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Brandywine MD Update

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Credit for this photo is attributed to Earthjustice
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]

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Fracking’s Methane Problem

imagesIt doesn’t take too long to scroll through the CHEJ blog roll to find multiple examples of the negative health impacts of hydraulic fracturing, otherwise known as fracking. But, even if fracking could be done in a manner that did not pollute and negatively impact the lives of some of America’s most vulnerable citizens, there is another very important reason why fracking may not be the energy solution that many of our leaders believe it is.
First, let’s take a step back and quickly discuss a major reason why fracking has been a focal point in our energy strategy over the last decade, climate change. Because hydraulic fracturing allows energy producers to access natural gas sources, mostly made up of methane, natural gas has the capacity to mitigate climate change. This is due to the fact that, when burned as a fuel, natural gas produces about half as much carbon dioxide (CO2) as coal. This has led many, including Obama, to adopt the strategy of using natural gas as a “bridge fuel” to replace the most carbon-intense sources, such as coal, while renewable technology, such as wind and solar become cheap enough to use on a grand scale.
Even if we ignore the poor record of pollution and injustice associated with fracking, there is another huge hurdle in this “bridge fuel” plan. There is a significant portion of fracked natural gas that is not being burned as fuel and is being released directly into the atmosphere as methane, a greenhouse gas that is over 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. This methane is often leaked into the atmosphere during the extraction process. Even with a minimal leakage rate, there is the potential that methane emissions are offsetting the climate benefits of natural gas and using the fuel could actually be worse for the climate than coal. This is particularly troubling, as it would mean a total failure of America’s climate change mitigation strategy over the last eight years.
Currently, the EPA reports very small leakage rates that are based on industry data. With this data, fracking might still pass this very important test. The only problem is that multiple studies have been produced just in the last five years that report much higher leakage rates and spell disaster for our climate as a result. A recent study by Harvard researchers reports leakage rates much higher than EPA numbers, and a 30 percent increase in methane emissions from 2002-2014.
Considering this troubling data about methane emission, not to mention the public health impacts of fracking, maybe it is time to give up this bridge fuel plan and start utilizing renewables on a grand scale now. At the very least, let’s stop using the argument that fracking is good for climate change and have a more honest dialogue about our energy future.
Find out more about fracking’s methane problem.

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NO HAZARDOUS WASTE INCINERATOR

no incineratorJUST SAY NO!
Susquehanna County citizens are in the fight for their lives.  They just recently learned that a new hazardous waste incinerator may be built in their community.
Hundreds of citizens are turning out for community meetings to discuss a hazardous waste incinerator that is being proposed in New Milford.  Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania is a county known for its grassroots citizens fighting polluting industry and for protecting their community.
Citizens have learned that the newly formed Tyler Corners Group, (an investment group) plans to build a hazardous waste incinerator.  Will this be a front group where the owner/s will hide their questionable dealings behind a smoke screen?  Or, will this group be up front and transparent with the community?  So far there is no proof that they will be upfront and transparent about on anything to do with the incinerator.
Just as expect, citizens are being told this will be in an industrial park and that it will be a boost to the area economy.  They are also being told there will be no emissions from the burner.  Well great, another magic burner!  And this burner will be state of the art, that means the last technology didn’t work.  One would have to wonder what other types of industry would want to be in the same park where there is a hazardous waste incinerator.
Citizens are attending township and county meetings, they have petitions being passed around getting signatures in opposition to the incinerator, they are asking local elected officials to develop and pass air ordinance’s that would protect the health of the community.  While the incinerator industry may have thought that they could ride into town and bring their hazardous waste with them and it would be business as usual, they did not think they would run into the opposition they are facing from the local citizens.   The POWER IS IN THE PEOPLE!
This facility is what  would be called a LULU (Locally Undesirable Land Use) facility.  This is described in greater detail in CHEJ’s “How to Deal With a Proposed Facility”.  You can get this publication on the CHEJ webpage at www.chej.org.   Click on the tab “Take Action”, then click on organizing and leadership.  The publication will be the first on the list.
Please go to the groups Facebook page for more information. https://www.facebook.com/StopWasteIncinerator

