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Author: Hunter Marion

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Toxic Tuesdays

Exposures to Chemical Mixtures Matter​

Toxic Tuesdays

CHEJ highlights several toxic chemicals and the communities fighting to keep their citizens safe from harm.

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Exposures to Chemical Mixtures Matter

Considering cumulative exposures to low levels mixtures of chemicals is an enormous challenge when evaluating the toxicity of chemicals. Neither the EPA nor ATSDR have guidance on how to evaluate exposure to multiple chemicals simultaneously, or cumulatively over time. The EPA does have its Risk-based Screening Levels (RSLs) that provide some guidance on risk estimates, but these values only consider chemicals in isolation, or when exposed to one chemical at a time. This limitation has begun to be recognized as a fundamental weakness in the way research is done on the toxicity of chemicals. Testing one chemical at a time is not sufficient nor appropriate for evaluating public health risks when people are exposed to multiple chemicals at the same time, or cumulatively over time.  

This limitation was highlighted when a group of 350 cancer research scientists came together in Halifax, Nova Scotia to address the question of continuous multiple chemical exposures and the risks these exposures pose. Referred to as the Halifax Project, this effort merged two very distinct fields – environmental toxicology and the biological mechanisms of cancer – and provided the opportunity for researchers to look at the diversity of environmental factors that contribute to cancer by examining the impact that exposure to very small amounts of chemicals can have on various systems of the body.

These scientists looked at whether everyday exposures to mixtures of commonly encountered chemicals have a role to play in cancer causation. The researchers began by identifying a number of specific key pathways and mechanisms that are important in the formation of cancer. Then they identified individual (non-carcinogenic) chemicals that are commonly found in the environment that had some potential to disrupt these systems. A total of 85 environmental chemicals were identified.

The authors found that 59% of these chemicals (50/85) had low dose effects “at levels that are deemed relevant given the background levels of exposure that exist in the environment.” They found that only 15% of the chemicals reviewed (13/85) had a dose-response threshold and that the remaining 26% (22/85) could not be categorized due to a lack of dose-response information. The authors concluded that these results help “to validate the idea that chemicals can act disruptively on key cancer-related mechanisms at environmentally relevant levels of exposure.”

This is an important observation because it challenges the traditional thinking about how cancer forms in the body. It challenges the notion that all cancers share common traits (considered the “hallmarks of cancer”) that govern the transformation of normal cells to cancer cells. The authors also discuss how the results in this paper impact the process of risk assessment as even its most sophisticated model fails to address continuous exposures to mixtures of common chemicals. 

The authors concluded that “the cumulative effects of individual (non-carcinogenic) chemicals acting on different pathways, and a variety of related systems, organs, tissues and cells could plausibly conspire to produce carcinogenic synergies.” In other words, exposure to multiple chemicals at low doses, considered individually to be “safe,” could result in various low dose effects that lead to the formation of cancer. This is a remarkable observation and conclusion. It is also an important advance in the understanding of the risks chemicals pose to society. It also highlights how surprisingly little is actually known about the combined effects of chemical mixtures whether on cancer related mechanisms and processes or on adverse effects in general.  

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SCOTUS Restricts Water Rights for Navajo Nation

Photo credit: Leah Hogsten \ The Salt Lake Tribune

By Hunter Marion

On June 22nd, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Arizona v. Navajo Nation (2023) that the United States was not responsible for securing access to clean, fresh water for the Diné people. This is yet another blatant attack on citizens’ rights to clean water, such as what happened in Sackett v. EPA (2023), and another harmful decision in a string of highly controversial rulings this last month.

The argument at the heart of the case was whether an 1868 treaty signed between the Navajo Nation and the U.S. government included providing the Diné with direct, reliable access to the Colorado River watershed. The treaty specified that the Nation would be given sufficient resources that allowed for suitable agriculture in their “new, permanent home.” The Diné rightly assumed that this would include infrastructure that accessed the river’s water.

