Our group and others are filing a legal notice with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today demanding immediate action to stop oil and gas companies from dumping drilling and fracking waste in ways that threaten public health and the environment. We’ll like file a federal lawsuit in 60 days.
Statement of Laura Barrett of St. Louis, Executive Director, Center for Health, Environment and Justice
“Our group, CHEJ, and others are filing a legal notice today with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency demanding immediate action to stop oil and gas companies from dumping drilling and fracking waste in ways that threaten public health and the environment. We’ll likely file a federal lawsuit in 60 days.
The oil and gas industry is growing by leaps and bounds. EPA must do its job and update and enforce these vital regulations. Our water and air are threatened by toxic waste from the improper storage of fracking wastes while corporate polluters are allowed to run wild. Homes, small businesses, and low income and indigenous communities are being laid to waste by an industry that is virtually unregulated.”
Statement of Lois Gibbs, Founder, Center for Health, Environment and Justice
“For public safety, EPA must update its woefully outdated 25+ year old regulations on the fast growing oil and gas industry. I have been called the “Mother of the Superfund” because of the work that I did to get relief for children and families poisoned by toxic wastes in Love Canal. We won relocation for over 800 families because President Carter and EPA finally stepped up. The EPA must act now before more rural, indigenous, innocent communities are destroyed.”
Mary has terminal lung cancer. She never smoked. But what she did do is walk around the local park every morning 24 laps. She believed that she was doing a good thing for her health, getting exercise and fresh air.
Unfortunately, the park that she walked daily was found to be contaminated with radioactive materials. It’s all part of the St. Louis historical work on the Manhattan Project. Mary attended the local meeting this past week about the cleanup of the radioactive wastes. Officials told her that they were not going to close the park that she once walked around daily because the children are back in school. The children, they believe wouldn’t spend much time in the park because of school so they didn’t need to take any action.
Outraged that no one would close the park, the park she believed was the root cause of her now death sentence, Mary decided to do something about it. Mary stood in front of the park with a sign that asked people to ask her why she was there, so she could tell them her story. How her grandson will never really know his Nana because she will be gone before they can do much together.
Today the park that Mary once walked laps around is closed, because Mary wouldn’t leave the entrance with her yellow sign “Park Closed,” until it was officially closed to innocent children and families. Thank you Mary.
The unfortunate truth is that it took a victim of radioactive exposure, a mother and grandmother to take a stand and protect the innocent from known harm. Where are our health protectors? Where are the local, state and more importantly federal health authorities that have jurisdiction and decision making powers when such decisions are needed. Who are they afraid of?
I’m am so tired of the federal government who has investigated and defined the cleanup and testing of this site and so many other sites, turn their heads when it comes to making a decision about protecting the public health. This is not the case when the public is placed at risk from food poisoning or a drug that proved to be more harmful than thought. Why are people exposed to radioactive wastes or toxic wastes the abandoned child? Why is there No Protection or Unequal Protection under government authorities when it comes to working class or low wealth families?
Time and time again we at CHEJ have seen that families are ignored when it comes to the real life threat of exposures to materials that will cause cancer and other diseases. It is well past time that the health professionals who took an oath “to do know harm” to step up to the plate and protect innocent families in the same manner, in the same time frame, as they do families exposed to food related or drug related health impacts.
To hear Mary speak to this issue you can connect to the Youtube video and begin at 1:59, but be sure to have a box of tissues handy to wipe your eyes because the personal testimony is very powerful and sad.
By: Katie O’Brien
Renewables have just become the second most popular source of electricity in the World! Making it the first time since 2001, natural gas was bumped from the number two spot. While coal still holds the number one spot, this is a huge step in the right direction for clean energy.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), 41% of electricity still came from coal, but over 22% came from renewable sources, such as solar, wind, and wave power. The increase in renewables can be attributed to 34 countries that are apart of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), that work together to seek answers to common problems, identify good practices and provide a platform to compare policy experiences. The increase however is not caused by a growth in renewable infrastructure, but rather an enormous decrease in coal electricity production. A study done by West Virginia University shows that there will be 39% decrease in coal production by 2035.