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Our White House Call In: An Empowering Success

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I don’t know if you noticed, but over the past week and a half, we at CHEJ have been repeatedly asking you, and by extension, your friends, your family, your colleagues, and everyone else you know to call in to the White House and ask for the EPA to ‘Get Out of The Way!’ I’m sure if you’ve called, whether it was once, or every day like myself, you discovered that it was the easiest and most polite call exchange with a government agency that you’ve ever had in your entire life. From my perspective at least, the phone call went something like this:
“Hi, this is the White House Comment Line. All our lines are busy right now, but if you’d like to stay on the line, someone will accept your call and record a quick comment….”
…Music plays while I’m put on hold for less than ten seconds…
Which is kind of boring and bureaucratic-sounding, right? Until a sweet old lady answers your call and sincerely listens to whatever it is you’re trying to say!
“Hello?”

“Hi! My name is Zoe Hall and I am a citizen of St. Louis calling on behalf of the citizens of Bridgeton, Missouri. I think the EPA needs to get out of the way and push for the FUSRAP to pass so the Army Corps of Engineers can clean up the West Lake Landfill. I would also like the president to see what he can do about relocation for the citizens within a mile of the landfill. This is a really pressing issue and I hope you see to it the president finds out how concerned I am.”
Eventually, by the last Tuesday of our push for calls, the conversation ended like this:
“Sure sweetie, are you referring to HR-4100?”  
Which is the House of Representatives bill 4100 pushing for FURSAP. The instant recognition of the exact issue we are pushing for indicates that the White House Comment Line has gotten such an influx of calls concerning West Lake that they have to have a code for it to easily identify and tally up all of our voices united in our outrage. This is a huge deal –– this list of codes and top concerns of the nation gets forwarded to the White House Staff in order to keep our president updated on the issues we as his constituents are focused on. That means our president has in his possession a lengthy list of people’s names and outcries for change. What he does next is out of our hands, but at least, now aware of our concern, he is accountable for whatever that may be! In itself, I consider this a victory.
Whether or not you participated in the call in, everyone can learn from the power this provided to the citizens at West Lake and anyone who wants to organize a simple, empowering action that is not only easy to do (it takes five minutes!) but is also one that gets results. Remain persistent and focused, keep your goals clear, and use the power given to we the people to raise your voice as loud as possible, so that one of the most powerful people in the world might hear.  

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Mr. President, What Will Your Legacy Be?

As President Obama’s final year in office comes to a close, the time has come to reflect upon his legacy and his impact on our country. Perhaps more than other areas, Obama’s environmental record is a mixed bag of laudable achievements and startling mismanagement. Though his actions on climate change will rightfully be praised in the future, some of the more glaring cases of the EPA’s inattentive management in the last several years will be blemishes on his record.
From Flint to the West Lake Landfill in St. Louis, the EPA has proven itself to be maddeningly unresponsive. Despite knowing about the problem with Flint’s water nearly a year before intense press coverage, the EPA did nothing to alert the public or force the issue. Instead, the EPA sought to shift the blame entirely to state officials. In regards to Flint, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy simply understated, “clearly the outcome was not what anyone would have wanted.”Additionally, an EPA internal report released a week ago about the West Lake Landfill said that officials knew that removing the toxic waste from the landfill was both possible and relatively inexpensive — and still they chose to do nothing.
All of which leads one to wonder who exactly the EPA works for: the communities who need people in power to responsibly listen and respond to them or glib politicians and waste service companies out for their own interests? Administrator McCarthy needs to prioritize families over giving corporations a break. And each of her deputies must think first of public health and the environment rather than their own personal job prospects.
Though the EPA is an independent agency, Obama is more than able to influence its agenda and responsiveness. In the last year of his presidency, Obama is no longer chained to his own election chances and has more room to simply do the right thing regardless of the political consequences.
So I pose the following to President Obama: what do you want your environmental legacy to be? Allowing corporations to shamefully put the health of families at risk and letting politicians ignore pressing problems in service of their personal ambition? Or standing up for everyday Americans against such powerful corporations and non-responsive public servants? The fate of many communities depends on his choice.

