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Report Links Data Center to Rare Cancers, Raising Questions About Central Ohioans’ Safety
A report linked Amazon data centers to miscarriages and rare cancers, drawing concerns about data centers’ presence in central Ohio. According to a report from Rolling Stone, officials in Morrow County, Oregon, linked dangerous levels of nitrates in the county’s water supply to the presence of an Amazon data center. The report alleged the data center’s immense water demands made nitrogen seep into the area’s underground water supply faster than it could be filtered out, leading to miscarriages, rare cancers and other health complications. Amazon strongly denied the connection.
Data centers have been linked to health concerns far beyond the scope of Rolling Stone’s report, worrying some central Ohioans. According to DataCenters.com, Amazon has 28 data centers in central Ohio, mostly near New Albany, Hilliard and Dublin. In all, Data Center Map tallied 133 data centers in central Ohio, more than half of Ohio’s 215 total data center projects. “It’s been clear to me that there is a lack of understanding and a need for education,” Dublin resident and data center activist Amy Swank said.
“What these really do, how they really impact our electricity, our water, our community noise pollution level, light pollution level, and then what are the economic benefits to having one? I don’t think people truly grasp that.”
US, Mexico Sign New Agreement on Tijuana River Sewage Crisis, EPA Says
The U.S. and Mexico signed a new agreement aimed at addressing the ongoing Tijuana River sewage crisis, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Monday in a statement. The decades-long issue of Mexican sewage flowing into the Tijuana River and across the U.S. border before emptying into the Pacific Ocean near San Diego has been a point of contention between the U.S. and Mexico.
The new agreement saw the U.S. and Mexican Sections of the International Boundary and Water Commission agree to infrastructure projects, research, enhanced monitoring, “and planning for operation and maintenance of critical sites and systems that will account for future population growth in Tijuana,” the EPA said.
Earlier this year, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Mexican Environment Minister Alicia Barcena signed a memorandum of understanding in which Mexico agreed to expedite the expenditure of $93 million worth of improvements to the Tijuana sewage system and commit to several projects to account for future population growth and maintenance.
As Trump Promotes Coal, No Respite for Communities Choking on the Industry’s Dust
David Jones Jr. is no stranger to treacherous work. For years, the 45-year-old South Baltimore resident made his living scaling tall buildings to install signs. But for Jones, the real danger has been in and around his home: Jones and his wife live a few hundred feet away from a large coal terminal where dust from mountainous, uncovered coal piles has blown over the community day after day for decades. “You can’t get away from it,” said Jones. “You feel it in your eyes, you feel it on your skin. You taste it. It’s in your nose.”
While there is limited research on its effects in communities, coal dust exposure has been linked in scientific research to worsened asthma, heart and lung problems, among other health effects. Jones and his wife used to wash the coal dust from their windows as often as they could, he said. But after 25 years living in a home that once belonged to Jones’ grandfather, they’ve given up. “It’s just not worth it anymore,” said Jones. “I would have to wash them every day. It’s snowing right now. My house literally looks like it cries coal dust.”
Jones said he sometimes wakes up in the morning spitting up blood or “black stuff” he believes is from the coal dust. Even when the couple keeps their windows closed, the dust gets in the house when they open and close their doors, said Jones. In the summertime, when local kids play outside, “they’re sweating black,” he said.
Jury Says Johnson & Johnson Owes $40 Million to 2 Cancer Patients Who Used Talcum Powders
A Los Angeles jury awarded $40 million on Friday to two women who claimed that talcum powder made by Johnson & Johnson caused their ovarian cancer. The giant health care company said it would appeal the jury’s liability verdict and compensatory damages. The verdict is the latest development in a longstanding legal battle over claims that talc in Johnson’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower body power was connected to ovarian cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer that strikes the lungs and other organs.
Johnson & Johnson stopped selling powder made with talc worldwide in 2023. In October, another California jury ordered J&J to pay $966 million to the family of a woman who died of mesothelioma, claiming she developed the cancer because the baby powder she used was contaminated with the carcinogen asbestos.
In the latest case, the jury awarded $18 million to Monica Kent and $22 million to Deborah Schultz and her husband. “The only thing they did was be loyal to Johnson & Johnson as a customer for only 50 years,’’ said their attorney, Daniel Robinson of the Robinson Calcagnie law firm in Newport Beach, California. “That loyalty was a one-way street.’’
‘We’re Basically Slitting Our Own Throat’: Montana Rolls Back Water-Quality Standards
Montana is famous for its waterways, speckled with sparkling high-alpine lakes and ribboned with trout-filled streams. It’s also the birthplace of several major rivers, including the Missouri, and home to Flathead Lake, the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi. But now, the Montana Legislature, with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) backing as of October, is rolling back protections for these waters.
Montana was once a leader when it came to regulating pollution in its waterways. In 2014, it became the first state in the country to impose numeric water-quality standards on dissolved nitrogen and phosphorus, two major sources of nutrient pollution, in wadable streams as well as some river segments. When excessive nitrogen and phosphorus, generally from mining, municipal wastewater and agricultural operations, enter waterways, they can trigger a flurry of slimy green algal growth.
This is more than just an eyesore: Such algal blooms deplete oxygen in the water — which can cause massive fish die-offs — choke off its depths from sunlight and release toxins capable of sickening humans who consume the tainted water.
Water-quality standards are the objectives that each state or tribe sets, with the approval of the EPA, to ensure that its waters are safe for human health and aquatic life. Earlier this year, however, state legislators passed a trio of bills that repealed the numeric standards, leaving the state with existing narrative standards.
