[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”]Credit for this photo is attributed to Earthjustice
This blog post was written by a former fellow, Katie O’Brien
Last year, I wrote a blog about the environmental racism taking place in Brandywine, MD after the state approved not one, but two gas-fired power plants in the small town. The town of Brandywine is 21 square miles and home to over 6,700 people, 72% of whom are African American. There is already one operating power plant in the town, and the construction of the two proposed plants will result in FIVE total fossil-fuel powered plants within 13 miles of Brandywine. The town sits within Prince George’s County, which is already in violation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s national air quality standards for ozone particulate. The company building one of the power plants, Mattawoman, has already stated that the site, combined with existing pollution, will cause “excessive levels of nitrogen oxide, which is linked to heart disease, asthma, and stroke”. The state of Maryland is home to 13 power plants, all of which are located in disproportionately black communities.
The Brandywine community and effected surrounding towns just recently gained some ground in their fight this June (2016) when a Federal investigation was launched by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Transportation to investigate a possible Civil Rights Violation. The complaint was filed by Earthjustice on behalf of community residents, the Patuxent Riverkeeper, and the Brandywine TB Coalition. The power plants have an adverse impact on the majority African American surrounding community. The complaint states that the Maryland Public Service Commission, the Maryland Department of the Environment, and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources “failed to assess whether the project would cause disparate impacts or explore alternatives to avoid such impacts”. If the investigation finds that disparate impact is taking place, Maryland agencies can be found in violation of the Civil Rights Act and risk the suspension of millions of dollars in grants to the State. Earthjustice Attorney Neil Gormley, who is leading the case says, “We all know it’s unfair to concentrate industrial pollution sources in particular communities, this decision to launch a federal investigation confirms that it’s also a civil rights issue.” The communities surrounding the proposed power plants have the right to clean air and water, despite what the state thinks.
To learn more visit Earthjustice’s website here or here:
To follow the community’s fight click here.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
A recent Gallup poll revealed that 51% of Americans are now not in favor of fracking. Although there are many reasons why, I want to focus on one factor – communities across the county raising their voices in opposition.
Here are the numbers: In March 2016, 36% of those polled favored fracking while 51% opposed fracking. Compare those numbers to last year when it was a dead heat 40% in favor and 40% opposed t fracking. Moreover, when you look at political parties you see similar trends especially in the Republican Party. In 2016, the number of republicans in favor of fracking was 55% compared to 66% the year before. Democrats and independents were about the same for both years.
Thanks to what Mark Ruffalo calls the “fighters,” people in the street, we are slowly moving public opinion away from extracting oil and gas through the fracking process. Leaders throughout our network have made great strides in educating the public about negative public health and environmental impacts.
Almost daily you read an article or hear a story on the radio about the most recent crisis created by the fracking related infrastructure. Just last week there was a story about yet another earthquake in Canada due to an injection well where under great pressure, fracking waste is injected deep into the earth.
According to a recent U.S. Geological Survey there are 7 million Americans at risk of experiencing earthquakes in the central U.S. alone.
Since 2008, the number of trains carrying oil has increased over 5,000%. Not surprisingly, there’s been an associated increase in spills, fires, explosions from derailments. More oil was spilled from trains in 2013 than in the previous 40 years combined. There were six such accidents just last year in West Virginia, North Dakota, Montana and two in Ontario, Canada.
At every well head, rail line, waterway, pipeline, compressor station and so on people are standing up and saying NO. There are people pointing out the damage as it unfolds in front of them of health, water, air and the social costs. It is the courage and strength of communities nationwide that is changing Americans opinion about fracking and associated damage.
In New York State, it was courageous leaders across the state who succeeded in stopping, at least for now, any fracking operations in the state. Hundreds of thousands of people raised their voice and stood up against great odds to win that fight.
Due to this massive education of the American people about the serious problems of oil and gas extraction, not only is opposition growing but alternatives are being look at more favorably. In March another Gallup poll found that 73% of Americans prefer emphasizing alternative energy, rather than gas and oil production as the solution to our country’s energy problems. This is the highest percentage since the question was first asked in 2011.
I’ve worked with groups across the country on these issues and I am so proud to be part of this network of activists. I want to take this opportunity to say thank you and let’s continue to work together to keep the polling numbers moving in the direction of opposition.
