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The 2015 volume of liquid drilling wastes going into Ohio’s injection wells keeps growing

Post author By chejadmin
Post date May 27, 2016

Bob Downing, Akron Beacon Journal. Teresa Mills, one of CHEJ’s own, provided vital data for recording the amount and impact of liquid drilling wastes being injected underground in Ohio.
Ohio is continuing to rewrite the record book for liquid drilling wastes being injected into underground rock formations: The 2015 injection total keeps growing.
That’s because additional fees are being paid in 2016 by waste haulers to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas Resource Management.
That 2015 volume was reported as 28.8 million 42-gallon barrels in March. Now it is up to 31.4 million barrels, as of May 20.
That’s enough to fill nearly 2,000 Olympic-size swimming pools with the salty wastes from shale drilling.
That means that Ohio’s injection volume in 2015 grew by nearly 42.8 percent from 2014. The earlier reported percent was 27.2 percent.
In 2014, 22.0 million barrels were disposed of in Ohio’s injection wells. That total was 16.3 million barrels in 2013.
The updated totals include 16.6 million gallons from Ohio and 14.8 million gallons from other states.
Injecting the wastes has been linked to small earthquakes in Ohio and other states, and critics say injecting wastes into underground rock formations poses a threat to groundwater.
Industry and state officials say injection wells are a safe disposal method and the growing volume of waste is simply evidence of the Utica and Marcellus shale booms in Ohio and surrounding states.
The new data come from Columbus activist Teresa Mills with the Virginia-based Center for Health, Environment and Justice — who regularly analyzes state financial data to determine the injection volumes. ODNR does not release injection volumes but has never disputed Mills’ totals.
Athens County is No. 1 with 4 million barrels injected in 2015. Second is Coshocton County with 3.7 million barrels and third is Guernsey County with 3.0 million barrels.
The rest of Top 10 counties are: Tuscarawas, 2.9 million, Muskingum, 2.8 million; Washington, 2.6 million; Portage, 2.1 million; Trumbull, 2.0 million; Meigs, 1.6 million and Ashtabula, 1.3 million. Stark County is No. 12 with 577,369 barrels.
The drilling of new wells in Ohio’s Utica Shale has slowed because of low commodity prices, but production from already drilled wells is continuing to grow and that’s what has triggered the big increase in Ohio drilling wastes, state officials said.
Such a big increase in Ohio injection volumes is troubling to activists and local communities, Mills said.
Efforts by Northeast Ohio county commissioners and the grass-roots Concerned Citizens Ohio in 2015 to win support for a proposed statewide moratorium on new injection wells failed because of lack of support.
Ohio has 214 active injection wells. Much of the out-of-state liquids coming into Ohio originate in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Ohio can do little to block out-of-state wastes because they are protected as interstate commerce by the U.S. Constitution.
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Environmental groups sue EPA, seek stricter rules over fracking waste linked to earthquakes

Post author By chejadmin
Post date May 4, 2016

Brady Dennis, Washington Post. A coalition of environmental advocacy groups, including CHEJ, sued the EPA for stricter fracking waste rules.
A collection of environmental advocacy groups on Wednesday sued the Environmental Protection Agency, saying the government has failed to adequately regulate the disposal of waste generated by oil and gas drilling.
In particular, the lawsuit seeks to force the agency to impose stricter rules on the disposal of wastewater, including that from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The wastewater is typically pumped into underground wells — a practice that has been linked to a growing number of earthquakes inOklahoma, Colorado, Ohio and other states. The groups argue that the EPA has neglected to revise its existing rules for nearly three decades, despite acknowledging in the late 1980s that stricter requirements were needed for the handling of oil and gas drilling waste.
“These rules are almost 30 years overdue,” said Adam Kron, a senior attorney at the Environmental Integrity Project, which filed the lawsuit in a D.C. federal court along with a half dozen other advocacy groups. Hesaid that despite the millions of gallons of wastewater and hundreds of tons of solid waste that a drilling well can produce each year, the EPA has kept in place vague, inadequate regulations. “It’s definitely a more waste-intensive industry than ever before. If new rules were needed in 1988, they are certainly needed now.”