Europe has been a frontrunner in renewables. In the first quarter of this year, the U.K. alone produced over 22% of their power solar sources. Last year, Scotland provided enough electricity through wind power to power 72% of homes within the country. The European Renewable Energy Council has predicted that by the year 2050 (or sooner), that the European Union will have a completely renewable energy supply for the entire E.U. territory.
The U.S. is also working towards a more renewable future. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, in 2004, investments in renewable energy were around $9 billion. In the first quarter of 2015, that number rose to more than $50 billion. With renewables on the rise, and fossil fuels on the decline, the World is looking to a greener, cleaner, and brighter future.
On August 6th 70 years ago, the U.S. government dropped a nuclear bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Estimates on how many people were killed range from 140,000 to 200,000. It was the first time a nuclear weapon had ever been used in war. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second bomb on the city of Nagasaki. These events are largely credited for ending World War II.
Tens of thousands gathered at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima on the morning of August 6th to commemorate the dropping of the bomb and to recall the horror of that day 70 years ago. The city has done a remarkable job of memorializing this event and telling the story of what happened to the city and its people in the days following the dropping of the bomb. One photographer who took pictures in the immediate aftermath of the bombing buried his film to be discovered years later, undamaged by the radiation. Many of his photographs can be found in the Peace Memorial Museum that brings the horror to life in vivid black and white images.
I made a visit to Hiroshima several years ago while traveling to Japan for the Rachel Carson Trust of Japan. The exhibits at the Peace Memorial Museum do a remarkable job of reenacting the impact of the bomb on the city and its people. And if that were not enough, the museum hosts a hibakusha or “atomic bomb person” who tells their story of witnessing and surviving the bombing. Their words bring the bombing to life in an unforgettable way. According to a story in the Washington Post, the city is now training young people to be “memory keepers” in order to continue disseminating the tales of the survivors, the average age of whom is 80. There are over 200 atomic bomb story-tellers who are learning the testimonies of the survivors in order to continue telling their stories.
It seems quite important to many of the Japanese people that they not forget how the bombings came about and the devastation caused by the bombings. This sentiment is in stark contrast, however, to the intentions expressed by Japanese Minister Shinzo Abe who supports proposed changes in the Japanese pacifist constitution that was written by its American occupiers in 1945. But many in Japan feel that its pacifist ways have done the country well and challenge Abe not to renounce its existing constitution.
Regardless of how Japan moves forward with its internal struggle to address its role in the war, you cannot help by take-away the key message clearly intended at the museum and peace park and that is the destructive power of nuclear weapons and importance of living in a world without nuclear weapons. A message the U.S. among other countries are reluctant to adopt.
I am so frustrated and cannot understand how to win equal protection of health for all people. I’ve been doing this work for over thirty years and observed that unlike food contamination or infectious disease, where health agencies move at the speed of light to keep people safe, when the source is toxic chemicals from a corporation, people are sacrificed. I’m looking for ideas from those who read this blog. Just recently we saw the call to action to protect public health around the cilantro scare.
This week I received requests for help from local leaders CHEJ is working with that related to health studies and public health impacts from chemicals in their environment.
One study around hydro fracking, researchers found that pregnant women living near clusters of fracked wells were more likely to have babies with lower birth weights. The second study found higher rates of hospitalization for heart conditions, neurological illness, and other conditions among people who live near fracking sites.
Those studies were not enough to stop fracking in the communities. In fact, health authorities said they believe it may not be the fracking at all – it could just be a random clustering of medical problems.
The third study was around a low wealth African American community in Birmingham, Alabama. Adjacent to the community is Walter Coke Facility that manufactures coke, toluene sulfonyl acid, produces pig iron from iron ore and more.
