Most reports put the crowd at about 1,000. Sleepy Joe last week: "Whoa. What a loser." Online, people cracked about "almost dozens of people," said they'd seen bigger crowds at school fairs, family reunions, Walmart, and suggested, "They were all at Mamdani's pool party."

Grimly smiling Fox News hosts, though, toughed it out. Before a vast vista of grass dotted with maybe 14 people, they posted AI slopaganda and happily exclaimed "How great is this?" "We've got thousands celebrating!" "People are still coming!" and, "The feeling of patriotism is all in the air!" After C-listers all bailed and Vanilla Ice cancelled due to non-existent "inclement weather," performers came down to a 14-year-old singer from Arkansas and a local artist who painted an American flag live on stage; steadfast Fox chirped "so many cool people" watched him. They didn't mention, per one sage, that more people have been sexually assaulted by Epstein et al than attended this week's Fair.

Meanwhile, generator issues caused the Ferris wheel to periodically shut down and the ice cream to melt; inexplicably, a butter sculpture of Trump and mascot cow named Melania didn't. Food vendors were few and airport-pricey: $5 water bottles, $23 turkey legs, $25 stuffed pretzels, a $27 dry burger with "limp, slimy lettuce on top.” Replicas of Trump passports, bewilderingly reading, "Welcome but be good," were gifted; invited whiteboard messages included, "A felon and predator resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave!!”; police arrested a MAGA podcaster dressed as Uncle Sam for masturbating to a performance by women acrobats.

Lining the Mall were slapdash, flimsy state pavilions looking like empty doctors' waiting rooms or "like something Wile E. Coyote would run into while chasing the Road Runner." Over 20% of states declined to partake in the regime's ideological project to rewrite American history into a white, male Christian saga; some sent a minimal token - state name or symbol, (welcome) chair or two. Maine is a bare room whose walls list lobster facts; Oregon, "the Beaver State," has a chair, Vermont was empty until a woman drove down with maple syrup pamphlets; Alabama has a tub of peanuts; Kansas, cut-outs of Wizard of Oz characters.

North Carolina flew a Confederate flag, later taken down. In "a small act of cultural sabotage," Florida honors anti-Trump Tom Petty and Jimmy Buffett among its famous residents. A mostly empty Faith and Family pavilion adorned with an Israeli flag hosted an evangelical pastor and drew two customers to "plunder hell and populate heaven”; other evangelicals reportedly wander the empty grounds, offering exorcisms. An empty War Department (sic) booth exhibits a cardboard cutout of George Washington, a montage of Hegseth's noble "war-fighters," and camo vests for kids to try on, get hyped and emulate them.

Overseeing it all stands a stubby, shabby plywood and vinyl mock-up of Trump’s $100 million “Arc de Trump,” aka "Arc de Mentia," "Epstein Memorial Arch," "L' Arc de Dômbfuqué," his "Triumph of the Will" vision of "democracy if it had a midlife crisis and bought a white tracksuit." Many liken it to McDonald's arches, Spinal Tap's mini-Stonehenge, or Derek Zoolander's Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good and Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too," but the arch quickly began buckling and melting in D.C.'s humidity. Some fair-goers in search of rare shade have still sought it out. Others argue it'd get more traffic as a urinal.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

On Monday, the Fair was devoted to RFK's so-called MAHA, Make America Healthy Again program, or what has now morphed into Make America Hurl Again after organizers inexplicably decided the best way to promote better eating habits was to hold a contest in muggy-90-something-degree temps where people stuff their faces with as many pancakes as possible while gagging and trying not to throw up. Eat till you puke: Fun for the whole family! Up next, some speculate: "They will swim in some sewage and stare into an eclipse." Or mebbe snort heroin off a toilet seat? Stay classy, fascists. Trump was right: Too much winning.

America's 250th marks the signing by 56 brave men of "a flawed but aspirational document" declaring a nation's independence and asserting, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Facts owe. Most of the Founding Fathers - slaveholders, misogynists, oppressors of Native Americans - "did not live up to those words," notes one historian. "The country they created was incomplete, and the work of completing it has been the work of every generation since."

Since its inception, America has been "wrestling with the contradictions of its original sin," says Eddie Glaude, a professor of African- American studies. "This divided soul in which America imagines itself as a beacon of freedom and as a white republic (is) a kind of madness at the heart of the country. That madness evidences itself in cycles, and we happen to be in one right now." Still, every bailed musical act, court victory, voice raised in truth tells Trump, "We see you," writes Dean Blundell. "The country is not him. It has never been him. The country is the people who showed up across 250 years and did the work." And for now, it remains.

For almost century, Europe’s agriculture has been structurally reliant on chemical fertilisers. The risks of this dependence have been made amply clear by successive conflicts that have disrupted supply chains, while decades of intensive application have led to pollution and soil imbalances. Changing this trajectory will be a tough challenge.

In France, the baguette has recently become a matter of public concern. According to the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES), staples of the French diet like bread, cereals, and even potatoes are among the main pathways of exposure to cadmium, a carcinogenic heavy metal that accumulates in agricultural soils. While cadmium is naturally present in the environment, its levels in France have become increasingly concerning over the past two decades, prompting ANSES to issue warnings that a significant share of the population is estimated to exceed health-based reference exposure values, with higher levels observed among children and adolescents. At the core of this looming public health crisis lies the intensive use of phosphate-based fertilisers. 

As the French Parliament moved to tighten cadmium limits in agricultural soils this spring – finally aligning national standards with existing European rules – the European Commission adopted a Fertiliser Action Plan designed to facilitate farmers’ access to key agricultural inputs. Like previous geopolitical shocks, the war in Iran and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a major artery for global trade, have revealed Europe’s dependence on imported fertilisers.  

These local, national, European, and global developments point to a structural vulnerability at the heart of Europe’s food system, with fertilisers lying at the intersection of ecological constraints, public health, market volatility, and external dependence.  

Vulnerable supply chains 

On 19 May, more than 200 farmers protested in front of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, carrying a large red banner declaring a “fertiliser crisis”. Just a few weeks earlier, in April, the prices of many raw materials and fertilisers had surged. Urea, the world’s most widely used nitrogen fertiliser, had climbed above 850 dollars per tonne, the highest level since 2022.  An estimated 30 per cent of globally traded volumes of urea passed through Hormuz before the war.  

Since the 1950s, synthetic nutrients have dramatically increased agricultural productivity while reshaping Europe’s food system.

The effect of the blockade was compounded by the growing importance of Gulf states in the global fertiliser market. The world’s largest urea production complex, for instance, is located south of Doha, in Qatar. In the last 10 years, Saudi Arabia has also rapidly climbed the ranks among leading producers of phosphate-based fertilisers. The broader Gulf energy industrial complex, which underpins global fertiliser production, was put under pressure following Iran’s strikes on key energy infrastructure in the region. Qatar, for instance, suspended production of urea, ammonia, and sulfur after key facilities were damaged. 

Ammonia and sulphur, two key feedstocks used in fertiliser production, are intertwined with the fossil fuels extracted in the region. Ammonia, the key feedstock for the production of urea and all other nitrogen-based fertilisers, is obtained by combining nitrogen with hydrogen, the latter typically extracted from natural gas. Although efforts are underway to produce ammonia using “green hydrogen” produced from renewables, these technologies remain marginal.  

Similarly, sulphur is largely recovered as a by-product of oil and natural gas processing. Most of it is converted into sulfuric acid, essential for producing phosphate fertilisers, whose supply chains have also been disrupted by the war: Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates are major sulphur exporters. Iran, which exported sulphur to China, Latin America, Pakistan, India, and other Asian and African countries, halted production of both sulphur and ammonia during the conflict. In light of the crisis, countries such as China – the world’s largest producer of sulfuric acid – Turkey, and India considered export restrictions. 

An old dependency 

Europe’s dependence on imported fertilisers and their feedstocks has deep historical roots. Fertiliser use began as an innovative solution to increase agricultural productivity in the early 20th century, gradually reshaping the continent’s food system, and tying farming to industrial production and global supply chains. At the heart of this shift lies the industrial processing of three essential nutrients found naturally in the environment: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. “It’s like a big kitchen,” a laboratory operator at Norwegian fertiliser giant Yara International, told me. “These elements are mixed together according to farmers’ needs, increasingly in tailor-made combinations.” 

One of the earliest artificial fertilisers, superphosphate (SSP), was first produced commercially in the mid-19th century by treating phosphate rock, rich in phosphorus, with sulphuric acid. With SSP, fertiliser manufacturing gradually moved from farms – where the natural manure cycle was rooted in the recycling of organic waste back into agricultural soils – into the hands of the agrochemical industry, accompanying the industrialisation of agriculture in the early 20th century.  

The expansion of phosphate use further tied agrochemistry to mining: phosphate rock is only found in a handful of countries, particularly in North Africa. Morocco alone holds more than 70 per cent of global phosphate reserves; it is the world’s largest producer and the second-largest exporter after China. With some reserves facing depletion in the coming decades, Beijing has implemented export controls on phosphate fertilisers since 2021. In 2017, the European Commission added phosphate to its list of critical raw materials, acknowledging its strategic importance and Europe’s exposure to supply risk.  

Since the 1950s, synthetic nutrients have dramatically increased agricultural productivity while reshaping Europe’s food system. Globally, fertiliser use rose from roughly 30 million tonnes in 1960 to more than 190 million tonnes today – a more than sixfold increase. According to estimates by Fertilizers Europe, the industry’s main trade association in the EU, of the roughly 180 million hectares of agricultural land in the European Union, nearly 124 million are now fertilised. The remaining areas consist mainly of permanent grasslands, fallow land, or land left temporarily out of production. 

