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Author: Stephen Lester

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Homepage Superfund News

A toxic town, a search for answers

“Even before Hassan Amjad’s family buried him on a West Virginia hillside, phone calls flooded his daughter’s office.
The callers remembered him as a kind man, boundless in his curiosity, fiery in his convictions, who had long maintained a medical clinic in nearby Oak Hill, in an old whitewashed house with a squeaky screen door and creaking wood floors.

 But some of them also sounded worried. Ayne Amjad, a doctor like her father, heard the same questions again and again: Who will stand up for us now? Will we be forgotten?

Her father had made it his mission to get justice — or at least answers — for the people of this once-thriving coal town an hour south of the state capital. He told anyone willing to listen that industrial chemicals dumped decades ago by the now-defunct Shaffer Equipment Co. had long been poisoning residents.” Read More

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Backyard Talk

Linking Antarctic Ice Melt to Coastal Flooding

A landmark study published this month in the science journal Nature combined the work of 80 scientists from 42 institutions including some of the leading experts in Antarctic climate research and concluded that Antarctica has lost nearly 3 trillion tons of ice since 1992. According to CBS News, this is enough water to cover the state of Texas 13 feet deep. While it is no surprise that the Antarctic continent is losing land mass, it is surprising to learn how quickly the ice has been melting.
Using decades of satellite measurements, the researchers found that that from 1992 through 2011, the Antarctic continental ice melted at a rate of 76 billion tons per year. Since that time however, the rate has jumped to 219 billion tons per year. This data indicates that the rate of ice melt has nearly tripled in the past 5 years.
The study provides extraordinary evidence of how and why Antarctica’ glaciers, ice shelves and sea ice are changing and triggering an increase in the continent’s contribution to global sea level rise. Warm ocean water is melting the ice shelves and causing them to collapse. This rapid melting of the Antarctic ice shelves is already having a serious impact on coastal cities, especially on the east coast of the United States. A recent editorial in the Washington Post warned, “As Antarctica melts, North America will take a particularly hard wallop. Melting ice shrinks Antarctica and, therefore, its gravitational field. Without as much mass pulling ocean water south, sea levels will rise farther north as the oceans redistribute … Coastal cities need to start preparing now.”
This concern was echoed in a report published earlier this year by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which warned that high tide flooding will become routine by 2100. The report says that “high tide flooding will occur every other day (182 days of the year) or more often … in coastal areas along the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico.” NOAA recommended that coastal cites need guidance about flooding to inform preparedness and resource budgeting. Flooding affects low-lying areas and puts at risk exposed assets or infrastructure such as roads, harbors, beaches, public storm-, waste- and fresh-water systems and private and commercial properties. The report discusses how more and more cities are becoming increasingly exposed and more vulnerable to high tide flooding, which is rapidly increasing in frequency, depth and extent along many U.S. coastlines. Dramatic coastal flooding events have already become common events in the Mid-Atlantic States, the Carolinas, Florida and the Northeast.
The Antarctic study is the second in a series of assessments planned by a team of international scientists working with NASA. This study is unique in that the research team looked at ice loss in 24 different ways using 10 to 15 satellites, as well as ground and air measurements and computer simulations. The data generated by multiple measuring techniques were evaluated and the differences reconciled until the group came to agreement on the estimates.
While the Washington Post commented that the study “produced findings that even the most circumspect critics of climate science should not be able to ignore,” many climate deniers will still choose to ignore this report. There is consistently new and overwhelming evidence that climate change is impacting many lives and economies. It’s good that many cities and states can see the handwriting on the wall along with the water line left by the receding flood water and are taking action.

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Backyard Talk

Experts for the People – Shut Out by the Mass Media By Ralph Nader

Ever wonder how the television, radio and newspaper people select whom they are going to interview or get quotes from when they are reporting the news or producing a feature? I do. What I’ve learned is that they go to guests that are connected with the established powers—such as think tanks in Washington, D.C. that work on “the military industrial complex” policy (to borrow President Eisenhower’s words) and somehow lean toward more war mongering (e.g. NPR and the U.S.-Iran relationship) or backing more weapon systems (such as a new nuclear bomb arsenal and more F-35s and air craft carriers).
You won’t be hearing from MIT Professor Emeritus Ted Postol on the chronic failures of the anti-ballistic missile program (spending $13 billion this coming year).
Whether it is NPR, PBS, the network news programs, the Sunday news interview shows and too often the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal their interviewees are the defenders of the status quo or those with corporatists’ viewpoints.
These news outlets seem oblivious to the blatant economic conflicts of interest inherent in groups such as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and professors who moonlight with corporations. These interviewees have economic and ideological axes to grind that are not disclosed to the general viewers, listeners and readers, when they are merely described as “experts.”
There are real experts and specialists, with no axe to grind, who are so ignored by the media that they have almost become nonpersons, despite their past proven records of achievements for the public interest, and for the people’s well-being.
Here are some examples of experienced people whose veracity and honesty you can take to the press and media outlets:

  1. David Freeman, probably the most knowledgeable, experienced authority on energy in the United States. A lawyer and engineer, he was an advisor to Presidents, Governors, ran four major utilities, including the giant Tennessee Valley Authority. He was also the author of key studies on energy policies starting in the nineteen seventies and presently is negotiating the shutdown of California’s last atomic energy plant with its owner, Pacific Gas and Electric Corporation.
  2. Nicholas Johnson, former FCC Commissioner, author of many books and timely commentaries on communications subjects (e.g. “How to Talk Back to Your TV Set”) and has been teaching at the University of Iowa Law School.
  3. Karen Ferguson, head of Pension Rights Center since the mid-seventies, has been involved in Congressional policies, judicial decisions, organizing retirees to assert their rights and generally watchdogging the increasing pension crisis in our country.
  4. Jamie Love, the expert on drug patent abuses, drug industry pricing power, international efforts to counteract these “pay or die” policies. He has been a major figure in bringing down the price of AIDS drugs for developing countries.
  5. Rena Steinzor, law professor, author of books such as Why Not Jail?, organizer of the Center for Progressive Reform and corporate crime specialist.
  6. Janine Jackson, long-time media critic documenting weekly noteworthy bias, censorship and commercial distortion of the news.
  7. Danielle Brian, director of the Project on Government Oversight has had much to say accurately about the massive military budget, redundant weapon systems and their waste, fraud and abuse over three decades.
  8. Jesselyn Radack, former Justice Department lawyer, represents whistleblowers on national security wrongdoing and is an acknowledged legal expert on free speech in these sensitive areas.
  9. Greg LeRoy, directs Good Jobs First and knows a great deal about corporate welfare, giveaways to sports stadiums, Amazon and the whole ‘business development’ subsidies at the local and state level in the U.S. He is the author, among other publications, of The Great American Jobs Scam: Corporate Tax Dodging and the Myth of Job Creation.
  10. Mark Green, one of the nation’s experts on campaign finance rackets and reform, author of over twenty books, including Losing Our Democracy, and experienced as a candidate in New York State elections.
  11. Ralf Hotchkiss, former MacArthur Genius awardee, inventor and founder of Whirlwind Wheelchair and a successful advocate for people with disabilities having mobility without having to pay monopoly prices for shoddy wheelchairs in the U.S. and developing countries.
  12. Lois Gibbs, coming out of the Love Canal tragedies in Niagara Falls, NY, she organized arguably the leading grass roots movements against poisoning of neighborhoods around the country. She is an accomplished author, a speaker and is the director of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, which works with hundreds of local citizen fighters for health and safety.

Some of the above were featured in the mass media years ago; others have been relegated to the shadows of our public news and features for almost their entire careers. The slanted selections by media gatekeepers are getting worse. Increasingly, TV and radio anchors interview their own reporters, not experts like Robert McIntyre, lawyer and founder of the highly regarded Citizens for Tax Justice. Too often the Sunday network TV political shows tap into the same stable of Washington pundits and commentators.
Readers and viewers can make their own lists of media-excluded, knowledgeable persons, be they at the local, state or national levels. On our public airwaves, after the FCC repealed the “Fairness Doctrine” in 1987, bloviators such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin, completely dominate our airtime with their corporatist and hate-filled soliloquies. These “champions” of the free market have no problem using the public airwaves free of charge. As owners of the public airwaves and buyers of print journalism, let’s demand higher standards for experts in journalism. Let’s demand that the media seek out people who know their facts and work in the people’s interest and give them airtime.
 

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Backyard Talk

Who Owns the Sun?

