Center for Health, Environment & Justice
Donate

Category: Backyard Talk

CHEJ Blog

Categories
Backyard Talk

DuPont Chemical potentially facing charges and Keystone XL on the ropes again

One of the most leading chemical companies in the United States, Dupont, is in legal crosshairs for allegedly exposing workers at a Houston area Pesticide plant with dangerous fumes  for numerous years. This comes in the wake of the death of four employees who died on Nov. 15th of last year from exposure to the chemical methyl mercaptan.

Acording to the Washington Post, “Based on state records and the company’s own disclosures, the newspaper concluded that workers could have been exposed to the gas far above the levels deemed acceptable by OHSA since 2008. As much as 600 parts per million of the gas an hour could have filled a poorly ventilated room, but federal guidelines say workers shouldn’t be exposed to more than an average of 10 ppm per day of the gas, which is used to manufacture insecticide and fungicide.”

DuPont, as of now, has declined to comment on the news.

Meanwhile Keystone XL is potential facing a lawsuit from Nebraska farmers. Ranchers in Nebraska whose property lies in the path of the pipeline have come out in a video declaration on Youtube from lawyers representing landowners.

According to the Gaurdian, “The threat of a new lawsuit, delivered in a video ultimatum from the ranchers’ lawyers, is almost certain to extend the saga of the Keystone XL in Nebraska – and in Washington, where open debate was scheduled to begin in the Senate on Monday afternoon ahead of an expected veto threat from Barack Obama.”

Its seems the winds have changed in regards to Keystone since the past few years when it seemed its construction was almost certain, now it’s fighting for a mere chance.

Categories
Backyard Talk

Citizen Science: Tracking The Air We Breathe

Smartphone apps and portable gadgets have made it possible for individuals to get up-to-the-minute information on their own vital signs and activity levels. What if we could just as easily monitor environmental impacts on our health, tracking real-time data on pollution exposures? Development of portable sensing devices is making this individualized approach to air quality monitoring a possibility for people worldwide, and is fueling citizen science initiatives to more comprehensively track pollution on a global scale.

The Air Quality Egg, the Smart Citizen Kit, and the DustDuino are just a few examples of this new type of gadget, which can measure levels of particulate matter and other pollutants like nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide. Nature has dubbed these devices “Sensors for the People.”  Data from these devices may be able to fill in the gaps left by official monitoring networks, whose sensors are, according to Nature, “sophisticated but sparsely distributed.”

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]

Graphic from Nature.com

While data from official monitoring networks is important from a regulatory standpoint, it holds little relevance for individuals’ health. In fact, fixed sensors are generally inadequate for predicting environmental exposures, because people pass through so many different microenvironments throughout their days. A study at Columbia University fitted students with portable sensors and found that the majority of their exposure to airborne metals came from riding on the subway, rather than from breathing the air in their homes. Data from portable sensors can provide more pertinent information on individual exposures in the home, in transit, and in the workplace than the values obtained at the nearest monitoring station.

According to Nature, these approaches are “part of an effort to democratize air-quality monitoring so that it no longer remains solely in the domain of governments and academic researchers.” This may be a powerful shift in monitoring, particularly for areas facing both air pollution and a lack of readily-available data . Wired recently reported on David Lu, a UC Berkeley student from Shanghai who has collaborated with other students to develop a sensor and launch a startup for monitoring air quality in China, where reports have surfaced that some governments are blocking pollution data from being publicly available.

[/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]

Clarity Sensor (Image from Wired)

These portable sensors allow people to collect air quality data on their own personal environments, but data can also be aggregated to create more accurate pollution maps. That is the next phase of Lu and his fellow students’ project; essentially, they will be crowdsourcing data from China and other highly polluted areas to make air pollution mapping easier.

While research is taking off at some institutions and public enthusiasm is growing, the atmospheric science community has had a more tempered response to these devices. “Monitoring air-pollution levels is far more involved than the manufacturers and suppliers of cheap sensors suggest,” Ben Barratt, a British Air Quality Scientist said to Nature, citing differences in temperature and humidity as some of the complicating factors that make it difficult to cross-compare results between devices. Part of the reason why there are few official monitoring sites is because they take a lot of maintenance and care to ensure the data is accurate.

