Category: Backyard Talk

By: Julia Weil, Organizing Intern
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we have increasingly seen many social, economic, and environmental injustices in our society highlighted. One injustice that encapsulates all three is being demonstrated by the increasing pattern of oil and gas companies, struggling as the demand for their product decreases, paying out their executives just before filing for bankruptcy, making the rich richer, and exposing at-risk populations to higher quantities of dangerous chemicals than ever. 
This practice of paying executives vast sums of money before going bankrupt is known as a “golden parachute.” One of these companies is Chesapeake, one of the first companies to popularize hydrofracking. Just before filing for bankruptcy, $25 million was given to 21 employees that ranked high in the company’s hierarchy in the form of “retention payments,” though typically this type of payment is intended to keep employees at the company for a designated amount of time. 
Other recent examples of this practice have occurred with Whiting Petroleum, a shale drilling company that was able to secure $15 million for its top executives days before the bankruptcy filing, and Diamond offshore drilling, a company that was granted $9.1 million through a COVID-19 stimulus check, and that filed for bankruptcy just one month later. 
This is not only an economic injustice, but, as they are frequently closely associated, it is also blatant environmental injustice. The workers are left out of the equation, and when the majority of the remaining money is funneled directly into the pockets of the most powerful company members, the financial planning frequently doesn’t account for the cost of well-closing — money isn’t left over to properly seal the wells. 
When this happens, the already harmful fracking wells will leak greater quantities of methane and contaminated water. This is the case for MDC energy, who also paid their executives $8.5 million before filing for bankruptcy.  One estimate showed that cleaning up, closing the wells and halting the consistent methane leakage for this particular company would cost $40 million; an amount which, after paying the executives, did not remain. 
Though all of the instances discussed here happened more recently, in 2016, there was an estimation of 3.2 million orphaned (or inactive) oil and gas wells in the US, and over 2 million of these were not properly sealed. Although hydrofracking wells also leak while in operation, when they’re out of use and not monitored, they release even greater amounts of the toxic chemicals. Contaminated water from hydrofracking can contain benzene, toluene, arsenic, manganese, barium and strontium, many of which are carcinogenic. 
Methane leakage is additionally dangerous because of its warming capabilities – it is an especially potent greenhouse gas; though it doesn’t last as long as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it is 25 times stronger of a warming agent. Additionally, atmospheric methane concentrations have more than doubled in the last couple centuries – the orphaned fracking wells will significantly accelerate this problem. 
Since this bankruptcy boom is expected to continue – one estimate expects 250 oil and gas companies to file for bankruptcy protection before the end of next year – this puts more and more communities at an increased risk of the effects associated with methane and other toxic chemicals. Waste from gas and oil companies already disproportionately impacts Black and low income communities; this phenomenon further worsens this instance of environmental racism and injustice, while those who should be held responsible profit. 

By: Shaina Smith, Organizing Intern
The relationship between Native Americans and the United States has always involved genocide and theft. An estimated 5 to 15 million indigenous people already inhabited the land when European settlers first discovered America. By the late 1800s, only 237 thousand people remained. During this period of colonization, the United States took more than 1.5 billion acres of land from Native Americans. To force people onto land and then to contaminate the air, soil, and water of that land is environmental genocide. Environmental genocide by the United States government and corporate polluters is done through both legal and nonlegal methods.
The concept of environmental justice was created to acknowledge the disproportionate burden marginalized communities face from corporate polluters. Government and industry often ignore indigenous people, making it all the more important that they have a critical voice in the environmental justice movement. 
Vi Waghiyi of Alaska Community Actions on Toxins (ACAT) faces what she calls “environmental violence” in her community because of contamination from a former US military base at Northeast Cape on St. Lawrence Island. Vi is a Yupik grandmother from Savoonga, a native village in St. Lawrence. Once abandoned in the early 1970s, the military left behind at least 220,000 gallons of spilt fuel, heavy metals, asbestos, solvents, and PCBs known to cause cancer. These pollutants contaminate the soil and groundwater, which especially harms the nearby Yupik community of Savoonga who have for generations relied on traditional subsistence agriculture. A 2002 study found that Native people who hunt and fish near Northeast Cape have almost 10 times as many PCBs in their blood compared to the average American. Many residents suffer from PCB-associated health problems, such as cancer, low birth weight, and miscarriages. 