Arable land dedicated to annual crops accounts for 57 per cent of fertilised land. Yet this broad picture masks significant regional differences. In Western Europe, a substantial share of agricultural land is devoted to permanent crops (such as vineyards, orchards, and forestry plantations) as well as fertilised grasslands. In Central and Eastern Europe, by contrast, agriculture is more heavily concentrated on large-scale annual cropping systems, particularly cereals, oilseeds such as rapeseed and sunflower, and fodder crops used for animal feed. As a result, Fertilizers Europe expects most Central and Eastern European EU member states to record higher fertiliser consumption in the coming years. 

The EU as a whole remains a key player in the global fertiliser market, with France, Poland, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Romania accounting for the bulk of phosphate fertiliser consumption. France is also the continent’s largest consumer of nitrogen fertilisers.  

However, overall consumption is contracting. In 2023, European agriculture applied 9.3 million tonnes of mineral fertilisers, marking a 3.7 per cent decrease compared to 2022 and a decline of more than 20 per cent from the 2017 peak. While producer associations point to signs of stabilisation and hope for a return to pre-2022 levels, the market still appears not to have fully recovered from the disruptions triggered by the war in Ukraine.  

But amid recurring geopolitical shocks and ecosystems reaching critical conditions, to what extent is a return to business as usual in fertiliser use necessary or desirable? 

Nutrition and pollution 

Intensive fertilisation has enabled Europe to expand agricultural production and secure millions of tonnes of food, but it has also created a dependence that goes beyond the actual agronomic needs of soils.  

Decades of continuous application have, in some cases, led to nutrient accumulation or imbalances. Numerous studies, some of them published by fertiliser producer associations themselves, suggest that fertiliser needs in many European and American production systems are increasingly oriented toward maintenance applications (keeping existing soil nutrient levels stable) rather than corrective inputs (raising deficient nutrient levels to a healthy target). Meanwhile, regions facing nutrient deficiencies, such as many African countries, still struggle to access fertilisers. 

Intensive nutrient use in the Global North has intensified concerns over soil health, water quality, and the accumulation of contaminants in agricultural land, all of which have entered public and policy debates. In recent years, discussions on fertiliser use in the EU have increasingly centred on pollution linked to eutrophication, a process in which excess nutrients in water bodies trigger algal blooms that deplete oxygen and disrupt aquatic ecosystems. The problem remains unresolved and continues to affect lakes and river deltas across Europe, despite the EU Nitrates Directive, which aims to reduce agricultural nitrate pollution. 

In Italy’s Po Delta, pollutants accumulated along the river system cause algal blooms, particularly in the summer. In Spain, civil society organisations have taken agro-industrial actors to court for eutrophication in the Mar Menor, accusing them of illegal discharges that contribute to the lagoon’s degradation. France’s recent cadmium controversy has expanded the debate on fertiliser sustainability beyond production sites to food safety and public health concerns.  

EU contradictions 

Despite the reassuring slogans of fertiliser producers, often framed in humanitarian terms – “saving lives” and “feeding the planet,” – the environmental costs of the agrochemical industry have long fuelled public debate and grassroots mobilisation. In autumn 2025, for instance, Tunisia saw large demonstrations against the Groupe Chimique Tunisien along the coastline of Gabès, following the hospitalisation of more than 200 people, mostly children, for respiratory distress and gas poisoning. 

In Europe, this tension between productivity and environmental limits gradually entered policy frameworks. In the early 2000s, the European agricultural policy framework finally acknowledged the urgency of limiting fertiliser dispersion by introducing environmental measures and, more recently, eco-schemes under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). These measures encourage farmers to return to more traditional agroecological practices, such as crop rotation with legumes and other plants capable of naturally enriching the soil. Agroecology Europe, a Brussels-based organisation, also recommends a partial return to non-chemical soil fertilisation methods.  

Geopolitical instability has added another layer of urgency to Europe’s need to reduce its dependency on mineral fertilisers. The President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, stressed in May that the EU’s Fertiliser Action Plan isn’t just about supporting farmers in the short term but also aimed at “accelerating innovation in sustainable, home-grown solutions”. She also acknowledged that “climate leadership and economic resilience are interlinked”. 

However, the EU is rolling back climate and environmental measures to placate farmers and pursue economic competitiveness. In early 2026, under pressure from the agrochemical sector, the European Commission proposed an amendment to its Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), allowing for the temporary exclusion of certain products – particularly fertilisers – in the event of “serious harm to the EU internal market.” Meanwhile, the signing of the EU-Mercosur trade agreement with South American countries in January 2026 angered the agricultural sector, particularly in France, with farmers fearing unfair competition from imported products.  

These conflicting interests show that reversing a century-long trajectory of agricultural intensification and supply fragmentation won’t be easy, particularly in the current political climate. In this context, the EU appears to be advancing the liberalisation of agricultural policy under the banner of “sovereignty”. However, the declining productivity of soils and mounting ecological pressures both point to the need to transform this trajectory. 

The renewables tricks Channel Comment brendan 30th June 2026 Teaser Media

In Pakistan, small-scale farmers allege that International Monetary Fund (IMF)-driven policies are dismantling the support structures that sustained them. Women bear specific weight in this crisis.

The post Pakistan: Peasant Women Organize Against IMF-driven Agrarian Policies appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

What is a heatwave?

It’s hot. Very hot. Hotter than it should be. It’s not for too long, just a few days or weeks, but everyone feels it, and everyone talks about it. We don’t give it fancy names, like we do with hurricanes, but you hear about it in the news. Or not.

Right now, in the summer of 2026, Europe is living through one of its most severe heatwaves on record, with all-time temperature highs broken in France, Spain, the UK, Germany, Belgium, Austria and beyond, and hundreds of deaths already linked to the heat in France alone. Meanwhile, India has spent much of its pre-monsoon season under extreme heat, with cities like Delhi, Nagpur and Akola pushing past 45°C and even 46°C, and nighttime temperatures rising faster than daytime ones across nearly every Indian state. This is what the climate crisis looks like in real time, not a future projection.

The problem with heatwaves is that they are very relative. It’s not the same to register 30 ºC in the summer or in the winter. And it’s not the same to register 30 ºC in Greenland or in the Middle East. Each place has its average temperature for each time of the year. We call it a heatwave when a particular region goes well above that average for a number of days. How much above it, and for how long, varies from region to region. In many parts of the world, these events are already increasing in frequency, duration and intensity, and will increase even more as a result of the climate crisis.

The silent killer

 Unlike more spectacular climate impacts such as tropical storms, floods or wildfires, heatwaves come up without a bang. For most people, heatwave days are just annoyingly hot and media sometimes even portrays them as something nice. But, actually, heatwaves are as dangerous a climate impact as it gets.

According to a recent academic study, heatwaves killed at least 157,000 people between 2000 and 2020 (only storms are deadlier, with around 200,000 victims). However, the authors of the report warn that this figure is very likely underestimated: many countries don’t monitor heatwaves and some times don’t even have a definition for them. To illustrate that point, only 6.5% of those casualties were registered in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and South and Central America, despite those regions concentrating 85% of the global population.

The toll keeps mounting. The World Health Organization has described Europe’s current heat emergency as a public health crisis, estimating that heat has contributed to roughly 200,000 deaths across the continent over just the past four years.

Heat can be behind a number of health conditions. The most concerning is heat stroke, which occurs when the body is too hot and loses its ability to cool down. Children, the elderly and low-income communities are more vulnerable to heat stroke, as are people with chronic diseases, pregnant women and outdoor workers. The poorer a community is, the less access to cooling it has, which exacerbates inequality and injustice. Heatstroke is more likely in high humidity conditions.

In India, this inequality is stark: around three-quarters of the country’s workforce, roughly 380 million people, works in heat-exposed sectors like agriculture and construction, often informally and without basic protections, while only about 8% of households have air conditioning. Rising humidity is compounding the danger, since high humidity stops the body from cooling itself through sweat, turning conditions that were once merely uncomfortable into something deadly.

More than just heat strokes

The dangers of heatwaves, however, go way beyond heat stroke. High temperatures are associated with lower air quality, which causes and aggravates respiratory diseases such as asthma. They are also related to cardiovascular and kidney diseases.

Extreme temperatures affect agriculture, stunting plant growth or directly killing them. Livestock is also affected, as animals can also see their growth, milk production and reproduction rates reduced. These impacts disproportionately affect communities who depend on agriculture for survival and don’t have any other social safety nets, which increases climate injustice. Heatwaves also affect infrastructure such as airports, roads and bridges, and any economic activity that requires outdoor work.

Is it hotter?

Heatwaves are a statistical occurence. They are relative to the average conditions, so by definition we can find it in any time and any place in history. But that doesn’t change the fact that climate change is making them worse in absolute and relative terms. Or, in other words: yes, it’s hotter than ever, more often, and yes, it will get hotter.  Scientists have concluded that it is virtually certain that global heating drives that increase in the duration and intensity of heatwaves at a global level. That means, in climate science terms, above 99% certainty.

Heatwaves happen when a mass of high-pressure air remains stationary (still) for long enough to get warmed up by the sun. Greenhouse gases such as CO2 have the capacity to absorb heat, so a stationary mass of air will get warmer in the same amount of time if it contains a higher concentration of these gases. These phenomena are geographically uneven and their likelihood at a specific location depends on many factors, such as orography, tree cover, aerosol pollution, soil moisture or distance to the sea.