Mark Stoll, Washington Post. Stoll recently wrote a column about the Pope’s support for environmental issues and the Catholic tradition for environmental justice, citing CHEJ’s founder Lois Gibbs as “the first Catholic to become nationally known for environmental activism.”
Just about every person who led and shaped the American conservation and early environmental movements grew up Protestant. What irony, then, that the one person who has done more to get people talking about the environment than anyone in decades is the supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis.
Every pope since Paul VI has addressed environmental issues, but Francis’s encyclical this summer made many people aware for the first time of a Catholic concern for the environment. Even dedicated environmentalists might have a hard time naming a major Catholic environmentalist.
The average person could probably more easily name the seven Catholic Republican presidential candidates, who deny or downplay environmental problems like climate change.
Up through the 19th century, Protestant ministers wrote most of the great works about nature as the creation of God. The pantheon of great heroes of environmentalism is thoroughly Protestant — Henry David Thoreau, Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, David Brower, Rachel Carson, Edward Abbey. Exceptions have generally been Jewish, like Paul Ehrlich or Michael Pollan.
Francis’s encyclical framed global warming and environmental issues in a very Catholic way, in terms of their injustice to the poor. Since Vatican II in the 1960s, the Catholic Church has made social justice central to its teaching. It’s no accident, then, that the environmental justice movement is exactly where Catholics have participated most enthusiastically in American environmentalism. [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”][Pope Francis is actually bringing America’s environmentalism movement to its religious and moral roots]
The deeply devout Cesar Chavez might be said to have been the first major Catholic environmental leader in the late 1960s and 1970s, when his farm worker movement protested workers’ exposure to agricultural chemicals.
But the first Catholic to become nationally known for environmental activism was Lois Gibbs. Developers had built Love Canal, her neighborhood in Niagara Falls, N.Y., on top of 20,000 tons of buried toxic waste. Horrific health problems, especially for children, finally made headlines in 1978.
To read the full article, click here.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Kyle Wind, Scranton Times-Tribune. Friends of Lackawanna hold an panel discussion on the expansion of Keystone Sanitary Landfill with the help of CHEJ.
Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s expansion proposal has national importance because its approval could affect how the Eastern Seaboard disposes of garbage in the coming decades, an environmental activist said Monday.
“I think this is a really important fight at a national level because we have to stop this foolish burying of waste and thinking somehow it has just gone somewhere else,” Lois Gibbs told 400-plus people at a Friends of Lackawanna forum on Pennsylvania’s trash disposal policy.
Ms. Gibbs founded the Love Canal Homeowners’ Association in 1978 amid the Upstate New York environmental crisis that became the catalyst for national legislation known as the Superfund Act. She founded the Center for Health, Environment & Justice in 1981 and continued her activism over the decades, which includes working with groups fighting against landfills.
“This is the largest landfill I have seen in my 37 years,” Ms. Gibbs said, eliciting reactions from hundreds of attendees ranging from murmurs to exclamations. “I cannot imagine what it’s going to look like with a 50-year permit. … I’ve never seen a 50-year permit.”
Keystone officials have cited their environmental record and say they believe the Dunmore and Throop operation is part of the way forward, but Ms. Gibbs sees expansions like Keystone’s plan as ensuring it remains cheaper to send trash to places like Northeast Pennsylvania rather than come up with better solutions.
Keystone consultant Al Magnotta attended the forum and described it as well-conducted and informative — but also felt it’s not quite that simple.
The average American generates 4.3 pounds of waste per day, according to Duke University’s Center for Sustainability and Commerce.
“At this time, there’s no other financially feasible disposal option available,” Mr. Magnotta said. “Thus, the way I see it, the solid waste disposal sites must be environmentally responsible and protect the health and safety of the public. That is the goal the owners of Keystone Sanitary Landfill have assigned me, and I intend to do my best to achieve it.”
Friends of Lackawanna, the grass-roots group that opposes Keystone’s expansion, organized the event to discuss why Pennsylvania is one of the country’s leading garbage importers and how the state can be a catalyst for better public policy.
Along with Ms. Gibbs, speakers included Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey; state Sen. John Blake, D-22, Archbald; John Quigley, secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection; and Stephen Lester, science director of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice.
*video*
Mr. Casey talked about his proposed TRASH Act that so far hasn’t made it past the committee level. The legislation would allow states to set minimum environmental standards for trash coming from other states and allow states to charge a premium for accepting garbage through community impact fees.
