The Flint disaster and other cities’ ‘cheating’ called criminal in nature by some, but scientists believe the remedies are fairly straightforward

A tragedy of widespread testing failures in US drinking water is that experts believe the remedies are fairly straightforward – if there is political will.

As the Guardian has revealed, at least 33 cities across 17 states have used water testing methods that regulators and experts have said may inaccurately reduce lead levels found in tests.

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Source: Guardian Environment

French environment minister says she fears more bodies will be found as waters recede in central villages

A third person has died in France from the country’s worst flooding in decades, as the death toll across Europe reached at least 17 in a week.

The French prime minister, Manuel Valls, did not give any details about the latest victim of the floods, which caused the river Seine in Paris to rise to 6.1 metres (20ft) overnight.

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Source: Guardian Environment

The adventurer is convinced that managers can transform their businesses by spending time camping out in the wilderness

When it comes to the great outdoors, Ben Fogle is easily excited. After asking him a question about the benefits of working-age people getting out into the wilderness, he quickly launches into a passionate response.

“It gave me more pleasure than I can even explain to you,” he says about a recent meeting with three factory workers from Manchester, as he describes them, on the summit of Scafell Pike in the Lake District. The three men, probably in their 40s and a little overweight, he says, did not look like your typical hikers on England’s highest mountain.

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Source: Guardian Environment

Russell Reichelt says he has no problem with environmental lobbyists portraying the seriousness of the damage but a lot of the reef remains unscathed

The chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Russell Reichelt, has played down a report that said he accused activist scientists and lobby groups of distorting maps and data to misrepresent the extent of coral bleaching on the reef.

The authority withdrew from a joint announcement from the national coral bleaching taskforce about the extent of coral bleaching earlier in the week because Reichtel believed maps accompanying the research did not depict the full picture.

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Source: Guardian Environment

Trawsfynydd, Gwynedd, Wales They are constantly in motion, dancing out of the gorge in undulating flight

Pont y Llyn Du on the Afon Gain, in the lonely moors east of Trawsfynydd, above the old gold mines at Gwynfynydd, is one of those places at which you’d never arrive except by design. It’s one of my favourite haunts in the Welsh hills.

The peaty hill stream rushes down through a miniature rocky gorge under the old humped bridge to debouch into a round pool of amber depth, encircled by green pastures. You can traverse through on rock ledges beneath the arch, plunge into the pool if you’re hardy and of the “wild swimming” persuasion. What most appeals to me are the spirits of the place.

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Source: Guardian Environment

Rural Australia is being progressively hollowed out of its people. Will it be reduced to a vast mechanised place of scant human habitation?

These cows are in no hurry. Each just meanders to the dairy, all rolling hindquarters, swishing tails and loping heads, the blue-black and tan Rorschach ink-blot patching of their hides vivid against the washed-out Australian summer light. They stop as they please along the way. Chew cud. Moo. Drop pats. Moo again. They nudge the soft earth or a companion before snorting and continuing on up through the paddocks to the shed.

It’s milking time – just as it’s always milking time in this dairy for about 360 Friesians at Camden, where the outer orbit of Sydney gives way to the gentle rise that becomes the southern highlands. These cows are not held to the human clock and milked according to the dairy farmer’s traditionally antisocial (for both people and cows) timetable, at the crack of dawn and again at dusk. And they don’t have to line up for hours, either, cramped in a race, their udders bursting, in order for a dairy worker to quickly wash their teats, apply the suction cups, extract their milk, disinfect and send them on their way.

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Source: Guardian Environment

Four-year package, to be announced by Adam Bandt on Saturday, will allow the ventures to generate tax-free profits from the electricity created

The Greens will announce that they will spend $265.2m on community-owned renewable energy projects, including allowing these to generate tax-free profits from the electricity created.

The Greens energy spokesman, Adam Bandt, will announce the four-year package on Saturday in North Fitzroy at an apartment block seeking to establish a community-owned renewable project.

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Source: Guardian Environment

Eight cars derailed 70 miles east of Portland on Friday, sending plumes of black smoke into the sky and forcing roads to close and schools to evacuate

A train towing cars full of oil derailed on Friday in Oregon’s scenic Columbia river gorge, sparking a fire that sent a plume of black smoke high into the sky.

The accident happened around noon near the town of Mosier, about 70 miles east of Portland. It involved eight cars filled with oil, and one was burning, said Ken Armstrong, state forestry department spokesman. There were no fatalities or injuries.

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Source: Guardian Environment

Environmental crime is now the world’s fourth biggest crime and is a growing threat to security and natural resources, say UN and Interpol

The value of the black market industry behind crimes such as ivory smuggling, illegal logging and toxic waste dumping has jumped by 26% since 2014 to between $91bn (£62bn) and $258bn, according to an assessment by the UN and Interpol.

Environmental crime is now the world’s fourth largest illicit enterprise after drug smuggling, counterfeiting and human trafficking and has outstripped the illegal trade in small arms.

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Source: Guardian Environment