One of the clearest examples of this mechanism in action is the heat dome. You’ll hear the term a lot now, so it’s worth explaining. A heat dome forms when a large, stationary zone of high pressure traps hot air over a region for days or weeks, acting almost like a lid: air sinks within it, keeping surface pressure high and suppressing cloud formation, so the sun bakes the ground relentlessly with no relief. Sometimes that high-pressure system gets wedged between two other weather systems and becomes “locked in,” barely moving — a pattern known as an Omega block for the shape it traces on weather maps. This is exactly what’s been driving Europe’s 2026 heatwaves: a stubborn Omega block parked over the continent, dragging in hot, dry air from the Sahara and refusing to budge, before slowly shifting from Western Europe toward Germany, Poland and the Balkans. And heat domes themselves are becoming more frequent and more intense as the planet warms, since warmer baseline temperatures mean the same stagnant weather pattern now produces far more extreme spikes than it used to. See how the 2021 heat dome in Canada impacted lives. 

According to the IPCC, the average temperature of the extremely hot days in land will increase by 3ºC if we contain global warming under 1.5ºC, and by 4ºC if we stay under 2ºC. Keep in mind that this is an average! Some areas are already becoming uninhabitable during heat waves within this century.

The climate footprint

Heatwaves are one of the deadliest expressions of the climate crisis. We are seeing how they increase in frequency and intensity as the concentration of greenhouse gases mounts. And it is the greed of the fossil fuel industries and its allies what is pushing that increase. Let us retrace their steps.

Global heating is caused by an increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases, mostly (but not only) CO2 and CH4. These are found naturally in the atmosphere, but since we started massively burning fossil fuels, the concentration has been growing exponentially.

The increase in concentration of CO2 is linked to fossil fuels. There isn’t any other possible source (not volcanos, not clouds, not solar cycles, nothing). CH4 is also massively linked to fossil fuels and land use change. Studies and data have widely proven that: the debate is over.

The coal, oil and gas industries have massively profited from it and they continue to profit from an economic model that forces people to use fossil fuels. Reports have proven that they knew the damage they were causing since at least the 1970s, and that, instead of abandoning their business model, they actively worked to disinform the public. They still do. We keep burning fossil fuels because they choose (and they chose then) to use their power for that purpose.

But even if we cannot stop heatwaves completely, we can stop the fossil fuels industry. People around the world have been fighting to keep coal, oil and gas in the ground, to cut the financial flows that allow this industry to still exist and to push for a more equitable and clean future. If you haven’t yet, join us!

More from the Fossil Fuels Did This series:

• Fossil Fuels Did This: Tropical Cyclones
• Fossil Fuels Did This: Floods
• Fossil Fuels Did This: Drought

The post Fossil Fuels Did This: Heatwaves appeared first on 350.

Queenslanders could be left to pay for mine clean-ups if the Queensland government uses its review of the Financial Provisioning Scheme to weaken safeguards that ensure mines pay for rehabilitation. 

As Canada’s auto industry grapples with the fallout from Donald Trump’s erratic and mutually-damaging tariffs, the union representing auto workers has opened its triennial round of major bargaining with the major North American automakers. First up will be talks with Ford, which has invested $5 billion in its Canadian operations despite the tariffs. In this commentary, originally published in the Toronto Star, Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford discusses the importance of this bargaining in enhancing stability for both workers and the automakers, and showcasing the advantages of Canadian auto manufacturing – advantages which, he argues, will outlast Trump.

Despite Trump tariffs, Unifor talks with Ford the perfect moment to showcase Canada’s auto sector By Jim Stanford

Canada’s auto industry is reeling from Donald Trump’s trade war. His 25% tariff on vehicles and some auto parts had immediate impact on Canadian vehicle production, employment, and exports, which all slumped badly after he imposed it last year.

But the longer-run threat facing auto is even worse. The tariff destroys the business case for making cars in Canada, given that 90 percent of our output goes to the U.S. – a geographic reality that has been true since the 1960s.

And that is exactly Donald Trump’s goal. He wants all North American production to relocate to the U.S. His Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick put it bluntly: “Car assembly is going to be in America and there is nothing Canada can do about it.” Last month U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer echoed that view, asking “Why do we make cars in Canada?”

Into this turbulent arena marched two negotiating teams last week: bargainers for Unifor, the auto union, and Ford Motor Company. The two sides kicked off triennial contract talks in Toronto, hoping to reach a new collective agreement for Ford’s 5000 Canadian workers by a July 10 deadline.

One might think this is a terrible time to negotiate a labour contract – with many workers on layoff, and uncertainty hanging thick. But given the unfortunate reality of Trump’s tariffs, stakeholders must deal with the world as it is, not how they wish it was.

In fact, these talks are an opportunity to remind businesses and governments on both sides of the border why Canada is a great place to build cars.

Both the union and the company emphasized these negotiations as an opportunity to impart some badly-needed stability to an industry beset by Trump-induced chaos. The union, of course, puts priority on job security for its members at Ford’s operations: the Oakville assembly plant, two major engine factories in Windsor, and three parts distribution centres.

But the company needs stability, too. The Oakville plant is launching a new generation of pickup trucks. This represents a massive investment by Ford, which has pumped $5 billion of capital into Canadian plants despite Trump’s actions.

Any vehicle launch is a complex, sensitive moment for an assembly plant. But the Oakville launch is particularly fine-tuned: the company will produce several specialized variants of large trucks on the same assembly line.

Ford is also launching a new high-feature engine at its Essex plant in Windsor. These two simultaneous product launches underscore the value to Ford of a smooth round of bargaining.

That the two sides have set an internal bargaining deadline two months before the current contract expires (when a strike or lockout would become legal) is a clear indication they aim to reach agreement without a work stoppage, if possible.

The intricate cross-border nature of Ford’s supply chain serves as a parable for the whole industry. Ford’s Canadian-built engines flow to 12 different U.S. and Mexican assembly plants (as well as Oakville). And its Oakville trucks encompass hundreds of different parts made across the U.S. and Mexico. A disruption in any of those cross-border flows (whether from a tariff or anything else) hurts everyone.

That’s why the automakers themselves are dead-set against Trump’s destructive strategy: it’s cost them billions in needless costs, lost efficiency, and supply-chain uncertainty.

Despite recent tribulations, auto is still Canada’s most important manufacturing sector. 120,000 Canadians are directly employed in auto and parts production – and that many again in the upstream supply chain that feeds auto plants with an incredible array of inputs, materials, machinery, and services.

These are high-productivity jobs, supporting good wages and benefits, and anchoring billions of dollars in GDP, downstream consumer spending, and government revenues. Canadian auto plants have higher productivity, better quality, and lower labour costs than in the U.S.

So to answer Greer’s insulting question, we make cars in Canada because we’re better at it than Americans. Not to mention because we spend $100 billion buying 2 million new cars every year, and hence deserve a fair share of the jobs that come with that demand.

A fair and productive round of bargaining, nailing down new investment and securing jobs, would be a powerful and tangible demonstration that this industry is here to stay – long after Trump is gone.

The post Auto Talks a Chance to Reinforce the Canadian Industry’s Lasting Potential appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

EWG evaluation of food chemicals: Propyl gallate rcoleman June 29, 2026 Dayna de Montagnac, MPH Sydney Evans, MPH Tasha Stoiber, Ph.D. Jump to: What is propyl gallate and why is it added to food? Food propyl gallate is found in What is the regulatory status of propyl gallate? Is food containing propyl gallate always classified as ultra-processed? Is propyl gallate allowed in organic foods? What are the potential health harms associated with propyl gallate? Uncertainties and the need for more research Additional details Other product use categories References June 30, 2026 EWG’s recommendation

Propyl gallate is an ingredient of concern, and EWG recommends limiting consumption of food containing this ingredient. 

Propyl gallate’s toxicity is linked to its breakdown in the body, which produces reactive oxygen species, or ROS. It also causes oxidative stress, a process connected to numerous chronic diseases. When broken down into pyrogallol, a highly reactive oxidizing agent, it can lead to pro-oxidant systemic toxicity, glutathione depletion, and potentially cause damage to the liver (hepatotoxicity) and kidneys (nephrotoxicity). 

Studies in animals and cells have also shown propyl gallate is associated with reproductive health harms, including inducing male infertility and testicular toxicity in mice, anti-estrogenic effects affecting female reproductive health, and impaired early embryonic development.

Science analysis

What is propyl gallate and why is it added to food?

Propyl gallate is a preservative that prevents oxidation, extending the shelf life of fats and oils in processed foods.

Food propyl gallate is found in

Propyl gallate is typically added to meat products, frozen food and candy.

Propyl gallate is used in 275 of the 172,081 food items added to EWG’s Food Scores between 2023 and 2025.

Top 15 food and drink categories organized by supermarket shelf

Image

Source: EWG’s Food Scores. Label created between 1/1/23 and 10/22/25.

What is the regulatory status of propyl gallate?

The Food and Drug Administration classified propyl gallate as “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS, and approved it for use in food in 1948. Propyl gallate is commonly added to food as an antioxidant, but the total antioxidant content cannot exceed 0.02% of the total fat or oil content of the food. 

Like other synthetic antioxidants, propyl gallate is also approved in the U.S. as a food contact substance – materials and articles intended to come into contact with food. 

In the European Union, an acceptable daily intake, or ADI, of 0.5 mg/kg was established for three gallates – propyl, octyl and dodecyl – in 1987 by the Scientific Committee on Food. WHO/JECFA established a higher ADI of 1.4 mg/kg of body weight in 1996 for propyl gallate. 

In 2014, a European Food Safety Authority, or EFSA, panel derived an ADI of 0.5 mg/kg for propyl gallate only. The panel concluded there was no longer a basis for the group ADI.

Is food containing propyl gallate always classified as ultra-processed?

