It was 43 years ago when I travelled to Albany, New York from Love Canal to meet with the NYS Health Department. My goal was to deliver the petition from the Love Canal Parents Movement asking for the state to close the 99th Street Elementary School. August 2, 1978 was the day my whole world shifted in an unimaginable way.
While knocking on doors in the neighborhood to obtain signatures on the petition, I learned that my neighbors were sick, some had multicolored gunk coming up in the basement and seeping through the cement walls. Many neighbors shared stories with me about black oil looking substance coming up in the fields located north and south of the 99th Street School and “hot rocks” yellow looking rocks that exploded like firecrackers when the children threw them against hard surfaces. Women I spoke with were the most impacting, they told stories of innocent children they lost, pregnancies that ended in miscarriage or birth defected infants.
Our goal at the time, was to close the elementary school. The playground sat on top of the toxic site with the school building located on the perimeter of 20,000 tons of toxic chemicals. I also felt the need to educate the New York State Health Department (NYSHD) about all the other health problems that were occurring in the neighborhood. Three of us travel to Albany, NY to deliver the petitions. As we walked into the auditorium where the meeting was held, we were shocked to see so many journalists. The room had dozens of cameras and microphones on tripods.
Naively, we thought there would be a private meeting in a small office to talk about what we wanted, why it was important to close the school and take the opportunity to share the health information we uncovered while visiting our neighbors.
It didn’t take long to understand that we were being set up. There were three of us, dozens of media related people and later the health department officials and staff took the elevated stage in front of us.
Heath Commissioner Robert Whalen took the microphone and said: “. . . the Love Canal Chemical Waste Landfill constitutes an extremely serious threat and danger to health, safety and welfare of those living near it or exposed to the conditions emanating from it.” He ordered that pregnant women or families with children under the age of two living at 99th and 97th streets (that encircle the landfill) move from their homes as soon as possible. Stunned and terrified Debbie my neighbor and I stood up and began to yell at Whalen. “What are you saying? My daughter is 2 ½ years of age has she been harmed?” The journalist then began to shout questions. The chaos, noise, and shock from the news made me feel faint.
When I walked out of that building, my life was changed forever. The rest of the story is history.
Category: News Archive
Senator Chuck Schumer has spoken out against National Grid’s North Brooklyn Pipeline after months of conflict between National Grid and community leaders who have worked to stop the pipeline’s construction.
The pipeline, which would carry fracked gas through the predominately Black and Brown neighborhoods of Brownsville, Bed-Stuy, Bushwick and Williamsburg, has been in the works since 2017 and has only one building phase left before completion.
National Grid is yet to start the fifth phase of construction, and, on top of numerous neighborhood and political protests, faced a recent setback to the project when a court order stopped the company from doing related construction work at a Brooklyn site that could be used to load and unload trucks containing liquefied natural gas, or LNG.
Read More…
Photo Credit: Twitter
Congress is preparing to infuse a historic amount of money into the nation’s drinking water systems — but whether that money will meet President Biden’s environmental justice goals will largely fall into the hands of states unlikely to consider race or how accessible those funds are to struggling communities, according to a new report.
The groundbreaking analysis released today reveals that, over the past decade, states have been less likely to spend money from EPA’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund program on smaller and more diverse communities. Opting to release the majority of funds as loans, states are also providing fewer grants than federal law allows, possibly boxing impoverished communities out of federal funding for water infrastructure improvements.
Read More…
Photo Credit: FrankHoermann/SVEN SIMON/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
THE CONVERSATION — In the U.S., nearly 1 in 8 couples struggle with infertility. Unfortunately, physicians like me who specialize in reproductive medicine are unable to determine the cause of male infertility around 30 to 50% of the time. There is almost nothing more disheartening than telling a couple “I don’t know” or “There’s nothing I can do to help.”
Upon getting this news, couple after couple asks me questions that all follow a similar line of thinking. “What about his work, his cellphone, our laptops, all these plastics? Do you think they could have contributed to this?”
What my patients are really asking me is a big question in male reproductive health: Does environmental toxicity contribute to male infertility?
Read More…
Photo Credit: American Pregnancy Association
When the Superfund program first passed Congress in 1980, there was one word that marked the moment: justice. Finally, polluters were on the hook for cleaning up neighborhoods, waterfronts, and schoolyards. Many Americans living near toxic waste sites were already mired with health complications, including epilepsy, miscarriages, nephrosis, and even fatal illnesses. For once, the afflicted would benefit from those doing the afflicting.
But today, the Superfund program is languishing. Only a small fraction of identified sites have been successfully remediated during the 40 years of the program. This is mainly due to a lack of funds, after a critical polluter tax expired over 25 years ago.
Read More…
Photo Credit: Chris Stephens/The Plain Dealer via AP Photo
The D.C. government is preparing to build a sprawling school-bus terminal in the historically Black enclave of Brentwood, where residents have long lived amid industrial sites that discharge pollution into their community.
Photo Credit: Kyna Uwaeme/The Washington Post
WASHINGTON— The Environmental Protection Agency today reapproved paraquat, the most acutely lethal pesticide still in use.
The weedkiller has resulted in the deaths of at least 30 people in the United States in the past 30 years and is one of only two pesticides still in U.S. use that is banned in the European Union, China and Brazil. It has been found to double the risk of Parkinson’s disease in farmworkers and to harm and kill wildlife.
Today’s decision reverses protections proposed last year by the Trump administration that would have banned aerial application of the pesticide in most cases. This decision allows the aerial spraying of paraquat on all approved crops, including within 50 feet of houses for some applications. The EPA cited data provided by a pesticide industry consortium called The Agricultural Handler Exposure Task Force as leading to today’s reversal.
Photo Credit: mladenbalinovac/iStockphoto
PORTSMOUTH – City officials have announced plans to bring the Haven well back online this week, seven years after it was shut down because of the presence of toxic PFAS chemicals in the water.
The city received permission from the N.H. Department of Environmental Services “for the reactivation of the Haven well,” after the upgraded Pease Water Treatment Facility – which was designed to remove PFAS from city water sources – became fully operational earlier this year.
DES said “laboratory results provided as part of the request (to bring the Haven well online) demonstrates the finished water quality while treating the Haven well is in compliance with current standards, including non-detect levels of PFAS.”
Read More…
Photo Credit:
(CNN)A bipartisan group of senators unveiled the legislative text of the infrastructure bill on Sunday night after months of negotiations.
In total, the deal includes $550 billion in new federal investments in America’s infrastructure over five years.
However, it is far short of the $2.25 trillion proposal that President Joe Biden unveiled in March. That measure, known as the American Jobs Plan, included money for roads, bridges and public transportation, but it drew criticism from many Republicans for also making investments in areas not traditionally considered infrastructure, such as caregiving for aging Americans and workforce training.
Photo Credit: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Massive amounts of radioactive waste brought to the surface by oil and gas wells have overwhelmed the industry and the state and federal agencies that regulate it, according to a report released today by the prominent environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council. The waste poses “significant health threats,” including the increased risk of cancer to oil and gas workers and their families and also nearby communities.
“We know that the waste has radioactive elements, we know that it can have very high and dangerous levels, we know that some of the waste gets into the environment, and we know that people who live or work near various oil and gas sites are exposed to the waste. What we don’t know are the full extent of the health impacts,” says Amy Mall, an analyst with NRDC who has been researching oilfield waste for 15 years and is a co-author on the report.
Read More…
Photo Credit: David Zalubowski/AP