Mr. Blake discussed the process of getting the health study surrounding Keystone’s proposal by the state Department of Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
Mr. Quigley assured him DEP won’t make a decision on the expansion until study’s results are in, Mr. Blake said.
“We can’t expect decisions to be made by a regulatory authority without full information,” Mr. Blake said. “I am looking at writing legislation … to see if in fact we should make this a requirement going forward. It really ought to be every time a landfill starts or a landfill expands.”
Contact the writer:
kwind@timesshamrock.com,
@kwindTT on Twitter
Attorney Pat Clark, Friends of Lackawanna, talks to Corbett about an event on March 21, 2016 titled “Let’s Talk Trash” at the Radisson in Scranton
To watch the video, click here.
[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”](Adam Orr|Jefferson Post) Lou Zeller, left, speaks with members of the Ashe County Planning Board on Thursday,
JEFFERSON-An Ashe County Planning Board meeting turned testy at times last week as board members sparred with a local environmental activist and some made plain their views on Ashe County’s Board of Commissioners.
“I may no longer be on the planning board after this but I am appalled at our commissioners that would listen to the complaints of a few and take away from the many, listen to their friends and ‘not in my backyard…and tell the world that if we don’t like where you’re putting your business, or we don’t like the kind of business you’ve got, we don’t want you in Ashe County,” Darrell Hamilton, an Ashe County Planning Board Member, said.
By the end of the 90-minute session, however, the group acquiesced to the wishes of county leaders and stiffened certain provisions of a new draft ordinance that will regulate high impact industries like a proposed asphalt plant in Glendale Springs. How’d we get here?
Thursday’s action ultimately stems from an application filed by Appalachian Materials nine months ago. The company requested permission to build an asphalt plant in Glendale Springs in late June of 2015.
The proposal stated the plant would sit on a 30-acre land parcel on Glendale School Road next to an existing rock quarry owned and operated by Radford Quarries.
Local environmental advocates campaigned against the plant for months and asked the Ashe County Board of Commissioners to approve a temporary moratorium on polluting industries, a move which commissioners unanimously approved on Oct. 19.
That measure placed a six month hold on the construction of the Glendale Springs plant until April 19, 2016. Commissioners also reserved the right to renew the moratorium for an additional six months, if necessary, at that time.
In the interim, commissioners instructed the planning board to review and update the county’s polluting industries ordinance. The High Impact Land Use Ordinance was the result of those discussions. Not good enough?
When that ordinance was finally presented to county commissioners on March 7, however, commissioners told members of the planning board the ordinance needed more fine tuning.
The new ordinance, crafted by the planning board with the help of similar ordinances across the state, breaks down polluting industries into two categories. Class I includes asphalt plants, incinerators, quarries, stone crushing operations, concrete mixing plants, pulp mills, chip mills and saw mills. Class II includes chemical manufacturers, chemical storage, explosives manufacturers and warehouses, fuel storage centers and medical waste disposal centers.
Commissioners voted 5-0 that the proposed setbacks for Class I facilities under the proposed ordinance should be increased from 1,000 to 2,500 feet and from 500 feet to 1,000 feet for Class II facilities.
Ashe County Commissioner Gary Roark said on March 7, he will not vote for the proposed HILUO as it stands and expressed his overall disapproval of locating another asphalt plant in the county.
“I have no intention of padding the wallet of someone (asphalt plant) outside of Ashe County,” said Roark. “We already have an asphalt plant in county and others within striking distance of U.S. 421.” Back and forth
That’s an attitude Ashe County Planning Board Member Arvill Scott said he takes issue with.
Scott said he was insulted by the county’s board of commissioners and said the High Impact ordinance was never designed to single out asphalt plant operators.
“That would be singling out one industry,” Scott said. “There are many industries that have a high impact on the citizens of Ashe County. We’ve included them on this as a ‘high impact’ and it keeps returning to the asphalt plant.”
Scott also spoke directly to Lou Zeller, Executive Director of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, and accused Zeller and company of spreading fear about the proposed plant throughout the community.
Zeller fired back that comments made by Scott and Hamilton were nonsense and that the protests sounded like “petulant teenagers” who refuse to do their schoolwork. A rubber stamp?
Ultimately, planning board members are appointed and serve at the pleasure of the Ashe County Board of Commissioners.