In addition, the groups want the EPA to ban the practice of dumping fracking wastewater on fields and roads, where it potentially could pollute drinking water sources. They also want the agency to require that ponds and landfills where drilling and fracking waste are dumped be built to certain specifications and adequately lined to prevent leaks. The lawsuit asks the court to set strict deadlines for the EPA to adopt updated rules.
“Waste from the oil and gas industry is very often toxic and should be treated that way,” Amy Mall, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement Wednesday. “Right now, companies can get rid of their toxic mess in any number of dangerous ways, from spraying it on icy roads, to sending it to landfills with our everyday household trash, to injecting it underground where it can endanger drinking water and trigger earthquakes. EPA must step in and protect our communities and drinking water from the carcinogens, radioactive material and other dangerous substances that go hand-in-hand with oil and gas waste.”
Last year, the EPA concluded a years-long review of U.S. fracking operations practices, saying it had found no evidence of widespread damage to drinking water supplies. But the agency did warn about the potential for contamination from the controversial technique, which played a major role in the oil and gas production boom in the United States in recent years.
Fracking involves the injection of liquids into underground rock layers at high pressure to extract oil and gas trapped inside. But scientists also have linked the deep wastewater disposal wells associated with the practice to the startling increase in seismic activity across the central United States in recent years, particularly in Oklahoma. There, oil companies and their representatives have largely denied responsibility for the quakes, or suggested that the links are greatly exaggerated.
“It’s hard to deny that in certain geographic locations with certain geologic circumstances, we’ve had some problems with some wastewater wells,” A.J. Ferate, vice president of regulatory affairs for the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association, told the Post last year. But “to make a blanket assertion that wastewater wells are always the cause, I don’t know that I can agree with that.”

[Major EPA fracking study cites pollution risk but sees no ‘systemic’ damage so far]

According to the EPA, an estimated 2 billion gallons of wastewater are injected each day into tens of thousands of underground wells operating around the country. Most oil and gas injection wells are located in Texas, California, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

States themselves are primarily responsible for the oversight of the majority of natural gas and oil development.
An EPA spokeswoman said Wednesday the agency would not comment on pending litigation.
The groups behind the federal suit originally filed a notice of their intent to sue EPA last August, saying they would move forward unless the agency took action on the issue.
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Environmental advocate: Keystone landfill expansion debate is nationally important

Post author By Editor 1
Post date March 22, 2016
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Kyle Wind, Scranton Times-Tribune.
Friends of Lackawanna hold an panel discussion on the expansion of Keystone Sanitary Landfill with the help of CHEJ.
Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s expansion proposal has national importance because its approval could affect how the Eastern Seaboard disposes of garbage in the coming decades, an environmental activist said Monday.
“I think this is a really important fight at a national level because we have to stop this foolish burying of waste and thinking somehow it has just gone somewhere else,” Lois Gibbs told 400-plus people at a Friends of Lackawanna forum on Pennsylvania’s trash disposal policy.
Ms. Gibbs founded the Love Canal Homeowners’ Association in 1978 amid the Upstate New York environmental crisis that became the catalyst for national legislation known as the Superfund Act. She founded the Center for Health, Environment & Justice in 1981 and continued her activism over the decades, which includes working with groups fighting against landfills.
“This is the largest landfill I have seen in my 37 years,” Ms. Gibbs said, eliciting reactions from hundreds of attendees ranging from murmurs to exclamations. “I cannot imagine what it’s going to look like with a 50-year permit. … I’ve never seen a 50-year permit.”
Keystone officials have cited their environmental record and say they believe the Dunmore and Throop operation is part of the way forward, but Ms. Gibbs sees expansions like Keystone’s plan as ensuring it remains cheaper to send trash to places like Northeast Pennsylvania rather than come up with better solutions.
Keystone consultant Al Magnotta attended the forum and described it as well-conducted and informative — but also felt it’s not quite that simple.
The average American generates 4.3 pounds of waste per day, according to Duke University’s Center for Sustainability and Commerce.
“At this time, there’s no other financially feasible disposal option available,” Mr. Magnotta said. “Thus, the way I see it, the solid waste disposal sites must be environmentally responsible and protect the health and safety of the public. That is the goal the owners of Keystone Sanitary Landfill have assigned me, and I intend to do my best to achieve it.”
Friends of Lackawanna, the grass-roots group that opposes Keystone’s expansion, organized the event to discuss why Pennsylvania is one of the country’s leading garbage importers and how the state can be a catalyst for better public policy.
Along with Ms. Gibbs, speakers included Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey; state Sen. John Blake, D-22, Archbald; John Quigley, secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection; and Stephen Lester, science director of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice.
*video*
Mr. Casey talked about his proposed TRASH Act that so far hasn’t made it past the committee level. The legislation would allow states to set minimum environmental standards for trash coming from other states and allow states to charge a premium for accepting garbage through community impact fees.
Mr. Blake discussed the process of getting the health study surrounding Keystone’s proposal by the state Department of Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
Mr. Quigley assured him DEP won’t make a decision on the expansion until study’s results are in, Mr. Blake said.
“We can’t expect decisions to be made by a regulatory authority without full information,” Mr. Blake said. “I am looking at writing legislation … to see if in fact we should make this a requirement going forward. It really ought to be every time a landfill starts or a landfill expands.”
Contact the writer:
kwind@timesshamrock.com,
@kwindTT on Twitter