Rebecca Jim of Local Environmental Action Demanded (LEAD) Agency Inc, lives in a Cherokee community plagued by environmental and economic exploitation from the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Over many years, US authorities forced tribes onto land in Northeast Oklahoma in Ottawa County. Once it was discovered the land was rich in lead and zinc,  the BIA illegitimately leased land for mining and extraction starting in the early 1900s. The BIA claimed Native people were incompetent to manage their wealth and kept many from seeing their earnings. Though the mines were no longer in production, they contained debris contaminated with heavy metals. The BIA encouraged tribal land owners to make use of the waste, resulting in poison being spread throughout the county. By 1994 tests had found that 35% of children in the area had high concentration of lead in their blood.  Prolonged lead exposure can damage the immune system, nervous system, blood system and kidneys. It can also potentially cause birth defects, learning disabilities, decreased mental ability, and reduced growth in children. 
From the moment the first European settlers reached America, indigenous people have suffered physical and cultural genocide. Politicians who claim to empathize with indegenous people are still not doing enough to stop people from being poisoned. Kaniela Ing, a Native Hawaiian and former State Representative, noted during his time in office how even progressive politicians are pulled to the right by corporate lobbyists. “A system that relies on appealing to the good nature of politicians is never going to work,” Kaniela observed. “We never really learned how to do democracy right.” At best this violence results from negligence and inaction, and at worst it’s no more than the continuation of centuries of genocide. It’s imperative that the US government listen to Native voices, show greater urgency in clean-up efforts, and compensate those who’ve been harmed.

By: Sharon Franklin, Chief of Operations
The danger arrived for Kim and Richard Rankin and their family in 2004, in the form of a hidden pile of soil, at their home in Kenton, Missouri, as reported by P.J. Randhawa and Erin Richey for KSDK-TV. https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/investigations/lead-contaminated-backyard-nightmare-jefferson-county/63-2e63f898-20a5-4aff-90b9-3477e8e658e2.   The Rankins learned years later that the soil was contaminated with lead, which is presently across most of Southwest Missouri.  In 2008, it became a toxic burden, and that was also the year they found out that their yard was a Superfund site.  Richard Rankin learned that “The lead levels weren’t high enough to be a danger to us and the older children in the home; “but we adopted a son in 2013, when he was 8 months old.  So, he called the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and was told they would immediately be put at the top of the list for remediation as a cleanup project.
Sadly, it’s seven years later, and the Rankins are still on the top of that list, and their son Nathan has complex medical needs and the Superfund site is still there.  Kim and Richard Rankin say “Our little guy that we adopted has never really explored his full yard”; and “He never will get to play in the tree house”. “In 2008, the EPA sent us a letter stating that they had found our name on the list from a particular provider of soil and that it was very likely that we’d had contaminated soil brought into this site”.
According to the EPA, heavy metals in mine waste from operations as far back as the 1700s have made their way into the soil and water all over Jefferson County. https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.cleanup&id=0705443   The resulting contamination brought heavy metals like lead, arsenic and chromium to the doorsteps of Jefferson County homeowners.  Julie Weber, Director of the Missouri Poison Center, SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital says “It’s these repetitive exposures, especially in younger children that can lead to affect their development,”  The contamination can have lasting effects, she added, “on the blood system, how they develop and can affect their IQ.”
Kim Rankin says “They just wanted to cap the land and put 12 inches of dirt on top of it, instead of removing it,” “Once they thought they had the job done, it turned out that it failed.”
“It really has felt like us as a private citizen against these bigger power government and corporations, that you just can’t motivate much change. “They just had total disregard to the consequences that they had left us with for so long,” “And it has just become a tremendous amount of work for us to advocate.  Hours spent writing e-mails, hours in meetings.  It’s kind of like they came in with the idea that they were helping. And it has been anything but helpful.”
Currently, on the EPA Website, the Southwest Jefferson County Mining Site is categorized as “Current Human Exposure Not Under Control.” https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.Healthenv&id=0705443  The agency provides bottled water to 55 homes and expects that there are thousands more properties to test and at least 600 more properties to remediate. Health officials recommend that Jefferson County residents, especially children, get their blood lead levels checked at least once a year.
Photo credit: Rankins
 

By: Kayleigh Coughlin, Communications Intern
The Department of Defense (DOD) has found that more than 600 military installations and surrounding communities could be contaminated with PFAS – far more than have been previously disclosed by the Pentagon.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of man-made chemicals that includes PFOA, PFOS, GenX, and many other chemicals. PFAS are more commonly known as ‘forever chemicals’ because they are very persistent in the environment and in the human body – meaning they don’t break down and can accumulate in the body over time. They have been linked to cancer, liver damage and harm to the reproductive and immune systems.