As an advisory committee the group has the authority to draft proposed ordinances – like it did with the first version of the High Impact Land Use Ordinance – but commissioners ultimately have the authority to accept or reject the planning board’s recommendation, tweak its proposal in any way the commission sees fit or draft its own language, a point Hamilton highlighted.
“If the only real changes commissioners requested is about the setbacks – they want tighter setbacks – I don’t see why they didn’t just make that change themselves or tell (Ashe County Planning Director) Adam Stumb to do that,” Hamilton said. “I’m not sure why we need to approve that.”
Ashe County Planning Board Director Gene Hafer also said that whatever setbacks the commissioners ultimately approve can’t be so restrictive as to prohibit any “High Impact” industry from opening shop in Ashe County.
Planning Board Members decided by a 3-0 vote – Planning Board Member Priscilla Cox was absent from the meeting and Scott abstained – to approve the commissioners request for greater setbacks.
Reach Adam Orr at 336-489-3058 or Twitter.com/AdamROrr.
To read the full story, click here[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
[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”]Dawn & Dillon Chapman, photographed by Ciara Nolan “For this issue I have invented the first Humans of Frome Award – Mother of the Year and this year the award goes to Dawn Chapman,” says Ciara.
“Dawn is a busy production manager at a local engineering company, a job which she loves and finds professionally fulfilling, she is also the kind of mother who is an inspiration to us all.” ‘My mother said to me, If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope. Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.’
“I think of these words spoken by Picasso when I chat with Dillon Chapman about his plans for the future and his forthcoming GCSE options. At the age of 13 he is definite that he wants to study business and plans to set up a business making specialised wheelchairs and developing bespoke properties to accommodate people with mobility difficulties. It’s extraordinary that any young lad of 13 has such a fully formed plan, but this guy is no ordinary chap. Already, he has raised an astounding £89,000 through presentations and talks that he gives on behalf of the likes of the ‘Make A Wish Foundation’’ and other charities.
“Dillon’s mum Dawn, listens in to our conversation with a smile, her eyes twinkling with an enormous sense of love and pride in her teenage son. She interjects that Dillon started giving talks when he was just seven years old when they attended a fundraising night in a prestigious London Hotel. Imagine her pride when her young seven year-old firecracker of a son volunteered himself to stand on the stage and speak to the hundreds of well-heeled guests. He blew them away that night with his insightful and eloquent speech and the rest as they say is history.
“The Chapman family history is a rich and complex one; you don’t get to the age of 13 and have such fully formed ideas on the future without some real life experiences of your own.
“Some readers may already be familiar with Dillon’s story, he is a well known and liked face about town and even further afield these days since the BBC documentary ‘The Boy Who Wants His Leg Cut Off’ aired last year. Dillon suffers from an aggressive form of neurofibromatosis, a disease that causes tumours to form in his nervous system. His leg had grown out of proportion to his tiny frame and following 11 years of agonising pain, a long list of operations, interventions and mobility issues, this mature 11 year old decided to fight for amputation. The documentary follows the Chapman family on their journey to battle the establishment to allow this unprecedented amputation to be carried out.
“I’m delighted to say that the family won their battle and Dillon’s left leg was amputated last year, heralding a vastly improved new lease of life for this brave young man.
“Dawn laughs and explains that he missed only two days of school (as the operation took place over a school break). When she phoned the school to inform them that he would be coming back sooner than expected, they, of course were surprised but not overly as everyone who knows this family are always prepared to be amazed.
“Dawn says that Dillon’s words at the time were, ‘I’ve not had brain surgery, I’ve just had my leg off.’ They laugh together, something that they do frequently during our mid morning meeting at the barbers where Dillon is getting a very smart short back and sides.
“I watched the documentary with great interest, also following progress on Dawn’s Facebook page where she replied to every one of the well-wishers who had taken the time to get in touch, and one thing was becoming blatantly obvious….this powerhouse of a woman, this rock of a mother is someone with enormous emotional intelligence. I was curious to speak with her, and to understand how someone remains so strong through the weight of such enormous challenges.
“Dawn tells me that minutes after Dillon’s birth she turned to Mark her husband and told him that she was scared. She was scared of the enormity of motherhood, frightened of making the wrong choices, and fully aware that from that moment onward they were responsible for this little bundle and who he would go on to be in the world. When they discovered the magnitude of Dillon’s NF she says that they turned to one another and said, ‘Bring it on.’ She adds that they made a pact to never lie to their son, to involve him in everything, to help him to understand his condition and to support him in making his own decisions as he grew up. It took a moment for me to consider these wise, well informed decisions that Dawn and Mark made so long ago, how did two new parents know how to deal with the weight of their new and unexpected life-changing situation.