The Federal Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry (ATSDR) conducted a study to determine the health risk to community families based upon exposures to arsenic, lead, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) found in residential surface soil and homegrown garden produce in the communities collected from November 2012 through January 2015.
ATSDR concluded that:
past and current exposure to arsenic found in surface soil of some residential yards could harm people’s health. Children are especially at risk.
past and current exposure to lead found in surface soil of some residential yards could harm people’s health. Swallowing this lead‐contaminated soil could cause harmful health effects, especially in children and in the developing fetus of pregnant women.
long‐term exposure (i.e., many years) to PAHs found in the surface soil of some residential yards is at a level of concern for lifetime cancer risk.
The agency’s recommendation was for parents to:
monitor their children’s behavior while playing outdoors and prevent their children from intentionally or inadvertently eating soil;
take measures to reduce exposures to residential soil and to protect themselves, their families, and visitors;
have their children tested for blood lead; and
for EPA to continue testing for arsenic and lead in the soil and continue with its plans to cleanup additional properties (patch quilt of clean up not community wide as though the wind won’t carry toxic dust from one yard to another) to reduce levels in residential surface soil.
There was no mention of what the polluter should do. No mention of relocating families from the area to safe housing somewhere else. There was no mention of health monitoring or a clinic for people, especially children who are exposed and sick.
What level of human tragedy, suffering and loss of life will it take to stop the poisoning of American people from toxic chemicals? The ethics behind the two responses of food/infectious disease versus chemical threats to public health is unethical. Families being exposed to toxic chemicals matter just as much as everyone else. It’s time our health agencies stopped treating them as sacrificial families to protect corporate profits.
In the early 50s the United States Atomic Energy Commission announced the establishment of Pacific Proving Grounds on about 2000 islands in the North pacific, including the Marshall Islands. They conducted over a hundred nuclear tests there. In the Marshall Islands the United States conducted more Nuclear Testing there than in any other location in the world. This has had a significant impact on their health for the past few decades. There were several serious birth defects and an abundant amount of cancer cases throughout the Marshall Islands. In 1990 the Marshall Islands were paid over seven hundred million dollars to compensate for the radiation health issues. However this is not nearly enough to repay for the lives lost and defects that were caused.
Now the Marshall Islands are suffering significantly again. Climate change and rising carbon dioxide levels have affected many impacts of our world in the past few years. One serious issue is sea level rise. Cities all over the world are suffering from impacts of flooding and sea level rise. Severe weather, warmer ocean temperatures, and the melting of the glaciers have significantly affected sea level rise. A country that is impacted the most currently is the Marshall Islands.
Over the past couple years there have been dozens of floods throughout the Marshall Islands. These stem from stronger storms and a variety of weather events. However it’s mostly from the rise of the sea level surrounding the whole country which is composed of over a thousand Islands and over twenty coral atolls. Around seventy thousand people live in the Marshall Islands but many natives are moving to Arkansas. Why?
Hundreds of homes have been destroyed by the floods and many babies, children, and adults have floated away. The citizens of the Marshall Islands are so terrified of the water that they want to be as land locked as possible. Therefore they have been moving to Arkansas. If they have not moved yet they are planning to. Unfortunately the Marshall Islands will not last long because of Sea Level Rise. It is expected that by 2020 most of the Islands will have sunken under the water. This is also an environmental risk to the Ocean and aquatic ecosystems because of the Nuclear Testing that was done earlier. Overall the Marshall Islands have been neglected and suffered a significant amount due to Climate Change and Nuclear Testing and the country and its residents deserve attention and support from society.
Michael Crichton’s 2002 novel Prey features a terrifying interpretation ofnanotechnology, when swarms of “nanobots” become self-aware and predatory. His book is entirely fictional, but even outside the realm of popular culture, mentions of nanotechnology can stoke our fears about what might happen if science advances beyond our control.