The DOD’s use of firefighting foam made with PFAS, also known as aqueous film-forming foam, or AFFF, is the primary source of PFAS pollution at military installations. PFAS have contaminated potable water sources on or near hundreds of military installations across the United States. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has confirmed PFAS contamination in the tap water or groundwater at 328 installations. At 14 of those installations, PFAS contamination exceeds 1 million parts per trillion (ppt), far above the 70 ppt advisory level recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Service members and military families can click on this interactive map to find the levels of contamination in a particular area, based on EWG’s research using DoD and other data.
The EPA has known about the health hazards of PFAS contamination for decades but has failed to take action. “The EPA and the Department of Defense have utterly failed to treat PFAS contamination as a crisis demanding swift and decisive action,” said Ken Cook, president of EWG. More than 45 bills have been introduced in the House and Senate to monitor the scope of PFAS contamination, require reporting of PFAS releases, address ongoing PFAS contamination, and clean up legacy PFAS pollution, but heated negotiations are still taking place over the extent of PFAS related provisions. Last December, The House of Representatives passed H.R. 535, the PFAS Action Act of 2019, which would  require the EPA to designate PFOS and PFOA as hazardous substances under the Superfund law within one year of the bill’s enactment, and require set drinking water standards. If approved by the Senate, President Donald Trump has vowed to veto the law.
Just last week, U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin introduced a bipartisan bill, The PFAS Exposure Assessment and Documentation Act, to protect military servicemembers and their families from PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ contamination. “The bill takes bold steps to strengthen testing and tracking PFAS exposure in servicemembers, by mandating blood testing for PFAS chemicals for those who may have been exposed, and allowing military families to also get tested for PFAS exposure. The bill also opens up testing to former servicemembers and their families, allowing them to get tested at no cost.” This legislation could be life saving for service members and their families, like Retired Army Pilot, Jim Holmes, who also served in the Air Force.
Jim Holmes’ daughter, Kaela Holmes, died in March 2019, just days after her 17th birthday, from a rare brain cancer that her father now believes to be caused by PFAS contamination. Earlier this year, Holmes appeared before lawmakers to advocate for a stronger Pentagon response to its decadeslong use of PFAS containing firefighting foam. “Holmes told lawmakers in his years at Patrick AFB that he was never warned that water in the area had been contaminated with PFAS, even as the Air Force’s own water sampling showed groundwater contained drastically more PFAS in the drinking water than the Environmental Protection Agency had determined is safe”. The Pengaton will eliminate the use of the PFAS containing firefighting foam entirely by 2024, as required by the National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2020, but some in Congress argue that this is not enough. “2024 is ridiculous,” U.S. Representative John Rutherford said, who compared the PFAS contamination with “another Agent Orange barreling down on us.” Holmes demands the Pentagon provide water treatment to communities around Patrick AFB and warn service members and their families about potential drinking water contamination. 
“I will have to live the rest of my life knowing that my decision to serve in the military and reside on a United States Air Force Base resulted in the death of my beautiful daughter,” Holmes said. “Let that sink in for a minute. … I pray that no other service member will ever have to unknowingly sacrifice the life of their child by serving their country.”
As a military dependent myself, I have to wonder … have I been exposed to PFAS contamination? Will my family members experience adverse health effects? We deserve answers and action now. The EPA and the DOD cannot wait any longer to protect the men and women who serve their country from PFAS contamination.
Photo credit: Airman 1st Class Lauren Hunter/Air Force

By: Benjamin Silver, Science and Technology Intern
The government’s inefficient response to toxic chemical exposure in American communities can be the difference between life and death.
Once a dump for mill waste, the San Jacinto Waste Pits release toxic quantities of dioxin into the San Jacinto River. When these chemical carcinogens interact with the water, they are released into the air, endangering the local residents in Harris County, Texas. In 2017, the EPA approved a 2 year, $115 million cleanup plan. However, the project is still in the design phase, and the EPA has extended its timeline by five years. While the cleanup remains mired by bureaucracy, the San Jacinto waste pits continue to endanger local residents every day. In 2015, the Texas Department of Health found that 17 of 38 census tracts in Harris County have suffered statistically significant increases across multiple cancers. 
The development of these cancer clusters has left many residents wondering if they’ll ever get justice for their hardship. While the polluters, the International Paper Company and McGinnes Industrial Maintenance Corporation, have agreed to finance the cleanup, residents have been forced to cover their own cancer treatment.