“Where does such a level of emotional intelligence come from? Dawn smiles when I ask and she sits back on the white leather sofa, in the warm barbershop salon on Selwood Road and with the spring sun lighting her soft red hair like a halo around her she grins and says, ‘sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to really know who you are.’
“She goes on to reveal that as a young girl, the 7th child in seven years, she was faced with many challenges but that she was very blessed with a family who had the ability to really love. Dawn lost a sister when she was 11 years old, her sister had physical disabilities to contend with.
“Dawn talks fondly of how her mother guided her through some of the unkind things that people might say when they were out and about in town. Telling the tale of how her sister asked why people stared at her so much, she remembers with fondness her mother’s reply, ‘Sure you are so beautiful they had to look at you twice.’
“Her sister died at home one day which was a huge shock to the whole family and a loss that they never really quite recovered from. Five years later, her beloved father died and her 45 year-old widowed mother continued with the task of guiding her large family through those difficult years. Sounds as though, there’s another exceptional mother in this story to celebrate.
“I walked away from our meeting with my head held high, enjoying the warmth of the spring sunshine on my face and the radiating warmth in my heart. A mere hour in the company of this woman and her ‘chip off the old block’ of a son and I feel like I can take on the world.
“The legacy of a brief morning interlude is an overwhelming feeling of happiness and the reminder that life is too short, you should love every minute and to remember you are blessed for however long you have someone in your life, so be sure to enjoy them. Live every minute as though its your last and you won’t go wrong.
“Happy Mother’s Day Dawn, Dillon is a credit to you.”
To read the full article, click here.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
A three-judge panel will hear arguments this month on a petition regarding a change in thickness in concrete containment walls for Plant Vogtle’s two new nuclear reactors.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which hears legal challenges to the commission’s actions, will convene March 15 at Augusta’s Federal Justice Center. Expected to present arguments are the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Concerned Citizens of Shell Bluff, NRC staffers and Southern Nuclear, a Southern Co. subsidiary.
Vogtle is 45.7 percent owned by Georgia Power, another Southern Co. entity, and the new reactors are expected to be operational by 2020.
According to an NRC news release, environmental activists are opposing a license amendment granted by the commission in December, contending that the proposed wall thickness “does not meet industry standards, does not meet worker radiation protection standards and has disproportionate impact on Shell Bluff residents” near the Waynesboro, Ga., site.
The amendment, according to NRC records, revises the thickness of concrete walls of four “containment internal structural wall modules” at the new reactors. The proposed changes amount to a difference of less than an inch on walls that measure up to 9 feet thick, Georgia Power spokesman Jacob Hawkins said.
“The NRC approved the amendment request on Dec. 16, 2015, and issued the license amendment stating the changes, regarding five-eighths of an inch difference in thickness of concrete walls measuring up to 9 feet thick, do not impact employee or public safety.” he said in a written statement.
Hawkins said the amendment requests are a regular part of the construction process, and he pointed to an NRC evaluation that concluded “the margin provided by the reinforcement (for the thinner walls) and the volume of concrete (for the thicker walls) provides reasonable assurance that the tolerance changes will not compromise the intended safety functions of the affected walls.”
According to the document, the change doesn’t appear to result in any increase in the designated plant radiation zones, either.
The event is open to the public but seating is limited. Those wishing to attend are asked to contact Cooper Strickland at (301) 415-5880 or cooper.strickland@nrc.govby Wednesday.
To read the full article, click here.
Washington Post, Darryl Fears. Members of CHEJ network group Just Moms STL explain the health effects of living near West Lake Landfill and the slow movement of the EPA to stop the underground fire or provide relocation for the families. Just Moms STL visits Capitol Hill to push their bill on relocation to congress.
[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”]Trevor Beckermann, 6, who has the autoimmune disease alopecia areata, plays the board game Life with his mother Meagan Beckermann, 34, at home in Bridgeton, Mo. His condition results in extreme hair loss. The family lives about a mile from two massive landfills, one filled with radioactive waste. (Sid Hastings for The Washington Post)
Her first clue that something was wrong came as she ran her hands through her baby boy’s hair. “My child was losing his hair in clumps,” Meagan Beckermann recalls. A doctor traced the problem to alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease that can be triggered by environmental factors.
