The three-part docudrama Dirty Business, which started on Channel 4 on Monday and concluded midweek, has made the notion of going into the sea in the UK terrifying and unlike Jaws, this story is real. It is an example of what good drama can do that even the best reporting can't quite achieve.
No water, no life, says Sheikh Nidham, a Mandaean religious leader living in the southern Iraqi city of Amarah, on the banks of the river in which he has been regularly immersed since he was a month old. Mandaeans are members of one of the oldest gnostic religions in the world. Southern Iraq has been their homeland for more than a thousand years, particularly in Maysan province. Amarah, the provincial capital, is built around the Tigris. Water is central to their faith and every major life event requires ritual purification. Marriage ceremonies begin in water, and before drawing their last breath, Mandaeans should be taken to the river for a final cleansing.
The New Jersey-based company acknowledged violations in September 2025, admitting its Napoleon, Ohio canning plant illegally dumped wastewater more than 5,400 times from April 2018 to December 2024, breaking federal water pollution laws. Environmental groups sued Campbell's in March 2024, alleging repeated exceedances of effluent limits of pollutants were released into the Maumee River, which feeds into Lake Erie. A trial to determine penalties and cleanup requirements is scheduled for 2026.
According to a Sept. 8 paper published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an iconic Arctic watershed in Alaska's Brooks Range has recently turned a dark, murky orange color, alarming scientists throughout California and Alaska. "This is what acid mine drainage looks like," Tim Lyons, a biogeochemist at UC Riverside, told the university in a September 2025 article. "But here, there's no mine. The permafrost is thawing and changing the chemistry of the landscape." According to the research paper, authors believe that permafrost - soil, rock or sediment that's been frozen for at least two years - is thawing, exposing sulfide minerals and delivering iron and other potentially toxic metals to the remote Alaskan wilderness.
"Even as Massachusetts residents are back to enjoying the fresh sea breeze and splash of waves at the beach, pollution is still plaguing too many of the places where we swim. Now is the time to fix our water infrastructure and stop the flow of nasty bacteria and pollution to our beaches," said John Rumpler, clean water director for Environment Massachusetts.
Tesla has not yet paid a $750 fine for spilling 916 gallons of a dyed water solution into Matadero Creek eight months ago. Stanford officials asked the city to remove Stanford from Tesla's citation, but the request was denied because Stanford owns the property.
Beverly Morris fears drinking water from her well due to sediment buildup she attributes to the nearby AI data center. "I'm afraid to drink the water, but I still cook with it, and brush my teeth with it," she expressed.