Though the data generated from these sensors does not currently hold up under sufficient scientific scrutiny for use in a regulatory context, citizen sensing projects are still in their early stages, and future technical developments may give crowdsourced pollution readings more clout. In the meantime, citizen scientists are developing the frameworks necessary for widespread monitoring of one of the biggest environmental health threats of our time.

[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Categories
Backyard Talk

Guest Blog: Fracking Impacts Without Drilling

Guest blog by Ann M. Nau, Vice President, Myersville Citizens for a Rural Community

In talking about ‘fracking’, oftentimes the industry tries to limit the discussion to the actual process of injecting liquid at high pressure into rock formations to extract gas. However, there is a broad network of infrastructure that is required to support that process, including storage facilities, compressor stations, metering stations, processing facilities, gathering lines, and intrastate and interstate pipelines. And regulatory oversight of those components falls to various local and federal agencies, if it is regulated at all. Very generally speaking, activities related to drilling fall under state authority while the federal government has oversight of interstate pipelines and associated facilities.  And what that means for towns like Myersville is that while there is currently no fracking in Maryland, the natural gas boom has already negatively affected our community.

Myersville is a picturesque rural community of approximately 1,600, nestled in the Middletown Valley of Frederick County, MD about 40 miles north of Washington, DC. It is a place where families have lived for generations and where newcomers have settled, seeking the serenity and closeness a small town offers.

And it is here, approximately 1 mile from our only elementary school that Dominion Transmission (DTI), a subsidiary of Virginia-based power giant Dominion, sought to build and operate a 16 thousand horsepower natural gas compressor station to move gas along its interstate pipeline. This station would annually release 23.5 tons per year of Nitrogen Oxides in addition to particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide, and green houses gases.

The citizens of Myersville were overwhelming opposed to this plan. We held rallies, wrote over 600 opposition letters, hired an attorney, and formed a community group.

In August of 2012, the Town Council unanimously voted against Dominion’s application to amend the Town Master Plan, finding among others things that the project posed a risk to the citizens.  And by doing so, the Town denied Dominion the necessary local zoning approval required by Maryland Department of the Environment to issue an air permit.  Despite all of this, in December of 2012, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or FERC authorized the project.  Armed with that certificate, DTI sued both the Town of Myersville and MDE, using the power of federal preemption granted in the Natural Gas Act to override local and state zoning.

FERC is an independent regulatory agency within the US Department of Energy with jurisdiction over interstate electricity sales, natural gas pricing, and oil pipeline rates.  It also reviews and authorizes liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, interstate natural gas pipelines and hydropower projects. The   Commission is composed of five embers, or Commissioners, who are appointed by the President and

In spite of our best efforts, as you enter Myersville, you are greeted by Dominion’s toxic-emission spewing gas compressor station. And while Myersville may be one of the first communities in Maryland impacted by build out from fracking, I can assure you it will not be the last. Already, our friends in Cove Point, MD are battling the LNG export plant and Williams Transco seeks approval to increase compression capabilities in Howard County. In fact, an industry group states that to support natural gas drilling nationally, they will need PER YEAR for the next 25 years1:

•           850 miles of new natural gas transmission mainlines,

•           Over 800 miles of new laterals to and from power plants, processing facilities and storage fields

•           14,000 miles of new gas gathering lines

•           More than 580,000 hp for pipelines and gathering compression

To put that into perspective, here is a 2008 map of natural gas pipelines and compressor stations.



So when we discuss fracking, we need to consider all the impacts associated with it– from drilling rigs, compressor stations, pipelines, processing plants, storage facilities and export plants.  We must not allow separate regulatory schemes to divide and conquer us.  Because what happens to our neighbors in West Virginia, in Pennsylvania, in Ohio, in Western MD, in Myersville, in Howard County, in Lusby, affects all us.

1http://www.ingaa.org/file.aspx?id=21498

Ann M. Nau is the Vice President of the Myersville Citizens for a Rural Community, http://mcrcmd.org/.