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New EPA Document’s release details what agency knew about West Lake for Three years

The EPA’s National Remedy and Review Board released a document last Thursday that called removal of toxic waste at West Lake Landfill “feasible.” It gave a summary of its recommendations for the area, many of which were in direct opposition to what the EPA has been saying about the site for years. Just Moms STL, Missouri Coalition for the Environment, and other groups have requested the document over the past three years under the Freedom of Information Act, but the EPA has denied them the document.
Now, as the document is released, it’s more clear why the EPA was so resistant to these groups seeing it in the first place. Since 2008, the EPA’s plan has been to put a cap on the site, containing the waste but not providing a long-term solution. The EPA and landfill owner Republic Services had cited that the cap would cost ten times less than removing the waste, and that the waste couldn’t be removed safely for workers or the community. The report, however, completely discredits those statements. It says that removal would be safe for workers and provide a long-term solution for the community, and that EPA region 7 overestimated the costs of removal on several fronts.
Just Moms STL have been advocating for removal for years. They recognized that a safe and permanent solution was the best way to protect the community now and in the long-term, especially given the history of the area. Some of the victims of West Lake are former victims of Coldwater creek, a nearby nuclear toxic dump site. Now that the National Review Board document has been released saying that removal is feasible after all, the community is angry. They should have had this information years ago.
If the EPA has known for three years that removal of the waste is the best option, why haven’t they done anything to start that process? It’s time for the EPA to recognize their failure on West Lake, and to abandon the plan to cap the landfill.

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Climate Change’s Most Vulnerable Populations Take U.S. Government to Court

Our use of fossil fuels is driving carbon dioxide levels higher and accelerating global warming. However, most of the impacts from our overuse of coal and oil fall on people who haven’t yet been born, much less had the chance to contribute significantly to climate change. Should future generations be able to sue over global warming? According to several courts in the United States, the answer is yes.
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Image: thinkprogress.org
Children from Washington won a major victory against climate change last month. Image: thinkprogress.org

In mid-April, twenty-one young people received the go-ahead from an Oregon judge that their lawsuit against the U.S. government for failing to act on climate change could proceed. The plaintiffs, between ages 8 and 19, alleged that the federal government, by failing to act on climate change and continuing our pattern of polluting the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, has caused harm to today and tomorrow’s youth, and violated their constitutional rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Previous climate-related lawsuits have focused mainly on violations to specific environmental laws, and this was the first to focus purely on constitutional rights. The federal government and the fossil fuel industry moved to dismiss the lawsuit, but the court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.
In Washington State, young people recently won a major victory against climate change. A group of eight children filed a lawsuit against the Washington State Ecology department for endangering their rights by not taking strict measures against climate change. The court ruled that the state must create rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 2016, fulfilling their responsibility to protect air quality for future generations. Late in May, a group of four young people in Massachusetts won a lawsuit in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which ordered the state’s Department of Environmental Protection to set stronger regulations against greenhouse gases. These groups, as well as the students in Oregon, were represented by the non-profit group Our Children’s Trust. This group also has pending cases in North Carolina and Colorado, and is engaged in international work.
According to experts on climate change, future generations will bear the brunt of global warming impacts. This week, Dr. Frederica Perera of Columbia University penned an op-ed for Environmental Health News about why our climate change policies should focus on children. While adults do suffer illness and death as a result of fossil fuel pollution, children’s health and development suffer profoundly from our lack of regulation. “While air pollution and the adverse health impacts of climate change affect us all,” Perera writes, “they are most damaging to children, especially the developing fetus and young child and particularly those of low socioeconomic status, who often have the greatest exposure and the least amount of protection.” Perera also published an article in Environmental Health Perspectives on our moral obligation to protect our most vulnerable population – children – from climate change.
As the lawsuits in Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington demonstrate, youth activists and climate change organizations are prepared to tackle this issue head-on, and in at least a few cases, the courts are prepared to listen. We can only hope that robust regulations will follow on the heels of legal victories, so that today’s children are the last generation of young people to have to sue for protection from climate change. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for generations to come are dependent on our ability to reduce our fossil fuel consumption and our emission of greenhouse gases – and as these lawsuits prove, we cannot wait any longer.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

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What if government knew your water was toxic in 2008 and told you in 2016?