Obtaining medical compensation for health impacts caused by chemical contamination inflicts a significant burden on communities across the United States. They must undergo years of suffering attempting to prove that chemical contamination is responsible for their adverse health effects. Communities then spend more years in court battling to secure health care from the responsible parties, often having little or no success.
Such a burden is amplified in communities that don’t have the resources to hire doctors and lawyers. Low income, minority communities are disproportionately impacted by pollution and are inadequately equipped to seek health care. Since impacted residents in these communities often do not have health insurance, many die or suffer permanent damage while seeking medical and other compensation.
The government must simplify the process of seeking health care and enable local residents to attain  justice more quickly. Proponents of the current extensive testing process argue that its complexity ensures that alleged corporate polluters are not mistakenly held accountable. But what if we could simplify testing while also ensuring medical compensation is provided?
If receiving health care only required proof of an association between chemicals and adverse health impacts, communities would not need to directly link contamination with specific health conditions in residents. The United States Department of Veterans Affairs already outlines a list of cancers, neurological disorders, and developmental problems associated with exposure to dioxin in Agent Orange. Exposed soldiers must only prove that they were stationed in places where Agent Orange was used, stored, or handled. They do not need to prove that their health problem was caused by exposure to Agent Orange. Similarly, communities exposed to toxic chemicals should not have to prove that their health problems were caused by these chemicals to receive medical care. They would merely need to prove that toxic chemicals are present. If an individual with an associated health condition interacted in an exposed region, as shown by testing, they could automatically qualify for health care coverage. 
But the significance of a reformed response to chemical contamination extends beyond any single community. For decades, corporate polluters have weaponized a broken system for responding to chemical contamination. They have fiscally and emotionally drained communities by denying responsibility for contamination, lobbying, and dragging out legal fights. Thus, polluters can often completely avoid being held accountable for their lethal actions.
Developing a new mode of responding to chemical contamination is about saying “enough is enough” to perpetrators of pollution. We cannot allow corporations to victimize innocent communities and compromise their health. While the government can medically compensate for chemical contamination, we must proactively dissuade corporations from endangering Americans. Responding effectively to chemical contamination is as much about standing up to polluters as it is standing up for human rights.
Photo Credit: Houston Chronicle

By: Leija Helling, Communications Intern
As evidence highlighting the racial inequity of COVID-19 impacts has grown clear over the past few months, activists have harnessed the science to fight against polluters.
Data through the end of May 2020 showed Black and Latinx people were three times as likely to become infected with COVID-19 and twice as likely to die from it. Research points to the disproportionate exposure of Black and Latinx communities to polluted air as a key driver of disparity. A CHEJ Blog post last week stated that particulate matter (PM) in the air is a “huge risk factor” for COVID-19; even a small increase in PM leads to a large increase in COVID-19 mortality.
Residents of Andreson, North Carolina, are one of many predominantly Black communities experiencing a storm of injustices threatening their health, and using the science COVID-19 racial inequities to back their fight. In support of the group’s efforts to stop an asphalt mixing plant from being built in their town, the CHEJ Science and Technology Team wrote a letter to North Carolina officials underscoring the devastating effect an asphalt plant would have on the health of the community, especially during COVID-19 pandemic. “Particulate matter in the air causes health risks, and these risks are disproportionately shouldered by Black people,” the letter reads. “Both of these facts are exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Invoking racial disparities in COVID-19 impacts has already succeeded in shutting polluters out of communities. In July, the community group Livable Arlington was able to stop fracking wells from being built by a preschool in a low-income, predominantly Black and Latinx neighborhood of Arlinton, Texas. The area also had the highest rates of COVID-19 infection in the city. In a Living Room Leadership interview with CHEJ in September, Ranjana Bhandari, the founder and director of Liveable Arlington, explained that the group used research linking air pollution with higher COVID-19 mortality rates to convince the City Council to oppose the permit.
Going forward, these fights should remind us of the power in approaches that draw links between science, systems of oppression, and health outcomes. The pandemic has not introduced new inequities but rather amplified those that already exist. Although COVID-19 will be temporary, the strategies leading activists to invoke COVID-19 racial disparities are evergreen because they highlight a broader conversation about equitable public health and safety. “The pandemic has made the disproportionate impact of environmental justice issues on poor minority communities more clear,” Ranjana says. “I hope we remember what COVID has taught us about how inequitable our country is—who is most vulnerable, and who has the least protection.”