Categories
Backyard Talk

Grassroots Activism Makes the Difference in New York

Right before Christmas, the Washington Post ran an interesting article you may have missed. It laid out the conundrum of two states coming to very different conclusions about fracking within its boundaries. Both states, New York and Maryland, had moratoriums in place and were evaluating pretty much the same technical and scientific information, yet they came to very different conclusions.

In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo chose to ban the practice of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” in New York State. Fracking is the process of injecting a chemical/water mixture under extreme pressure deep into the earth in order to “fracture” rock and release natural gas (or oil). Cuomo’s decision followed a report from the New York Department of Health that found “significant public health risks” associated with fracking including concerns about water contamination and air pollution. In a press statement, the state health commissioner stated that there was “insufficient scientific evidence to affirm the safety of fracking.”

On the other hand, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley decided to allow fracking go forward in the western part of the state. This decision was based on a joint report from  the Maryland Departments of the Environment and Natural Resources, which concluded that with adequate regulation, “the risks of Marcellus Shale development can be managed to an acceptable level.” Both reports acknowledged that there are risks from fracking, due primarily to groundwater and air contamination, but also that there is a great deal that is not known about the extent of these risks, or the long term effects.

The articles concludes “that these two decisions on fracking, while draped in scientific language, were — in fact — probably not really scientific decisions at all.” Thank you Washington Post for pointing out what grassroots activists have known for years – that most decisions about environmental risks are based on political, economic and other factors, and not on available science, no matter what anyone tells you.

The article goes on to attribute the different decisions to four factors – politics, who did the studies for each state, the amount of land affected and the use of the precautionary principle by one state (NY) and not the other. All these factors liked came into play, but there‘s another factor not mentioned that likely played an even larger role, and that is the role of grassroots activism. In New York, grassroots activists were overwhelmingly opposed to fracking and this position was repeatedly made known to Cuomo and other state decision-makers. Since being elected in 2010 Cuomo could not go anywhere in the state without seeing signs asking him to ban fracking. This message was delivered time after time by numerous groups in New York as well as by celebrities, scientists and others.

The lesson here isn’t that reasonable agencies and state governors came to different decisions based on different evidence and information. It’s that the grassroots activism in New York made a huge difference and helped convince Cuomo and other decision makers in the state that there was enough known about the risks posed by fracking not to move forward and that the unknown risks were too serious to ignore.

Categories
Backyard Talk

Kids Tuna Surprise

Tuna it turns out is still filled with toxic mercury.  A recent article focused on studies that underscore health risks for children consuming the mercury-tainted tuna  fish. Inquirer GreenSpace Columnist writes that “Based on two recent reports, Adam Finkel, a University of Pennsylvania professor who is also a national expert on human health-risk assessment, fears many of the nation’s kids are eating too much tuna – aided and abetted by being offered it at school.

Tuna has a lot going for it. It’s popular and cheap, loaded with protein and low in fat. And federal health guidelines are simple and direct: We should eat more seafood. But tuna also is the biggest source of mercury in the American diet.

Mercury is emitted by coal-fired power plants and other industries. It gets into waterways, then into fish, accumulating as it moves up the food chain to top predators such as tuna. Mercury can harm memory, intelligence, and hand-eye coordination, so federal guidelines advise limited consumption for young children and women who are or may become pregnant. Note: Albacore tuna has more mercury than light tuna.

But the guideline is broad. And a report issued in September by the Mercury Policy Project, a Vermont nonprofit, found that mercury levels in institutional-size cans of tuna, the kind used in schools, vary widely.

The report, “Tuna Surprise,” tested 59 samples of institutional tuna from 11 states. The author, environmental health expert Edward Groth, found that children eating the same amount of tuna from different sources could get mercury doses that vary by tenfold. Tuna from Latin America has more mercury than tuna from the United States and Asia…..Finkel considers tuna “a needless risk” and says the smaller the child, the less tuna he or she should eat. Groth’s report recommends that children weighing less than 55 pounds eat tuna no more than once a month.