Yes, propyl gallate and other synthetic preservatives are common ingredients in ultra-processed food, or UPF. As an industrially synthesized ingredient, the NOVA framework classifies it as a UPF ingredient (Monteiro et al., 2019). 

Because it serves as a flavoring agent and adjuvant, the presence of propyl gallate is enough to qualify a food or beverage as ultra-processed, according to a recent California law defining UPF (Real Food, Healthy Kids Act, 2025). 

Is propyl gallate allowed in organic foods?

No. Under Department of Agriculture organic standards, synthetic substances are prohibited in certified organic foods. 

What are the potential health harms associated with propyl gallate?

Like other synthetic antioxidants, the toxicity of propyl gallate is related to its breakdown in the body and production of ROS, which creates oxidative stress. Oxidative stress damages cells and causes programmed cell death (apoptosis), a process associated with numerous chronic diseases. 

Propyl gallate rapidly metabolizes into gallic acid in the body. At higher levels, a portion can then be decarboxylated by gut bacteria into pyrogallol, a highly reactive oxidizing agent. The formation of pyrogallol may contribute to pro-oxidant toxicity, resulting in glutathione depletion, which leads to hepatotoxicity and nephrotoxicity (Park, 2025). 

While gallic acid is less reactive at low dietary exposure levels, it may become pro-oxidative and hepatotoxic at the elevated concentrations typically found in concentrated herbal supplements (Galati et al., 2006). 

The accumulation of these reactive metabolites and generation of ROS have been associated with cellular DNA breaks (Javaheri-Ghezeldizaj et al., 2023).

Evidence of cell damage induced by propyl gallate extends across multiple studies. One found that propyl gallate induces male infertility and testicular toxicity in mice by disrupting calcium homeostasis, causing mitochondrial and endoplasmic reticulum stress, and suppressing cell viability and steroidogenesis in Leydig and Sertoli cells (Ham et al., 2019). 

Another study found propyl gallate interferes with the production of estrogen (Amadasi et al., 2009), which can affect female reproductive health. In another rodent study, propyl gallate exposure impaired early embryonic development by inducing oxidative stress, DNA damage and autophagy while also disrupting mitochondrial and lysosomal function and altering epigenetic modifications (Yang et al., 2024).

Studies investigating the anti-cancer properties of propyl gallate provide further evidence of its pro-oxidant activity. In lung cancer cell models, propyl gallate increased ROS and depleted glutathione, leading to mitochondrial dysfunction and apoptosis (Park, 2021). 

These mechanisms overlap with the compound’s toxic effects in non-cancer cells, suggesting that oxidative stress may play a central role in both its therapeutic and adverse biological effects. 

A 1982 carcinogenesis bioassay by the National Toxicology Program concluded that propyl gallate was not carcinogenic in rats or mice. However, the study noted evidence of tumorigenesis in low-dose male rats specifically. They exhibited more, mostly benign pancreatic, adrenal and preputial gland tumors that did not occur in the high-dose treatment groups. 

Rare tumors were noted in two of the low-dose female rats (National Toxicology Program, 1982).

In refined exposure assessments conducted by the EFSA in 2014, propyl gallate was estimated to exceed the ADI for the elderly and adults. Higher estimates in adults and the elderly compared to other groups were due to its presence in food supplements (EFSA ANS Panel, 2014). 

The assessment also found exposure to propyl gallate from food contact materials alone likely exceeded the ADI for most children (EFSA ANS Panel, 2014). But because their exposure models were intentionally conservative, the EFSA concluded current real world use of propyl gallate was not a safety concern. 

Uncertainties and the need for more research

The presence of propyl gallate in food contact materials and cosmetics, as well as octyl gallate and dodecyl gallate, should be considered when determining total exposure risk. Concurrent exposure to propyl gallate and related synthetic antioxidants may contribute to overall exposure and should be considered when evaluating potential health risks (Wang et al., 2021). 

To refine future exposure assessments, the EFSA panel noted that additional data are needed on the use of propyl gallate in breakfast cereal, soup, processed nuts and food supplements. 

More research is needed to understand both the cytotoxic and cytoprotective properties of propyl gallate in humans. 

Additional details 

Research shows propyl gallate’s anti-cancer activity appears to involve pro-oxidant and apoptotic pathways that overlap with mechanisms implicated in its toxicity. In cancer cell models, propyl gallate induces severe oxidative stress, cell cycle arrest and programmed cell death (Wei et al., 2019; Park, 2020).

Other product use categories

Propyl gallate is also added to cosmetic products as a preservative. It  scores 4 in EWG’s Skin Deep® database and is not allowed in EWG Verified® products.

References

Global health and regulatory agencies

• EFSA Panel on Food Additives and Nutrient Sources added to Food (ANS). (2014). Scientific opinion on the re‐evaluation of propyl gallate (E 310) as a food additive. EFSA Journal, 12(4), Article 3642. https://doi.org/10.2903/j.efsa.2014.3642

Comprehensive reviews and frameworks

• Monteiro, C.A., Cannon, G., Levy, R.B., Moubarac, J., Louzada, M.L., Rauber, F., Khandpur, N., Cediel, G., Neri, D., Martinez-Steele, E., Baraldi, L.G., & Jaime, P.C. (2019). Ultra-processed foods: what they are and how to identify them. Public Health Nutrition, 22(5), 936–941. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1368980018003762.
• National Toxicology Program. (1982). Carcinogenesis bioassay of propyl gallate (CAS No. 121-79-9) in F344/N rats and B6C3F1 mice (Feed study) (Technical Report Series No. 240; NIH Publication No. 83-1796). Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/sites/default/files/ntp/htdocs/lt_rpts/tr240.pdf
• Park, W.H. (2021). Enhanced cell death effects of MAP kinase inhibitors in propyl gallate–treated lung cancer cells are related to increased ROS levels and GSH depletion. Toxicology in Vitro, 75, Article 105176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tiv.2021.105176 
• Wang, W., Xiong, P., Zhang, H., Zhu, Q., Liao, C., & Jiang, G. (2021). Analysis, occurrence, toxicity and environmental health risks of synthetic phenolic antioxidants: A review. Environmental Research, 201, 111531. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2021.111531 
• Monteiro, C.A., Cannon, G., Levy, R.B., Moubarac, J., Louzada, M.L., Rauber, F., Khandpur, N., Cediel, G., Neri, D., Martinez-Steele, E., Baraldi, L.G., & Jaime, P.C. (2019). Ultra-processed foods: what they are and how to identify them. Public Health Nutrition, 22(5), 936–941. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1368980018003762.

Legislation

• Real Food, Healthy Kids Act, A.B. 1264, Chapter 467, Cal. Stat. (2025).https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1264 
• 21 CFR 184.1660 – Propyl gallate. (n.d.). https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-184/subpart-B/section-184.1660

Specific health impact studies

• Park, W.H. (2025). A comprehensive review of pyrogallol: from fundamental chemistry to advanced applications and toxicological insights. Biotechnology and Bioengineering, 123(3), 527–543. https://doi.org/10.1002/bit.70115 
• Galati, G., Lin, A., Sultan, A.M., & O'Brien, P.J. (2006). Cellular and in vivo hepatotoxicity caused by green tea phenolic acids and catechins. Free Radical Biology and Medicine, 40(4), 570–580. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.freeradbiomed.2005.09.014 
• Javaheri-Ghezeldizaj, F., Mirza Alizadeh, A., Dehghan, P., & Ezzati Nazhad Dolatabadi, J. (2023). Pharmacokinetic and toxicological overview of propyl gallate food additive. Food Chemistry, 423, Article 135219. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2022.135219
• Ham, J., Lim, W., Park, S., Bae, H., You, S., & Song, G. (2019). Synthetic phenolic antioxidant propyl gallate induces male infertility through disruption of calcium homeostasis and mitochondrial function. Environmental Pollution, 248, 845–856. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2019.02.087 
• Amadasi, A., Mozzarelli, A., Meda, C., Adriana, M., & Cozzini, P. (2009). Identification of xenoestrogens in food additives by an integrated in silico and in vitro approach. Chemical Research in Toxicology, 22(1), 52–63. https://doi.org/10.1021/tx800048m 
• Yang, S., Yang, F., Zou, Y., Wang, Y., Ding, Z., Zhang, L., Zhou, X., Liu, M., Duan, Z., & Huo, L. (2024). Propyl gallate exposure affects the mouse 2-cell stage embryonic development through inducing oxidative stress and autophagy. Food and Chemical Toxicology, 185, 114488. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fct.2024.114488
• Wei, P., Huang, C., & Chang, Y. (2019). Propyl gallate inhibits hepatocellular carcinoma cell growth through the induction of ROS and the activation of autophagy. PLoS ONE, 14(1), e0210513. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0210513 
• Park, W. (2020). Propyl gallate reduces the growth of lung cancer cells through caspase‑dependent apoptosis and G1 phase arrest of the cell cycle. Oncology Reports, 44(6), 2783–2791. https://doi.org/10.3892/or.2020.7815 

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Samantha Harrington

Sarina Virmani lives in Loudoun County, Virginia, which is home to over 200 data centers and colloquially known as Data Center Alley. As a high school student, Virmani published a paper on the environmental impact of data centers in the American Journal of Student Research. She also organizes for more transparency and regulation in the industry.

“A lot of people think that artificial intelligence is something that’s invisible, but it’s not. It lives in these massive buildings,” she said. 

Data centers aren’t new in Loudoun County, but the explosive growth of AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google’s Gemini is driving demand for more. The environmental impact of all of those data centers can be tricky to parse, but there are a few things we know for certain: Data centers are extending the life of aging oil, gas, and coal infrastructure, they are spurring the building of new fossil fuel infrastructure, and they can pose risks to water resources. 

