A hydrology expert found clear evidence collected by the Environmental Protection Agency that hydraulic fracturing polluted a Wyoming aquifer according to a June report.
Tom Myers, a hydrologic consultant, reviewed a report of ground water contamination in Pavillion, WY commissioned by the National Resources Defense Council, the Wyoming Outdoor Council, Sierra Club and the Oil and Gas Accountability Project. The findings of Myers’ report is being submitted to the EPA as technical comments.
“After consideration of the evidence presented in the EPA report and in URS, it is clear that hydraulic fracturing has caused pollution of the Wind River formation and aquifer,” Myers wrote. “The entire formation is considered an underground source of drinking water, but 169 gas wells have been constructed into it; this is fracking fluid injection directly into an underground source of drinking water,” wrote Myers.
CHEJ was sad to hear that Dr. Rosalie Bertell passed away this week. Dr. Bertell was an international leader in radiation health hazards and championed many campaigns to protect communities from radioactive waste sites and nuclear reactor releases.
Dr. Bertell was a nun whose life’s work at the International Institute of Concern for Public Health resulted in cutting-edge publications and research on the health effects of radiation. Her seminal book, “No Immediate Danger”, explains in layperson’s terms how radiation is harmful. Sister Bertell was often the only public health specialist who helped communities impacted by radioactive hazards, including the NL Industries uranium site in Albany, NY and the Uniontown IEL in Ohio. We commend Dr. Bertell for her compassionate dedication and her pioneering work on radiation health hazards.
Our fight for PVC-free schools is picking up momentum. This April, PVC-free school policies were endorsed by one of the nation’s largest educational labor federations: NYSUT, the New York State United Teachers, representing more than 600,000 employees and retirees from New York State schools, colleges, and healthcare facilities.
At their 40th annual representative assembly, NYSUT endorsed a proclamation titled, “Reducing & Phasing Out the Purchase of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) Plastic in New York Schools”. Recognizing the serious harm posed by vinyl chemicals like dioxin and phthalates, especially to school-aged children and women of childbearing age, NYSUT’s members added their support to the growing movement for PVC-free schools.
CHEJ would like to thank NYSUT’s membership – the teachers, college and university faculty and staff, bus drivers, custodians, secretaries, cafeteria workers, teacher assistants, nurses, healthcare technicians – for their progressive vision and activism on behalf of New York’s students, teachers, and staff.
“RESOLVED, that NYSUT urges school districts in New York state and the State Education Department to develop new green procurement policies to reduce and phase out the use and purchase of PVC building materials, office supplies and school supplies; and be it further
RESOLVED, that NYSUT support efforts to have school districts in New York state and the State Education Department implement cost-effective strategies to reduce and phase out PVC in building materials, office supplies and school supplies and should encourage suppliers and vendors to reduce or eliminate their use of PVC in product and packaging; and be it further
RESOLVED, that NYSUT urges New York state schools to educate the public about dangers of PVC and their strategies for phasing it out; and be it further
RESOLVED, that NYSUT urges state and federal governments, in enacting such phase-outs, to consider policies that alleviate short-term economic impacts on the PVC production workforce, and to also consider economic benefits to workers in industries making safer alternatives.”
Help us continue the momentum!
If you belong to a PTA, union, or other organization that might be interested in enacting a similar resolution, please contact CHEJ’s NYC Green Schools organizer, Daniel Gradess: DGradess[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][at]CHEJ[dot]org / 646-678-3993
Learn about all aspects of nuclear energy and network with activists by attending the Know Nukes Y’All Summit in Chattanooga, TN from June 28th to 30th. National experts, such as David Freeman and Dave Lochbaum, will be speaking at this Southern regional grassroots gathering. The event is sponsored by 15 national and regional groups. To register ($40 including meals), go to knownukesyallsummit.org or call 828-252-8409.
Lead is more toxic to children than previously believed and the federal government has once again lowered the blood level of concern threshold. The federal Center for Disease Control recently reduced the “action level” from 10 micrograms per deciliter to 5 micrograms per deciliter.
The agency stated that this new action level means that “children will be identified as having lead exposure earlier, and parents and doctors can take action earlier. The action came about because a national committee of experts recommended CDC change the blood level of concern. Their recommendation was based on reviewing a growing number of scientific studies that show that even low blood lead levels can cause lifelong health effects. For more information, go to www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead
Beyond Nuclear and the NYS Alliance for a Green Economy are challenging the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to shut down the dangerous FitzPatrick reactor in upstate New York, which has the same design as the tragic Fukushima reactor in Japan.