I’d be outraged. This is a real life situation. It took eight years for water results to be analyzed and reviewed by the federal public health agency for a small Pennsylvania community. They concluded that drinking water was not safe to drink; and that the agency has no information about water contaminates from 2011 through 2016.
Is it safe now?  Although samples were taken over the eight-year period, no one knows. The federal health scientists have never seen those results. Even if they did, it might take another eight years to get the results — that would be 2024.
This is terrible . . . right?  Unfortunately, it actually gets worse. The state health scientists said that same water was safe to drink, as did the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) after reviewing the same sample results.  . . . yet the water was poisoned. It is unknown how many people mixed baby formula or bathed their young children in this toxic water.
I looked into why now, in May, 2016, did the federal Agency on Toxic Substance Disease Registry (ATSDR) release a report concluding the water was unsafe to drink. I found a recent news story that announced that the victim’s lawsuit against the polluter was recently settled in court. This settlement, in Dimock, Pennsylvania against Cabot Oil & Gas was the only change in the situation.  Although I could be wrong, my conclusion was that the agency decided not to get involved in the messy trial of a multinational corporation. Instead, allowed a community to be poisoned. If that’s true, then I have no confidence nor hope that the American people are protected by their own public health government agency. In fact, it reaffirms for me that our public health protections are controlled by polluters and their lawyers.
Families, young children, and women of childbearing age drank toxic water with false assurances of safety from the very agencies charged to protect them. What is the public supposed to do? Whom can they trust?  Why can’t our health authorities act in the best interest of public health of the American people who pay for their services through our tax dollars?
For the past thirty five years, I’ve watched the criteria for health assessments go from the preponderance of evidence (collection of all relevant studies, their quality, sources and conclusions) to obscure abstract mathematical assessments.  In the past five years, it’s gotten worse. When results are undeniably harmful to public health, even using this abstract model, the results are held from the public, with agencies utilizing “draft” as reasons for not releasing reports to the public. All this time, health professionals know people are being exposed to unnecessary, and in some cases, avoidable health risks. You need not look any further than what is still happening in Flint, Michigan with their drinking water to understand this problem.
The jury’s verdict on water contamination in Dimock may have broad implications for the broader debate about the environmental risks of the shale drilling rush nationwide. Although the case did not center on claims that the fracking process (as opposed to drilling, well casing failures, spills or other problems) had directly caused the water contamination, most of the gas wells that the plaintiffs focused their attention on were aimed at the Marcellus shale gas formation.
Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, commented, “This is a huge victory for the people of Dimock, but it’s also a sharp rebuke to the Obama administration for failing to fully investigate threats posed by fracking and dangerous drilling to water supplies in Pennsylvania and across the country. Because of the EPA’s disturbing history of delay and denial, it took a federal jury to set the record straight about the natural gas industry’s toxic threat to our water.”
America, what in the world are we going to do? I’d love to hear ideas because I don’t feel safe nor should you. Send any comment you might have to me at infor@chej.org.

