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When we get feedback from you, it’s often about how you want more local news with depth and context. Today we’re bringing you three stories that go deep on themes like environmental justice, regulatory gaps and community organizing.
🔌 When 55+ mobile home residents received electricity bills over $400 for tiny homes that normally cost $60 to cool, they discovered a broken system that can lead to eviction with little recourse. Reporter Yana Kunichoff explains.
đźš° A new study reveals that Tucson residents in communities with histories of contamination — from TCE to PFAS — don’t trust their tap water, and the data suggests they’re right to be wary. Reporter Carolina Cuellar gives you the back story, plus she tell us about Tucson shutting down more wells and building new treatment facilities.
Featured stories
Broken utility bill system can mean eviction for some mobile home residents
In the hot summer months, Jose Verdugo had a strategy for how to best cool the mobile home he shared with his wife: turn on the window air conditioner in […]
From TCE to PFAS contamination, Tucson residents still wary of their water
Brow furrowed, sitting behind the royal blue fence encircling Sam Lena Library, Nolan Montufar is deep into reading the book he just borrowed: “How to Give Up Plastic.” Nolan biked […]
New facility, more wells offline as Tucson intensifies PFAS cleanup efforts
Tucson is stepping up efforts to protect groundwater from PFAS contamination, launching a new treatment project and sidelining more wells as the city adjusts to new federal standards. Construction is […]
Flickers 🕯️
A coalition of southern Arizona non-profits came together Wednesday to make a unified statement about the potential damage the proposed federal budget would make to vulnerable communities. From food stamp cuts to an end to homeless youth assistance, those cuts risk plunging low-income families into deeper poverty. “There is no way to recover,” Adelita Grijalva said, present in her role as a board member of the YWCA of Southern Arizona. “The hits keep coming.” Those proposed cuts would come on top of the slow drop in service capacity already happening with these nonprofits. The Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation has already cut 14 staff and stepped back on some of its core programs. Casa de los Niños, which offers parent education and behavioral health services, has seen a reduction in its health insurance reimbursement rates, which impacts its ability to provide programming. And substance abuse support provider CODAC is moving slowly ahead with the uncertainty of a hiring freeze. “Families are going to suffer. Kids are going to go hungry. That’s just going to happen” with these cuts,” said Jenny Flynn, president of the Community Foundation of Southern Arizona. “When federal funding is cut, it’s not just numbers on a balance sheet.”
Pima County Libraries announced its new director following the retirement of Amber Mathewson this summer. The new director, the library system’s 16th, will be Tess Mayer. She was most recently the director of the Berkeley Public Library, and has more than a decade of experience in Washington-area libraries as well. “I am excited and honored to work alongside such a creative and talented staff. Together we will continue to advance the important work of creating equitable and inclusive library service for all, and engage our community in the development of this vision,” Mayer said in a statement. Catch up on Arizona Luminaria’s library coverage.
A week after Tucson City Council voted to make sleeping in washes a crime, potentially leading to more jail time for the city’s unsheltered population, a new study from the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that increased levels of incarceration leads to higher mortality rates. Specifically, people who have been incarcerated are three times more likely to die from drug overdose. A 10% increase in county jail incarceration rates was associated with 4.6 additional deaths per 100 000 people, researchers found. Read the study.
The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum announced a fundraising campaign for a new Mexican gray wolf exhibit that will be nearly 10 times the size of the existing one. “Interpretive features will tell the incredible conservation story of the Mexican gray wolf, from becoming extinct in the wild, to the role the Desert Museum played in their successful return to the wild in Arizona,” the announcement says. Learn more.
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