TT073 – Behind the Scenes of Water and Environment Reporting

Tap Talk Season 7 is here! Today, we bring you a conversation with Michael Phillis, a water & environment reporter for the Associated Press. Michael tells Jennifer & Steve about how he got into environmental reporting, the importance and range of stories about water, and the experience of reporting the recent long-form investigation "A crisis emerges across the US as 'forever chemicals' quietly contaminate drinking water wells" with his colleague Helen Wieffering. This story centers the well contamination crisis in Stella, Wisconsin, a town of ~600 people in northern Wisconsin, where some well water tests have found PFAS concentration levels of 375 times the federal limit for drinking water connected to a nearby paper mill. Visit drinkingwaterpodcast.org to learn more and find the full show notes for this episode.