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Infrastructure Summer: Polluters Don’t Pay in New ‘Polluter Pay’ Tax

When the Superfund program first passed Congress in 1980, there was one word that marked the moment: justice. Finally, polluters were on the hook for cleaning up neighborhoods, waterfronts, and schoolyards. Many Americans living near toxic waste sites were already mired with health complications, including epilepsy, miscarriages, nephrosis, and even fatal illnesses. For once, the afflicted would benefit from those doing the afflicting.

But today, the Superfund program is languishing. Only a small fraction of identified sites have been successfully remediated during the 40 years of the program. This is mainly due to a lack of funds, after a critical polluter tax expired over 25 years ago.
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Photo Credit: Chris Stephens/The Plain Dealer via AP Photo

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‘Climate Change Is Not a Subjective Thing.’

The United States has a schizophrenic relationship with the environment.

It boasts a spectacular system of more than 400 national park sites; a robust environmental lobby; and strong federal environmental law, including the landmark Endangered Species Act, which is credited with saving the bald eagle and the grizzly bear from extinction.

Yet it also harbors a dark side, including an insatiable appetite for fossil fuels; a longstanding romance with behemoth, gas-guzzling vehicles; and perhaps the highest per capita generation of plastic waste in the world.

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Photo Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo

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Targeting federal spending to help EPA promote environmental justice

Given all that we know about racial injustice and its devastating effects on the health of people and the planet, it is shocking how few resources the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has devoted to promoting environmental justice.

In 2019, the EPA budget was 1,500 times the size of its environmental justice budget, just one staff position in 650 was devoted to this issue and a mere $1 of every $2,000 in the EPA’s grants budget was earmarked for environmental justice. The Biden administration is moving aggressively to remedy this.

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Photo Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais

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One researcher’s quest to quantify the environmental cost of abandoned oil wells

Amy Townsend-Small has been chasing methane her entire professional life. The quest has taken her from Southern California freeways to sewage plants to animal feedlots. Sniffing out the potent greenhouse gas, which traps 86 times as much heat as carbon dioxide after it’s emitted into the atmosphere, has required her to breathalyze cows and take chemical measurements at large manure lagoons. When fracking took off around 2010, Townsend-Small shifted her focus to a new and growing problem: methane leaks from oil and gas activity.
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Photo Credit: Christopher Collins

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Homepage News Archive

Enjoying New Clout, Environmental Justice Groups May Press Biden

Though it may have been eclipsed in headlines and worrying by the coronavirus pandemic, the climate crisis has not gone away.
As new President Joe Biden tries to implement policies with the goal of redirecting economic development toward greenhouse gas reduction, he’ll have to contend with pressure not only from groups on the right who oppose environmental regulations, but with those on the left who may see Biden’s plans as too timid.
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Photo credit: (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

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Homepage News Archive

Oil Chem owner accused of dumping nearly 50 million gallons of landfill liquid into Flint sewers

FLINT, MI – Federal prosecutors accuse the owner and president of a Flint chemical company with dumping nearly 50 million gallons of untreated liquid drained from eight different landfills into the city’s sewer system.

Robert J. Massey, the president and owner of Oil Chem Inc., 711 W. 12th St., is charged in a U.S. District Court indictment with a felony of knowing violation of the Clean Water Act.

Massey is charged with directing “his employees to dispose of the landfill leachate through a hose from a tank to a sanitary sewer drain located at the Oil Chem facility, without treatment and in violation of Oil Chem’s wastewater discharge permit” from January 2007 until October 2015, including waste from one hauler that included PCBs, according to information filed with the federal court on Dec. 21.

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Photo credit: Jake May | MLive.com

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Backyard Talk

A coal plant on Navajo land is finally demolished

By Mihir Vohra, Research Associate
For over 40 years, the Navajo Generating Station (NGS), located on Navajo nation land near Page, AZ, was the largest coal plant in the American West. The NGS and the coal mine that fed it shut down in 2019, and on December 18th, 2020 its three smokestacks were finally demolished. Air pollution from coal plants is associated with higher risks for asthma, cancer, heart and lung diseases, and neurological dysfunction. The burden of these facilities disproportionately affects poor and minority communities. A 2012 report from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) determining that of the people living within 3 miles of a coal plant, the average per capita income was $18,400 and 39% were people of color.
Navajo and Hopi community members fought for closure of the NGS and issued a statement observing the December 18thdemolition. It notes that NGS provided electricity for many cities in Arizona, Nevada and California, but not the Navajo or Hopi communities, illustrating an egregious reality: not only are there disparities in the toxic burden of energy generation, but there are disparities in who gets to reap the rewards. Those most burdened are least likely to receive benefits. This exploitation isn’t limited to coal, either. During its operation, the plant pumped billions of gallons of water from the Navajo Aquifer to the city of Phoenix. This has left the Native land in a drought and decreased access to running water in Navajo and Hopi communities, endangering health as well as Tribal culture.
Now that the NGS is closed, Navajo and Hopi community members are outlining what is required for community restoration. This includes securing electricity and clean water access for residents as well as job training. A 2012 Department of Energy report estimated that the NGS employed over 800 Native people, and community members want them to be first in line for new clean energy jobs in the area. More broadly, they demand investments in a sustainable economy for the Navajo and Hopi tribes with a just transition to new industries.
Another key feature of community members’ demands is cleanup and land reclamation. The mine and plant closed over a year ago, but the company operating them has done little to clean up these sites even though it is required to return the land to its original state. Groundwater contamination from toxic waste and coal ash is a serious concern, and community members are calling on the incoming Biden administration and Department of the Interior to enforce a full and transparent process to restore the land and ensure residents’ safety.
The Navajo and Hopi people who spent decades in the shadow of the NGS deserve more than just this demolition of its smokestacks, they deserve an investment in their future.
Photo credit: Adrian Herder, Tó Nizhóní Ání.