A frantic search for a likely source ended when neighbors advised Beckermann to follow her nose. That’s when she learned that the charms of her St. Louis suburb of Bridgeton — with its green parks and quality schools — masked two massive landfills, one filled with radioactive waste, about a mile from her home. No one had mentioned them when she’d bought her house, she says.
Four years later, she and other residents now describe the situation as only more extreme. Rapidly decomposing waste 60 feet to 200 feet down is smoldering beneath one of the landfills in what scientists call a sub-surface burning event. The underground burn is only a few thousand feet from a Superfund site filled with waste from the World War II-era Manhattan Project, the federal government’s ultimately successful effort to build an atomic bomb.
The Superfund site is managed by the Environmental Protection Agency, which neighbors and state officials say has done little to stop the burn from reaching the radioactive waste.
“Every day, I live with anxiety. I live in fear,” said Beckermann, a 34-year-old mother of two.
Before the agency was forced to defend itself against critics in Flint, Mich., who say it bears some of the responsibility for that city’s lead-contaminated drinking water, EPA was on the defensive in north St. Louis County. Members of Missouri’s congressional delegation have authored two bills that would strip EPA of its oversight of the 200-acre Superfund site, which is known as the West Lake Landfill. The legislation would give the Army Corps of Engineers authority over the clean-up and removal of up to 48,000 tons of nuclear waste.
[/fusion_builder_column][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”][It’s not just Flint: Poor communities across the U.S. live with extreme polluters]
One bill, sponsored by Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, passed that chamber earlier this month, while the House bill, sponsored by Democratic Rep. William Clay, is working its way through a committee. Missouri’s attorney general is urging Clay to press on.
“A burning radioactive waste dump requires the government to act with urgency, but EPA seems unable to move forward with a meaningful solution,” State Attorney General Chris Koster wrote last week in an angry letter to members of the delegation, in which he called for the Army corps’ intervention.
The federal Superfund program addresses large and highly toxic hazardous waste sites. Although no credible link has been established between air quality near the landfills and prevalence of disease, residents are concerned about adverse health impacts. Mothers such as Beckermann, whose 6-year-old son Trevor now has no hair on his entire body, worry about the possible effects of the West Lake site’s contaminants on their children. Some people have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
The burn at the closed Bridgetown Landfill has increased the stench, some say. “It makes you gag,” resident Robbin Dailey said. Families within a mile of both properties are demanding that the EPA relocate them, a move that would cost a half-billion dollars, according to some estimates. A group of mothers from the area traveled to Washington last week to press for action. While on Capitol Hill, they told lawmakers that their requests to speak with EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy had been ignored.
At the EPA’s regional headquarters in Kansas City, Administrator Mark Hague counters that officials are acting as quickly as possible. “There was a lot of critical investigative work that went on for a period of time,” stressed Hague, who said he has met “several times” with the mothers and has relayed their concerns to McCarthy.
Scientists contracted by the EPA have determined exactly where the underground burn is located, and in late December the agency ordered the Bridgeton Landfill’s owner, Republic Services, to construct a barrier to isolate the burn from the other site. Hague said that barrier will take a year to build. A Republic Services spokesman said in an email that the company would be responsible for costs up to $30 million unless the project is transferred to the Army corps.
“It’s my job to get this done,” Hague said.
The scientists’ investigation showed that the burn is not moving toward the Superfund’s radioactive material, but the barrier was ordered as a protective measure along with equipment to cool what’s smoldering underground, Hague said. Air-quality monitoring to date shows readings in keeping with a metropolitan area, he added.
But Bridgeton residents and state officials have little trust in the agency’s actions and assurances. They say radioactive waste has been found beyond the area that EPA originally identified. The attorney general called for more extensive testing, and he and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources sued Republic Services for environmental violations at the Bridgeton Landfill. The company has denied the claim, and the litigation is pending.
“There’s been a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation out there, but the science is clear,” Russ Knocke, the company’s vice president of communications and public affairs, said in a statement Tuesday. “The landfill is in a managed state.”
The West Lake Landfill is surrounded with a fence and notices identifying it as a Superfund site, but there’s no other warning in the community. An EPA website allows Americans to “Search for Superfund Sites Where You Live,” and the agency also puts notices in newspapers — although an EPA spokesman for the region acknowledged that local residents can miss seeing those.
