Appalachian women put strip-mining on trial

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — It’s been almost 35 years since Lois Gibbs became an environmental activist after she discovered her 7-year-old son’s elementary school in Niagara Falls, N.Y., was built on a toxic waste dump.

This week, Gibbs was in West Virginia to hear the stories of women whose families live near mountaintop removal coal mining operations. Gibbs was one of three jurists in an effort by Appalachian women’s groups to put the coal industry on trial.

On Thursday, women from across the coalfields of West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee gathered in Charleston to talk about blasting, dust and polluted water.

“The evidence we heard was compelling,” Gibbs said Friday during a meeting with Gazette staffers.

Among other things, Gibbs and her fellow jurists heard from Beverly May, a family nurse practitioner from Kentucky. She gave a rundown of the studies by West Virginia University researcher Michael Hendryx and his colleagues that point to links between living near mountaintop removal and being more likely to get cancer or be born with birth defects.

“All of the research points to what mountain people have known since strip-mining began,” May said. “It is not possible to destroy our mountains without destroy ourselves. It is not possible to poison our streams without poisoning our children.”

Ivy Breshear, 23, said she’s worried about having children, given the proximity of her homeplace in Eastern Kentucky to mountaintop removal operations.
“If we don’t stand up for ourselves, we must stand up for future generations,” Breshear said.

Janet Keating of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition said there has been a “deafening silence” from local political leaders about the WVU studies showing mining’s relationship to public health problems.

“The industry has always said in the past, ‘You just care about the mayflies and the salamanders,’” Keating said. “It’s not just about mayflies and salamanders.”

Coal industry officials favor mountaintop removal, saying the practice is the only efficient way to get at some thin seams of Southern West Virginia coal. The industry has also recently donated $15 million to a Virginia Tech-based project to produce reports that respond to scientific papers like those authored by Hendryx and by other researchers who have examined mining’s impact on water quality.

Gibbs and her fellow jurors, Bolivian activist Elizabeth Peredo Beltran and Civil Society Institute energy analyst Grant Smith, recommended an immediate moratorium on mountaintop removal and more detailed studies on the practice’s impacts on public health.

The Central Appalachian Women’s Tribunal on Climate Justice was sponsored by Loretto, an international public interest group, and a variety of local organizations. Results of this week’s tribunal will be delivered in June at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil, along with information from other women’s group tribunals on other issues around the globe.

Article by- Ken Ward Jr.
http://wvgazette.com/News/201205110127

Cape Fear moms are fearless advocates for their children’s health

Over the weekend, mothers from Kansas and Texas visited our Cape Fear region to give a self-less and invaluable glimpse into what our future could look like. These moms raise children near coal-fired cement kilns, wake up from late-night rail cars carrying hazardous waste behind their homes, and have children attending toxic schools. These moms live in Midlothian Texas and Chanute Kansas, also known as cement towns. Selene Hummer and Alexandra Allred have given our community the shell-shock we needed to keep fighting Titan’s proposed cement-manufacturing and strip-mining facility slated for construction along the already mercury-impaired Northeast Cape Fear River.

While Alex and Selene shared their heart-breaking stories, I couldn’t help but pan the audience to see the faces of our local moms, who have been the backbone of the citizens’ movement against Titan for four years now. Although the stories were hard to listen to, I felt the positive energy from moms strategizing on their next hard-hitting questions to hopeful elected leaders, while their face-painted, happy and healthy kids ran around and enjoyed the outdoors.

“I loved hearing from Alex Allred. She‘s right on the mark that mothers have a protective instinct that is often times absent from corporate interests, state agencies and politicians. We know when something is good for our kids or not,” says Julie Hurley, local mom and organizer with Mothers United. “In the case of added air pollution and potential water waste and contamination in New Hanover County, Titan Cement doesn’t pass the ‘good-for-our-community test.,’ In fact, their proposed project looks like harm to our kids and community for the foreseeable future.”