What is AI, and why does it need so much electricity?

To some extent, AI technology is as old as the computer. The term artificial intelligence was popularized in the 1950s, and as computer technology has become increasingly affordable and powerful, machine learning and algorithms have become part of our economy and everyday lives. The Instagram algorithm, for example, just turned 10 years old.

The current iteration of AI began in November 2022, when OpenAI publicly launched ChatGPT. ChatGPT’s secret weapon was access to a massive amount of data — some of which was used without copyright permission — and the computer power and architecture to process it and train models. This process is enormously energy-intensive. In a Q&A published by the University of Washington, AI scholar Sajjad Moazen said that training one single large language model like ChatGPT-3 can use up to 10 gigawatt-hours of power. 

“This is on average roughly equivalent to the yearly electricity consumption of over 1,000 U.S. households,” he said. 

A worker prepares a plot of land for an AI data center in the shadow of a retired power plant being refurbished to provide electricity for the facility. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

How much climate-changing pollution does generative AI create? 

The training and deployment of large AI tools requires so much power that it is leading to a boom in new fossil fuel infrastructure and extending the life of aging power plants. 

“I like to call them zombie power plants,” said Quentin Good, coauthor of a report on data centers by the Frontier Group. “They should be dead, but we keep reviving them, and they’re walking around like zombies polluting our communities.”

The report found that the retirements of at least 15 fossil fuel plants have been postponed to meet increased energy demand. Those 15 plants alone emit more climate-changing pollution than the entire state of Massachusetts. Utilities, grid operators, and the federal government have all cited data center energy demand as a reason to keep aging fossil fuel infrastructure online. In some cases, power plant retirements have been pushed back by more than a decade. 

In the case of one coal plant in southern Virginia, which was set to phase out in 2025, operations have been extended indefinitely. In 2023, the plant emitted more pollution than over 65,000 typical gasoline-powered vehicles produce in a year.

“[The U.S. had] been planning to get pretty much all of our coal plants offline by 2040,” Good said. “Those plans are basically out the window now.”

On top of that is all of the new fossil fuel infrastructure being built to meet AI demand. Wired writer Molly Taft reported in April 2026 that new gas plants linked to just 11 U.S. data center campuses could generate more climate-changing pollution than the entire country of Morocco emitted in 2024. 

And some data centers use highly polluting diesel generators as backup when there’s too much demand on the electric grid. Good said that although restrictions limit how much a company can run diesel generators, many states are considering exceptions for data centers. 

How much water does AI use, really?

Details around data center water use are murky, and the environmental impact is at least partially dependent on where data centers are located. Good has found that although data centers do need large volumes of water to cool down servers, data center water use is not a crisis in Virginia — though that could change in times of drought. 

Data centers in water-stressed areas, like arid parts of Colorado, pose larger water-use concerns. Good noted that the highest data center water demand comes during the hottest, driest months, which is when river flows tend to be lowest and other water needs also peak.

Other water-related issues arise when water is discharged after it has been used in a data center. Good said the environmental impacts of this process and the effects on local waterways and wildlife are an underresearched area that he hopes to study more. 

“When they discharge the water that they used to cool the servers, that water has elevated levels of sodium and other nasty stuff in it,” Good said. “And it’s really hot, so that could impact fish and other animals in streams and rivers.”

What can you do to reduce AI’s climate-changing pollution?

Like most climate solutions, the fight against polluting AI systems happens at all levels, including through regulation, community organizing, and limiting individual use of energy-intensive tools. 

The Trump administration has tended to favor accelerating permits for data centers, and the president signed an executive order in late 2025 attempting to limit states’ ability to regulate their construction and energy use. Yet NPR has reported that there is bipartisan support for AI industry regulations in Congress and in state governments.

People attend a planning meeting to comment on a proposed data center in Nashville, Tennessee. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

At a local scale, residents can attend public meetings and hearings about data centers and ask questions. Well-organized neighbors across the U.S. have shut down projects, passed local moratoriums, and limited electricity rate hikes. 

On the individual level, people can think twice before using a generative AI tool. By reducing unnecessary use of AI tools and encouraging others to do the same, people can reduce demand for these tools and the enormous amounts of energy they require.

How do we build mass powerful movements? Why does the left often implode and self-destruct as it makes gains to challenging the ruling class? How to raise to the occasion…

Dirty Dozen™ food chemicals: Propyl gallate Iris Myers June 29, 2026 EWG’s recommendation

Avoid or limit foods containing propyl gallate.

Propyl gallate is a preservative that has been linked to oxidative stress, which is when reactive molecules build up and damage cells. Laboratory studies have connected propyl gallate and its breakdown products to liver and kidney damage, as well as potential reproductive harm. 

What is propyl gallate?

Propyl gallate is a preservative that prevents oxidation, extending the shelf life of fats and oils in packaged foods. It’s also used as a preservative in cosmetic products.

Which foods contain propyl gallate?

Propyl gallate is most commonly found in processed meat like hot dogs and sausages. It’s also a common ingredient in candy and a range of frozen products, including pizza and other frozen meals.

Look for propyl gallate in product ingredient lists, usually below or next to the Nutrition Facts panel, on the back of the package. Propyl gallate may also be added to food packaging, which companies are not required to disclose.

How is propyl gallate regulated?

The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for overseeing food additives and other ingredients. Propyl gallate was approved for use in food in 1948 and is classified as generally recognized as safe in limited amounts.

The European Union’s European Food Safety Authority reevaluated propyl gallate in 2014 and derived an acceptable daily intake level of 0.5 mg/kg for this single additive. This assessment found that adults and the elderly may have higher exposure due in part to propyl gallate’s presence in food supplements. 

Exposure from food packaging alone was also estimated to exceed the most children’s allowable intake level. But the European authority concluded that because its exposure models were intentionally conservative, the current real world use of propyl gallate was not a safety concern.

Propyl gallate is prohibited in certified organic foods under Department of Agriculture organic standards, which bar synthetic substances.

What does the science say about propyl gallate?

When propyl gallate breaks down in the body at higher levels, it can produce reactive byproducts that cause oxidative stress, damaging cells and DNA. Research shows that one key breakdown product, pyrogallol, is a highly reactive compound that can deplete the body’s natural antioxidant defenses and damage the liver and kidneys.

Propyl gallate has also been linked to reproductive harm in animal and cell studies. One study found it induces male infertility and testicular toxicity in mice at high exposure levels. Another found it to be anti-estrogenic, which can affect female reproductive health. 

A third study showed that higher levels of propyl gallate exposure impaired early embryonic development in mice by triggering oxidative stress and DNA damage. 

A 1982 study by the National Toxicology Program found propyl gallate was not carcinogenic in rats or mice but noted an increased incidence of mostly benign tumors in low-dose male rats. No major regulatory agencies classify propyl gallate as causing cancer. 

Find out more

Learn more about recommendations relating to propyl gallate – and the full EWG Dirty Dozen list of food chemicals – on EWG’s research page.

EWG’s Food Scores provides ratings for more than 150,000 foods and drinks based on nutrition, ingredients and processing concerns, and flags unhealthy ultra-processed foods to help you identify alternatives.

EWG’s Skin Deep® cosmetic database helps to identify harmful chemicals in personal care and beauty products. EWG Verified® products meet the strictest criteria for transparency and health.

And the Healthy Living™ app lets you take these tools with you on the go.

Areas of Focus Food Ultra-Processed Foods Food Chemicals Authors Sarah Reinhardt, MPH, RDN June 30, 2026

Originally published by Mongabay. 

VJOSA-NARTA, Albania — In late April, heavy machinery began moving into the Pishë Poro-Narta protected landscape on Albania’s Adriatic coast without permits or public notice. Bulldozers and excavators felled coastal pine trees, flattened sand dunes, and cut new roads through previously untouched habitat. Then, barbed wire fences went up along the shoreline.

The incursion was the realization of a luxury resort development backed by Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law. The development plans of Kushner’s Affinity Partners, a private equity fund, stretch from the uninhabited Sazan Island into the Vjosa-Narta Protected Landscape, the delta region of Albania’s Vjosa River that includes Pishë Poro-Narta.

Roughly twice the size of Paris, the Vjosa-Narta area shelters flamingos, Dalmatian pelicans (Pelecanus crispus), loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) and more than 70 endangered species, among them the Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus).

Neither Affinity Partners nor the office of the prime minister of Albania responded to Mongabay’s requests for comment.

Aerial drone video of demonstrators gathering at Dalan Beach on June 6 for a rally near the site of the original resort-construction site. Footage by Stefan Lovgren for Mongabay.

When protesters arrived at the site, security guards confronted them. Video of a demonstrator being dragged across the dunes on May 30 near the village of Zvërnec went viral. Soon demonstrations erupted in Tirana, the Albanian capital, in what has since been dubbed the Flamingo Revolution. The protests have grown larger every day, with tens of thousands demanding accountability for corruption, an end to environmental abuses, and the resignation of Edi Rama, Albania’s prime minister.

On June 6, hundreds of demonstrators made their way to Dalan Beach for a symbolic rally near the site of the original incursion. The barbed wire fences had been taken down a few days earlier and the machinery was gone. But no one there believed the battle was done.

Protesters spell out “Save Narta” in the sand at Dalan Beach during a symbolic rally June 6 near the original resort-construction site, as the Adriatic Sea and surrounding hills frame what demonstrators are fighting to protect. Image by Stefan Lovgren for Mongabay.

Vjosa-Narta is one of the last intact delta wildernesses in the Mediterranean. Only 4% of the region’s deltas remain in a relatively undisturbed state, and this is the largest and most biodiverse. More than 2,300 species have been documented across a mosaic of lagoons, reed beds, salt flats and coastal dunes that formed over millennia.

