In 2021, Win­ter Storm Uri brought record-break­ing low tem­per­a­tures to the peo­ple of Texas, over­whelm­ing the under-designed Texas pow­er grid. 4.5 mil­lion homes and busi­ness­es lost pow­er, over $16 bil­lion in elec­tric­i­ty costs were over­charged, and over 240 peo­ple died due to freez­ing tem­per­a­tures and com­pli­ca­tions from the storm. This case study dis­cuss­es what went wrong that caus­es the lights to go out, includ­ing a sum­ma­ry of the key play­ers respon­si­ble for the disaster.

After improp­er dis­pos­al of 1,4‑dioxane at a man­u­fac­tur­ing plant out­side of Ann Arbor, MI a three square mile ground­wa­ter plume has slow­ly spread through­out Scio Town­ship and West­ern Ann Arbor. Almost 40-years after its dis­cov­ery this harm­ful chem­i­cal has closed over 100 res­i­den­tial wells and threat­ens drink­ing water infra­struc­ture in Ann Arbor and sur­round­ing areas.

Detroit is under­tak­ing a $40 mil­lion stormwa­ter man­age­ment endeav­or in the Far West neigh­bor­hood and Rouge Park. The project includes the cre­ation of two new deten­tion basins and major sew­er sys­tem upgrades aimed at reduc­ing flood risk for 1,200 homes, min­i­miz­ing the num­ber of CSO events in the Rouge Riv­er, improv­ing local water qual­i­ty, and enhanc­ing recre­ation­al spaces.

Res­i­dents of Mount Ver­non, New York, pre­dom­i­nant­ly from minor­i­ty back­grounds, have suf­fered for decades under a fail­ing waste­water infra­struc­ture that is now being addressed with a sig­nif­i­cant $150 mil­lion invest­ment plan. Chron­ic sewage back­ups have cre­at­ed a per­pet­u­al state of envi­ron­men­tal injus­tice, adverse­ly impact­ing the health and qual­i­ty of life of the com­mu­ni­ty. This long-await­ed inter­ven­tion, cham­pi­oned by May­or Shawyn Pat­ter­son-Howard, rep­re­sents a piv­otal move towards restor­ing pub­lic health, envi­ron­men­tal qual­i­ty, and social equi­ty in Mount Vernon.

The NEOM project, Sau­di Ara­bi­a’s futur­is­tic $500 bil­lion urban devel­op­ment, faces inter­na­tion­al scruti­ny for human rights vio­la­tions involv­ing the indige­nous Huwai­t­at tribe.

The Berke­ley Pit in Butte, Mon­tana is a for­mer open-pit cop­per mine that has tran­si­tioned from an engine of eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty to a site of envi­ron­men­tal and human­i­tar­i­an con­cern due to its trans­for­ma­tion into a tox­ic lake fol­low­ing the clo­sure of min­ing oper­a­tions. The Berke­ley Pit illus­trates the press­ing need for sus­tain­able min­ing prac­tices and robust post-min­ing strate­gies to address envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion and pol­lu­tant expo­sure to local communities.

The con­struc­tion indus­try in the Unit­ed States relies sig­nif­i­cant­ly on the labor and exper­tise of immi­grant work­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly undoc­u­ment­ed indi­vid­u­als. These work­ers are des­per­ate­ly need­ed to fill the 500,000-worker short­age in con­struc­tion, yet they face severe chal­lenges of eco­nom­ic exploita­tion, increased safe­ty haz­ards, and a hos­tile polit­i­cal atmosphere.

The con­struc­tion indus­try in the Unit­ed States relies sig­nif­i­cant­ly on the labor and exper­tise of immi­grant work­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly undoc­u­ment­ed indi­vid­u­als. These work­ers are des­per­ate­ly need­ed to fill the 500,000-worker short­age in con­struc­tion, yet they face severe chal­lenges of eco­nom­ic exploita­tion, increased safe­ty haz­ards, and a hos­tile polit­i­cal atmosphere.