Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Nina B. Elkadi @ninaelkadi.com · 16h

Dispatches from La Paz County, Arizona: “There’s a lot of big straws sucking out the majority of the water,” Famiglietti says. “What I didn’t have the heart to say to residents is, you just spent $100,000 on a new well but you’re probably going to have to spend another $100,000 in a few years.”

In the Arizona Desert, Where Your Neighbor Is an Alfalfa Farm

Water resource “hedge funds” and corporate farms are running the desert dry.

sentientmedia.org

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Reposted by Nina B. Elkadi

Sentient @sentientmedia.org · 1d

Iowa slaughterhouse Agri Star was fined just $50,000 for violating its water pollution discharge permit 60 times. This equals less than the penalty for one single day of violation under the Clean Water Act. @ninaelkadi.com reports:

‘Sweetheart Deal’ Reached for Polluting Slaughterhouse

Agri Star was fined just $50,000 for violating its water pollution discharge permit 60 times.

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Reposted by Nina B. Elkadi

Jenny Splitter @jennysplitter.bsky.social · 2d

"Although foreign-owned private farms make-up fewer than one percent of farms in Arizona, the outcome of the extraction, foreign-owned or not, is the same: The big guys, who can keep digging deeper and deeper, are the ones who will survive." New reporting from @ninaelkadi.com here:

Sentient @sentientmedia.org · 2d

In La Paz County Arizona, like 80% of the state, there are few restrictions on groundwater use.

We went to investigate why the desert is running dry, and who stands to profit.

Meet the residents who fear that without change, the area will become unlivable.
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In the Arizona Desert, Where Your Neighbor Is an Alfalfa Farm

Meet the residents of La Paz County Arizona. Here, like 80% of the state, there are few restrictions on groundwater use. We went to investigate why the desert is running dry, and who stands to…

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Nina B. Elkadi @ninaelkadi.com · 2d

Companies located in places with regulations on groundwater extraction (like Saudi Arabia) are growing their cattle feed in a largely unregulated part of the world: the Arizona desert. Local residents are losing water access as a result. My latest, from a visit to La Paz County, Arizona:

Sentient @sentientmedia.org · 2d

Read the full reporting by @ninaelkadi.com:
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In the Arizona Desert, Where Your Neighbor Is an Alfalfa Farm

Water resource “hedge funds” and corporate farms are running the desert dry.

sentientmedia.org

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Nina B. Elkadi @ninaelkadi.com · 9d

apropos of nothing, btw

The afterlife of a ghost-written paper: How corporate authorship shaped two decades of glyphosate safety discourse

Corporate ghost-writing is a form of scientific fraud: a paper is falsely presented as the work of people other than its actual authors. When such pap…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Nina B. Elkadi @ninaelkadi.com · 13d

Told via internal DNR, EPA, and USDA communications, here’s what was likely going on that led to a dead pig pile-up at Seaboard Triumph Foods

Sentient @sentientmedia.org · 14d

According to documents reviewed by Sentient, @iowadnr.bsky.social employees who visited pork producer Seaboard Triumph Foods were shaken by conditions at the facility. @ninaelkadi.com reports:

Iowa Environmental Services Employees Disgusted at Seaboard Triumph Foods Pork Plant Conditions

“It probably did wonders for your appetite,” one employee wrote to another after the slaughterhouse visit.

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Reposted by Nina B. Elkadi

Silvia Secchi @profsecchi.bsky.social · 14d

The US food system is BROKEN. It is just disingenuous to argue that we have “cheap food” when labor and environmental conditions are so terrible and for so long without remedy.
Another admittedly gross but excellent piece by @ninaelkadi.com .

Iowa Environmental Services Employees Disgusted at Seaboard Triumph Foods Pork Plant Conditions

“It probably did wonders for your appetite,” one employee wrote to another after the slaughterhouse visit.

sentientmedia.org

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Nina B. Elkadi @ninaelkadi.com · 14d

In response to my prior reporting detailing the whistleblower’s original complaint, one DNR environmental engineer wrote in an internal email: “Wow. That’s a lot worse than I had pictured in my head. I never need to go there again.”

