Michigan has three Superfund sites that remain stagnant in their cleanup process because of a lack of funding for the Superfund program. At the end of December, the EPA released a list of 34 shovel ready Superfund sites with no responsible parties to aid cleanup that will remain idle because the program does not have enough funding. Michigan has three of the listed sites located in St. Clair Shores, St. Louis, and Mancelona that will not receive complete cleanup in the near future. Read More.
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Super Pollution Events
During the week of Christmas, Pittsburg, PA experienced an unusual heavy set of particular matter created by a temperature inversion that resulted in the trapping of pollution closer to the Earth’s surface. A temperature inversion is created when a mass of warmer air sits on top of and trapping of a mass of colder air, therefore preventing polluted air from rising. The event continued for six consecutive days in Pittsburgh. Rising temperatures in the winter could mean that similar “Super Pollution Events” involving dangerous levels of particulate matter in the air might become more common. Read More.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today vacated a permit to build a compressor station for the proposed Atlantic Coast gas pipeline, citing a Virginia state board for inadequately assessing its environmental justice impacts on the largely African American community of Union Hill. Read more.
Cumberland County is the latest to approve spending millions to provide public drinking water to two schools and an area with well contamination caused by the Chemours chemical company. Read more.
The EPA has begun movement towards enforcing federal restrictions on highway truck emissions. The Trump Administration has targeted efforts to reduce nitrogen dioxide emissions from trucks, a pollutant known to be linked to increased rates of asthma. Although the regulations would establish a national emissions standard, it could prevent individual states from enforcing their own stricter regulations. Read More.
The Trump administration has built up the biggest backlog of unfunded toxic Superfund cleanup projects in at least 15 years, nearly triple the number that were stalled for lack of money in the Obama era, according to 2019 figures released by the Environmental Protection Agency over the winter holidays. Read more.
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Texas Doubles in Illegal Air Pollution
A report released Wednesday by Environment Texas revealed that Texas released 135 million pounds of illegal air pollution in 2018. Among the 270 oil and gas contributors, is Texas Petroleum Chemicals (TPC) of Port Neches. The 2018 numbers are double those emitted in 2017 and Texas residents are putting up a fight. Read More.
A report released the week of December 9, 2019 shows how climate change creates a great threat to farmworkers. The report focuses on two main threats to workers: pesticide exposure and heat stress conditions. Read More.
A group of Democratic West Virginia lawmakers announced plans Monday to introduce legislation to regulate a group of toxic, man-made fluorinated chemicals. Del. Hansen said the bill, which is still being drafted, would require facilities that use or produce PFAS chemicals to disclose that information to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. Read more.
The EPA has classified Colorado as a ‘serious’ violator of federal air laws for ozone. Colorado has been failing ozone air pollution standards since 2004, creating a greater presence of asthma in the Denver and Front Range communities. Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment plans to issue 600 new permits that will set limits on air pollution. The state must reduce its ozone pollution to 70 parts per billion by August 2021 (current ozone levels are 79 parts per billion). Read More.