Mothers United is a newly formed group of moms who advocate for a healthy community. Their point of view, as parents looking out for their kids, is an undeniable force and one that any politician better brace themselves for.

“We’re a support system for each other,” Ashley Reed, of Mothers United said in a recent interview for local women’s magazine, WILMA. “We set up play dates and movie nights every third Thursday to get our children together, but while the children play, we’re planning.”

This group now representing almost 300 people is multi-tasking, like only moms can do, and I cannot wait to see the results, which I’m confident to say will be a healthy, breathable, swimmable, fishable, lovable future for everyone to enjoy, including our children.

To follow the Mothers United group, please check out their Facebook page, by clicking here.
For more info on the fight against Titan, visit www.StopTitan.org

Alex Allred is a mother of three who lives in Midlothian, Texas. Alex visited Wilmington, North Carolina to share with citizens her experiences of raising a family in the ‘cement capital of Texas.’ Moms and face-painted children attended a Picnic in the Park on April 29, 2012 in Castle Hayne, North Carolina. This unincorporated town is the proposed site of Titan Cement, which will be the largest cement manufacturing facility and strip-mine in a coastal setting. Mothers United began advocating for children’s health in February of 2012 and has grown to a group of local moms, representing close to 300 people.

Guest Blog by Sarah Gilliam

Newspapers Get Support In Fighting Fracking Secrecy

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Observer-Reporter are seeking to overturn a court order sealing the record in a case in which a Pennsylvania family sued several gas companies over health impacts related to air and water pollution from nearby natural gas development operations. The companies are fighting to keep the records out of the public eye.

Philadelphia Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers for Healthy Energy, Dr. Bernard D. Goldstein, Dr. Walter Tsou, Dr. Jerome A. Paulson, Dr. William Rom, Dr. Mehernosh P. Khan, Dr. Sandra Steingraber, Dr. Simona Perry, Dr. Robert Oswald, Dr. Michelle Bamberger, Kathryn Vennie, and Earthworks—filed an amicus brief (PDF) today supporting the newspapers. The newspapers also filed briefs in the case today. More . . .

Fracking Rally in Washington, DC 7/28

The “Stop the Frack Attack,” rally will bring thousands to the nation’s capitol to demand greater government responsibility and corporate accountability for harm that existing oil and gas development causes. This event will be the largest of its kind and will take place in on the West Lawn of the United States Capitol, Washington, DC from 10am to 2pm on July 28th, 2012.

For more information and list of endorsing organizations and members of the citizen-based advisory council, please visit www.stopthefrackattack.org

Autism and Environmental Chemicals

CHEJ has been talking about the dangers of PCB’s in school lighting fixtures and how the chemical can affect children’s health. Last month, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported that autism spectrum disorder now affects 1 of every 88 American children — a 23% increase from 2006 and a 78% increase from 2002. CDC also reported that ADHD now affects 14% of American children.

As these disorders continue to affect more children across the U.S., researchers are asking what is causing these dramatic increases. Some of the explanation is greater awareness and more accurate diagnosis. But clearly, there is more to the story than simply genetics, as the increases are far too rapid to be of purely genetic origin.

The National Academy of Sciences reports that 3% of all neurobehavioral disorders in children are caused by toxic exposures in the environment and that another 25% are caused by interactions between environmental factors and genetics. But the precise environmental causes are not yet known.

To guide a research strategy to discover potentially preventable environmental causes, a list of ten chemicals found in consumer products that are suspected to contribute to autism and learning disabilities.

This list was published today in Environmental Health Perspectives in an editorial written by Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, director of the CEHC, Dr. Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), and Dr. Luca Lambertini, also of the CEHC.

The top ten chemicals are:
1. Lead
2. Methylmercury
3. PCBs
4. Organophosphate pesticides
5. Organochlorine pesticides
6. Endocrine disruptors
7. Automotive exhaust
8. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
9. Brominated flame retardants
10. Perfluorinated compounds

The editorial was published alongside four other papers — each suggesting a link between toxic chemicals and autism.