To read the full article, click here.

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An underground fire is burning near a nuclear waste dump, and officials say EPA has been too slow to react

Post author By Editor 1
Post date February 16, 2016
No Comments on An underground fire is burning near a nuclear waste dump, and officials say EPA has been too slow to react

Washington Post, Darryl Fears.
Members of CHEJ network group Just Moms STL explain the health effects of living near West Lake Landfill and the slow movement of the EPA to stop the underground fire or provide relocation for the families. Just Moms STL visits Capitol Hill to push their bill on relocation to congress.

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Trevor Beckermann, 6, who has the autoimmune disease alopecia areata, plays the board game Life with his mother Meagan Beckermann, 34, at home in Bridgeton, Mo. His condition results in extreme hair loss. The family lives about a mile from two massive landfills, one filled with radioactive waste. (Sid Hastings for The Washington Post)

Her first clue that something was wrong came as she ran her hands through her baby boy’s hair. “My child was losing his hair in clumps,” Meagan Beckermann recalls. A doctor traced the problem to alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease that can be triggered by environmental factors.
A frantic search for a likely source ended when neighbors advised Beckermann to follow her nose. That’s when she learned that the charms of her St. Louis suburb of Bridgeton — with its green parks and quality schools — masked two massive landfills, one filled with radioactive waste, about a mile from her home. No one had mentioned them when she’d bought her house, she says.
Four years later, she and other residents now describe the situation as only more extreme. Rapidly decomposing waste 60 feet to 200 feet down is smoldering beneath one of the landfills in what scientists call a sub-surface burning event. The underground burn is only a few thousand feet from a Superfund site filled with waste from the World War II-era Manhattan Project, the federal government’s ultimately successful effort to build an atomic bomb.
The Superfund site is managed by the Environmental Protection Agency, which neighbors and state officials say has done little to stop the burn from reaching the radioactive waste.
“Every day, I live with anxiety. I live in fear,” said Beckermann, a 34-year-old mother of two.
Before the agency was forced to defend itself against critics in Flint, Mich., who say it bears some of the responsibility for that city’s lead-contaminated drinking water, EPA was on the defensive in north St. Louis County. Members of Missouri’s congressional delegation have authored two bills that would strip EPA of its oversight of the 200-acre Superfund site, which is known as the West Lake Landfill. The legislation would give the Army Corps of Engineers authority over the clean-up and removal of up to 48,000 tons of nuclear waste.

[/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”][It’s not just Flint: Poor communities across the U.S. live with extreme polluters]

One bill, sponsored by Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, passed that chamber earlier this month, while the House bill, sponsored by Democratic Rep. William Clay, is working its way through a committee. Missouri’s attorney general is urging Clay to press on.

