Wenonah Hauter

It used to be that unscrupulous salesmen would try to sell you the bridge; nowadays, they've climbed a rung lower -- they're trying to sell you the public trust water flowing under the bridge. A recent website, thebaybank.org, has planted a giant "For Sale" sign on the Chesapeake...

Through coordinated actions this weekend, activists will be Connecting the Dots between climate change and the severe weather, droughts and sea level rise that communities are already experiencing. A project of 350.org, led by climate activist Bill McKibben, the May 5 Day of Action...

The Wall Street Journal reports that China is importing 100,000 heifers -- 25 ships' worth -- to boost domestic dairy production in the wake of melamine and other milk-powder scandals that have decimated China's relatively small dairy industry since 2008.

Where to begin? There are so many problems...

Last Friday, Alfred Almanza, Administrator for U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), wrote a post titled "Setting the Record Straight on the Proposed Chicken Inspection Policy." Mr. Almanza talked a lot about facts in his post, but unfortunately he left out many important ones...

Meet Manolo Reyes. You may not know his name, but he has considerable influence over the U.S. food supply. Mr. Reyes goes to work every day at a place that determines how one out of every $3 spent on groceries in the United States is spent. This might lead you...

Yesterday I walked around the "solution tents" at the 6th World Water Forum, which is more clearly than ever a trade show for the water industry to sell expensive services and products. Arranged as a "village," the exhibit offered no vision for a future that addresses...

While the big news among good food activists has been the unsettling possibility that a secret farm bill could be snuck into the super committee's recommendations and passed with no public input, Republicans have furtively dealt a crippling blow to family farmers and consumers. This week, House Republicans included language...

Since his first day in office, Governor Andrew Cuomo has touted his goal of open and transparent leadership. His inaugural act, Executive Order No. 1, even proclaimed, "It is essential to the maintenance of a democratic society that the government perform its business in an open and public...

Every good foodie knows that farm subsidies are the root of all evil and a big reason why obesity rates continue to rise, right? This thinking has become so commonplace among the good food movement that we've stopped questioning this assumption and pretty much take it as gospel.

But...

With 14 million Americans unemployed, buzz about a possible double dip recession reverberating in many ears and approval ratings at an all-time low, President Obama cannot afford to lose the support of any more of his constituents. Just last week, hundreds of concerned Americans descended on Philadelphia to...

Sometimes reality is stranger than science fiction. That's the case with hydraulic fracturing, or fracking -- a dangerous technology that's much like setting off a giant pipe bomb four or five miles underground. Millions of gallons of water, chemicals and sand are injected deep into shale rock formations at high...

I almost gagged on my coffee when I finally got around to reading the corporate sponsored pro-fracking propaganda by MIT on natural gas, entitled, "The Future of Natural Gas." Isn't this academic institution embarrassed to sell its reputation to corporations?

I guess not, because right on its website,...

Last week I was in Berlin at the Global Water Summit 2011, a meet up for corporations that want to profit from water as it becomes scarcer. Sponsored by all the bad actors in the water industry, from Veolia to General Electric, the conference URL was WaterMeetsMoney.com. Even...

Over the last decade, the sustainable food movement has brought much needed attention to U.S. agricultural policy and how it influences which foods Americans grow, buy, and consume. From chefs and policy wonks to teachers and bloggers, everyone interested in food has an opinion on subsidies and how to craft...

If you and your family were hit with tough economic times, what do you think you would do to adjust? If your family is like most, you might reassess your financial priorities, ensuring that you can continue to meet critical needs. Among those needs, you would probably place things associated...

If you're following the fracking debate closely, it's been a rather busy few weeks chock full of media coverage. Today, Pro Publica published an interview with Benjamin Grumbles, former EPA assistant administrator for water during the Bush years, who suggests that Congress should revisit the exemption of fracking...

Last Sunday's 60 Minutes shed a light on an underreported fact: soon, roughly one in four children in the U.S. will live below the poverty level. The piece, reported by Scott Pelley, highlighted one family living in a motel and another that was taken in by their neighbors...

Every year, U.S. consumers spend an estimated $1 billion on household and personal care products to shield themselves from a host of unseen germs. Yet many items marketed for their so-called "anti-bacterial" properties contain an ingredient perhaps more insidious than the microorganisms they're designed to combat: triclosan.

Invented by the...

As the popular face of the Obama administration's advocacy for healthy, nutritious food, Michelle Obama has conveniently side-stepped several critical consumer food issues like organics, genetically engineered food, fair markets for farmers and ranchers, and local and regional food economies. But, while Mrs. Obama has remained silent on these topics,...

Recent coverage of hexavalent chromium (also known as chromium 6) in some of our nation's water supplies vilified the wrong institutions: our municipal water utilities. The real culprits are the industries that dump this and other pollutants into our drinking water sources, and the elected officials who are...