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Ohio plans to discontinue use of controversial road deicer AquaSalina

The Ohio Department of Transportation plans to stop purchasing a deicer made from processed brine drawn from oil and gas wells.

The department made the call after the Ohio-made deicer product, AquaSalina, became the subject of House Bill 282. The bill would allow the product to be sold to the general public and remove a requirement that users pay a $50 fee to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and report where every gallon gets spread.

ODOT did not cite the bill or environmental concerns for its decision to stop buying the product.

“We only need additives when pavement temperatures get extremely cold, which is fortunately the exception, not the rule,” said ODOT spokesman Matt Bruning. “Also, there are a lot more approved products on the market these days, so we have more options to choose from.”

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Photo credit: Columbus Dispatch File Photo

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Almost 600 Louisiana sites with toxic chemicals lie in Hurricane Ida’s path

About two thirds of Louisiana industrial sites with toxic chemicals lie in the path of Hurricane Ida, a storm with the potential to batter or flood refineries, storage tanks and other infrastructure that can release oil and other harmful liquids and gases into communities and the environment.
A Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate analysis of industrial data and Ida’s predicted route through the state indicates 590 sites that produce or store toxic chemicals are in harm’s way. Almost 380 of them are within 50 miles of the coast, putting them at particular risk from storm surge, strong winds and heavy rain, according to the analysis of sites listed in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory.
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Photo Credit: Travis Spradling

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EPA is falsifying risk assessments for dangerous chemicals, say whistleblowers

Whistleblowers say the US Environmental Protection Agency has been falsifying dangerous new chemicals’ risk assessments in an effort to make the compounds appear safe and quickly approve them for commercial use.

Over the past five years, the EPA has not rejected any new chemicals submitted by industry despite agency scientists flagging dozens of compounds for high toxicity. Four EPA whistleblowers and industry watchdogs say a revolving door between the agency and chemical companies is to blame, and that the program’s management has been “captured by industry”. The charges are supported by emails, documents and additional records that were provided to the Guardian.

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Photo Credit: Andrew Kelly/Reuters

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Backyard Talk

Environmental Justice is a Health Crisis

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

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Severe oil leaks worsened Keystone pipeline’s spill record, GAO finds

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.

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Photo Credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images

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For 30 years, she has fought a waste-to-energy plant in Chester City: ‘We don’t have a choice’

Dozens of large trucks rumble hourly toward a large waste-to-energy incinerator operated by Covanta at the edge of a neighborhood in Chester City’s West End.

Other trucks take a fork in the road and head to a sewage sludge incinerator operated by Delcora. A pile of scrap metal from a recycling facility juts high over back yards. Along the rail line that runs alongside the community, freight cars clack by, or stop and idle behind the homes.

Glance up, and you can see the smokestacks of the Marcus Hook Industrial Complex a mile or so in the distance.

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Photo Credit: Jonathan Wilson

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Homepage News Archive Superfund News

INSIDE THE DECADES-LONG FIGHT OVER AN OHIO SUPERFUND SITE

Thirty acres of desolate land stretch across the heart of Uniontown, Ohio, a vast expanse of grass, trees, and scruffy vegetation no one can use because a toxic stew of nearly one hundred deadly contaminants festers beneath its surface. Enclosed by chain-link fencing and warning signs, the Industrial Excess Landfill (IEL) is one of more than thirteen hundred hazardous Superfund sites on the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Priorities List.
While open, IEL’s broad swath of customers ranged from Akron City Hospital to the National Guard, but, according to the EPA, the waste came primarily from the rubber industry: Firestone, General Tire, Goodrich, and Goodyear in nearby Akron, the Rubber Capital of the World.
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Photo Credit: John Harper/cleveland.com

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Report: Aging Pa. schools ‘uniquely vulnerable’ to environmental health hazards | Wednesday Coffee

Aging infrastructure has left Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts “uniquely vulnerable” to such environmental health hazards as radon and mold, putting the safety of roughly 1.7 million public school students at risk, a new report concludes.
The report, by the advocacy group Women for a Healthy Environment, calls on state officials to create “an equitable formula,” for school infrastructure investment, and to lift the existing moratorium on a reimbursement program for school construction.
The report found that a majority of public school buildings across the state are within a half-mile of a polluter, and, as a result, that districts that serve more low-income and special education students had a greater prevalence of asthma.
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Homepage News Archive Water News

Environmental group: U.S. military sites are contaminating Chesapeake Bay with ‘forever chemicals’

ANNAPOLIS — At least nine U.S. military sites along the Chesapeake Bay are leaking contaminated fluids known as “forever chemicals” into the estuary, according to a new report from the Environmental Working Group published on Aug. 11.
The Washington-based environmental organization released the study after gaining access to Department of Defense records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The records found high levels of contamination in the Bay from toxic, man-made chemicals known as Per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which do not break down in the environment, posing serious health risks that can cause cancer.
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Photo Credit: Marty Madden

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Demonstrators march for local hiring, environmental justice in I-81 project

On Saturday, about 150 Syracuse community members demanding economic, racial and environmental justice for the impacts of the Interstate 81 viaduct marched from Dr. King Elementary School to the New York state office building in downtown Syracuse.
“No justice, no peace,” the demonstrators chanted. “I-81 has got to go.”
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Photo Credit: Francis Tang/The Daily Orange