“A burning radioactive waste dump requires the government to act with urgency, but EPA seems unable to move forward with a meaningful solution,” State Attorney General Chris Koster wrote last week in an angry letter to members of the delegation, in which he called for the Army corps’ intervention.
The federal Superfund program addresses large and highly toxic hazardous waste sites. Although no credible link has been established between air quality near the landfills and prevalence of disease, residents are concerned about adverse health impacts. Mothers such as Beckermann, whose 6-year-old son Trevor now has no hair on his entire body, worry about the possible effects of the West Lake site’s contaminants on their children. Some people have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
The burn at the closed Bridgetown Landfill has increased the stench, some say. “It makes you gag,” resident Robbin Dailey said. Families within a mile of both properties are demanding that the EPA relocate them, a move that would cost a half-billion dollars, according to some estimates. A group of mothers from the area traveled to Washington last week to press for action. While on Capitol Hill, they told lawmakers that their requests to speak with EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy had been ignored.
At the EPA’s regional headquarters in Kansas City, Administrator Mark Hague counters that officials are acting as quickly as possible. “There was a lot of critical investigative work that went on for a period of time,” stressed Hague, who said he has met “several times” with the mothers and has relayed their concerns to McCarthy.
Scientists contracted by the EPA have determined exactly where the underground burn is located, and in late December the agency ordered the Bridgeton Landfill’s owner, Republic Services, to construct a barrier to isolate the burn from the other site. Hague said that barrier will take a year to build. A Republic Services spokesman said in an email that the company would be responsible for costs up to $30 million unless the project is transferred to the Army corps.

“It’s my job to get this done,” Hague said.
The scientists’ investigation showed that the burn is not moving toward the Superfund’s radioactive material, but the barrier was ordered as a protective measure along with equipment to cool what’s smoldering underground, Hague said. Air-quality monitoring to date shows readings in keeping with a metropolitan area, he added.
But Bridgeton residents and state officials have little trust in the agency’s actions and assurances. They say radioactive waste has been found beyond the area that EPA originally identified. The attorney general called for more extensive testing, and he and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources sued Republic Services for environmental violations at the Bridgeton Landfill. The company has denied the claim, and the litigation is pending.
“There’s been a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation out there, but the science is clear,” Russ Knocke, the company’s vice president of communications and public affairs, said in a statement Tuesday. “The landfill is in a managed state.”
The West Lake Landfill is surrounded with a fence and notices identifying it as a Superfund site, but there’s no other warning in the community. An EPA website allows Americans to “Search for Superfund Sites Where You Live,” and the agency also puts notices in newspapers — although an EPA spokesman for the region acknowledged that local residents can miss seeing those.
Dawn Chapman, who lives nearby, said she’s furious that federal government, state, county and local authorities didn’t notify residents who purchased property in the area that a Superfund site had been designated there in 1989.
Chapman discovered she was pregnant with her first child a few months after buying a house 11 years ago. Each of her three children have developmental problems that require special care. “I didn’t know a landfill was there, and I definitely didn’t know a Superfund site was there,” she explained while in Washington.
“Everybody has responsibility,” Chapman said. “If you knew about this, you have responsibility. The failure to notify residents, the failure to advocate, falls on every elected official that covers the district. This is no place to raise a family.”

As the one landfill smoldered and word about it spread, Chapman and two other women co-founded a protest group. They called it Just Moms because whenever they contacted elected officials to help them, they’d be asked if they were advocates. “No,” the women responded, “we’re just moms.”
The St. Louis County health department soon will survey residents living within a two-mile radius of the Bridgeton site to determine if they have a higher rate of certain health problems compared to populations elsewhere in the county or state. Its director said the study will focus on asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and allergy-type symptoms.
Beckermann said she worries constantly. In October, a letter from her children’s school district scared her further. “Since the eastern part of our school district is only a few miles away from the West Lake Landfill,” Superintendent Jeff Marion wrote, “please know that I will be working with the city and county emergency management officials to ensure we are prepared to respond in the event of an environmental accident.”
“It was terrifying as a parent to read that letter,” she said. “It’s terrifying every morning when you drop your kids somewhere knowing you might not be able to pick them up.”
One elementary school also sent a letter home advising parents to ask their children’s doctors about medications they might need in case they are detained at the school during an emergency. Parents should consider leaving the medicine at school, the letter suggested.
Both Beckermann and Chapman were women on edge as they made the rounds on Capitol Hill last week. “I don’t want to be here,” Chapman said. “I just want to be home with my kids.”