Even in schools where tuna is served sparingly, the problem is the unusual kid who loves it and eats it at every opportunity, Groth and Finkel say. Adam Finkel, a Penn expert on human health-risk assessment, recommends parents ask their school district these questions:

How often is tuna served? Worst is if it’s on a salad bar every day, so a kid who loves it can load up, Finkel says.

What kind is it? Chunk light has less mercury than albacore.

Where is it from? The “Tuna Surprise” report found that tuna from Latin America has more mercury than tuna from the United States and Asia.

The FDA’s information page on mercury and fish: http://alturl.com/fbo2r

The EPA’s information page: http://alturl.com/an7wy

“Tuna Surprise” Report: http://alturl.com/m2emc


Categories
Backyard Talk

Pipeline Spill in a Small Arkansas Town May Shift Opinions on Keystone XL

As we anxiously await President Obama’s decision on TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, new concerns have emerged regarding detection of leaks and other potential hazards the pipeline could pose to public health. Last year alone roughly 364 pipelines had spills in the U.S., leaving a total of 54,000 barrels of oil to clean up, according to PBS, quoting the Department of Transportation.

An increasing number of Texas and Oklahoma residents worry about pipeline spills. One, of the more recent ones occurred in March, when ExxonMobil’s Pegasus Pipeline near Mayflower, Ark., ruptured and flooded streets and yards in nearby neighborhoods.


Although ExxonMobil said nearby lakes and air quality weren’t affected, local scientists remain skeptical. A 2010 spill in Michigan’s Kalamazoo River left residual amounts of tar sands in the river bed.

As in the 2010 spill in Michigan, residents of Mayflower immediately began reporting health complications–including headaches and coughing fits—and worry about lingering effects from benzene, linked to respiratory illness and cancer. A month after the Arkansas spill, the Pegasus Pipeline again ruptured in the neighboring state of Missouri, adding to the count of incidents this year. Some justice may be served on behalf of Mayflower residents, as last week Arkansas’s attorney general filed suit against ExxonMobil for improper waste storage and water contamination.


These disasters serve as a chain of omens as Keystone XL’s approval looms near. Despite the spills, TransCanada refuses to adopt additional safety measures such as infrared leak detection equipment for helicopters performing fly-overs, according to Bloomberg, even after TransCanada found a series of “anomalies” and dents in the pipeline, requiring workers to dig up segments near Douglass, Texas, part of the final stretch of the project.

Now, on the edge of a landmark decision, President Obama has, as New York Times reporter John Broder put it, “a rare opportunity to set the parameters of the energy debate for the rest of his term.” Many, including former Obama aides, former Vice President Al Gore, and even Nobel Prize winner the Dalai Lama have all called for the president to veto the project. Any appeasement of environmental groups with a smaller, side deal by the administration cannot offset the damage the pipeline will reap on communities and ecosystems.

Categories
Backyard Talk

Winning Doesn’t Happen Because You’re Right – You Need To Be Organized

How can you get protective action from regulatory agencies or corporation? The answer has always been through organized people. It is not new news that corporations and powerful rich people can and will control what is or is not done as it relates to public health and the environment. However, what most people fail to realize is that people united in action can influence decision and yes can even win. CHEJ has been working with communities for over thirty years and we’ve seen the power of people in communities.

It was Mississippi citizens, opposed to a hazardous waste incinerator that stopped the facility in its tracks. The groups lawyers had no legal avenues and the scientists were outnumbered by the corporate or “cigarette scientists” by four to one. Local leaders could have just thrown up their hands and walked away in frustration but they didn’t. In a small room people gathered to brainstorm what they could do to stop the proposal and came up with a brilliant idea. An idea by the way that might just work for your fight.

Since there was only one road for trucks to travel when dropping off waste and returning home they needed to think about that road. There is a school, childcare center, church, store and more along that roadway, which would place a large number of families especially children at risk. So the local road is the focus, what can they do?