What is nanotechnology? Any technology that works with and manipulates particles between 1 and 100 nanometers in length or width can fall under the nanotech umbrella. Particles of this size are too small to see with the naked eye – they are about the size of a virus or of your DNA. In the real world, predatory nano-swarms don’t top the list of scientists’ concerns. Instead, they are engaged with determining the environmental and health impacts of our increasing use of nanotechnology in medicine, energy generation, communication technology, and even environmental remediation.
In the environmental field, nanotechnology is used to remediate or clean up polluted groundwater, wastewater, soil and sediment. Nanoremediation methods use materials at the nanoscale to reduce pollutant levels at contaminated sites. Nanomaterials have several properties that make them well-suited to this task. They are tiny in size, enabling them to enter very small spaces and travel further and more widely than larger particles. They also have a high surface area relative to their mass, making it easier for them to react with compounds. (Karn et al., 2009).
When nanoparticles interact with toxic compounds, they operate in one of two ways – breaking down the compounds, or immobilizing them. Nanoparticles can cause reactions that transform toxic compounds to less harmful products. They also can bind to the compounds, immobilizing them and preventing them from exerting further harm on the environment. Iron nanoparticles are one of the most commonly used compounds, used to break down or bind and immobilize harmful contaminants (Karn et al., 2009).
According to the EPA, federal, state and local governments, as well as private industry, are expected to spend billions of dollars each year cleaning up hundreds of thousands of contaminated sites over the next three decades. Researchers have concluded that by using nanotechnology in environmental remediation, we have the potential to reduce the cost, time and effort involved with cleaning up contaminated sites (Karn et al, 2009). One major advantage of nanoremediation is its ability to be used as an on-site, or in situ, treatment method. Removing and transporting toxic sediment or soil can involve excessive time and effort, and in situ methods like nanoremediation eliminate this cost.
However, concerns naturally emerge any time we introduce new compounds to the environment. While nanoparticles are designed and used to reduce contaminant toxicity, they may have the potential to generate harmful byproducts, or products that are even more mobile in the environment. While nanomaterials typically stay in or near the site where they are applied, several studies have shown their ability to travel larger distances, carrying with them absorbed contaminants (Karn et al, 2009). Recent research has also investigated the potential for nanoparticles to enter the food chain and bioaccumulate.
Nanoremediation has the potential to revolutionize contaminated site cleanup, but it also carries unknown risks. Balancing these risks and benefits will be critical to the future of environmental management. The good news? We are (probably) safe from predatory nanobots.
The Obama administration recently released a new plan calling for more reductions in America’s carbon emissions from power plants. Obama called it the “single most important step America had ever taken in the fight against global climate change.” The Clean Power Plan seeks to increase required cuts in carbon emissions from the power sector. The goal is to slash emissions by 32% from recorded 2005 levels by the year 2030. It also calls for a national shift toward renewable energy, including solar and wind energy, and to move away from coal-fire power.
This policy has been under the works for years, and has chosen to focus on the energy sector because power plants account for 1/3 of America’s carbon pollution and is the largest source of carbon pollution in the county. The new plan is based on the idea that energy consumption can be reduced through consumer-side efficiency standards. It arguably will also push new technological advances in energy across industries in the future.
The Obama administration also did a good job framing the new plan. Instead of labeling it as a climate solution, which many people have become desensitized to, they made it a national issue and a human issue. The administration argues that the push to renewable and cleaner energy will help national security by making the U.S. less dependent on foreign energy, help to fix the economy, and will improve public health.
The Clean Power Plan leaves the concrete action of cutting emissions up to the states. Each state will be able to put its own plan together for cutting emissions which will be approved by the federal government in late 2016. This acknowledges that not every state is starting from the same place when it comes to emissions and energy, and that each state will most likely have to take its own technological path to reach the 2030 goal. There have been some concerns that giving the states the power to act will bog down any real solution through politicized debates on how the state can best achieve the overall goal.