Sentient @sentientmedia.org · 14d

According to documents reviewed by Sentient, @iowadnr.bsky.social employees who visited pork producer Seaboard Triumph Foods were shaken by conditions at the facility. @ninaelkadi.com reports:

Iowa Environmental Services Employees Disgusted at Seaboard Triumph Foods Pork Plant Conditions

“It probably did wonders for your appetite,” one employee wrote to another after the slaughterhouse visit.

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Reposted by Nina B. Elkadi

Civil Eats @civileats.com · 14d

In a recent paper, University of Iowa professor @profsecchi.bsky.social finds that the current Census of Agriculture is neither complete nor accurate, and could skew federal research and investment.

A Key Agriculture Census Doesn’t Reflect Reality, Researcher Warns

University of Iowa professor Silvia Secchi says the current Census of Agriculture is inaccurate and could skew federal policy.

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Reposted by Nina B. Elkadi

Food & Water Watch @foodandwater.bsky.social · 15d

This piece from @sentientmedia.org, @ninaelkadi.com and @iowapublicradio.org highlights a difficult tension ⬇️
Meat processing plants harm people's health, but are often communities' largest employers.

Moving away from a corporate, highly consolidated food system could help address this issue.

Sentient @sentientmedia.org · 15d

When Seaboard Triumph Foods opened up a pork plant in Sioux City, Iowa, it promised new jobs. But workers were faced with piles of pigs and wafting air pollution.

@ninaelkadi.com discusses her investigation on @iowapublicradio.org.

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Reposted by Nina B. Elkadi

Sentient @sentientmedia.org · 19d

When a realtor asked Merrill Cauble about selling his land to Innovative Livestock Services for their planned feedlot, he didn’t think about it: there was no way he would sell to the organizations he deems to be wreaking havoc on Kansas. @ninaelkadi.com reports:

Kansas Greenlights Mega Feedlot in “Sensitive” Water Area

Despite community pushback over groundwater pollution and health risks, the 88,000-head feedlot will be one of the largest in the state.

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Nina B. Elkadi @ninaelkadi.com · 19d

So grateful for AI!

Email that says: “3:30 would be great” with an AI suggestion to respond: “See you at 4.”

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Nina B. Elkadi @ninaelkadi.com · 19d

In regards to resident concerns about a new feedlot, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment wrote that they do not have the authority to evaluate the feedlot’s impact on “living conditions” or “general issues related to ‘quality of life.’”

s/o to @plantnerd.bsky.social for amazing edits.

Julian A Nowogrodzki @plantnerd.bsky.social · 19d

Great investigative reporting from @ninaelkadi.com here on a massive factory farm project in Kansas.

"Nitrate levels in the groundwater below one of the existing ILS feedlots have measured as much as 6 times the EPA’s safe drinking water standard"
sentientmedia.org/kansas-green...

Kansas Greenlights Mega Feedlot in “Sensitive” Water Area

Despite community pushback over groundwater pollution and health risks, the 88,000-head feedlot will be one of the largest in the state.

sentientmedia.org

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Nina B. Elkadi @ninaelkadi.com · 19d

“…the pipeline for workplace safety research has burst.”

Josh Eidelson @josheidelson.bsky.social · 20d

New @businessweek.bsky.social feature: On a budget of $1 per American, NIOSH conducts or funds most US research on how to keep workers alive & well. The Trump Administration decided to blow it up.
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
Based on interviews with 40+ current/recent staff throughout NIOSH

How Trump Broke Corporate America’s Most Valuable Consultant

Businesses are begging the White House and RFK Jr. to rethink their massive cuts to Niosh, a workplace research agency that saves the US billions of dollars a year.