Dawn Chapman, who lives nearby, said she’s furious that federal government, state, county and local authorities didn’t notify residents who purchased property in the area that a Superfund site had been designated there in 1989.
Chapman discovered she was pregnant with her first child a few months after buying a house 11 years ago. Each of her three children have developmental problems that require special care. “I didn’t know a landfill was there, and I definitely didn’t know a Superfund site was there,” she explained while in Washington.
“Everybody has responsibility,” Chapman said. “If you knew about this, you have responsibility. The failure to notify residents, the failure to advocate, falls on every elected official that covers the district. This is no place to raise a family.”
As the one landfill smoldered and word about it spread, Chapman and two other women co-founded a protest group. They called it Just Moms because whenever they contacted elected officials to help them, they’d be asked if they were advocates. “No,” the women responded, “we’re just moms.”
The St. Louis County health department soon will survey residents living within a two-mile radius of the Bridgeton site to determine if they have a higher rate of certain health problems compared to populations elsewhere in the county or state. Its director said the study will focus on asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and allergy-type symptoms.
Beckermann said she worries constantly. In October, a letter from her children’s school district scared her further. “Since the eastern part of our school district is only a few miles away from the West Lake Landfill,” Superintendent Jeff Marion wrote, “please know that I will be working with the city and county emergency management officials to ensure we are prepared to respond in the event of an environmental accident.”
“It was terrifying as a parent to read that letter,” she said. “It’s terrifying every morning when you drop your kids somewhere knowing you might not be able to pick them up.”
One elementary school also sent a letter home advising parents to ask their children’s doctors about medications they might need in case they are detained at the school during an emergency. Parents should consider leaving the medicine at school, the letter suggested.
Both Beckermann and Chapman were women on edge as they made the rounds on Capitol Hill last week. “I don’t want to be here,” Chapman said. “I just want to be home with my kids.”
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Next door to Ferguson, the town of Bridgton, Missouri is about to become another symbol of a system that fails the most vulnerable citizens who fall through the cracks of economic and racial disparities. While the political fight for justice for people of color still rages in our local municipalities, the ravages of toxic waste on the health of those too poor to relocate or have a place at the power tables is costing more precious lives
The thousands of tons of radioactive waste in the Westlake landfill are contaminating the air, the groundwater and the trees of the area. The toxic nuclear waste originated in the 1940s and 50s when Mallinckrodt Chemical Works processed uranium for nuclear weapons. This waste was illegally dumped in the landfill in 1973 and has been polluting the waters of Cold Water Creek and the playgrounds where children have been swimming and playing for generations. You can read more about the situation here:
These toxic waters will contaminate the Missouri River, make their way to the Mighty Mississippi and there will not be enough bottled water to save us.
And now, the fires of the neighboring landfill are dangerously close to the radioactive waste. We don’t know exactly how this will make the situation worse but the local schools have all sent out letters to parents about their plans for when the fires reach the nuclear waste. They are calling for “shelter in place”— Reminds me of putting our coats over our heads under our desks in the 1950’s.
This is not a new story. A local priest tells how he served a parish in Bridgton and in just two years he buried seven children with forms of leukemia. The cancer clusters and prevalence of birth defects and other diseases in the area are well known anecdotally as well as scientifically.
The DOH surveyed the surrounding eight zip codes and found higher rates of cancer.
Advocates like Kay Drey have been collecting frightening data for thirty years to encourage the government to clean up its mess.
The Missouri Attorney General, Chris Koster, published a study that found contamination in the groundwater and the vegetation.
JustMoms STL fights tirelessly for their children and the neighbors who are too sick to advocate for themselves.
Our federal representatives have worked ACROSS THE AISLE to pass legislation that is our only hope for a safe and permanent solution. House Resolution 4100 and Senate Bill 2306 authorize the transfer of the cleanup of the landfill from the EPA to the Army Corps of Engineers FUSRAP. The Senate bill has passed and we hope the House will follow and the President will support both!
Once again the people of “Ferguson” and neighboring communities need the nation to stand up to injustice. As we demand justice and clean water as a right for the people of Flint, we need the help of a compassionate nation to ask our President to tell the EPA to step aside and make it possible for FUSRAP to remove the nuclear waste and avert more suffering and another disaster.
For more information please visit justmomsstl.org or centralreform.org.
Rabbi Susan Talve