The Navajo Nation has rights to ~700,000 acre-feet of water annually from the Colorado River. However, it does not have the infrastructure necessary to access their owed amount of water. This leaves about 40% of all Diné households without water. To put this into perspective, 99.2% of the entire U.S. population has continuous access to potable drinking water, whereas only 48% of the U.S. Indigenous populace has such access. For the 82 gallons of water accessed by the average non-Indigenous U.S. citizen per day, an average Indigenous citizen accesses only 7 gallons. Global warming has also decimated water levels in the Southwest region, particularly exacerbating tribal nations’ already limited water access.

By voiding any responsibility of the U.S. government to build water infrastructure in the Nation in this ruling, the U.S. has once again broken another contract between the Nation. The ruling also perpetuates the centuries-long discrimination that disproportionately exposes Indigenous peoples to environmental contaminants, radiation, extractive and polluting enterprises on tribal lands, and denies them continuous access to health,  education, and clean water.

Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren, although disappointed, “remain[ed] undeterred” and vouched that he will continue fighting to “represent and protect the Navajo people, [their] land, and [their] future.” The Native American Rights Fund also voiced that they “will continue to assert their water rights” despite the Court’s ruling.

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Toxic Tuesdays

Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPHs)

Toxic Tuesdays

CHEJ highlights several toxic chemicals and the communities fighting to keep their citizens safe from harm.

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Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPHs)

Total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) are a family of hundreds of chemicals that come from crude oil. When crude oil is spilled during extraction or processing into petroleum products, TPHs can contaminate the environment. Because TPHs contain so many chemicals, it can be impractical or impossible to measure each individual chemical. Instead, total concentrations of TPHs are measured at contamination sites. Upon contaminating soil, some TPH components will remain there for a long time without breaking down. Upon contaminating water, some components will form films on the surface while others will sink to the bottom. Touching contaminated soil or drinking contaminated water can lead to exposure to TPHs. Because many products and gasolines are derived from crude oil, almost everyone has some exposure to TPHs even in the absence of a chemical spill. For instance, breathing the air at gas stations or using certain pesticides can cause exposure to TPHs.

Exposure to TPHs can have effects on the nervous system, causing headaches, dizziness, or numbness in the extremities. Some TPH chemicals can also affect the blood, immune system, respiratory system, and skin. In laboratory studies on animals, TPH exposure was also found to affect liver function, kidney function, and fetal development. Furthermore, at least one TPH chemical – benzene – is known to cause cancer in humans. Despite known health effects of exposure to TPHs, and the potential for synergistic effects of simultaneous exposure to multiple TPH chemicals, there are no federal regulations specific to TPHs.

CHEJ has previously written about the health effects of some chemicals commonly found in TPH and communities that have been exposed to them: benzene, naphthalene, toluene, and xylene.

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SCOTUS Continues Attacking Environmental Health

Photo credit: Getty Images, iStock.com

By Leila Waid.

It may come as a surprise that one of the biggest challenges facing environmental and public health is our judicial system – specifically the current U.S. Supreme Court. Out of the total nine Justices, six are conservative-leaning, and three are progressive-leaning. The Trump administration picked three of the current six conservative Justices – the same administration that posed several difficulties for environmental protection. The Trump-administration-packed Supreme Court, which saw the appointments of conservatives Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney-Barret, has repeatedly deteriorated environmental protections for all Americans.

The Supreme Court Justices have a chokehold on environmental health issues and have consistently voted to strip Americans of the right to a healthy environment. The most recent example of such an environmental health ruling is the Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency ruling,which limits EPA’s ability to regulate wetlands under the Clean Water Act. This ruling will pose issues to the health and safety of the water because, unlike the Supreme Court’s logic that wetlands are separate from the rest of the U.S. water bodies, the truth is that all water is connected. Pollution in the wetlands will undoubtedly leak into our main drinking water supplies.