There are things we can do as parents as concerned taxpayer and citizens. First, is to remove chemicals in areas that children frequent. As you may know CHEJ’s Children Environmental Health Program has been working on identifying and the removal PCBs in school lighting fixtures as well as removing other environmental chemicals from children environment such as emissions near schools.

As a humane society we cannot allow this devastating neurological problem to continue to rise in our children. It is time to speak up and out about environmental chemicals and children’s health. It is time to ask our health authorities to explore where children may be being exposed and eliminate that source of exposure. This is especially true in the case of PCBs and school lighting(schools built before 1980 and had no retrofitting) since this is a win win situation. The school district can remove exposure and save money on the energy efficiency of new lighting fixture.

Our children are our future. Let’s protect them . . . our future depends on their leadership.

CHEJ’s Childproofing Our Communities (CPOC) campaign is now called the Children’s Environmental Health Program (CEHP).

NEW NAME.  SAME CRITICAL FOCUS.

The founder and Executive Director of CHEJ, Lois Gibbs, was compelled to address children’s environmental health issues when in 1978 she discovered that her child’s school, her home and those of her neighbors were sitting on top of 20, 000 tons of toxic chemicals that was affecting the health of her family and her neighbors. Thru her struggle to demand justice for Love Canal residents, she discovered that no local, state or national organization existed to provide communities with strategic advice, guidance, training and technical assistance. The Center for Health, Environment & Justice (CHEJ) was created to address environmental toxins threatening communities.

After working with thousands of families seeking assistance on children’s environmental health issues, the Childproofing Our Communities (CPOC) Campaign was created in 2000 by a coalition of concerned parents, grandparents, and school employees to address health and environmental issues that affect the students and staff at the school. The coalition became the guiding force for CHEJ’s Child Proofing Our Communities Campaign which identified the main focus of collective work on school siting.

In 2011, the EPA released its School Siting Guidelines that will assist local decision makers with where to site a new school and consider environmental factors when making that decision. Over the years, CPOC in conjunction with local community leaders has been instrumental in holding federal/ state/ local agencies accountable for addressing environmental issues that may harm a school environment. The final release of these guidelines was an extraordinary victory demonstrating the power of the grassroots!

NEW NAME. Often people were confused about the focus of CPOC and could not relate to the name Childproofing Our Communities. In continuing with the tradition of educating and empowering communities, CHEJ changed the name to the Children’s Environmental Health Program (CEHP). We listened and changed the campaign name to make sure everyone understood the intent of our program.

SAME CRITICAL FOCUS. Not a new project or campaign but a renewed dedication to tackling the tough subject area of addressing environmental hazards that could pose a threat to children where they live, play, learn, eat, and pray.

New Resources. If you have not visited our website lately, www.chej.org, check out new resources and tools available to assist you with your local fight.

Rather it’s tackling:

a proposal to build a new school near an industrial complex- check out our new school siting fact sheets that can help with organizing the community and assist in enacting a local policy;

dealing with an existing school built before 1979 that has fluorescent light fixtures that contain a banned, toxic substance called PCB – our PCB-Free School Zone has fact sheets that gives an overview of the problem of PCBs in schools and identify action steps that can be taken to address              contamination;

or interested in learning more about PVC- free products –  the PVC-Free Schools campaign encourages schools to get rid of the poison plastic in favor of safer alternatives

We have a wealth of resources and tools available to assist you with your local issue.

Focus on Schools. Focus on Schools webpage is a snapshot of projects and resources CHEJ offers on its website that pertains to schools and children’s environmental health. You will also find this information on CHEJ’s campaign web pages.

Green Flag Program. The Green Flag School Program for environmental leadership provides a framework for students to become environmental leaders and contribute to positive change in their communities.  Through the free program, students of all ages learn environmental concepts, investigate their schools, and identify solutions for making their schools safer and healthier.

For additional information or questions, please contact CHEJ at (703) 237-2249 or chej@chej.org.