Since it’s a locally controlled road they asked their local government to place restrictions on the road. The group came up with a list of restrictions that the local government fully supported. Here’s the restrictions that were passed into local law: no trucks could travel on the road during the hours children enter or leave school; all trucks will be inspected before entering the populated area by a skilled inspector; the trucking company will pay a fee for that inspection; a police escort will travel with all trucks arriving during normal working hours and when there are evening school activities; the trucking company will pay a fee to cover the costs of the additional police officers needed to escort; and more.

The result of this was the company decided not to build near that community because of the costs associated with the local requirements. A victory that came from the people and their local representatives and worked within the existing laws.

Another example where people took control, refused to work within the confines or rules of the federal agency is in a small African American community in Florida. The group was looking for a proper clean up of their toxic dump site ask the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to come and hold an open meeting with local citizens to talk about the clean up. EPA said no to an open meeting and insisted on have a meeting where information would be shared through tables set up around the room where people can meet in small groups with the EPA representative discussing a part or segment of their efforts. This of course is a divide and concur technique that was developed to suppress community voices.

Local leaders opposed this staging of issue tables around the room by EPA because it doesn’t allow for community members to learn about issues and problems from other community members. In a large group setting everyone hears the same thing, people benefit from other community members questions and the associated responses from the agency. A large inclusive meeting also allow those who are shy to obtain information because they would never had asked.

So how did the community get what they wanted? Community leaders said yes to the small group tables in the basement of their church. Leaders also requested that the public availability be open in the morning and later in the evening. EPA agreed and set up their tables in the morning and spoke with some community members. When EPA left for lunch the local leader locked the church. When it was time for the evening session on the door of the church hung a sign that said the EPA informational meeting is being held a few doors down. Needless to say when EPA saw this they were angry they couldn’t get back in the church and sit at their little stations to talk with folks. With no slides, posters or other tools EPA walked down to the other meeting hall filled with over 100 people and took their place in front of the room. People we all able to hear and react with questions and comments about the plan to clean up their toxic site.

Community members were so glad that they all meet together. “I would have any idea about how to start the conversation with EPA about the toxic’s,” said one woman. “I am still learning. My neighbors and our community leaders really helped me with their comments and questions to understand the issues. I am so glad they did this even if it was a little radical.”

It is citizens across the country who have almost completely stopped the commercial land filling of hazardous wastes. Our laws and regulations still allow commercial land filling of hazardous chemicals, there are no laws prohibiting it, but the people refuse to allow such a facility to be built in their community, since 1982. When the people stand together we can accomplish more than what we can win in the regulatory arena.

So the track record is clear, more collective action and more thinking out of the box – not just asking ourselves what can we do within “their defined rules and systems,” will win a safe, clean environment for us all.

Categories
Backyard Talk

Dioxin Levels in Food – Where's the Beef?

Last year the USEPA completed and published the non-cancer portion of its health assessment for dioxin, one of the most toxic substances ever tested.This event passed without much fan-fare and little coverage by the media. With exception to CHEJ, even the environmental and health advocacy community paid it little attention. This is remarkable because the EPA’s health assessment on dioxin adds an important piece of new information that answers the question about the levels of dioxin in the American food supply. Until publishing this report, EPA had sidestepped the question of setting a reference dose for dioxin because they knew if they did this, they could no longer deny the obvious – the average daily intake of dioxin in food exceeds our best measure of what’s safe, EPA’s reference dose.



A reference dose is generally defined as “a level below which exposures are generally considered to be safe.” EPA’s Reference Dose for dioxin is 0.7 picograms TEQ per kilogram per day (pg/kg/d). According to EPA data, the adult daily intake of dioxin is 66 pg/day. Dividing this value by the average weight of an adult (70 kilograms), you get an average daily intake of dioxin of 0.94 TEQ pg/kg/d, 34% higher than the safe level. For children the numbers are even higher because of their smaller body size.

For example, a 2003 study by the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Dioxin in Food found that children ages 1 to 5 were exposed to 1.09 pg TEQ/kg/day and children ages 6-11 years old were exposed to 0.69 pg TEQ/kg/day. According to this analysis, dioxin exposure in children 1 to 5 years old exceeds EPA’s reference dose and that children 6 to 11 years old have dioxin exposure that is virtually identical to the reference dose. A recent research paper found that the average daily intake of dioxin in 207 pre-school aged children was 1.01 pg TEQ/kg/day, well above the EPA reference dose of 0.7 pg /kg day.