Another recent Supreme Court ruling that adversely affected environmental health and justice was the 2022 case West Virginia v. EPA. In this 6-3 ruling, all the conservative judges decided that the EPA should not be able to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions because they cannot restrict how much CO2 powerplants release. Carbon dioxide is one of the primary greenhouse gas emissions that has caused climate change.

One of the main issues with this current Supreme Court is that many of the Justices have an originalist interpretation of the law, and this belief often leads them to vote in ways that significantly limit the federal government’s power. Originalists believe the law can only “be interpreted as it was understood at the time of its adoption.” As one can imagine, this philosophy is wrong, considering the Constitution was written when only wealthy white males had any sort of power in the U.S. Is that the world these so-called originalist Justices want to live in? And if not, then why won’t they vote in such a way that reflects today’s values?

Originalism, at its core, is a flawed methodology. As Berkley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky stated, “the world we live in is so vastly different from 1787, when the Constitution was written, or 1791, when the Bill of Rights was adopted, or 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified.”

For example, they do not want the federal government to regulate air and water pollution because they feel it will infringe on the state’s rights. But this argument is dangerous and flawed. Air and water don’t stop at states’ borders. And in the case of the carbon dioxide ruling, the effect this will have on climate change will not stop at the national border. The countries most impacted by a warming planet will be Low- and Middle-Income Countries.

How can we fight against such a dangerous group of individuals who have forsaken all reason and fairness in the face of environmental justice? One solution is to expand the court and enforce term limits. Experts argue that this approach will help make the judicial branch more democratic.

I will leave you with this quote from Elie Mystal, from his book Allow Me to Retort, about the dangers of the ultra-conservative Supreme Court: “Never accept the conservative interpretation of the Constitution. Never accept the conservative limitations placed on our political, civil, and social rights. They have literally always been wrong, and they are wrong now. Justice is not one constitutional option among many—it is a requirement of a free and equal society. Demand nothing less.”

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Did You Know a 36-inch Pipeline Rupture Can Release 13,000 Barrels of Heavy Crude Oil?

Photo credit: Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector

By Sharon Franklin.

Tim Carpenter, reporter for the Kansas Reflector, recently reported a massive oil spill that is distorting a Kansas couple’s confidence in the integrity of the Keystone pipeline. The rupture of TC Energy’s 36-inch steel pipe has released 13,000 barrels of heavy crude in Washington, Kansas.

Chris and Bill Pannbacker, beef and crop producers who grew up in a farmhouse less than 1-mile from the pipeline break, found a major break in the TC Energy Keystone pipeline that poured crude oil “black-as-night” on their livestock’s grazing land and into the Mill Creek. The Federal regulators told them the accident was because of problems with design construction and operation of the pipeline. Meanwhile, TC Energy blamed a faulty weld in a bend that cracked under stress.

How Did This Happen? On December 7, there was an alarming pressure drop in the Keystone’s pipeline, and equipment showed the rupture; however, before the Keystone pipeline could be shut down as much as 500,000 gallons of crude oil were discharged. It has affected vegetation and infected the modest creek. Under the oversight of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, TC Energy reopened the pipeline in three weeks, with restoration plans to proceed.

Unfortunately for the Pannbackers, they were involuntarily drawn into this environmental nightmare, more than 6 months ago, and are still being affected by the relatively quick repairs.  During the clean-up, they have had an unobstructed view of work being done to remediate the area by a fleet of heavy equipment (excavators, bulldozers, trucks) tasked with the removal of oil-saturated soil for disposal. According to EPA, the $480 million project to remove oil and chemical pollution and to remediate the area continues.

The Pannbackers are planning to eventually move back to their family farm but are uneasy about the potential of another break in the pipeline, as Bill Pannbacker verbalized “You’re damn right! If that line blows on top of that hill, it’s going to shoot oil all over. It’s going to cover that valley.  I don’t have the confidence in the line that I did before.” Bill Pannbacker added, “I am impressed with the cleanup effort and the intensity of the cleanup effort,” However, it hasn’t quashed his apprehension and as he knows the clock is ticking toward a repeat of the pipeline catastrophe.

