Food Safety, Sewage Discharge and Climate Chage in Pictures

In the past week, I’ve started to feel more capable and reassured. I can keep tottering for work-life balance. I can lift heavier weights. I can tackle this big project. It’s a mindset shift, probably buoyed by the longer days, and it’s powerful.

One other thought that has propelled me is that I am part of things: Mother Nature, a community, a circle of given and chosen family. Feelings of connectedness help me remember I am but a player of a larger team—and that while I don’t have to carry a metaphorical weight on my back, I do have to play my part. That simple phrase has allowed me to recommit my efforts so I can continue to show up for others.

I hope that regardless of where you are, what you’re doing and what you’re working toward, you find some way to reconnect, recharge and refocus so you can channel your energy into doing the most good for the world.

Until next time, stay safe, be well and be kind!

Food Safety

There has been a lot of activity, sometimes contradictory activity, from Washington the past few months. Food Processing, a sibling publication of EHS Today, explores the downstream effects of tariffs with Mexico and Canada on food safety.

I found this article interesting because it goes far beyond acknowledging that costs of certain imported would rise with tariffs. Author Benjamin Miller explains how domestic growers and manufacturers could experience such severe production pressures that food safety measures are knowingly or unknowingly followed. For the former, this could include not properly training new employees and the latter could include extended production runs between sanitation cycles.

Miller also explains that such price strains could give rise to sophisticated black market food supply chain operations and undisclosed substitutions or dilutions to consumers. It’s not hard to imagine many such scenarios—spoilage, traceability difficulties or undisclosed food allergies—that could put consumers at risk.

It seems to me that the greatest concern about tariffs at the grocery store is not merely more expensive avocados, tomatoes, meats, cheeses and tequila, among other items; it’s a more fundamental issue of whether we can continue to trust the safety and security of the food that we buy and eat.

Read the full article here.

Sewage Discharge

The Supreme Court of the United States ruled on March 4 that it had sided with the city of San Francisco and against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a matter related to the Clean Water Act.

San Francisco’s Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant has been accused of discharging huge quantities of raw sewage into the Pacific Ocean during big storms for years, as the city runs stormwater and sewage through the same pipes. The city would have needed to spend billions to upgrade its infrastructure to be in compliance with the Clean Water Act, which it said was too expensive.

That’s no longer necessary as the ruling make a permittee responsible for the quality of the water discharged—not the water quality’s “end result.” “[The EPA’s] reliance on the Combined Sewer Overflow Policy is misplaced as that policy authorizes narrative limitations but not end-result requirements,” writes Justice Samuel Alito in the majority opinion.

Going forward, the EPA must be more specific about what permit holders can and cannot do.

Miranda Willson and Pamela King write for E&E News, an environmental and energy focused subsidiary of Politico, that: “At issue in the case are permits issued under EPA’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, a key Clean Water Act tool for safeguarding rivers, lakes and streams nationwide. The ruling allows EPA to continue to use narrative permit language pertaining to water quality in some cases, instead of only numerical limits, but sets up a massive workload for the agency and other permit writers.”

Beyond the ruling for the city of San Francisco’s wastewater treatment plant, there are serious concerns for public health nationwide due to more sewage pollution in waterways that could increase the risk of waterborne diseases, such as typhoid fever, cholera, giardiasis, E. coli, Hepatitis A and salmonella.

Read more about the court’s ruling here.

Climate Change in Pictures

Last year, I had the privilege to visit the Rocky Mountain National Park. Throughout our time there, my partner and I reflected on how we were treading on such a vast amount of preserved land. Perhaps why this story from The New York Times caught my eye.

Author Kim Beil, an art historian who teaches at Stanford University, was part of a small group led by geology professor Jeff Munroe that backpacked into the Uinta Mountains in Wyoming to recreate a series of photographs William Henry Jackson captured in 1870 for the United States Geological Survey. Munroe had re-photographed the path in 2001. They went back in 2024 to see how much of the landscape has been altered due to climate change.

Beil writes: “When I asked Jeff, before our trip, about why he planned to rephotograph these sites again just 23 years later, he explained that the pace of climate-driven changes is accelerating. ‘If I had looked at this landscape between 1950 and 1975, it might have changed a little bit,’ he said. ‘But I think between 2001 and 2024, it’s going to have changed a lot more, in roughly the same amount of time.’”

I don't want to give too much away, so I encourage you to see the photos and read about their journey here.