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Exxon and Climate Misinformation

Recently, it seems that every month or so there is a new story that shows another way that ExxonMobil has worked to hide the truth behind the highly destructive effects of climate change. This past month was no different, as the Guardian released a report that links Exxon to the elimination of an important congressional lecture series on climate science in 2001, just days after the inauguration of George W. Bush.
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While this story is troubling, as it prevented members of Congress from hearing about the emerging science of climate change at a very important time, it is just one incident that has come to light in recent months showing how Exxon has sheltered the truth behind climate change decades earlier. According to an investigation by InsideClimate News, the oil company has known that the burning of fossil fuels results in a rise in the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere as early as 1977, which is over a decade before climate change ever became a public issue. The company actually played active role in discovering the phenomenon by employing top scientists to develop climate models based off of original research. Exxon’s top scientist even delivered a speech to executives introducing the science and warning that “present thinking holds that man has a time window of five to 10 years before hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical.” Yet, almost 40 years later, humans are beginning to experience the effects of climate change and still very little has been done, thanks to Exxon’s sheltering of the truth.
Not only has Exxon prevented the public from discovering the potentially catastrophic future that climate change poses, but they have also contributed to spreading of skepticism of climate science among the general public. Much like the tobacco industry promoted misinformation regarding the health risks of smoking, Exxon has spent more than $30 million on organizations promoting climate denial. They have even utilized the same consultants that worked with the tobacco industry decades earlier to develop a communications strategy. A memo from the fossil fuel industry, found by the Union of Concerned Scientists, sums up the intentions of their campaign perfectly when it stated, “Victory will be achieved when the average person is uncertain about climate science.”
It is sad that Exxon could not act on the troubling evidence provided to them by its own scientists in the 1970s. We would’ve had a chance to get ahead of climate change and start taking the steps necessary to mitigate catastrophic levels of temperature rise. But, it is easy to see why Exxon would hide the truth and promote skepticism of climate science, as any logical response to widespread acceptance of the science by the public and our policymakers would involve major government intervention to slow the burning of fossil fuels, which would most certainly hurt Exxon’s profit. Now that it is clear that Exxon prevented action on mitigating climate change, it is time that they pay their share of the costs that climate change is already inflicting across the world.
 
 

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What We Don’t Know about Toxic Chemicals

So often people believe that the solution to their problem lies in science and technical information. How often have you heard some company spokesperson speak to the need for sound science. At CHEJ, we have have learned many lessons about science and how it is used. Science and technical information is important and has a role in helping to achieve your community goals. Identifying this role and learning how to use scientific and technical information is critical to the success of your group.
The most important lesson is that science and technical information alone will not solve your problem(s). It’s reasonable to think that if you hire the best scientists and engineers and make solid technical arguments, the government will do the right thing. Those of you who have been there know it doesn’t work that way.
When the government discovers a problem, it’s reluctant to determine the full extent of the problem. This is because if the government documents contamination that threatens people’s health, it then has to do something about it—like evacuate people or clean up the contamination. This costs money that government doesn’t have or want to spend. Such action might also set a precedent by establishing cleanup standards or unsafe exposures levels that would mean spending more money at other sites
Deciding what action to take is complicated by the fact that there are few answers to the many scientific questions raised by exposures to toxic chemicals. Scientists actually know little about the adverse health effects that result from exposure to combinations of chemicals at low levels. As a result, when politicians and bureaucrats look for answers, the scientists don’t have them. They have their opinions but no clear answers.
Most scientists however, are reluctant to admit they don’t know the answer to a question. Instead they introduce the concept of “risk” and begin a debate over what’s “acceptable.” This process hides the fact that scientists don’t know what happens to people who are exposed to low levels of a mixture of toxic chemicals. This uncertainty gets lost in the search for what’s “acceptable.”
Because of the lack of scientific clarity, bureaucrats and politicians use science cloaked in uncertainty, not facts, to justify their decisions which at best are based scientific opinion, but more likely driven by the political and economic pressures they face. Whether this is right or not is not a scientific question but an ethical and moral question. It is foolish to think that in this setting, science can be anything but a tool used by politicians and corporations to get what they want.
While science and scientific information have failed to provide clear answers and solutions to the hard questions about the health and environmental impact of the chemicals we use, we cannot abandon science. Science and scientific information can be a powerful tool for community groups, but only if you recognize what it can tell you and what it can’t, and only if you learn how to use the information and not just collect it. The right information used in the right way at the right time can be very powerful. Learning how to use scientific and technical information strategically is an organizing skill. Contact CHEJ to continue this conversation.