Yesterday, the groups gave presentations to NRC’s Petition Review Board urging them to shut down the reactor, located in Oswego, NY, north of Syracuse. The FitzPatrick Fukushima-design GE Mark I Boiling Water Reactor’s design is unprepared for managing a severe accident. The groups outlined the serious risks of the design in a formal petition signed by dozens of organizational leaders. For more information, contact jessica@allianceforagreeneconomy.org
When we read the standard above, we knew that we had a lot of work ahead of us. To the public, the standard would seem like a positive environmental step, eliminating the purchase of chlorinated paper that produces toxic chemicals when burned. To CHEJ and our allies, it meant that more than seven years of work to phase polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic out of NYC purchasing was in danger of being thrown under the bus. So once again, on March 29th, we rallied the troops, this time for a public hearing before the Bloomberg Administration.
Greening the Big Apple
NYC agencies spend billions of dollars a year on goods, construction and services, which can have a huge impact on the environment. In 2005, CHEJ worked closely with members of the NYC City Council to help pass the “Environmentally Preferable Purchasing” (EPP) laws, which set standards for energy and water efficiency, “green” cleaning products, and recycled content in goods and construction materials bought by City agencies. Importantly, the laws also addressed hazardous substances associated with products purchased by the City, including a requirement that:
“By January 1, 2008, the director shall promulgate rules to reduce the City’s purchase or lease of materials whose combustion may lead to the formation of dioxin or dioxin-like compounds.”
Dioxins, some of the most toxic chemicals on the planet, are associated with birth defects, developmental disorders, and cancer. They’re formed primarily when materials like PVC plastic containing chlorine are burned.
Chlorine, PVC and Dioxin – the Connection
As one of the largest sources of dioxin in the world, PVC consumes about 40% of all the chlorine produced worldwide. The plastic itself, which is found in many products purchased by City agencies, including flooring, siding, office supplies, carpeting, and electronics, contains and releases chemicals associated with asthma, learning disabilities, and other chronic diseases on the rise. When PVC burns in building fires it turns into hydrochloric acid, and has been linked to respiratory problems and cancer risks for first responders. The City Council legislators who drafted the dioxin provisions of the EPP laws did so with the intention of phasing PVC products out of City purchasing, as documented in the voting report discussing the legislation.
NYC: A Huge Opportunity
By January 1st, 2008, the City had missed their deadline for producing the dioxin-reduction rules.
In response to the missed deadline, we wrote letters to the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services (MOCS) signed by over 20 diverse organizations and experts, calling for the dioxin rules to be released, and for green purchasing provisions to address PVC. We called, emailed, and met with officials; more recently we gave testimony at a City Council oversight hearing. We made clear that safer and cost effective PVC-free alternatives are readily available on the market, and that companies such as Google, Apple, Target, Wal-Mart, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and Microsoft all have policies to reduce or phase out the purchase of PVC.
Over four years late, in February of 2012, MOCS finally issued the draft rules, and announced a 30-day public comment period, culminating in a public hearing on March 29, 2012. We at CHEJ read the dioxin provision with great disappointment:
MOCS was trying to meet the dioxin requirements solely by reducing the chlorine content of their paper products, ignoring PVC entirely.
On the positive side, while the proposed purchasing regulations did not address PVC, we learned that the City has already begun to make progress in reducing NYC’s purchase of PVC products. The City is working with Staples, NYC’s sole office supply vendor, to identify and purchase PVC-free office supplies. It has issued bids for a large new citywide carpeting contract that requires all carpeting to be completely PVC-free. And City purchasers are already selecting computers off of State contracts that have PVC-free requirements.
These are positive steps, and they should be codified in the proposed regulations. Including PVC in the rules themselves would not only meet the documented intent of the law, it would also ensure that future mayoral administrations will be bound by the same rules, and make NYC a national leader in safe, green purchasing.
Firefighters, Teachers, Doctors Speak Out
During the 30-day public comment period and at the March 29th hearing, CHEJ and more than 35 organizations and experts submitted testimony, including environmental health and justice groups, experts in children’s health and brain development, teachers and firefighters unions, and green businesspeople and architects. 100 citizen activists signed a letter, and City Councilman Robert Jackson sent a letter of support. Below are some key quotations from the hearing, and you can find more in the press release.