“I call it the place where I go to meet the gods,” Hanais Mhilli, a 36-year-old baker and part-time hiking guide living in Vlorë, a city south of the delta, told Mongabay as he joined other protesters there who were boarding a bus to the beach.

At the heart of the delta lies the Narta Lagoon, a vast, shallow body of brackish water stretching more than 40 square kilometers (15.4 square miles) where the Vjosa River meets the Adriatic Sea. It hosts more than 20,000 wintering waterbirds and ranks among the most important wetlands on the Adriatic Flyway, the migration corridor along which millions of birds travel each year between Africa and Europe.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by A.B (@amadeus.pictures)

“Here we are not just fighting for Albania’s natural heritage, we are fighting for the natural heritage” everywhere, Aleksandër Trajçe, executive director of the Protection and Preservation of Natural Environment in Albania, told Mongabay. “Italy and Spain have destroyed miles and miles of coastline and now they’re trying to restore what they lost. Albania doesn’t have to make the same mistakes.”

Protesters carry an Albanian flag along the beach in the Vjosa-Narta delta after a rally on June 6. Image by Stefan Lovgren for Mongabay. A Biosphere Reserve

For more than a decade, the Vjosa River — flowing from the Pindus Mountains in Greece through southern Albania to the Adriatic Sea — was at the center of one of Europe’s fiercest conservation battles. Though dammed near its headwaters in Greece, it runs entirely free through Albania, its channels shifting and braiding across gravel beds in patterns that once characterized rivers throughout Europe.

When the river faced a cascade of proposed hydropower projects, campaigners organized and won a landmark victory in 2023 as the Vjosa became Europe’s first Wild River National Park, pioneering a conservation model in which the river itself, not just the surrounding land, is protected from development.

The Vjosa River braids freely across a wide gravel floodplain in southern Albania. The Vjosa is one of the last major rivers in Europe to flow largely unimpeded by dams. Image by Stefan Lovgren for Mongabay.

But the delta was left out. Campaigners feared that pushing to include it would jeopardize the entire agreement, and it remained under a weaker designation, the Vjosa-Narta Protected Landscape. Where the national park carries the strictest level of protection under international conservation standards, the protected landscape category permits limited development and human use.

Warning signs quickly stacked up. Maps had already been redrawn to accommodate a new international airport near the lagoon. Then, in early 2024, the Rama government amended the law on protected areas to allow construction of what it vaguely describes as high-end tourism projects, even inside protected zones. Three weeks later, Kushner’s Affinity Partners announced its plans.

“The delta was intentionally left out of the national park,” Trajçe said. “It was part of a political agenda.”

Albania hopes to join the European Union by 2030, a goal that requires closing the environment chapter of accession negotiations. This in turn requires repealing the very amendment that created the high-end tourism exception.

What Trajçe and other conservationists see unfolding now is a race against that deadline. “It’s a rush for development before they change the law,” he said. “It defies the whole purpose of a protected area.”

A cut-out flamingo rises above the crowd at a protest June 9 in Tirana, where the bird has become the unlikely symbol of a movement that Albanians have dubbed the Flamingo Revolution. The ongoing protests were sparked by a planned luxury resort development in the country’s Vjosa-Narta delta region. Image by Stefan Lovgren for Mongabay.

In September 2025, the delta received an additional layer of protection when it was included in the newly designated Vjosa Valley UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, a status the EU had supported as part of Albania’s accession process. But in January, Ivanka Trump, Kushner’s wife, visited Albania with architects and met with Rama, a trip widely interpreted as a signal that the Kushner project was moving toward construction.

Rama has made his position clear. Speaking on the sidelines of the EU-Western Balkans Summit in Montenegro on June 5, he dismissed the international attention the project has drawn. “If it wasn’t Jared, they wouldn’t give a shit,” he told Politico.

From Source to Sea

Conservationists say the Albanian government has also failed to honor its legal obligations under the management plan for the wild river national park. While the park has delivered important results — most of all, stopping the dam projects — violations have mounted.

Large quantities of water have been diverted from the Shushicë River, a major tributary within the national park, for irrigation, in direct violation of the plan, with further plans to pipe its water to the coast for tourism development. Crude oil has spilled into the Vjosa near the town of Poçem, where 150 active oil wells line the river’s middle stretch.

Excavators work in September 2025 to divert water from the Shushicë River, a protected tributary of the Vjosa River within the Vjosa Wild River National Park, seemingly in violation of the park’s legally binding management plan. Image by Stefan Lovgren for Mongabay.

Ulrich Eichelmann, a German conservationist who heads the Vienna-based NGO RiverWatch and was a key driver behind the park’s establishment, said the government has treated the designation primarily as a marketing tool. Almost none of the activities required under the management plan have been implemented, he told Mongabay. “All they focus on is getting more tourists into the area,” Eichelmann said. “Three years after the national park was created, the river system is in a worse state than before.”

The threat to the delta is part of a broader global crisis. Deltas are among the most biologically productive ecosystems on earth, the place where freshwater and saltwater mix to create conditions of great fertility. But many deltas have been relentlessly exploited, drained for agriculture and built over for ports and other infrastructure. A 2024 assessment of all 258 river deltas discharging into the Mediterranean found that no large delta — except those in Albania — still qualifies as relatively intact.

“The delta is an integral part of the wild river,” Besjana Guri, founder of LUMI and winner of a 2025 Goldman Environmental Prize for her work to protect the Vjosa River, told Mongabay. “Ecologically, you cannot divide them.”

A sea of protesters fills one of Tirana’s main boulevards on June 9, with crowds calling for the resignation of Albania’s prime minister, Edi Rama. The ongoing protests were sparked by a planned luxury resort development in the country’s Vjosa-Narta delta region. Image by Stefan Lovgren for Mongabay. Euro Leverage

The Flamingo Revolution shows no sign of losing momentum. The demonstrations have remained largely peaceful, drawing people of all ages — young couples, parents with children, elderly Albanians who lived through decades of communist rule — united by something that has rarely mobilized this society before.

The movement has also attracted the attention of Albania’s anti-corruption authority. SPAK, the independent prosecutorial body that has pursued high-profile corruption cases since its establishment in 2019, has opened a formal investigation into the project, examining not only environmental violations but reportedly extending into questions of land ownership changes and government decisions made in 2024 that cleared the way for development in the protected area.

The EU’s position has sharpened significantly, too. The European Commission has publicly and repeatedly warned Albania that it must terminate the strategic investments law that gives favored projects fast-track treatment, bypassing environmental safeguards. Failure to do so, the commission made clear, could put Albania’s path to EU membership at risk.

“Can the EU really allow Albania to destroy this unique ecosystem on the last stretch before it becomes a member state?” asked Eichelmann before heading out to join other demonstrators on the ninth day of protests in Tirana. “I don’t think so.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Luv.Earth (@luv.earth_luv.you)

Citations

Miho, A., Bego, F., & Beqiraj, S. (2023). Overview of the Vjosa Delta (Pishe Poro – Narta Landscape Protected Area) – Natural Values and Threats. Albanian Journal of Natural and Technical Sciences, 59(XXVIII), 43–68.

Schwarz, U. (2024). Mediterranean Deltas: Assessment of General Intactness Based on Hydromorphological Criteria and Land Use Obstruction. EuroNatur & Riverwatch, Radolfzell/Vienna.

Schwarz, U. (2025). The State of Balkan Rivers 2025: Hydromorphological Assessment and 13-Year Trends. EuroNatur & Riverwatch, Radolfzell/Vienna.

The post Albanian ‘Flamingo Revolution’ Aims to Stop Kushner-Backed Resort on Protected Delta appeared first on The Revelator.

How Indigenous Land and Water Defenders Strategized to Defend the Guatemalan People

This is part two of a two-part series on the Peaceful Resistance La Puya and Kappes v. Guatemala by Jennifer Moore at The Institute for Policy Studies and Ellen Moore at Earthworks. Read the first part here.

Nevada-based Kappes, Cassiday & Associates lost their international arbitration suit against Guatemala in December, 2025. The company was seeking damages because Guatemala’s courts had halted extraction at their gold mine there.

The Guatemalan government built its legal strategy in the case based on the legitimacy of the struggle of Peaceful Resistance La Puya, a social movement of Indigenous land and water defenders. Peaceful Resistance La Puya has maintained a 24-hour camp by the side of a road at the entrance to the mine for fourteen years. 

The government’s case also relied on the wealth of information La Puya had gathered. La Puya provided information on the company’s failures to uphold Guatemalan environmental regulations, its shoddy environmental studies, incomplete permits, and the overwhelming social opposition to the project from the start. 

Don Alvaro Sandoval on the road to the mine Fourteen Years of Resistance and Repression

Since the resistance began in March 2012, La Puya has stood up to many challenges, including violent police repression by the Guatemalan government. La Puya has faced disinformation campaigns, divide and conquer tactics, intimidation and threats from a private security outfit staffed with ex-military personnel, as well as the trauma of legal persecution and intense police repression in order to facilitate the mine’s operation from 2014-2016. 

Documenting Impact and Struggle

Like many frontline struggles opposing mining projects, the resistance built allies to document the human rights violations and to demonstrate the illegalities of the gold mine, including the fact that the project never had a valid municipal construction permit. 

As well, La Puya worked with independent experts to evaluate the mining company’s environmental impact assessment and found serious deficiencies and gaps, although authorities granted KCA a license to operate anyway.

A History of State and Company Repression

In KCA’s arbitration suit, the company argued that it had faced discrimination as a result of the mine suspension and that the government failed to provide it with adequate protection and security from the peaceful resistance to continue expanding the project.