Many industry groups and states that have relied on coal-based energy have voiced their own concerns and have vowed to challenge the new requirements made by the Clean Energy Plan. They argue that the new regulations will drive up energy prices, putting both affordability and reliability of the energy sector at risk.
On July 23, the United States House of Representatives passed a bill preventing individual states from requiring labels on foods that contain genetically modified ingredients (GMOs). This bill bans states like Vermont, which recently passed GMO labeling laws, from labeling grocery items that contain GMOs. Supporters of the bill claim that there is no scientific consensus of the harm GMOs can cause, and therefore felt that the government should step in to regulate. But many studies claim that GMO foods have risks. While the government claims there is no concrete study that proves health harm from GMO ingredients, since they were introduced in 1996; there has been a rise in chronic illnesses, food allergies, reproductive issues and other disorders such as autism. GMOs also increase the use of toxic herbicide, which can harm ecosystems, reducing bio-diversity. According to the Grocery Manufacturers Association, who are supporters of the bill, 80% of packaged foods contain GMOs, and more than 90% or U.S. corn and soybean crops are grown with genetically modified seeds.
The bill known as The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015 creates a standard for the voluntary labeling of foods with GMO ingredients. It also created a certification process for companies that want to label their food GMO free, similar to the method of organic food labeling. Thus making it more difficult for companies who choose not to include GMOs in their product. The bill also allows the term “natural” to be included on labels of food containing GMOs. Democrats tried to amend the bill to stop the labeling of GMO foods as “natural”, but failed. The bill passed even though many surveys and polls, as in one done by the Mellman Group, states that at least 90% of the country does want to know what’s in the food they buy.
People have a right to know what is in the food they consume. Many groups have formed in opposition to the bill, which was nicknamed DARK, Denying Americans the Right-to-Know Act, because it will keep consumers in the dark. In an increasing world of transparency, the food industry is falling behind. Consumers should have readily available information about the food that they and their families eat. Opposition to the bill hopes that the senate will ultimately defeat the “DARK” act.
Last month, the nation’s third largest home improvement chain – Menards – agreed to phase out the use of phthalates in its vinyl flooring by the end of the year. In a statement in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Menards spokesperson Jeff Abbot said, “We are still aware of the phthalate concern and have been working diligently with our vendors to eliminate any flooring products that contain phthalates.” Menards, which follows the lead of Home Depot and Lowes, has roughly 285 stores in 14 states.
This announcement follows a report by the Health Building Network (HBN) that the world’s largest flooring manufacturers, Mohawk and Tarkett, are also phasing out the use of phthalate plasticizers. Rochelle Routman, VP of sustainability for Mohawk, told HBN that it “long ago” phased out the use of ortho-phthalates in all the vinyl floors that it manufacturers, and is working to eliminate them from third party manufactured floors. HBN reported in April that Tarkett, the world’s second largest flooring company, has phased out the intentional addition of phthalates to its flooring.
The decisions by these major retailers and by global manufacturing companies portends an end to the use of phthalates in consumer products. Consumers simply do not want to take risks, especially with their children, that they can avoid.
The August 2015 issue ofConsumer Reportsmakes clear what parents should do if they have vinyl flooring in their home – regularly mop vinyl floors that contain phthalates and wash toddlers’ hands, especially if children crawl on the floors. Consumers Union tested 17 vinyl floors and found small amounts of phthalates on the surface layers – enough however to warrant action by parents. “Although phthalate levels are very low, we recommend that parents of toddlers wet-mop often and wash those little hands after they’ve been crawling on a vinyl floor,” it reports. Frequent cleaning could help remove dust particles which are known to accumulate phthalates commonly used in these floorings.
Phthalates migrate from PVC, can accumulate in people’s bodies, and can cause developmental harm. Some phthalates are carcinogens.
Rather than worry about moping the floor and washing your children’s hands, most parents want nothing to do with vinyl flooring. The risks are too great and the market forces are following this lead.