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Pyrolysis & Gasification Exemption: A BIG Win for Local Communities

Image credit: book cover for “Evolution of a Movement” by Tracy E. Perkins.

By Stephen Lester.

In a major win for grassroots community groups throughout the country, the USEPA decided last week to withdraw its plan to relax clean air regulations applying to pyrolysis and gasification facilities. After receiving 170 comments mostly opposing the agency’s plan to relax its regulations, the EPA said that it needed more time to consider the many complex and significant comments it received. And while it’s being reviewed, the current Clean Air Act rules that apply to pyrolysis and gasification facilities will stay in place.

This mean that these processes will continue to be regulated on equal footing to incinerators, as they have been for nearly 30 years. Pyrolysis and gasification facilities are currently regulated under the Clean Air Act, and are required to meet strict emissions standards that include emissions monitoring and reporting requirements.

The EPA proposed changing the rules that applied to pyrolysis and gasification facilities during the Trump Administration following heavy lobbying from the plastics industry and the American Chemistry Council. The plastics industry has been pushing hard to get the agency to redefine what qualifies as an incinerator and to exclude pyrolysis and gasification facilities from this definition. Currently, these facilities are considered under the same rules that apply to incinerators. Had this change in policy been approved, there would be no air pollution rules or regulations that pyrolysis and gasification facilities would have to follow.

Over the past year or so, the American Chemistry Council has invested billions of dollars into projects that use pyrolysis and gasification to burn waste plastics. This investment is in lock step with the plastic industry that is looking for ways to address the growing quantities of plastic waste that is generated each year. In a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the annual production of plastic is expected to triple by 2060 to 1.23 billion metric tons yearly, while only a small portion (~9 percent) will actually be recycled.

The American Chemistry Council has also been working at the state level to pass legislation that redefines processes such as pyrolysis and gasification as non-waste. This is so that these facilities could be regulated as “recycling” facilities that manufacture a product, an energy, or a fuel than can be burned. In this way, these facilities do not have to meet the stringent air and water quality requirements that an incinerator has to meet. According to Inside Climate News, 24 states have currently passed laws that recognize these facilities as being manufacturing rather than waste management.

While this is a big win for the many grassroots groups, and statewide and national environmental groups that sent comments to EPA opposing this rule change, the plastics industry and its partners will not let this go easily. No doubt they will continue to push EPA to make this change. They have already invested too much in this effort. We need to continue to be vigilant in opposing efforts to relax the rules that apply to pyrolysis and gasification facilities. Congratulations to all who contributed to this effort!

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Toxic Tuesdays

Glycophosate

Toxic Tuesdays

CHEJ highlights several toxic chemicals and the communities fighting to keep their citizens safe from harm.

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Glyphosate

Glyphosate is a chemical found in weed killer products such as RoundUpTM used on farms and home lawns. It gets absorbed by plant leaves, stopping plant growth within hours. Because of its effectiveness, glyphosate is found in widely used products that are easily obtainable. It is used all over the United States, but its highest concentrations are in the Midwest and Plains states. When glyphosate-containing weed killers are sprayed to kill plants, it can be inhaled and get on the skin. This can cause skin irritation and respiratory effects. People frequently working with glyphosate may be more likely to develop these respiratory effects. In scientific studies on animals, exposure to glyphosate during pregnancy caused developmental defects in the resulting offspring. Furthermore, there is concern that when combined with other chemicals found in weed killer products, glyphosate may have increased toxicity on humans.

Whether or not exposure to glyphosate increases the risk of cancer is inconclusive. The US EPA classifies it as not likely to cause cancer; however, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded that it probably does. There have been allegations that large agrochemical corporations that use glyphosate in their products have close relationships with the governmental organizations that conduct the studies regarding glyphosate’s health risks. While more studies and risk assessments may need to be done to be certain of the risks, it is crucial that these studies are done transparently and without bias to protect and inform the public.

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Reducing the Reuse of the Recycle Sign

By Hunter Marion.