Over the past 5 years rooftop installation of solar panels have seen explosive growth, perhaps as much as 900 percent, over the past six years according to an article in the New York Times. The U.S. solar market had its biggest year ever in 2016, nearly doubling its previous record and adding more electric generating capacity than any other source of energy for the first time ever. “It would be hard to overstate how impressive 2016 was for the solar industry,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association. “Prices dropped to all-time lows, installations expanded in states across the country and job numbers soared. The bottom line is that more people are benefiting from solar now than at any point in the past, and while the market is changing, the broader trend over the next five years is going in one direction – and that’s up.”
Despite this unprecedented growth, new residential installations in 2017 has hit a snag. According to Forbes magazine, rooftop installations in the residential market could slow to as little as 9% this year, down from 16% in 2016, compared to an average growth of 63% over the three preceding years.
Several factors are cited for this decline including saturated markets like California, financial troubles for several top solar panel manufacturers, and lower energy costs primarily due to fracking. Another factor however is a well-funded highly orchestrated lobbying campaign by traditional utilities. According to Forbes magazine, utility companies are pushing back against residential solar in multiple states, citing the higher effective costs of catering to customers with residential installations. In states such as Nevada, residential and small-scale commercial solar users face higher electricity rates, along with reductions in the credits they receive for sending their unused solar generated electricity back to the grid, a practice known as “net metering.” The utilities are growing increasingly uncomfortable with homeowners generating their own energy and even making a profit by selling their unused energy back to the grid.
An outrageous example of how this scenario is playing out is occurring in North Carolina where Duke Energy used its power and influence in the state to attack the green energy efforts of a small environmental advocacy group to build solar projects for non-profits. Just this month, the North Carolina Court of Appeals upheld a $60,000 fine levied against NC WARN of Durham for installing solar panels on the roof of the Faith Community Church in Greensboro, NC and selling the energy to the church. Duke Energy who has a monopoly of the energy use in the state (as well as several other southern states), asked the court to make an example of NC WARN and to heavily penalize them for illegally selling solar electricity. North Carolina is one of only four states where third party sales of energy is thought to be disallowed.
Duke’s position is particularly outrageous because NC WARN had installed the solar panels on the roof of the church as a test case to clarify state policy on third party sales that allow solar companies to sell power directly to customers from systems on those customers’ property. NC WARN and the church’s Rev. Nelson Johnson very publicly announced their reason for installing the solar panels which was also accompanied by a legal request for a declaratory ruling by the NC Utilities Commission.
NC WARN is strongly considering an appeal to the NC Supreme Court. They have no intention to give up their efforts to break Duke Energy’s longstanding monopoly on electricity sales in the state. Energy companies like Duke Energy do not own the sun. They cannot dictate who profits and who does not from taping the sun’s energy to generate electricity. What NC WARN and multiple other nonprofits and solar companies are doing is what we need to do to safely and cleanly generate electricity and create jobs while doing it. Despite the efforts of the utilities to control the sun, the future for solar continues to appear quite bright.
 
 

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Backyard Talk

Climate Scientists to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt: Not so Fast

Climate scientists are fighting back. They had heard enough when EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt claimed in written Senate comments following his confirmation hearing as administrator of EPA that “over the past two decades satellite data indicates there has been a leveling off of warming.” They decided to respond, not with reactionary rhetoric, but with science, with facts.
A team of scientists led by researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, CA and from MIT in Cambridge, MA examined temperature data from three satellite data sets going back to 1979 and calculated temperature trends for each 20-year period, and then determined whether the observed trends were significantly larger than the 20-year trends arising from natural processes internal to the climate system. The researchers concluded that the scientific data “do not support the recent claim of a ‘leveling off of warming’ over the past two decades.” The analysis was published in the scientific journal Nature. The conclusion directly refutes the statement on climate change made by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
The researchers led by Benjamin Santer, a world renown climate scientist, were clear that the reason they did the research was to refute the statement made by Pruitt. Santer told the Washington Post in an interview, “In my opinion, when incorrect science is elevated to the level of formal congressional testimony and makes its way into the official congressional record, climate scientists have some responsibility to test specific claims that were made, determine whether those claims are correct or not, and publish the results.”
The statement made by Pruitt has been echoed by other climate doubters. The main argument has been that temperature data collected at higher altitudes in the atmosphere show different trends than temperature data collected at the surface. Climate doubters argue that temperature data collected at higher altitudes (troposphere) show no global warming trend or that warming has slowed down in recent years in contrast to temperature trend data collected at the surface which show a clear warming trend.
While climate doubters will continue to cherry pick data to make their points, a growing number of scientists, whether in climate research or not, are standing up to the false statements and lies being perpetuated by this presidential administration. Scientists will continue to use hard data and a scientific approach to provide the best data and analysis available to draw conclusions.
 