EPA has argued for some time that dioxin exposures are going down and in 2009 EPA published a paper that estimated the daily average intake of dioxin to be only 0.54 pg TEQ/kg/day. This estimate was based on an EPA estimate of dioxin levels in food. Unfortunately, there is no consensus of how much dioxin exists in the food we eat. We know that over 95% of our daily exposure results from ingestion of animal fat, primarily meat and dairy and that people who live near specific dioxin sources are exposed to even higher concentrations.

It is clear however that large numbers of the U.S. population, especially children, are being exposed to dioxin in food at levels that exceed EPA’s reference dose. We need to stop pretending that dioxin levels in food are not a problem and take this issue on. We need better data on dioxin levels in food and how it gets there, and for EPA, FDA, and USDA to engage in this issue. This is not likely however, until the public begins to demand it.


[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Categories
Backyard Talk

Plant erupts in flames while chemical industry booms due to cheap natural gas

Less than two months after the disaster at West Fertilizer Co. in West, Texas, another chemical plant erupted in flames Thursday just south of Baton Rouge, La.  The explosion at the Williams Olefins plant in Geismar killed at least one person and injured over 73 employees, according to the Washington Post. The cause of the explosion remains too early to determine— and as of Friday the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) had yet to visit the site. The  plant produces the  combustible and flammable chemicals ethylene and polymer grade propylene—used to make a range of plastic products– according to Reuters.

“I’ve worked in plants for a few years, but I’ve never been that up close and personal with an explosion before. It felt like heat, intense heat,” plant worker Shavonne Stewart told The Advocate in an interview.

The explosion at the Williams Olefins plant is the latest in a  series of similar incidents  this year –, notably,  the disaster in West, Texas, which killed 15 people, and a  train blast in Maryland. The explosion at Williams Olefins stands apart, however, due to its direct tie to the natural gas boom.

The production of ethylene and propylene requires natural gas—explicitly, the use of methane. . This past December the chemical juggernaut Dow Chemical Co. restarted a previously closed plant in Hahnville, La., according to Bloomberg. Like Williams, owner of the plant in Geismar, Dow saw the abundance of cheap shale gas as an opportunity to restart  a previously unsuccessful venture. The Hahnville plant will be used to “boost ethylene and propylene capacity through 2017 because of cheap gas, used as a raw material and to power plants. Hydraulic fracturing of shale rock formations caused a glut of gas supplies and sent prices to a decade low in April,” Bloomberg reported.

It is safe to assume chemical disasters such as the one this past Thursday will become more common as the availability of cheap natural gas encourages more expansion in the  chemical  industry.  A  Center for American Progress report on the 101  most dangerous chemical facilities in the United States—two of them in Louisiana– found that 80 million people  “live within range of a catastrophic chemical release”.

Moreover, despite the efforts of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), many facilities remain vulnerable to any manner of industrial sabotage or disaster. The DHS currently monitors over 4,000 “high-risk” facilities—which did not include West Fertilizer Co. despite its clear vulnerability–under the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program,   which critics say is full of loopholes.

With the string of disasters in the last two months, the need for change in both  the types of chemicals produced  and the level of oversight provided by the DHS—which does not require companies to seek safer alternatives —is clear. How many more Wests can we tolerate?

Categories
Backyard Talk

WARNING: Vinyl rain coats chock full of hazardous chemicals

With the summer only a few weeks away, many parents are going out and buying new rain gear — but parents may unwittingly be exposing our most vulnerable children to lead, cadmium, and even phthalates, chemicals so toxic they have been banned in toys and baby products.

A brand new investigation of vinyl rain gear by the EcoWaste Coalition found elevated levels of lead and cadmium in vinyl raincoats marketed to children. Chemicals that can permanently disrupt the brain. Shockingly, 70% of raingear they tested contained elevated levels of lead or cadmium.