In 2021, California passed a law restricting the use of the classic recycling symbol upon products that are not truly recyclable. Last May, this law, and substantial complaints over the years, triggered an official comment by the EPA against the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). This comment encouraged the FTC to update its Green Guides to regulate the symbol’s use more stringently amongst plastics companies.

At the heart of this issue, the EPA, several concerned environmental groups like Greenpeace and Beyond Plastics, and even the Biden Administration have found that the use of this symbol perpetuates plastic pollution and misleads consumers. This misleading stems from the linked usage of the recyclable symbol with “resin identification codes” (RIDs) on single-use plastics.

Simplified, RIDs range from 1 to 7, with 1-2 being plastics that are generally able to be successfully recycled, while plastics labelled 3-7 are instead trashed in landfills or incinerated. However, the general recycling populace usually knows nothing about these numbers, identifies the recycling symbol, and throws all their plastic into the same bin. Doing this creates a dramatic chokepoint for waste collection companies who must separate and sort the mixed plastics at their materials recovery facilities (MRFs). Consistently backed up and under pressure, a sizable portion of these plastics are not properly separated and are often dumped or burned.

While banning the recycling symbol for non-recyclable products would help cut down rampant waste and curtail decades of greenwashing, environmental advocates still push for the total reduction in plastics use by consumers entirely. Both Greenpeace and Beyond Plastics reported that in 2021 only 5-6 percent of the total plastic produced by the U.S. was effectively recycled. Over 400 million tons of plastic are produced every year, 42 million tons in the U.S. alone.

Greenpeace’s John Hocevar says that we “have to stop thinking of all this throwaway plastic as recyclable and treat it for what it is: a very problematic type of waste.” This should be the most important takeaway from this issue. Plastic, no matter how recyclable, is not a viable product that should be used on a mass scale. It should not be ubiquitous to almost every aspect of our lives. Instead, like Hocevar and Judith Enck from Beyond Plastics suggest, we should strive to distance ourselves from purchasing or using plastics in our everyday lives. Instead of getting fixated on the recycling portion, we should focus on the widescale reduction and, if possible, safe reuse of plastics rather than making more.

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Cancer Alley Pre-Teens Demand to Not Be Made into Another Sacrifice Zone

Photo credit: Josie Ygnatowiz

By Sharon Franklin.

In a recent op-ed, by Kamea Sibley Ozane and Roishetta Sibley Ozane in Teen Vogue, a Louisiana mother and daughter are followed on how they got involved in climate activism. Kamea is a 10-year-old who lives in Sulphur, Louisiana near the Gulf Coast with her mom and brothers and sisters. She recently learned that pollution from oil and gas was making her and her environment sick, as well as contributing to climate change. She talks about how one week before her 10th birthday party everything changed. Her skin started to burn, itch, and break out. She went to the doctor, and was told she had a skin disease, and could not have her birthday party. She was told her skin disease would heal, but it didn’t. She returned to the doctor and more tests were done and it was finally decided that her skin condition was caused by her environment and the polluted air was the reason her skin was peeling off. Then Kamea started to ask questions. “What is happening to me? What’s causing it? How do we stop it?”

Roishetta, Kamea’s Mom said, “It broke my heart to have to explain to my daughter and the rest of my children that the petrochemical facilities around us was poisoning our air.” She cites a recent report by Environmental Integrity, which concluded that oil refineries in Lake Charles “release about 675 thousand pounds of nitrogen pollution a year in the Calcasieu River, causing serious environmental harms.”

Kamea listened to her mom when she informed her that if these oil and gas companies continue to operate, not only will more children continue to get sick, but the effects of climate change will get worse. Even though her Mom told her not to worry she immediately decided to fight for her town. She started to organize by talking to her friends in school and making them more aware of the issues surrounding pollution and its connection to climate change. After speaking with her friends and family about the dangers of pollution and how it was affecting climate change, she realized it was a good first step. But she wanted to do more.