www.bloomberg.com

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Reposted by Nina B. Elkadi

Josh Eidelson @josheidelson.bsky.social · 20d

New @businessweek.bsky.social feature: On a budget of $1 per American, NIOSH conducts or funds most US research on how to keep workers alive & well. The Trump Administration decided to blow it up.
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
Based on interviews with 40+ current/recent staff throughout NIOSH

How Trump Broke Corporate America’s Most Valuable Consultant

Businesses are begging the White House and RFK Jr. to rethink their massive cuts to Niosh, a workplace research agency that saves the US billions of dollars a year.

www.bloomberg.com

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Reposted by Nina B. Elkadi

Silvia Secchi @profsecchi.bsky.social · 26d

Another great @ninaelkadi.com piece featuring work of Jennifer Jacquet & collaborators. Jennifer spot on notes that there's no talking about reducing herds: “That is the grand narrative, I think, that we are all operating under.” 💯 small science: redefine the policy landscape to benefit industry.

Sentient @sentientmedia.org · 26d

“Meat and dairy does not want the individual or the consumer to think they have any power, or to think that their choices make a difference at all,” says Jennifer Jacquet, professor of environmental science and policy at @miamirosenstiel.bsky.social.

The Beef Industry Knew Its Climate Impact as Early as 1989 — and Worked to Obfuscate the Science

Two new studies reveal decades of industry tactics to downplay beef’s role in climate. change.

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Nina B. Elkadi @ninaelkadi.com · 28d

I one day hope to achieve this level of fame and respect

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Josh Eidelson @josheidelson.bsky.social · Sep 3

"The floor is lined with so many decomposed hogs that wooden walkways were placed over their bodies for employees to get across... One photo shows what appears to be animal waste seeping into the office." sentientmedia.org/iowa-pork-pl... @ninaelkadi.com

At an Iowa Pork Plant, Piles of Dead Pigs and Wafting Sulphur Dioxide

When climate technology breaks down, the results can be deadly.

sentientmedia.org

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Nina B. Elkadi @ninaelkadi.com · Sep 3

Hydrogen sulfide, the same gas that Steven Barrows — a whistleblower who worked at Seaboard Triumph Foods — was worried about, killed six employees at this Colorado dairy. great reporting on a horrific story by @kennytorrella.bsky.social

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Reposted by Nina B. Elkadi

Brad Johnson @climatebrad.hillheat.com · Aug 28

Molly O'Toole:
"On way 1st day teaching journalism course on covering immigration, met by ICE in Mt.Pleasant at Lamont - agents appear to take father driving young daughter, likely to school. Agents shoving bystanders, daughter sobs it’s her fault-she’d seen car parked for 2hrs. Trump’s America"

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Don Carr @doncarr.bsky.social · Aug 28

“It doesn't matter how much powdered sugar you sprinkle on a pile of pig shit, you'll never turn it into a jelly donut.” via @ninaelkadi.com

Fields of "Solutions"

Where there's a VC, there's a way.

cornbeltconfidential.substack.com

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Reposted by Nina B. Elkadi

Robert Hirschfeld @rfhirschfeld.bsky.social · Aug 28

“North Carolina farmer Craig Watts calls himself a ‘recovering factory farmer.’”

“In 2014, Watts invited an animal welfare group to film the conditions within his concentrated animal feeding operations. Thus began his life as a whistleblower.” cornbeltconfidential.substack.com/p/fields-of-...

Fields of "Solutions"

Where there's a VC, there's a way.

cornbeltconfidential.substack.com

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Nina B. Elkadi @ninaelkadi.com · Aug 27

In case you're wondering how biodigesters are doing at saving the world: In Wisconsin, private equity convinced a tiny town to serve as a conduit for almost $42 million in municipal bonds. The massive project, developed tax-free, just missed their principal payment.

Sentient @sentientmedia.org · Aug 27

Pitched as a boon to small towns, WI RNG Hub North, a manure methane digester project, financed $41.5 Million via the town of Gillett, promising jobs and future tax revenue. In June, the project defaulted on their $1.7 million principal payment. @ninaelkadi.com reports: