Today, EPA has made available updated 2020 Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data about chemical releases, chemical waste management, and pollution prevention activities that took place during 2020 at more than 21,000 federal and industrial facilities throughout the United States and its territories. This dataset builds on the preliminary data released in July. It includes revised and late submissions from facilities, and additional data quality checks by EPA.
Read more…
Photo credit: EPA
Day: October 25, 2021
By: Jessica Klees, Communications Intern
Research shows that among those with chronic diseases, use of health services increased as exposure to air pollution increased. It has also been shown that “burning fossil fuels has had significant, direct, and harmful impacts on heart disease, lung disease, and other health problems.” Exposure to pollution hurts those who are already at the greatest risk the most. We need to protect our communities and hold polluters accountable for their actions, before even more everyday people become sick.
Through our work with affected communities, the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice (CHEJ), understands that environmental rights are both a racial justice as well as an economic justice issue. We have found that it is important to note that young children, the elderly, people with weakened immune systems and underlying health conditions are even more at risk for the negative health effects of pollution and toxic waste. These individuals disproportionately suffer more, and for them the effects of pollution and climate change are a serious health issue.
I live with type 1 diabetes, and I understand all too well how unrelenting and frustrating living with a chronic condition can be. From my personal experience, I know what it is like to live with a disease that tries to break you, mentally and physically, every single day. I am very fortunate to be able to have access to treatment and resources for my disease, but this is not the case for others who suffer with chronic conditions. Individuals who are affected by toxic chemicals are more likely to live in underserved communities with less access to healthcare treatment and resources. As I fight my own health issues, I cannot imagine the pain that people who have underlying conditions face when their health is even further impacted by pollution and poisonous chemicals. The fact that corporations willingly destroy the environment and allow people to suffer so much just so they can make a greater profit is not only horrifying, it is WRONG.
Although this health crisis is a dire issue, there is hope. We need to support efforts to reinstate the Polluters Pay Tax. This will create a mechanism for companies that poison our environment to pay to clean up the environmental disasters that they created–rather than having taxpayers pay for the cleanups, when the payments should be coming from the polluters. Currently, there is an opportunity for us to right this injustice, with the proposed Infrastructure Plan that includes a provision to reinstate the “Polluters Pay Tax.” This will enable citizens to hold corporate polluters accountable. Unfortunately, it will not alleviate all the pain of the populations that have been affected, but this will be a giant step in the right direction towards collective healing and environmental justice for individuals who live in these underserved communities.
Photo Credit: James Nielson/Houston Chronicle
The company behind the controversial Keystone XL project that President Joe Biden effectively killed on his first day of office had an oil spill record “worse than the national average” over a five-year period thanks to two major spills, according to a Government Accountability Office report published Monday.
The two spills from the Keystone pipelines dumped a combined 12,000 barrels of oil in the Dakotas even as operator TC Energy was planning to expand that pipeline with its proposed Keystone XL project, which would have tripled the amount of crude the pipeline system would carry from Canada into the United States. Biden revoked the permit necessary to allow Keystone XL to cross the U.S.-Canada border, essentially killing the project in a bid to demonstrate his climate bona fides. TC Energy is now in court seeking $15 billion from the U.S. government for the cancellation.
Read More…
Photo Credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images
After a four-year pause related to executive branch inaction, and with the transition to the Biden-Harris administration, we finally have new data from the federal government on the severity of the climate crisis. And it offers a grim diagnosis.
Drawing from more than 50 contributors from various government agencies and academic institutions, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Climate Indicators report confirms that climate change is making life harder for Americans in new and challenging ways.
Heat waves are occurring more often in the United States. Their frequency has increased from an average of two heat waves per year in the 1960s to six per year during the 2010s. Global temperatures are rising: 2016 was the hottest year on record, and the 2010-2020 was the hottest decade ever recorded. And sea levels are rising along most of the U.S. coastline, by as much as 8 inches in some locations.
Read More…
Photo Credit: Aude Guerrucci/Reuters
Toxic chemicals in beauty products commonly used by and marketed to Black people and other people of color could be contributing to racial health inequities.
So say researchers and community groups studying chemicals in consumer goods, arguing that the term “environmental justice,” which has gained prominence in recent years to describe how communities of color bear larger pollution burdens, should be expanded to include exposure from toxic beauty products.
Just as communities of color often are located in more polluted areas due to discriminatory zoning and housing policies, centuries of racist and sexist beauty standards favoring straight hair, for example, have pushed Black women and feminine people, in particular, to use products containing harsh chemicals that could harm their health.
Read More…
Photo Credit: Claudine Hellmuth/E&E News (illustration); Freepik (phtotos); American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology (text)
The Keystone Sanitary Landfill is under investigation by the state attorney general’s office, a
spokeswoman said Thursday.
Although she could not comment on the nature of the investigation, press secretary Molly Stieber
confirmed in an email that the office is investigating the Louis and Dominick DeNaples-owned landfill in
Dunmore and Throop.
Scranton resident Samantha Maloney, who is one of three locals working with the attorney general’s
office in its investigation, said the investigation appears to be about leachate, which is the liquid that
percolates through trash piles. The other individuals declined to be identified.
Read More…
Photo Credit: The Times-Tribune
Hazardous waste sites are scattered all across the country, from a Brooklyn canal once surrounded by chemical plants to a shuttered garbage incineration facility in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
There are more than 1,300 of these spots in all — dubbed “Superfund sites” by the federal government — where toxic chemicals from factories and landfills were dumped for decades, polluting the surrounding soil, water and air.
Read More…
Photo Credit: EPA
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The federal government announced Monday that it will support the ethanol industry in a lawsuit over biofuel waivers granted to oil refineries under President Donald Trump’s administration.
The Environmental Protection Agency said it is reversing course and will support a January 2020 decision by the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a lawsuit filed by the Renewable Fuels Association and farm groups. The lawsuit is headed to arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court this spring.
Read More…
Photo Credit: M. Spencer Green/AP Photo, File
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued two actions to protect public health by addressing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in drinking water, highlighting the agency’s commitment to address these long-lasting “forever chemicals” that can enter drinking water supplies and impact communities across the United States. The Biden-Harris administration is committed to addressing PFAS in the nation’s drinking water and will build on these actions by advancing science and using the agency’s authorities to protect public health and the environment.
Read More…
Photo Credit: Sora Shimazaki/Pexels
Nearly 300 people – including representatives of 72 civic, environmental, veterans and health organizations from around the nation – have issued a joint statement <https://cswab.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Public- comment-to-EPA-TDEC-opposing- open-burning-of-PFAS-by-U.S.- Army-FINAL-SIGNED-16-Jan-2021. pdf> calling on state and federal regulators to prohibit open air burning of PFAS and other toxic chemicals at the Holston Army Ammunition Plant in Tennessee. The burning, which has been going on for decades, produces toxic smoke that often envelops neighboring homes in the city of Kingsport.
The letter follows a recent announcement <https://cswab.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Holston-Clean- Air-Act-Title-V-Modifications- and-Public-Notice-Dec-2020.pdf > that U.S. EPA Region 4 and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation intend to re-issue a Title V (Clean Air Act) permit that will allow the Army to annually open burn as much as 1,250,000 pounds of munitions wastes that may contain as much as 15% PFAS by weight.
“PFAS are not destroyed in an open fire and are therefore widely dispersed to the air and the surrounding environment where they accumulate in people, as well as fish, wildlife and food crops. At higher temperatures, poisonous hydrogen fluoride gas may be generated,” the commenters emphasized. “Hydrogen fluoride is a listed hazardous air pollutant subject to regulation by U.S. EPA and authorized states under the Clean Air Act, as are other air emissions from open burning at Holston.”
Exposure to PFAS has been shown to affect growth and development, reproduction, thyroid function, the immune system, injure the liver and increase risk for certain cancers.
For this reason, military sites like the Blue Grass Army Depot <https://cswab.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Bluegrass- Army-Depot-OBOD-Final-Permit- PFAS-prohibition-Nov-2018.pdf> in Kentucky are expressly prohibited from burning PFAS and dozens of other toxic wastes including pesticides, dioxins, PCBs, white and red phosphorus, and depleted uranium. Both the Blue Grass and Holston Army bases are located in EPA Region 4.
“We are adamant that Tennessee residents, workers and environment are afforded the same level of protection as their Kentucky neighbors,” the joint statement concludes.
The national effort was coordinated by Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger <https://cswab.org/action-alert-u-s-military-is-open- burning-pfas/> – a grassroots organization that has been monitoring military cleanups for 30 years – in collaboration with Volunteers for Environmental Health and Justice <https://www.facebook.com/ Volunteers-for-Environmental- Health-and-Justice- 210370109297120/> in Tennessee.
The U.S. Army at Holston Army Ammunition Plant has announced that it will be hosting an online (virtual) public meeting on Thursday, January 28, 2021 starting at 4:30 PM CST. For more information, visit Holston’s facebook page.
* * *
IMPORTANT NOTES:
The organizations emphasize that the submitted joint public comments are not to be construed as supporting ANY open burning at Holston – the public notice specifies that regulators are only accepting comment on proposed conditions and permit modifications and our comments are submitted in this specific context.
References for this action include 35 reports and scientific studies posted here <https://cswab.org/action-alert-u-s-military-is-open- burning-pfas/> . For more information, contact:
Laura Olah, Executive Director, Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger 608.643.3124
Mark Toohey, Volunteers for Environmental Health and Justice (TN) 423.765.3947Photo Credit: WCYB