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Homepage

Open Burning at Military Sites Angers Activists

Soon after Erin Card moved to within two miles of the Radford Army Ammunition Plant in Virginia two years ago, she began to notice threads of smoke that occasionally rose above the heavily wooded site. She started asking about the source, and eventually was stunned by what she learned: Toxic explosives were being burned in the open air.
“It just seems crazy to me,” said Card, 36, who lives with her husband and their three young boys.
The open burning and open detonation of hazardous waste explosives is banned in many countries, including Canada, Germany and the Netherlands. Likewise, in this country, private industry long ago was forced to abandon the primitive disposal practice. Read more.

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Backyard Talk

Increases in Infant Mortality Linked to Fracking

A new study published last week in the Journal of Environmental Protection provides new evidence that the gas extraction process of hydrofracturing, known as fracking, is harming the health of people who live near these wells. This study found that counties in Pennsylvania with higher numbers of fracking wells had higher rates of infant mortality.

The authors compared early infant mortality for the years 2007-2010 in ten Pennsylvania counties that were heavily fracked to the rates for the rest of the Pennsylvania (excluding the 10 heavily fracked counties) for the years 2003-2006 which was considered a pre-fracking period. The results showed a statistically significant 29% excess risk for newborn infants of dying during the first 28 days of life if they were born in the ten heavily fracked counties during the 4-year period following development of fracking gas wells in these counties. The early infant mortality rate for the rest of the state decreased by 2% during this same time-period. The association with infant mortality was even greater in the five northeast Pennsylvania counties of Susquehanna, Bradford, Wyoming, Lycoming and Tioga where the early infant mortality rate increased by 67%. These counties had the greatest number of fracking wells. The early infant mortality rate was increased by 18% in the five southwest Pennsylvania counties of Washington, Westmoreland, Greene, Butler and Fayette where fracking also occurred but at lesser rates.

According to the report, about 50 more babies died in these 10 counties than would have been predicted if the rate had been the same over the study period as it was for all of Pennsylvania, where the incidence rate fell over the same period. Although the study could not prove what might be causing these increases in infant mortality, the authors did observe an association between early infant mortality and the number of drinking water violations in private wells in the five northeast PA counties. This finding led the authors to state that the increase risk of early infant mortality might be related to exposure to drinking water which may be contaminated. They further noted that this contamination might be due to the release of naturally occurring radioactive material, including radium, thorium and uranium caused by underground explosions set off by the natural gas extraction process.

In closing, the authors described early infant mortality as “a flag for genetic damage, and thus represents a “miner’s canary” for other ill health effects in children and adults, particularly cancer, though there is a temporal lag in cancer between exposure and clinical expression.” While this study has its limitations, it still raises serious questions about the safety of the natural gas extraction process called fracking. To read the full study, see http://file.scirp.org/pdf/JEP_2017042413181160.pdf.

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Backyard Talk

March for Science

As a scientist, it’s not unusual to experience people not understanding the jargon and complexity of science. Part of what we’re trained to do is explain and interpret what we do. What’s much harder to understand is the total dismissal of scientific information and consensus around issues. While science does not have many critical answers for people exposed to toxic chemicals, it is nonetheless the foundation of what we do know. It can tell us what chemicals people are exposed to, the concentration of those chemicals, and the risks these exposures pose. We often don’t know how long a person was exposed, what interactions/synergistic effects might result if exposed to more than one chemical, or what specific health outcomes a person can expect or anticipate.
There are clear limitations in what we know, but that does not mean we ignore the science altogether. This what Donald Trump is proposing to do with climate change, ignore what the vast majority of scientific researchers who devote their life to studying this issue have  coming to agree on – that human behavior is influencing the earth’s climate in a dangerous way that cannot be ignored.
This is why the scientific community is stepping out of its comfort zone and organizing a march on Washington to protest the dismissal of worldwide scientific consensus on the issue of global climate change. As described on its website the “March for Science is a celebration of science. It’s not only about scientists and politicians; it’s about the very real role that science plays in each of our lives and the need to respect and encourage research that gives us insight into the world.”
There’s a lot of push back coming from within the scientific community that generally shuns public involvement in politics. But this is an unusual time. Not only has the President of the United States called global warming a “hoax” … “created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive,” but there is an alarming tend towards dismissing scientific facts and consensus, and an illogical attack on research funding that threatens our basic world understanding. These threats have left scientists with little choice but to come together and speak out.
This is an unparalleled opportunity to highlight the value of science and show your opposition to the war on science. Join the March for Science on April 22nd in Washington, DC. For more information, see https://www.marchforscience.com/