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West Lake Landfill activists join forces with Flint water protestors to pressure EPA

Post author By Editor 1
Post date February 9, 2016
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Chuck Raasch, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Activists working with CHEJ around the West Lake Landfill controversy in St. Louis and in Flint, Mich., have joined forces to put pressure on the federal Environmental Protection Agency to respond more forcefully to both environmental crises. An article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch covers a joint press conference between Flint activists and JUST MOMS stl, a group organized to force the EPA to reduce the threat of radioactive waste at West Lake Landfill.
At the press conference, about a dozen representatives said they will picket EPA headquarters because of EPA administrator Gina McCarthy’s unwillingness to meet with them or to act more urgently.

That standoff with the EPA is not new, and McCarthy has previously refused to meet with representatives. What is new is the linkage between West Lake and Flint, where the EPA and other local, state and federal authorities have been under fire for allowing lead exposure in water there to persist, endangering the health of families in that community.
Flint activists say recalcitrance and stonewalling from government agencies, and especially the EPA, have left residents exposed to cancer-causing lead and other health problems.

The two groups will share share health and other information, and continue to join forces to pressure the EPA.
To read the full story, click here.

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West Lake Landfill activists join forces with Flint water protestors to pressure EPA

Post author By Editor 1
Post date February 9, 2016
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West Lake Landfill activists join forces with Flint water protestors to pressure EPA

West Lake Landfill group holds DC Press Conference

[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”] In this Feb. 9, 2016 photo, JUST MOMS co-creator Karen Nickel criticizes what she says was inaction of EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, pictured over her left shoulder, in the West Lake/Bridgeton landfill fire and nuclear waste controversy. The group joined with activists from the Flint, Mich., water crisis, for a press conference at the National Press Club. Chuck Raasch, of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

WASHINGTON • Activists around the West Lake Landfill controversy have joined with those from the Flint, Mich., water crisis to put pressure on the federal Environmental Protection Agency to respond more forcefully to both.
JUST MOMS stl, a group organized to force the EPA to reduce the threat of radioactive waste at West Lake Landfill, help families within a mile relocate, and assure property values for those within five miles, held a joint press conference with Flint activists here Tuesday.
The issue of whether, and how, to clean up waste from the federal government’s nuclear weapons programs at West Lake has been made more critical by an underground fire at the adjacent Bridgeton Landfill.
About a dozen representatives of the Maryland Heights-area group said they will also picket EPAheadquarters Wednesday, protesting what they say has been EPA administrator Gina McCarthy’s unwillingness to meet with them, or to act more urgently on their behalf to address exposure to cancer-causing agents and other health hazards from the sites.
That standoff with the EPA is not new, and McCarthy has previously refused to meet with representatives. What is new is the linkage between West Lake and Flint, where the EPA and other local, state and federal authorities have been under fire for allowing lead exposure in water there to persist, endangering the health of families in that community.
Flint activists say recalcitrance and stonewalling from government agencies, and especially the EPA, have left residents exposed to cancer-causing lead and other health problems.
“Their community has suffered through silence from the EPA just like we are here in Bridgeton,” said JUST MOMS stl co-founder Karen Nickel at Tuesday’s press conference. “I think it is time for the moms of Flint and the moms of St. Louis to make a pact and stay strong and fight for our children.”
Melissa Mays, a founder of a Flint group called Water You Fighting For, said, “I can only imagine the fear and anger that the Bridgeton families feel, because we feel it for you. We are right here with you and we are going through the same thing. To this day, no one is helping us.”
The two women said their groups planned to share share health and other information, and continue to join forces to pressure the EPA.
A special counsel appointed by the state of Michigan said Tuesday that civil and criminal charges were possible, including manslaughter, in Flint. The federal Department of Justice is also looking into that crisis.