Captain Alexander Hagan, President of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association (UFOA), said, “Fire Officers take an oath to ‘protect the lives and property of the citizens of New York City’ and there is an ongoing interest to the public if laws regarding the purchasing and use of PVC products by the City are not being complied with. PVC is among the most serious dangers to humans and the environment when it is burned. … From a fire perspective, we urge compliance of the City to ensure an environmentally friendly purchasing process.”
Stephen Boese, Executive Director of the Learning Disabilities Association of New York State, said, “As advocates for persons with learning disabilities and related impairments, the Learning Disabilities Association of New York State supports initiatives that prevent disability. We therefore urge that the City of New York assure that its purchasing policies exclude products with harmful plastics like PVC that release dioxin, wherever feasible, and protect the health and well-being of City workers, those in the care of City programs, and all other City residents.”
If we succeed in getting PVC-reduction written into the rules, they will be among the first, if not the first, binding PVC-specific city-level purchasing regulations in the country, impacting the largest city in the United States, which spends approximately $17 billion annually on goods and services.
Let’s hope Mayor Bloomberg recognizes this opportunity to lead the country into a safer, greener future.
Contact Daniel at DGradess at a domain called chej dot org
Eleven environmental groups are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to force it to better regulate toxic coal ash.
Using EPA’s own data, the groups highlighted how coal ash has polluted groundwater at at 29 coal ash dump sites in 16 states. Earthjustice filed the lawsuit on behalf of the groups on April 5th. They noted that EPA has not updated coal ash disposal regulations in more than 30 years despite evidence of “leaking waste ponds, poisoned groundwater supplies and threats to public health.”
Coal ash is produced mainly by coal-fired power plants and contains a mixture of toxic chemicals and compounds, including arsenic, lead, hexavalent chromium, manganese, mercury, selenium and cadmium.
As we approach the one year anniversary of Fukushima on March 11th, Robert Alvarez reports that there is “No Nuclear Nirvana” and nuclear power remains expensive, dangerous and too radioactive for Wall Street. ( Huffington Post, 3/5/12)
“Is the nuclear drought over? When the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently approved
two new nuclear reactors near Augusta, Ga., the first such decision in 32 years, there was plenty of hoopla.It marked a “clarion call to the world,” declared Marvin S. Fertel, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute. “Nuclear energy is a critical part of President Obama’s all-of-the-above energy strategy,” declared Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who traveled in February to the Vogtle site where Westinghouse plans to build two new reactors.
But it’s too soon for nuclear boosters to pop their champagne corks. Japan’s Fukushima disaster continues to unfold nearly a year after the deadly earthquake and tsunami unleashed what’s shaping up to
be the worst nuclear disaster ever. Meanwhile, a raft of worldwide reactor closures, cancellations, and postponements is still playing out. The global investment bank UBS estimates that some 30 reactors in several countries are at risk of closure, including at least two in highly pro-nuclear France. And Siemens AG, one of the world’s largest builders of nuclear power plants, has already dumped its nuclear business…”
Scientists have found new dangers in tiny pervasive particles in air pollution according to a New York Times article (2/18/12). “Fine atmospheric particles — smaller than one-thirtieth of the diameter of a human hair — were identified more than 20 years ago as the most lethal of the widely dispersed air pollutants in the United States. Linked to both heart and lung disease, they kill an estimated 50,000 Americans each year. But more recently, scientists have been puzzled to learn that a subset of these particles, called secondary organic aerosols, has a greater total mass, and is thus more dangerous, than previously understood. A batch of new scientific findings is helping sort out the discrepancy, including, most recently, a study led by scientists at the University of California, Irvine, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash….It indicates that the compounds’ persistence in the atmosphere was under-represented in older scientific models. “If the authors’ analysis is correct, the public is now facing a false sense of security in knowing whether the air they breathe is indeed safe,” said Bill Becker, of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies. Taken together, the findings of the new study and of a handful of others published in the past two years could mean that two decades’ worth of pollution-control strategies — focused on keeping tiny particles from escaping into the atmosphere — have addressed only part of the problem. Paul Shepson, a professor of analytical and atmospheric chemistry at Purdue University and one of the reviewers of the Irvine paper, called it “highly significant in scientific terms,” adding that current models of fine particulates “grossly underpredict” their density, “sometimes by as much as a factor of 10.”