For people from La Puya, KCA’s claim was surreal and infuriating. 

Alvaro Sandoval, from the nearby village of La Choleña, was indignant. He remembers that there were two permanent police check points while the mine was operating. One was on the road in front of the resistance camp and the other at the entrance to the mine.

It made me angry because it isn’t true that the state didn’t provide security to the company so that it could mine. Our bodies bore witness to the sacrifices, fears, anguish. And after all that the state did to us, in collusion with the company… It made me really mad and really upset.
Candelaria Carrera from the community of Carrizal in San Pedro Ayampuc

Weighing In on KCA’s Arbitration Case

Presenting an amicus curiae submission to the arbitration panel is the only formal channel of participation for third parties in ISDS cases. Amicus curiae (friend of the court) submissions are legal arguments presented by third parties who can share relevant information on cases.

However, the arbitration panel has no obligation to consider these requests. La Puya tried to make a submission and was refused. 

Looking back, La Puya member Ana Sandoval thinks this was fortuitous: “In the end, we came out ahead… The amicus brief would have been just a single document presenting our arguments and that would have been it. But the relationship that developed with the government instead is important.”

The Very Difficult Decision to Collaborate with Their Oppressor 

Around the time that La Puya was presenting its request to submit an amicus, the state’s lawyers approached the resistance to ask that they provide information and witnesses to support the state’s defense. The arrogance of the initial approach and the state’s role in repressing La Puya in order to open KCA’s mine provoked hard feelings and challenging discussions within the resistance. 

“It is really difficult,” Candelaria recalls, “because after someone has been messing with your life for so long, and we’ve been here resisting and defending life, defending water, and then they finally notice that we’ve been fighting and then they come and ask that of us, after they’ve knocked us around, criminalized so many of us, beat us… It made us angry.” 

But despite the conflicting feelings that the discussion provoked, La Puya decided to participate, contributing documentation and three witnesses who would testify to the arbitration panel. 

Given the high stakes of the multi-million dollar arbitration, for Alvaro Sandoval, the decision went beyond the local interests of La Puya.

“We’re doing this to defend the people of Guatemala, and if we have to do our part, we have to do whatever we can.”
Alvaro Sandoval, Peaceful Resistance La Puya

The Decision Pays Off

While ISDS proceedings tend to be plagued with misinformation and omissions, the reliance on La Puya´s records helped keep the facts straight. At the same time, La Puya and their national and international allies also brought public attention to the injustice of KCA’s arbitration and its gold mine that should never have been approved. 

Finally, after seven years of proceedings, the three-person arbitration panel ruled against KCA on almost all grounds in December 2025. It ordered the company to pay a portion of the government’s arbitration costs. However, the government would still have to pay over $4 million dollars in legal and arbitral costs. 

KCA’s Loss: A Relief for La Puya and a Wake Up Call for Guatemala  

The ruling was received by the Peaceful Resistance La Puya as an early Christmas gift. The outcome of this specific ISDS claim means the Guatemalan government will pay out less in public funds for a private mining project. But it also offers an important opportunity to reflect critically on how the investor protection system poses a wider threat to the defense of water, territory and Indigenous rights in Guatemala. 

Candelaria Carrera said it was hard to contain her emotion when they heard the decision “in the interest of the Guatemalan people; to ensure that public services, which are already inadequate, are not even less capable of reaching the population.”

They also felt joy at the role La Puya had played, “by providing information and agreeing to give interviews… La Puya contributed to this arbitration ruling in favor of Guatemala.” 

The post “We Have to Do Whatever We Can” appeared first on Earthworks.

Indigenous Land and Water Defenders Celebrate Arbitration Result

This is part one of a two-part series on the Peaceful Resistance La Puya and Kappes v. Guatemala. Read the second part here.

For fourteen years, the social movement Peaceful Resistance La Puya has maintained a 24-hour camp on the side of a dusty road just north of Guatemala City. The camp sits at the entrance to an open pit gold mine owned by Nevada-based Kappes, Cassiday & Associates (KCA). 

A lot can happen in that time. Kids who grew up at the encampment left home and went to college. Elders who spent their days supporting La Puya passed away, their commitment memorialized in photos displayed on a banner. 

This winter, what started as a handful of brave women risking their lives to physically block the entrance to the project in March 2012 contributed to a critical step in defense of land and water. 

Peaceful Resistance La Puya celebrated the 14th anniversary of its resistance camp in 2026. A Victory over Corporate Power

In 2016, KCA brought an international arbitration case against Guatemala for the Guatemalan courts’ decision to suspend operations at its mine. The case relied on privileges for transnational investors in the Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement. 

KCA sued Guatemala for nearly half a billion-dollars after La Puya’s legal actions achieved the suspension of the mine. A permanent decision from the government about the future of the mine depends on results of an as of yet ongoing court-ordered consultation with affected Maya Kaqchikel and Xinka peoples. 

In December 2025, an arbitration panel at the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes concluded that the country did not have to pay damages to KCA for the decision to close its mine. It will still need to cover over $4 million in legal and arbitration costs.

Peaceful Resistance La Puya contributed significantly to Guatemala’s defense during the case. Leaders pointed out that countries often face unfavorable odds in an arbitration system skewed in investors’ favor.

We feel satisfied and vindicated in our peaceful struggle. KCA lost its wager to make millions of dollars through this international arbitration process, which it initiated knowing that it would never win the consent of the communities that have always said no to its unviable project. This project is so bad that the company couldn’t even defend it in an arbitration system designed to protect the investments of transnational companies. 

—Statement by Peaceful Resistance La Puya

An Unjust System

Investor State Dispute Settlement is a system envisioned by and for extractive corporations seeking to maintain control over the natural commons, especially in the Global South. As a one-way system in which only investors can sue governments through private arbitration, it only values corporate rights and deepens the already huge power imbalance between mining-affected communities and project-backers. 

Investors can leap-frog over local and national-level decision-making to bring their cases to arbitration tribunals presided over by corporate lawyers. They can do this without having to exhaust every legal avenue in national courts. This system frequently excludes affected people from participation and has no obligation to consider their rights or perspectives at all. 

Oil, gas, and mining companies are the most litigious in the ISDS system. Issues of Indigenous rights, community opposition and environmental protection often underlie their claims. These cases are used to coerce countries into ignoring these important priorities or to otherwise compensate firms for millions or even billions of dollars.

KCA’s suit was the first that Guatemala has faced from a mining company. 

International Arbitration Cases Undermine Self-Determination

Over 2,500 free trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties include provisions that allow transnational investors to unilaterally sue governments before a private arbitration panel when decisions are made that they believe affect the value of their investment. 

As a new report outlines, Guatemala exposed itself to ISDS claims when it began signing bilateral investment treaties and free trade agreements following the peace accords in 1996. Since then, it has faced 13 arbitration claims, over half of which stem from the energy sector and several of which — like KCA v. Guatemala —relate to underlying community struggles for water, collective well-being, and self-determination.

Another of these, also decided in 2025, did not go well for Guatemalans. Energía y Renovación Holding, a company owned by Guatemalan partners but registered in Panama, was awarded $64.5 million plus interest and costs. This company attempted to develop a hydroelectric project on Indigenous lands in the Yichk’isis (Ixquisis) Microregion of Huehuetenango despite the communities’ opposition expressed in a community-led “good faith” consultation and repression of the movement. Guatemala is attempting to annul this decision.  

Overall, arbitration tribunals have ordered the government to pay more than $160 million to investors, an amount equivalent to more than three times the budget of Guatemala’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources in 2025.

While La Puya values the lessons they gained from an effective inside-outside strategy during the course of KCA’s ISDS suit against Guatemala, they recognize that the threat is ongoing. They are calling on Guatemalan authorities to review the commitments that expose the country to further suits. 

The post A Mining Company Loses Its Bet appeared first on Earthworks.

Activists upstage climate institute launch Channel News brendan 29th June 2026 Teaser Media

Perkembangan Teknologi Mengubah Wajah Permainan Digital

Transformasi teknologi telah membawa perubahan besar dalam industri hiburan digital. Jika dahulu permainan berbasis internet hanya mengandalkan tampilan sederhana dengan fitur yang terbatas, kini berbagai platform menghadirkan pengalaman yang jauh lebih interaktif, cepat, dan responsif. Salah satu istilah yang semakin sering muncul dalam pembahasan dunia permainan digital adalah Slot Maxwin, yang dikenal sebagai bagian dari evolusi permainan modern dengan dukungan teknologi terkini.

Istilah Slot Maxwin sendiri merujuk pada permainan digital yang menawarkan peluang hadiah besar melalui sistem permainan yang telah dirancang menggunakan teknologi mutakhir. Popularitasnya tidak hanya dipengaruhi oleh potensi hadiah, tetapi juga oleh kualitas visual, stabilitas sistem, hingga kemudahan akses melalui berbagai perangkat digital.

Seiring meningkatnya penggunaan smartphone, jaringan internet berkecepatan tinggi, dan komputasi berbasis cloud, pengalaman bermain kini menjadi lebih lancar dibandingkan beberapa tahun lalu. Inilah yang membuat permainan digital modern mampu menjangkau lebih banyak pengguna dari berbagai kalangan.

Teknologi Modern di Balik Slot Maxwin Digital

Perkembangan Slot Maxwin tidak terlepas dari berbagai inovasi teknologi yang terus diperbarui oleh pengembang perangkat lunak. Setiap elemen permainan dirancang agar mampu memberikan pengalaman yang nyaman sekaligus menarik bagi pengguna.

