A new analysis from the nonprofit Environmental Working Group said the Department of Defense is not doing enough to clean up contaminated military installations, and as new sites are identified a large backlog is developing.

Many of the sites are contaminated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, sometimes called 'forever chemicals' because they don't break down in the environment and accumulate over time. PFAS have been in use since the 1940s and are found in many nonstick and waterproof consumer products.

On military bases one of the most common applications of PFAS has been in firefighting foam. PFAS are known to be toxic, and at many current and former military installations are affecting groundwater and drinking water.

The Defense Department has identified 700 known and suspected military contamination sites.

Jared Hayes, senior policy analyst for the Environmental Working Group, said the funding is not keeping up with the backlog.

"Since 2016, DoD's own estimates show the cleanup backlog has soared to $31 billion and growing," Hayes pointed out. "That's up by $3.7 billion in that time frame. Yet the DoD's appropriated cleanup budget increased just $400 million over that same period."

He argued funding at current levels cannot catch up to the rising cleanup obligations. A 2018 Defense Department report identified four sites in Maryland with PFAS groundwater contamination. Four additional contaminated sites have been identified in the years since. Congress has mandated all military facilities complete site assessments and inspections by the end of this year.

The EPA recently proposed a new safe drinking water standard for PFAS at 4 parts per trillion. In 2017, groundwater was tested at drinking water supply wells near Fort Meade and the results showed PFAS levels up to 87,000 parts per trillion.

With so many installations in similar or worse circumstances, Hayes sees costs rising dramatically as new sites are assessed.

"We estimate that it could cost tens of billions of dollars, and that's on top of the $31 billion that's already in the backlog," Hayes reported. "We're looking at a lot of time that's going to be needed to clean up contamination if funding is kept at the current levels. So really, funding needs to increase to match what's going on, what's happening on the ground and communities across the U.S."

Studies have linked PFAS exposure to various health problems, including developmental delays in children, immune system suppression, hormonal disruption, and an elevated risk of certain cancers.


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The Trump administration's long-term plan for artificial intelligence could have far-reaching environmental impacts across the country.

His strategy calls for the removal of land use rules considered prohibitive to the construction of AI data centers. Last year, then Gov. Eric Holcomb announced Microsoft would invest $1 billion to establish a new AI data center in Laporte to generate cloud computing infrastructure.

Ben Murray, senior researcher for the advocacy group Food and Water Watch, said fossil fuel plants are already being reopened to help meet high energy demands.

"We just need to be aware that anything that prolongs our reliance on fossil fuel is going to increase the problems that we're seeing from the climate crisis," Murray explained.

Murray argued high-tech progress should not come at the expense of increased household energy prices. Residents' support is low due to concerns about increased traffic and noise near the centers. The Trump administration said environmental and permitting regulations will only slow America's dominance in the AI field.

A report last year found emissions from data centers owned by Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft were more than seven times higher than officially reported. Computer servers using AI require far more energy than those without. A ChatGPT query, for example, can use up to 10 times more electricity than a standard Google search.

"These companies can seem as if they're decreasing their emissions and meeting net-zero goals but in reality, the emissions are amping up faster than ever for these companies," Murray pointed out.

Murray noted the push for more data centers is already leading Big Tech companies to backtrack on their climate goals. It is possible to power AI services with renewable energy sources, he added, but doing so requires political will.

As of June 2025, a 1,200-acre corn and soybean field just outside of New Carlisle has turned into eight Amazon-led AI energy centers. The tech giant plans to construct a total of 30 at the site.


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After one year, Washington's first comprehensive bee survey has documented 15 species that have never been collected in the state before.

The project is cataloguing native bees, which includes nearly all species in the state, but excludes honeybees.

Karla Salp is a communications consultant with the Washington State Department of Agriculture's Washington Bee Atlas program, which conducted the survey.

She said the data will serve as a baseline to track bee populations.

"The reason why this is happening in the first place is to answer the question, how are pollinators doing in Washington state?" said Salp. "And the answer is we don't know, because we've never actually looked at even what bees we have throughout the state."

Salp said the project also involves compiling a list of plants that each bee species pollinates so residents can make their yards more attractive to these beneficial insects.

As honeybee numbers continue to decline rapidly, Salp explained that native pollinators may become more important to Washington's agriculture.

"Knowing what native pollinators we have and how we can support them is really a sustainability issue" said Salp, "to make sure that whether we have honeybees here or not, there are options for pollination."

Volunteers collected over 17,000 bees on more than 600 different host plants.

Salp said the process of identifying them is slow because each one must be viewed under a microscope, and there is still considerable work to be done.

"We're expecting to find a lot more species" said Salp, "that are either rare or even new to the state. "

If people are interested in volunteering, an online application for the Bee Atlas program is available on the Washington State Department of Agriculture website.




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The Trump administration wants to overturn a conservation rule that had garnered more public comment than any in U.S. history up until that time.

Commonly known as the Roadless Rule, the U.S. Department of Agriculture regulation prohibits road construction, reconstruction, and timber harvesting on nearly 60 million acres of national forest land.

Sarah McMillan - the senior attorney and director of the Wildlands & Wildlife Program at the Western Environmental Law Center - said before it was adopted in 2001, 1.5 million people submitted comments, with the vast majority in support of the rule.

"This was a rule that was carefully, thoughtfully developed," said McMillan. "There was a long process of inventorying these roadless areas and identifying these remote, often mature and old-growth trees. This didn't happen overnight."

A rollback of the rule would allow more logging and drilling on federal lands, which McMillan said would worsen climate change, harm wildlife & vital ecosystems, jeopardize water quality, and negatively affect recreational opportunities.

The Bush administration attempted to repeal the Roadless Rule in 2005, but lost in the courts.

In announcing the proposed rollback, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins claimed more logging would improve forest management, which would in turn decrease forest fires.

But McMillan said that argument is disputed in a 2020 Wilderness Society study that found just the opposite.

"The truth is, un-roaded areas burn at a significantly lower rate than areas with roads," said McMillan. "So, fires start near roads."

McMillan said it doesn't make sense to allow private developers to log more trees when the planet is undergoing a biodiversity and climate crisis - especially because old-growth trees create a buffer against climate change.

Forests cover almost 30% of New Mexico's land area.




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