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Backyard Talk

Low Doses Matter

A new video is available that addresses the cumulative impact of exposure to low level mixtures of toxic chemicals on the developing brain. Dr Bruce Lanphear and colleagues from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia have produced an excellent 7 minute video that is sure to educate and provoke discussion.   
This remarkable video, Little Things Matter, explains in easy-to-understand language why exposures to small amounts of toxic chemicals matter, how widespread exposure to brain-damaging toxins, such as lead and mercury, PCBs and flame-retardants, can have severe impacts on the developing brain of children. “There is strong evidence that learning disabilities and lower IQ scores can be attributed to extremely low levels of exposure to toxic metals like lead and mercury, persistent toxins such as polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs), and other toxins including organophosphate (OP) pesticides and compounds used as flame-retardants. These toxins are common in our daily environments,” says Lanphear.
Lanphear who narrates the video states that “We’ve been studying the impact of toxins on children for the past 30 years and reached the inescapable conclusion: little things matter.” He goes on to say that exposure to toxic chemicals can have a life-long impact on children and that extremely low levels of toxins can impact brain development.
The video illustrates how vulnerable children are to exposures to toxic chemicals. It points out that a 5 point decrease in average IQ among U.S. children would result in an additional 3.4 million children who are considered intellectually disabled or mentally retarded. There is a corresponding decrease the number of children who are considered to be intellectually gifted.  
Lanphear and his colleagues offer advice on what steps people can take to reduce their exposures to toxic chemicals including eating fresh or frozen food, avoiding pesticide use in your home and checking for lead hazards. He also suggests contacting your federal representatives and urging them to support legislation that reverses the burden of proof to require companies to prove that a chemical is not toxic before it enters the market, as is the case in the European Union. Lanphear goes to say that the ultimate solution is to reverse how we regulate chemicals. He could not be more right. We can no longer rely on the notion that only exposure to chemicals at high doses matter. This video makes it clear that small doses do matter. Be sure to check out this new video.

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Backyard Talk

EPA to Remove Dioxin-Laced Contamination from River in Houston

san-jacinto-picture
 Congratulations to the San Jacinto River Coalition of Houston,  Texas and residents who live near the San Jacinto Waste Pits  Superfund Site for convincing the US Environmental Protection  Agency (EPA)that the only acceptable solution to address the  dioxin contaminated paper mill sludge waste in the pits was to dig  it up and take it out! At the end of September, the EPA agreed after  more than 6 years of controversy and analysis, to remove about 202,000 cubic yards of toxic waste from the site at a cost of approximately $97 million. The decision is not yet final as the agency is holding a 60 day comment period.
This site is located on 20 acres of abandoned land along the San Jacinto River that runs just east of the city of Houston. Sludge waste from pulp and paper mill production at nearby International Paper and before them Champion Paper was dumped at this site during the 1960s and has been leaching from the waste pits into the river ever since. A large portion of this property is continually underwater from the San Jacinto River causing dioxin contaminated sediment to come into direct to contact with the river water. Dioxin levels as high as 46,000 parts per trillion (ppt) have been found in the waste pit area. An action level of 1,000 ppt of dioxin in soil was used by the EPA to evacuate the entire town of Times Beach, MO in 1983. Dioxin is one of the most potent carcinogens ever tested and has been associated with a wide range of adverse health problems including reproductive, developmental, immunological, and endocrine effects in both animals and humans.    
The San Jacinto River Coalition formed in 2010 to address the contamination coming from the Waste Pits and to push EPA for complete removal of the contamination. EPA was inclined to leave the waste in place which made absolutely no sense to anyone who lived in the area as local residents watched the river routinely submerse the waste completely. A major concern has been dioxin leaching into the river because so many people fish the river and continue to do so even though the state has issued a fish advisory warning people not to eat the fish. For many local residents, fishing in the river is a main source of food.  
Jackie Young, director of the San Jacinto River Coalition was elated at the agency’s decision and was quoted in the Houston Press saying: “Leaving the waste in the river is unacceptable…This decision shows that the EPA is taking a firm stand based on the science and engineering and what the community has called for.” Sometimes the little guy does win. For more information, http://www.sanjacintorverwastepits.com/ and https://www.epa.gov/tx/sjrwp