1. Grafis Berkualitas Tinggi

Salah satu perubahan paling mencolok adalah peningkatan kualitas grafis. Permainan modern kini menggunakan teknologi visual beresolusi tinggi dengan animasi yang lebih halus. Setiap detail mulai dari karakter, efek kemenangan, hingga latar permainan dibuat sedemikian rupa agar menciptakan pengalaman yang lebih imersif.

Teknologi rendering terbaru memungkinkan tampilan tetap tajam baik dimainkan melalui komputer maupun perangkat seluler.

2. Audio Interaktif

Selain visual, kualitas suara juga mengalami perkembangan signifikan. Efek audio dirancang mengikuti setiap aktivitas pemain sehingga permainan terasa lebih hidup.

Musik latar yang dinamis dipadukan dengan efek suara khusus ketika fitur bonus atau kemenangan muncul mampu meningkatkan suasana bermain secara keseluruhan.

3. Sistem Responsif Multi-Platform

Saat ini sebagian besar permainan Slot Maxwin telah menggunakan desain responsif. Teknologi ini memungkinkan permainan berjalan optimal pada berbagai ukuran layar tanpa mengurangi kualitas tampilan.

Baik menggunakan Android, iPhone, tablet, maupun komputer desktop, pengguna tetap memperoleh pengalaman bermain yang relatif konsisten.

Peran Random Number Generator (RNG)

Salah satu teknologi yang menjadi fondasi permainan digital modern adalah Random Number Generator (RNG). Sistem ini bertugas menghasilkan kombinasi angka secara acak dalam setiap putaran permainan.

Dengan adanya RNG, hasil setiap putaran bersifat independen sehingga tidak dipengaruhi oleh hasil sebelumnya maupun berikutnya. Teknologi ini digunakan untuk menjaga konsistensi mekanisme permainan sesuai desain yang telah ditetapkan oleh pengembang.

Keberadaan RNG juga menjadi salah satu indikator bahwa permainan modern memanfaatkan sistem komputasi yang lebih kompleks dibandingkan permainan digital generasi awal.

Kesimpulan

Slot Maxwin digital mencerminkan bagaimana kemajuan teknologi telah mengubah pengalaman bermain menjadi lebih modern, interaktif, dan mudah diakses. Berbagai inovasi seperti grafis berkualitas tinggi, sistem Random Number Generator (RNG), komputasi awan, kecerdasan buatan, desain responsif, serta penguatan keamanan digital menjadi fondasi utama yang mendukung perkembangan permainan saat ini.

Dengan terus berkembangnya teknologi informasi, permainan digital diperkirakan akan menghadirkan pengalaman yang semakin personal, efisien, dan inovatif. Bagi pengguna, memahami teknologi di balik permainan tidak hanya menambah wawasan, tetapi juga memberikan gambaran mengenai bagaimana industri hiburan digital terus beradaptasi mengikuti kemajuan zaman.

Headline News:

• “Booming Air Tourism Could Fuel European Rent Hikes Of Up To €250 A Year” • With unchecked growth in tourism and air traffic growth, there is a housing crisis in Europe. Some of the most popular destinations, like Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece, have seen protests from residents in the summer months due to the strain on affordable housing. [CleanTechnica]

Home in Greece (Dimitris Kiriakakis, Unsplash, cropped)

• “Swiss Glaciers Melting At Alarming Rate” • The snow and ice that fell on Swiss glaciers last winter is expected to be completely melted away by June 29, Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland has reported. Melting from now to October will shrink the size of the glaciers. The drastic loss is due to the heatwaves that swept over Europe this month. [Euronews]
• “French Deaths Soar As Extreme Heat Breaks European Records” • France saw around 1,000 additional deaths last week at the height of its record-smashing heat wave, the country’s public health agency said. The head of the WHO warned that Europe is now the fastest-warming continent and needs to do more to protect its citizens. [ABC News]
• “‘Insane’ Shortage Of Computer Hardware?” • In the face of the huge demand for computer hardware for data centers, we got news that Apple is raising prices on a bunch of products. Apple CEO Tim Cook said raising prices was “unavoidable.” Elon Musk also chimed in, saying the price surge is unlike anything he has seen “in any area in over 40 years.” [CleanTechnica]
• “Three Firefighters Killed And Two Injured Responding Wildfire On Utah-Colorado Border” • Three firefighters were killed on Saturday while responding to the Snyder Fire, a wildfire burning along the Utah-Colorado border, the US Wildland Fire Service announced. Two other firefighters are being treated for burn injuries, the service said. [ABC News]

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

Perrine Fournier is a trade, mining, and forest campaigner at Fern. 

The threat that mining critical raw materials poses to some of the planet’s most important ecosystems is beyond dispute. To prevent it, some places on Earth must be declared off-limits for mining under any circumstances. Work has already began to identify them.

A global power struggle to secure strategic resources powering the energy transition, AI and weapons systems is driving growing demand for minerals such as copper, cobalt, lithium, nickel and manganese, which are used to make electric vehicles (EVs), batteries, wind turbines and other clean energy technologies needed to transition away from fossil fuels.

This mining boom is compounding the threats that extraction poses to precious ecosystems – including tropical forests which are vital to address climate change – and the communities who depend on them.

Preventing this environmental destruction and ensuring that mining is carried out within planetary boundaries is urgent. One solution that is gaining traction has long been advocated by Indigenous groups: creating mining no-go zones.

Fern and a group of NGOs in consultations with Indigenous Peoples’ organisations have began to sketch out a methodology to map out where mining poses unacceptable social, environmental and human rights-related risks and should be prohibited.

Off-limits: Fragile ecosystems that store carbon

The methodology is based on six criteria to determine where mining should be off-limits.

This includes areas protected under international conventions; areas with high conservation value from intact forests to key biodiversity hotspots; forests, peatlands and wetlands that are critical for carbon storage; significant ecosystems such as small islands, mangroves and grasslands; critical water bodies and Indigenous Peoples’ territories.

Around half of the of the metals and minerals needed for the energy transition are located on or near Indigenous Peoples’ territories.

A case in point is Brazil, one of the most mineral-rich countries on earth. Recent research shows that the expansion of mining threatens the conservation of about 363,000 km2 of protected land in the Brazilian Amazon, which consist mainly of forests, and is home to 195,000 traditional and Indigenous people.

Deforestation is a major driver of climate change as it releases carbon stored in the trees into the atmosphere, weakening the forests’ role as a carbon sink. Most of the Brazilian Amazon should therefore be off-limits to mining, both to protect Indigenous Peoples’ rights and because of its crucial role for the climate and biodiversity.  

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, mining has had a devastating impact on the precious Miombo forest, one of the world’s largest dry forest ecosystems, and local peoples’ food security. This too is an area where mining should not be allowed to take place.

Protected areas must be default no-go zones

In Europe, efforts to secure access to minerals is also threatening fragile ecosystems. Recent reporting revealed that the European Commission disregarded expert advice when selecting “strategic” mining sites eligible for streamlined permitting procedures, with several environmentally and socially controversial projects added to the list after they initially failed to meet expert assessments. 

One project which met the expert assessment but is nevertheless attracting controversy is the Sakatti nickel mining project in Finnish Lapland. 

• Jun 10, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier Brazil jostles for rare earths share as US-China rivalry heats up With the world’s second-largest reserves of rare earths after China, Brazil is catching the eye of US and Chinese companies – spurring the government’s critical minerals policy push Read more
• May 27, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier Recycling could meet half of Europe’s critical mineral needs by 2050 A new report by an EU-funded research project says the bloc could harness its “urban mines” to reduce its dependence on China for energy transition minerals Read more
• Jun 5, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier The scramble to stockpile critical minerals could drive up energy transition costs Researchers warn that uncoordinated stockpiling could push up prices of minerals needed for clean energy technologies and delay their roll out Read more

Part of its nickel deposit lies under a rich peat bog ecosystem, a major carbon store which developed when glacial rivers and a lake melted at the end of the late Ice Age. The site is protected under Finnish law and is as part of the Natura 2000 network intended to protect Europe’s most valuable species and habitats. These legal safeguards are on the verge of being overridden. Such protected areas should always remain off-limits to mining.

Kicking starting a discussion

To prevent mining from undermining human rights and global climate and biodiversity goals, we urgently need to adopt a global and precautionary approach. This should start with a shared definition of which areas on land and sea should be considered off-limits for extraction.

The methodology we propose is intended to kick-start a broader and transparent discussion, based on scientific, legal and social criteria, in which rights-holders and Indigenous Peoples’ organisations have a seat at the table. No mining should go ahead if it doesn’t have the Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of Indigenous Peoples’ or local communities.

Many of the restricted areas are bound to lie in forested tropical countries in the Global South, which understandably want to capitalise on their resources to spur industrial development and create jobs. But history has taught us that relying on a single resource for development runs the risk of being trapped in a resource curse. The more diversified an economy is, the more secure it is. 

Reducing mineral demand

Our modelling shows that for minerals such as nickel, cobalt, lithium, there are sufficient resources that could be mined outside of these restrictive areas to wean the global economy away from climate-wrecking fossil fuels and shift to clean energy systems.

However, that requires hard policy choices, such as reducing mineral demand by promoting more efficient vehicles and alternative battery technologies that are less reliant on critical minerals, as well as better public transport, active travel and car sharing opportunities.

In addition, recycling has a major role to play. A major study recently showed that Europe could meet half of its critical mineral needs through recycling by 2050.

Some mining to access the materials the world needs to address climate change is both inevitable and necessary. But agreeing on a framework to restrict mining in the world’s most sensitive areas will protect them from its ravages, and break the destructive patterns of the past.

The post We need no-go mining zones for the energy transition to be just: Here’s how it could work appeared first on Climate Home News.