A close call: Why the jury is still out on mobile phones

Is a rise in brain tumours linked to the radiation sources we hold so close to our heads?Experts can’t agree on the answer.

Allegations of lobbying, bad science, not enough science, conflicts of interest, political inertia, scaremongering and lawsuits: the debate surrounding the safety of mobile phones has it all. With more than 5 billion users worldwide, mobile phones have undoubtedly become central to modern life in just two decades, but could they be a health hazard?

Scientists at the Children with Cancer conference in London this week will advocate that governments adopt the ‘precautionary principle’ – advising phone users to take simple steps to protect themselves and their children from potential, not proven, long term health risks of electromagnetic fields – especially head cancers.

They will call for urgent research into new Office of National Statistics figures that suggest a 50 per cent increase in frontal and temporal lobe tumours – the areas of the brain most susceptible to the electromagnetic radiation emitted by mobile phones – between 1999 and 2009.

Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion and Green Party leader, will next week table an Early Day Motion calling for mandatory safety information at the point of sale, and for widely publicized advice, for young people in particular, to text, use headsets or corded landlines for long calls.

But the Health Protection Agency’s new report on the “potential health effects” on mobile phone technologies on Thursday is likely to conclude that there is only one established risk, and that is crashing the car if people talk and drive.

The scientists cannot agree, so what should the public be told?

READ MORE…

USA Today Investigative Report: Long-gone lead factories leave dangerous poisons.

picturestore.com.au

Ken Shefton is furious about what the government knew eight years ago and never told him — that the neighborhood where his five sons have been playing is contaminated with lead.

Their Cleveland home is a few blocks from a long-forgotten factory that spewed toxic lead dust for about 30 years.

The Environmental Protection Agency and state regulators clearly knew of the danger. They tested soil throughout the neighborhood and documented hazardous levels of contamination. They never did a cleanup. They didn’t warn people living nearby that the tainted soil endangers their children.

“I needed to know that,” Shefton said. “I’ve got a couple of kids that don’t like to do nothing but roll around in the dirt.”

More than a decade ago, government regulators received specific warnings that the soil in hundreds of U.S. neighborhoods might be contaminated with dangerous levels of lead from factories operating in the 1930s to 1960s, including the smelter near Shefton’s house, Tyroler Metals, which closed around 1957.

Despite warnings, federal and state officials repeatedly failed to find out just how bad the problems were. A 14-month USA TODAY investigation has found that the EPA and state regulators left thousands of families and children in harm’s way, doing little to assess the danger around many of the more than 400 potential lead smelter locations on a list compiled by a researcher from old industry directories and given to the EPA in 2001.

In some cases, government officials failed to order cleanups when inspectors detected hazardous amounts of lead in local neighborhoods. People who live nearby — sometimes directly on top of — old smelters were not warned, left unaware in many cases of the factories’ existence and the dangers that remain. Instead, they bought and sold homes and let their children play in contaminated yards.

The USA TODAY investigation shows widespread government failures taking several forms: [READ MORE]

Trace chemicals in everyday food packaging cause worry over cumulative threat

If the food’s in plastic, what’s in the food?

menshealth.com

By Susan Freinkel, The Washington Post

(Yet) Another PVC Plant Explosion and Fire

An explosion and raging fire at the Westlake PVC plant rocked Geismar, Louisiana a few weeks ago, sending a billowing cloud of toxic vinyl

Photo of Westlake PVC chemical plant after it exploded and caught on fire, releasing vinyl chloride and other toxic pollutants into the community.

chloride and hydrochloric acid through the community.  The accident forced area residents and plant workers to shelter in place for several hours, shut roads, and even led to the closure of a 45-mile section of the Mississippi River.

The accident took place just one week before the Vinyl Institute was in NYC arguing PVC was perfectly safe. For some reason, they forgot to mention in their testimony that one of their plants had just exploded.