In April 2023, she helped her mom organize The Vessel Project of Louisiana in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Her mother told her that the gas industry is planning to build four huge gas export terminals in Southwestern Louisiana, which will be within five miles of each other, and ship gas to other countries. Kamea’s mom also told her that Lake Charles wasn’t the only community being sacrificed, that there were more than 20 gas export projects being proposed to be built across the Gulf.   

What are these Cancer Alley teens asking for? Kamea wants President Biden to stop approving these oil and gas projects. She asks “President Biden, please don’t let the Gulf Coast become a sacrifice zone.  We don’t want these facilities in our backyards because they are poisoning our water and our air.  It makes it harder for kids like me to spend time outside and enjoy our planet. We only have one Earth, and it is time we start acting like it.”

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Toxic Tuesdays

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PCBEs)

Toxic Tuesdays

CHEJ highlights several toxic chemicals and the communities fighting to keep their citizens safe from harm.

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Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDE)

Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDE) are chemicals that are flame retardants – meaning they are added to different materials to make them less susceptible to fires. PBDEs are found in various everyday materials, such as furniture padding, computers, rugs, and electrical wires. They are a synthetic (not naturally found in the environment) subset of the organobromine compounds, chemicals where a carbon molecule is bonded to a bromine molecule. There are 209 different forms of PBDEs, which vary based on what the carbon-bromine structure looks like.

PBDEs were discovered in the 1970s, and since then, several of them have been phased out of production (PentaBDE and OctaBDE), but other versions (such as DecaBDE) are still being manufactured. While some states, such as California and Washington, have banned specific forms of PBDEs from production, there is no national restriction on the production of this chemical as of 2023. It’s also important to note that even for PBDEs that have been banned or phased out of production, the waste from production and manufacturing remains in the environment and causes harm.

The lack of national attention to this class of chemicals is concerning because of the mounting evidence that PBDEs have negative impacts on human health. For example, these chemicals are thought to be endocrine-disrupting. The endocrine system, which oversees the regulation of hormones, is vital to human health. When this system is damaged, it can cause various adverse health effects, such as cancer, reproductive damage, and neurological damage. A case-control study found that exposure to PBDEs was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer among post-menopausal women. Another study found that the BDE-28 compound was associated with an increased risk of papillary thyroid cancer. As for reproductive health, a study on infants reported that pregnancies that had PBDE chemicals in the umbilical cords, those infants were more likely to have lower birth weights. And a chemical that causes fetal abnormalities is called a teratogen, although PBDE does not carry this classification by the Environmental Protection Agency. Evidence of neurological damage has also been in animal studies, where PBDE was found to cause neurotoxic effects on memory, attention, and leaning ability.

Exposure to PBDEs during pregnancy is only one route of exposure to this chemical. Because PBDEs decompose slowly in the environment, they bioaccumulate and build up in the food chain. Fish and other marine life are especially prone to bioaccumulation. Thus, PBDE contamination could be of concern for people who consume a lot of seafood or rely on it as their primary protein source. Another way that people can be exposed to the chemicals is through water. PBDE waste can seep through the ground and contaminate the groundwater sources. Another exposure route, which accounts for an estimated 80% to 90% of exposure for the population, is inhaling contaminated dust particles. For example, PBDE can be found in the dust that accumulates in homes. One study found that individuals who had higher levels of PBDE in the dust at their houses had higher levels of the chemical in their blood serum levels.

PBDEs are considered persistent organic pollutants (POP), and many communities are fighting against this contamination in their backyards. For example, the Alaska Community Action on Toxins (ACAT) has been advocating for years to ban the use of PBDEs in the state. Another group that has been advocating for the ban on PBDEs are first responders, specifically fire-fighter organizations. When blood samples were taken from firefighters, they had brominated dioxins and furans in their bloodstreams. Fire fighters are more exposed to these chemicals because when a house fire occurs, all of the products that have PBDEs in them, such as furniture upholstery, burn up and release these toxic chemicals into the air that the first responders breathe in.

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