Sens. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo; and Reps. Ann Wagner, R-Ballwin, and William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis, last May wrote McCarthy asking that she meet with the JUST MOMS group. But Nickel said they got no response. She said the agency was flooded this past week with about 1,000 calls from St. Louis area callers, but got no response in another request for a meeting with McCarthy.
A spokesman for the EPA pointed to efforts the agency said it is doing to confront both problems. A spokesman highlighted EPA Regional Administrator Mark Hague’s Jan., 11 report on what the agency did in 2015 at West Lake.
“We’ve completed ﬁeld investigations necessary to further deﬁne the extent and location of he radio-logical materials at the site, which is a critical step to move us toward proposing a ﬁnal remedy by the end of 2016,” Hague said. “We also recently announced our decision for the installation of an in-ground, physical isolation barrier on site along with other engineering controls.”
Of Flint, EPA spokesman Curtis Carey said the agency’s top priority in ‘Flint “is the safety of residents. The agency is part of a larger, on-the-ground, federal response focused on developing short- and long-term solutions to the crisis. ”
Clay, Wagner, Blunt and McCaskill have also sponsored a bill that would transfer authority over the landfill from EPA to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It has passed the Senate, but not yet the House. Members of the group were expected to meet with both Wagner and Clay, the two members of Congress’s spokespersons said.
In addition, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster wrote Clay and Wagner on Tuesday saying he supported their bill, charging that “the EPA has time and again made promises but failed to deliver results.”
But landfill owner Republic Services warned that the transfer could delay a cleanup the EPA has promised to have in place by the end of the year and could cost taxpayers more money.
Republic spokesman Russ Knocke called the press conference a “stunt” that, coupled with the authority transfer bill, would prevent the EPA from being “allowed to finish its work, quickly.”
A Wagner aide said that under the bill pushed by the Missouri delegation, cleanup costs would still be on Republic even if federal control shifted to the Corps. Missouri’s congressional delegation is pushing for the change because the EPA “has clearly dragged its feet on this issue,” said Wagner’s spokesperson Meghan Burris.

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EPA May Lose Authority Over St. Louis-Area Landfill With Radioactive Waste

Post author By Editor 1
Post date February 6, 2016
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JOHN R. EMSHWILLER

Feb. 6, 2016 5:30 a.m. ET

Missouri’s U.S. senators and some of its House members are pushing to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of remediation authority over a landfill near St. Louis that contains radioactive waste, and instead give it to the Army Corps of Engineers.

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Helping can hurt: Complications and consequences of remediation strategies

Post author By CHEJ Intern
Post date July 7, 2015

Environmental remediation often involves a) moving large amounts of contaminated material from one place to another, b) treating the polluted material with chemical compounds, or c) both. The Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council says it best in their guideline document on managing risks during remediation: “Investigation and remediation activities have their own set of risks, apart from the risks associated with chemical contamination.” These risks range from spending time and resources on an ineffective remedy, to the chance of causing adverse ecosystem and health impacts through the cleanup process.

Screen shot 2015-07-07 at 12.14.13 AM — Project risks - from ITRC document

I recently read a report from a site where engineers were pumping methanol into the groundwater to aid in breaking down the compound of interest, TCE. They soon found that their shipment of methanol was contaminated by PCE – another toxic compound with which they were effectively re-polluting their treatment area. Introducing further contamination through remediation may be less common, but dealing with large amounts of polluted material can potentially cause existing contaminants to become more mobile. Especially when remediation projects deal with contaminated sediments, a question of critical importance is whether to remove the offending substance or to leave it in place. Dredging of contaminated sediment underwater must be done very carefully so as to avoid remobilizing contaminants into the water column. There are surprises, too; sometimes, the EPA says, “dredging uncovers unexpectedly high concentrations of contaminants beneath surface sediments.”

When contaminated materials are left in place, or before they are removed, the remediation process often involves introducing new chemical compounds to the polluted material. These “additives” help cause reactions that break down toxic chemicals into less toxic forms. However, Lisa Alexander of the Massachusetts Department of the Environment writes that these additives can cause contaminants to migrate into water, or release potentially harmful gases.

worker gulf — Gulf Coast cleanup worker - from CNN

The complexities of remediation have been especially apparent in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon spill. Dispersants were released to break down oil in the Gulf, but years later the substances are still being found in tar balls washing up on the beach. The combination of oil and the dispersant Corexit has also proven to be more toxic to marine organisms than oil alone. Corexit, encountered primarily by cleanup workers after the tragedy, is also potentially toxic to humans, and its longterm health effects are unknown.

Cleaning up contaminated sites involves taking calculated risks of disrupting or polluting an already-damaged ecosystem. When even our most practiced remediation methods carry with them uncertain outcomes, how can we strike a balance between trying innovative treatment methods for contamination and avoiding unreasonable risk? I’ll explore one case in particular in my next entry: nanomaterials.

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Tags additives, BP Oil Spill, ecosystem health, environmental health, Oil, pollution, remediation, Sharon H.

West Lake Landfill activists join forces with Flint water protestors to pressure EPA

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