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Sandy Saeteurn grew up in Richmond, California, where Chevron’s massive 3,000-acre oil refinery reigns supreme. She’s no stranger to the refinery’s chemical flares, and she spent many of her childhood days home sick. She’s not the only one who has learned to link the refinery and the presence of illness in her community: A 2008 study (co-authored by Grist board member Rachel Morello-Frosch) found that almost half of all homes in the area had indoor levels of refinery-related particulate matter pollution that exceeded the state’s air quality standards.
Every day for nearly 120 years — longer than the city has existed — the refinery has processed thousands of barrels of oil. Its flares regularly paint the sky burnt orange before thick grey clouds of smoke cover the city. Chevron’s influence stretches beyond its pollution and the 3,500 refinery jobs it provides as the city’s largest employer — it also showers money on local elections and even runs a local newspaper, the Richmond Standard, which has been known to cast a positive light on the company.
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Photo Credit: Asian Pacific Environmental Network

“Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?” asked Tupac Shakur.
I did—it’s the story of Black survival in spite of living in undesirable environmental conditions.
Living conditions must be improved to ensure Black futures. As a Black woman passionate about environmental justice, this is the charge that guides my work, volunteering, and activism around transportation.
Racism and the political disenfranchisement of Black communities underlie transportation inequities. Following the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, urban planners routed freeways through poor communities of color to achieve the urban renewal goal of “slum” clearance and to reinforce racial segregation. Freeway construction proceeded largely without community input. Despite a few successful freeway revolts, construction continued.
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Photo Credit: howard dyckoff/flickr

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this month ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to go back and reconsider its lead hazard standards for homes—again.
On May 14, in A Community Voice et al. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the appeals court ruled that the EPA violated the court’s 2017 mandate to reevaluate hazard standards for lead in dust and paint that persist in millions of American homes, posing health risks, particularly to young children. For separate reasons, the court also ordered the agency to update its definition of lead-contaminated soil.
The EPA was found in violation for not strengthening its health standards for lead safety and instead considering such outside factors as feasibility and testing capabilities. In its ruling, the majority of appeals court judges also rebuked the agency for its glacial pace in setting standards over the last three decades.
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Photo Credit: MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images

Any scientist whose research might conceivably threaten the bottom line of powerful corporate interests risks facing an orchestrated campaign to destroy their reputation.
That’s the message of a commentary, published May 17 in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, that spins a cautionary tale about the fragility of scientific integrity by drawing on the disturbing history of a popular weed killer.
The piece focuses on atrazine, explained author Jason Rohr, chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, because it’s “one of the most commonly used, well studied, and controversial pesticides on the planet.”
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Photo Credit: Earl Neikirk

When North Dakota directed more than $66 million in federal pandemic relief funds to clean up old oil and gas wells last year, it seemed like the type of program everyone could get behind. The money would plug hundreds of abandoned wells and restore the often-polluted land surrounding them, and in the process would employ oilfield workers who had been furloughed after prices crashed.
The program largely accomplished those goals. But some environmental advocates say it achieved another they didn’t expect: It bailed out dozens of small to mid-sized oil companies, relieving them of their responsibility to pay for cleaning up their own wells by using taxpayer money instead.
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Photo Credit: Daryl Peterson

The Keystone Sanitary Landfill is under investigation by the state attorney general’s office, a
spokeswoman said Thursday.
Although she could not comment on the nature of the investigation, press secretary Molly Stieber
confirmed in an email that the office is investigating the Louis and Dominick DeNaples-owned landfill in
Dunmore and Throop.
Scranton resident Samantha Maloney, who is one of three locals working with the attorney general’s
office in its investigation, said the investigation appears to be about leachate, which is the liquid that
percolates through trash piles. The other individuals declined to be identified.
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Photo Credit: The Times-Tribune

A new bill, that could drastically limit where future schools can be built throughout the state, cleared a major hurdle in the California legislature on Thursday and is now headed for a full vote in the Assembly in the coming weeks.  The legislation would force private and charter schools to comply with tougher environmental standards – the very same regulations that are already in place for public schools – in hopes of preventing classrooms from being constructed near potentially toxic sites.
Whatever school you send your child to, you should know well that they are not going to be in danger,” said Assemblyman Alex Lee, who authored the legislation, Assembly Bill 762.  “The problem right now is that private and charter schools can be [built] on top of or even really close to toxic and hazardous sites and there’s no law preventing that.”
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Photo Credit: Sean Myers/NBC Bay Area

St. Croix residents are demanding answers from a U.S. Virgin Islands oil refinery, and from the officials regulating it, in the wake of a series of recent accidents that they worry have exposed them to toxic chemicals and endangered their health.
Since restarting operations in February, the Limetree Bay oil refinery has experienced at least three accidents that have directly affected the neighborhoods surrounding it. That includes a chemical release that occurred during maintenance on the plant last week that produced a nauseating odor, forcing schools to shut down and send children home for the second time in less than a month.
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Photo Credit: Marcia Bruno/National Guard