A number of houses surrounding the Consumer Energy J.H. Campbell Coal Plant in West Olive, Michigan found high levels of radium, arsenic, and lead in the local water supply. It is currently unclear if the contamination is a result of groundwater leakage from the plant’s coal ash pond. Further testing is needed to determine the exact source of contamination and how it entered into the groundwater supply. Read More.
Tag: children’s health
The water samples drawn Aug. 8 at Crete-Monee Middle School found numerous school drinking fountains that tested well above the EPA action level, including one that was 90 times above the level on first draw and 30 times above the level after a 30-second flush, according to district-supplied data. Read more.
The Ohio Environmental Council released a report Thursday, August 22 addressing Ohio’s children at the greatest risk to climate change. As wild fires rage on in the Amazon and carbon dioxide levels cause climate temperatures to rise, the OEC has voiced concern for asthma and allergy problems, water contamination, and dangerous algae blooms <Read More>.
The way scientists think about how chemicals cause their toxic effects is changing. Recent scientific research tells us that the traditional notion of how chemicals act is being replaced by a better understanding of the actual features of exposures to environmental chemicals. These features include the timing and vulnerability of exposures, exposures to mixtures, effects at low doses and genetic alterations called epigenetics.
Traditional thinking tells us that how much of a chemical you are exposed to (the dose) determines the effect. This principle assumes that chemicals act by overwhelming the body’s defenses at high doses. We’re learning now that this principle is not always accurate and its place in evaluating risks needs to be reconsidered. What we now know is that some chemicals cause their adverse effects at low exposure levels that are not predicted by classic toxicology.
Recent research has shown that environmental chemicals like dioxin or bisphenol A can alter genetic make-up, dramatically in some cases. These changes are so powerful that they can alter the genetic material in eggs and sperm and pass along new traits in a single generation, essentially by-passing evolution.
It wasn’t too long ago that scientists believed that the DNA in our cells was set for life, that our genes would be passed on from one generation to the next, and that it would take generations to change our genetic makeup. That’s no longer the case.
This new field – called epigenetics – is perhaps the fastest growing field in toxicology and it’s changing the way we think about chemical exposures and the risks they pose. Epigenetics is the study of changes in DNA expression (the process of converting the instructions in DNA into a final product, such as blue eyes or brown hair) that are independent of the DNA sequence itself.
What researchers are learning is that the “packaging” of the DNA is just as important as a person’s genetic make-up in determining a person’s observable traits, such as blue eyes, or their susceptibility to diseases such as adult on-set diabetes, or to the development of lupus.
The environment is a critical factor in the control of these packaging processes. We may be born with our genes, but epigenetics changes occur because of environmental influences during development and throughout life. These influences include chemicals in the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and they appear to contribute to the development of cancer and other diseases.
Epigenetics may explain certain scientific mysteries, such as why certain people develop diseases and others don’t, or why the person who smoked for 30 years never developed lung cancer. There is still much to learn, but an early lesson to take away from this emerging science is that we need to rethink our traditional ideas of how chemicals affect our health.
For more information see
https://www.healthandenvironment.org/environmental-health/social-context/gene-environment-interactions
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Global Youth Climate Strike
This September, millions of people across the world will walk out of their jobs, classrooms and homes to join in the annual Global Youth Climate Strike. On Friday, September 20 and 27, participants in more than 150 countries will disrupt their daily routines to speak out against the coal, oil, and gas industry with a goal to demand an end to the use of fossil fuels. More information on how to organize a climate strike and strike event locations can be found on the Global Climate Strike website. <Read More>
A South Carolina elementary is reopening for the first day of school despite a smoldering, toxic fire in a 50-foot trash pile at a nearby recycling center.
About 25 neighbors have evacuated from the neighborhood.
The Environmental Protection Agency has found at least one hazardous substance in the area: Acrolein. People can be exposed to that toxin by inhaling it or through skin or eye contact, and it can attack the respiratory system and heart, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Read more.
Currently, the action standard for lead for New York schools is 15 ppb— but research from the NRDC suggests that this is too high, as no level of lead intake is safe for children. They propose lowering New York’s lead action standard in schools to 1 ppb, in order to protect children from the affects of lead poisoning. <Read more>
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Building a Kaleidoscope Movement
by Lois Gibbs
As we approach the 2020 elections, I am excited about the opportunities to engage in a broader pubic conversation about creating real social change. Elections provide us with opportunities to engage the public in conversations about serious deep changes that are needed, not only environmental and health but social justice issues across the board. Class, race, living wage, immigration policies, economic growth, climate change, environmental justice are all connected. We need to begin today to expand the movement and build bridges with other leaders, develop strategies and take advantage of the 2020 public conversation to move an agenda that is about people, protection, jobs, justice and so much more. Now is the time to plan and now is the time to build those bridges to work together for change.
Over the 38 years since the Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ) was founded, we have dedicated ourselves to broadening the base and strengthening the skills of the grassroots movement for environmental health. Our goals are to raise popular consciousness about fundamental problems in the current system, provide a positive, unifying vision, and build a sense of empowerment by reinforcing the power of an organized group of people to create change.
The Kaleidoscope Movement is a formation of groups at local, state and national levels that are joined together around building and strengthening community. The issues are varied, as are the class, race and geographical locations. What is common is the desire for justice, to prevent harm to human health, the economy, environment and the ability of our children to achieve the American promise. It is not anchored in a single political party or class of people, but rather inclusive, dynamic and strategic.
This is a movement that takes people where they are, listens to their concerns and builds power around their issues and concerns. It is not D.C. or policy focused, rather it’s focused on people, values and strategic place/practice-based goals. For example, our definition of “environmental health and justice issues” is where people live, work, learn, pray and play. Systemic change has come from this approach by building power at the local level.
