Categories
Superfund News

GE’s cynical strategy won’t work in Berkshires

We support the people of our county who desire to live, once and for all, free of PCBs. For way too long, Berkshire residents have had to endure the consequences of GE’s half century of willfully dumping hundreds of thousands of pounds of PCBs into the Housatonic River, and of spreading large amounts of PCB-contaminated soil all around the county.  Read More.

Categories
Homepage

Court slapps down big oil’s lawsuit against young climate activists

In a victory for environmental justice, a California appeals court on February 15 dismissed the California Independent Petroleum Associations’s lawsuit against youth organizations from South Los Angeles and Wilmington, the Center for Biological Diversity and the city of Los Angeles. Read more.

Categories
Homepage Water News

More than 50 million gallons of water polluted with toxic metals pours daily from US mine sites

Every day many millions of gallons of water loaded with arsenic, lead and other toxic metals flow from some of the most contaminated mining sites in the U.S. and into surrounding streams and ponds without being treated, The Associated Press has found. Read more.

Categories
Homepage

Environmentalists bemoan regulators’ lack of transparency on imported shipments of GenX wastewater

State and federal officials have known about the shipments from the Netherlands to Fayetteville for at least a year but never told the public. Read more here

Categories
Backyard Talk Water News

PFAS Chemicals: Failing to Protect the American People

Last week the EPA announced its “Action Plan” for a group of chemicals referred to as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS chemicals. In its news release, the agency described this effort as “historic” and as the “most comprehensive cross-agency plan to address an emerging chemical of concern ever undertaken by EPA.” However, environmental advocates and people who live in communities contaminated by PFAS chemicals were not impressed by the agency’s plan. Group after group released news statements blasting the plan as inadequate and lacking action, lamenting the agency’s failure to create a standard to regulate PFAS chemicals in drinking water.
In response to questions from reporters, EPA expressed the need to set a standard that would be defensible in court and promised that the agency will develop a standard “according to where the science directs us.” While this might make a good sound bite, it falls far short of what environmental advocates and people who live in communities contaminated by PFAS chemicals had hoped for.
The National PFAS Contamination Coalition, a network of communities impacted by PFAS contamination described the agency’s plan as “woefully inadequate for those who have been suffering from exposure to contamination for decades” and that “it fails to prevent current and future exposure to PFAS in the environment.”
The EPA’s failure to set a health standard for PFAS chemicals is nothing new for the agency. They have not issued a new standard for drinking water in over 22 years since the Safe Drinking Water Act was passed in 1996. Andrew Wheeler, Acting Administrator of EPA, described setting a standard for PFAS chemicals as “charting new territory” at the agency’s press conference. Really? Has it been so long that the agency no longer recalls what it needs to do to issue a new standard?
Not having a health standard is huge. Without a standard, there is no clear legal handle that the agency can use to force a polluter to clean up contaminated water to the standard or to require that a water company to provide water that does not have PFAS at the level of the standard. With only a health advisory, the agency has no standing to force a polluter to take the necessary steps to clean up contaminated water or require a water company to provide water that does not have PFAS at the level of the advisory. They can ask. They can recommend. But that cannot require. At least not legally.
More study and analysis as called for in the EPA “Action” plan, will not change this scenario. The agency needs to stop stalling, recall its roots and issue a health standard for PFAS chemicals. The communities that have been contaminated by PFAS chemicals and the American people deserve nothing less.

Categories
News Archive

Media & Messaging Training Call w/Kathy Mulady

Listen to the recording and learn how to sharpen your skills in communicating with the media and the public. This training will help you to build your skills to move messages that make a difference, inspire, galvanize and give voice.
Click below to listen or download the Mp3 recording.

Categories
Homepage

Teenage Girls Lead Strike Demanding Climate Justice

TENS of thousands of school children, in more than 60 towns and cities across the UK, went on strike on Friday in protest at the lack of political action to address climate change.
Pupils taking part in the School Strike 4 Climate congregated at local city halls; thousands descended on Westminster, bringing the roads around Whitehall to a standstill. Holding placards bearing slogans including “Why learn facts when politicians won’t listen to them?”, the teenagers exchanged high-fives with one stranded white-van driver, while other drivers beeped their horns in support. Read more.

Categories
Homepage Water News

TRUE: ‘More than a million Californians’ don’t have clean drinking water … It could be higher

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has made confronting California’s contaminated drinking water a top priority early in his term in office.
Read More.

Categories
Homepage

Irish High Court delivers killer blow to US Fracked Gas Imports by ‘New Fortress Energy’

The challenge by Irish environmentalists has proved that the ‘New Fortress Energy’ Shannon LNG consent process will take years and may now never come to fruition.
Read More.

Categories
Homepage Water News

WHEELER’S NATIONWIDE PFAS ACTION PLAN FAILS COMMUNITIES

Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled its delayed Nationwide Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Action Plan.
Read More.