This follows a similar report I authored last year which also found high levels of toxic chemicals in children’s vinyl raincoats and rain boots, including Disney branded rain gear.  This time, a Mickey Mouse raincoat contained 2,255 ppm of lead in it.

Chemical detectives.

The EcoWaste coalition, a public interest network of community, church, school, environmental and health groups based in the Philippines, used an X-Ray Fluorescence spectrometer (XRF) to test rain gear for the presence of heavy metals such as lead and cadmium. The XRF device is also able to identify products made out of PVC, as a high chlorine reading from the device indicates the product is most likely made out of vinyl (vinyl being the #1 chlorinated plastic in the world not to mention the #1 use of chlorine gas).

The organization went out and tested 33 pieces of rain gear: 25 raincoats, 5 umbrellas, and 3 pairs of rain boots. The products were purchased from discount stores at shopping malls in the Philippines.

High levels of lead and cadmium in children’s vinyl raincoats.

The group found:

“Of the 25 samples of raincoats that are mostly made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic and featuring favorite cartoon characters, 11 had lead from 292 to 15,500 ppm with the following as the five most loaded with lead:
1.  An egg yellow “Tweety” medium raincoat with 15,500 ppm
2.  Another egg yellow “Tweety” small raincoat with 14,100 ppm
3.  A light yellow “Mickey Mouse” small raincoat with 2,255 ppm
4.  A bright yellow “Yikang” two-piece large raincoat with 2,090 ppm
5.  A blue “Tasmanian Devil” raincoat with 1,753 ppm

Of these 25 raincoats, 13 were found laced with cadmium with a green “Haiyan Ben 10” extra large raincoat containing 717 ppm cadmium.

Of the five umbrellas tested, lead was detected on the “Hello Kitty” design of two mini-umbrellas at 122 ppm and 275 ppm each.

Of the three pairs of boots, “Pengi” green boots and “Panda” red boots were found laden with cadmium amounting to 398 ppm and 523 ppm, respectively.”

Children may in turn be exposed to these hazardous metals, as studies have documented they may readily leach out of vinyl children’s products. Lead and cadmium are used to “stabilize” the product.

Phthalates in vinyl raincoats and rain boots

You may think, well that’s the Philippines, surely the US government wouldn’t allow such hazardous chemicals here, right?

Wrong.

As I mentioned above, less than a year ago CHEJ and the Empire State Consumer Project released a report investigating hazardous chemical additives in children’s back-to-school supplies. Among the products we tested were children’s vinyl raincoats and rain boots.

Our investigation found high levels of phthalates in the rain gear we tested, at levels much higher than what’s legal for kids’ toys. But just because the products aren’t toys, it’s totally legal for industry to use them in children’s products. Insane, right?! Phthalates are considered to be endocrine disrupting chemicals, are linked to asthma and reproductive effects, and according to the federal government children face the highest exposures to these poisonous substances. It’s nothing short of outrageous!

What can we do about it?

Look, I shouldn’t have to even say this. We shouldn’t have to worry whether your children’s raincoat contains these harmful chemicals. But sadly, we do.

As consumers, the best way to avoid these hazardous substances is to not purchase vinyl rain-gear in the first place as study after study has found hazardous chemicals in and leaching from vinyl. Whether it be phthalates, lead, cadmium, organotins, or even BPA. And perhaps even worse, the entire lifecycle of vinyl is nothing short of an environmental nightmare, releasing other highly hazardous substances including vinyl chloride, ethylene dichloride, dioxins, mercury, and PCB’s.

So next time you’re out shopping for a children’s raincoat or rain boots, make sure it’s not made out of vinyl/PVC plastic. Look for rain gear promoted as PVC-free. Our Back-to-School Guide to PVC-free School Supplies is a great resource, as it features listings PVC-free rain gear and other children’s products in over 40 product categories. Also — be sure to check out our wallet-sized version for shopping on the go.

It’s time to Mind the Store.

However, we can’t just shop our way out of this problem. Enough is enough! That’s why CHEJ is part of the national Mind the Store Campaign, which is urging the top ten retailers to take action on the worst of the worst chemicals, including these very same ones.

Learn more and take action at www.mindthestore.org