The results historically have been very exciting. By organizing one family at a time, one church at a time, one school at a time, and one neighborhood at a time, CHEJ and partners have been able to accomplish things that have been out of reach to groups taking a policy or regulatory approach to systemic change. We have our supporters and grassroots activists to thank for this success. In fact, in most cases the policy has not kept up with the shifts in practices. Our methodology for change is to bring people together, build power around issues people care about that are strategic and fit into a larger vision of change that is needed.
CHEJ does not bring people together to agree on a platform or policy agenda and then try to move groups into action. Our approach, instead of top down, is to pick strategic issues that people care about and then move people directly into action from the bottom up. Through this process the public conversations raise fundamental values and the work is based on solutions that are source based for a more permanent change in public opinion and in practice.
The victories of changing the “practice,” are unlike regulatory or policies based wins. These victories are not as likely to a slide backwards or are enforcement centered. Consequently, they stay in place even when there is a change in elected representation or a decision maker.
Through these specific issue related efforts, CHEJ linked activists together to build a broad progressive movement. While organizing, educating, and building the base, we actively teach people about the root cause of their problems and the need to become active participants in the governance of their communities and state. Our work also helps activists experience the power of working collaboratively in local or statewide coalitions.
To continue to build a progressive movement, it is critical to find ways to remove the barriers between organized groups nationwide, identify common frames that can unite groups of groups, and take advantage of opportunities to flex this multi-faceted, multi-issued political muscle.
CHEJ works with diverse constituencies that focus on a single issue – such as nuclear disarmament activists, disease-related groups focusing on issues like birth defects or breast cancer, environmental justice leaders, firefighters, teachers, parents, faith-based leaders or toxics use reduction groups. We are all learning to support each other, respect each other’s issues and underlying shared values, and appreciate the value of speaking with a unified voice.
2020 offers us all the opportunity to continue to not only learn about one another’s cultures, issues, and tightly held values but to advance them through public conversations this election year. We all win if we continue to break down barriers between diverse segments of the environmental health movement and building bridges to related social justice movements like Black Lives Matter, Health Care for All, living wage campaigns, building a new economy and so many more.
I believe that by investing in ground up activities across lines of issues, race, gender and geographic boundaries, we can create the world we want. I’m looking forward to this challenge this year with the many opportunities that will present themselves during all presidential election years.
This is the question that journalist Jim Daley raised recently in an article published in Scientific American. According to the article, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is substantially changing the program that evaluates the toxicity of chemicals by shifting staff and program emphasis from the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) to duties related to implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Daley writes that “Former EPA officials contend that the shake-up takes chemical assessments out of the hands of career scientists, potentially to the detriment of public health.”
As evidence of this shift, Daley writes that that the agency has reduced the number of its ongoing chemical toxicity assessments from twenty to three.
The IRIS Program began in 1985 to support EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment by identifying and characterizing the health hazards of chemicals found in the environment. The IRIS program has become the most respected scientific program in the agency. Its health assessments are the backbone of EPA risk analysis work and is the preferred source of toxicity information used by EPA to determine public health risks. It is also an important source of toxicity information used by state and local health agencies, other federal agencies, and international health organizations.
The TSCA program on the other has a much narrower focus which is primarily on reporting, record-keeping and testing requirements, and restrictions relating to chemical substances and/or mixtures, according to EPA’s website. Certain substances are not covered by TSCA including food, drugs, cosmetics and pesticides. While the 2016 amendment to TSCA greatly improved this regulation, it did not address its narrow focus. This shift began with the leadership of Andrew Wheeler who took over for a beleaguered Scott Pruitt as administrator of EPA in July 2018.
One EPA official who declined to be identified was quoted in the Daley article saying that IRIS and TSCA are “very different” in their approaches to evaluating the public health risks posed by exposure to chemicals. “One could make the argument that this is political interference, in that high-level people are saying which methodology we should be using to assess the safety of a chemical. “And the policy’s pretty clear that they’re not supposed to do that.”
Bernard Goldstein, Professor Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, who served as EPA Assistant Administrator of the Office of Research and Development (ORD) from 1983 to 1985, summed it up this way in the Daley article, “I really see this as part of a restructuring of EPA in such a way that science will have very little to do with what EPA is basing its regulation on, and that we will end up with much weaker regulations in terms of protecting public health. “It’s troubling, in large part because it’s very consistent with an overall approach – a very astute approach – to take out the inconvenient facts.” Also cited in the same article was a comment by Thomas Burke from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a former EPA lead scientist adviser and Deputy Administrator of ORD from 2015 to 2017, “’any reduction’ of the number of IRIS chemical assessments ‘is a loss for public health and, unfortunately, puts populations who are exposed at risk.’”
Read the full article here.
A new elementary school in Moore County, North Carolina, is to be constructed between two Superfund sites threatened by high levels of air pollution, NC Policy Watch reports. According to the city, the site bears no heightened risk of contamination, but CHEJ science director Stephen Lester isn’t so sure. Stephen shares CHEJ’s findings that there is no scientifically proven “safe distance” from pollution sites, and he calls into question effectiveness of current school siting guidelines. He recommends that parents sending their kids to the new Aberdeen elementary school in the future be incredibly vigilent about changes in their children’s health.
The Moore County case is particularly relevant because the new Aberdeen elementary school would serve primarily low-income students and students of color. In many ways, constructing a new elementary school is a push toward progress, as existing Aberdeen elementary schools were built during the segregation era. However, the new elementary school’s future location could potentially mean disproportionately exposing students of color and low income students to environmental contamination. As Stephen says, children are at higher risk for health complications from pollution contamination, and no child should have to face health complications due to pollution. <Read more>
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