Westlake Vinyls makes 550 million pounds of vinyl chloride monomer and 60 million pounds of PVC a year.  The company reports this is used to make PVC pipe, pipe fittings, vinyl sidings, bottles, flexible and rigid film and sheeting used for packaging, credit cards and wall coverings.

Check out this local TV news report (and see another at the bottom) on the accident:

A Toxic Cocktail of Chlorinated Chemicals

We’ll likely never know exactly what was in that cloud of smoke released into the community, but according to report filed by Westlake Vinyls, the company estimated they released a toxic cocktail of:

• 2,645 pounds of hydrochloric acid;
• 632 pounds of chlorine;
• 239 pounds of vinyl chloride monomer;
• 29 pounds of 1,2-dichloroethane;
• 11 pounds of 1,1,2-Trichloroethane;
• 1 pound of 1,1,2,2-Tetrachloroethane; and a number of other chemicals.

According to a local newspaper:

“Even after the fire was out, a large white cloud could be seen still billowing from the plant.”

According to Westlake own reports to the EPA, its plant puts 589,558 people at risk due to the bulk use and storage of chlorine. An accident involving this chemical could potentially impact an area up to 25.00 miles downwind of the plant.

A History of Environmental Injustice

Low income and communities of color live downwind of the Westlake PVC plant.  According to census data, 52.83% of people living within 3 miles of the facility are people of color.  445 people that live within 3 miles of the plant are below the poverty level.

This isn’t first time the plant has had an accident in recent years. On July 8 2010, over 900 pounds of vinyl chloride as well as other chemicals were released during another accident.

A number of other significant incidents and violations that have taken place at this location over the past twenty years, particularly when it was owned operated by Borden Chemicals and Plastics.  This has been well documented in the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice report, From plantations to plants: Report of the Emergency National Commission of Environmental and Economic Justice in St. James Parish, Louisiana, which found:

“In March 1998, Borden Chemicals and Plastics and the federal government reached a settlement under which Borden would pay a $3.6 million penalty and clean up groundwater pollution at its plant in Geismar. The fine was described by a U.S. Attorney as “the largest ever for hazardous-waste law violations in Louisiana.” The settlement ended a case in which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claimed Borden failed to investigate and clean up contamination at its site, failed to report toxic spills, and ran an incinerator without the proper license. Borden said in a news release that the penalty is “less than 1 percent of the $800 million judgment sought by the government.”

On December 24, 1997, a 500,000-gallon storage tank at Borden Chemicals & Plastics in Ascension Parish, Louisiana blew off its top “with a detonation heard for miles around, forcing the closure of Louisiana Route 1 and the voluntary evacuation of some neighbors.” Over a year before (August 22, 1996), equipment failure during the restart of Borden’s facility caused 8,000 pounds of “hazardous materials” to be released.”

In addition, Borden was charged in 1994 with shipping over 300, 000 pounds of hazardous waste to South Africa without notifying the US EPA, as required by law.

The Borden-Westlake-Formosa-Explosion Connection

The Westlake plant that exploded used to be operated by Borden.  Borden also used to operate a chemical plant in Illiopolis, IL which was later taken over by Formosa Plastics.  Interestingly, there was also a major chemical explosion and fire at this plant in Illiopolis a few years ago, which acclaimed author Sandra Steingraber has written about.

This explosion sent a plume of toxic smoke for miles around surrounding communities. Five workers were killed, four towns were evacuated, several highways closed, a no-fly zone declared, and three hundred firefighters from twenty-seven surrounding communities battled the flames for three days.

Did the Westlake Plant Release Deadly Dioxin?

Perhaps even more importantly, we’re very concerned that the fire and explosion sent a plume of toxic dioxin into communities and waterbodies downwind and downstream.  Given that large quantities of highly toxic chlorinated chemicals burned for numerous hours, under uncontrolled conditions, you can bet dioxins and furans were released.

The question is – will EPA and the state DEQ launch an investigation?

Will they sample communities downwind for dioxin contamination?

As we ponder that, here’s another video on the accident: