The Trump Administration and newly-appointed EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt claim to desire to return Superfund cleanups “to their rightful place at the center of the EPA’s core mission”1, however their actions speak differently: their proposed budget includes a 30% cut in funding to the Superfund. In April, Pruitt assembled a Task Force to provide recommendations for the future of Superfund, chaired by Albert Kelly, a prior bank chairman with no environmental experience. On June 22nd, the report was released and the recommendations it contains raise major concerns decreasing cleanup oversight, privileging corporate interests over public health, and a lack of community involvement.
In response, CHEJ has prepared a point-by-point rebuttal of the key recommendations of Pruitt’s report. We intend to share this document with members of our coalition to serve as a guide in the on-going process of organizing together in the pursuit of Superfund reform and Environmental Justice.
Read our response to Pruitt’s plan for Superfund here:
Response to the EPA Superfund Task Force Report (1)
Category: News Archive
Don’t drink the water. That’s something you’d expect to hear when you travel to a developing country. But that’s what people are saying in Wilmington, a historic beach, tourist and retiree destination and the eighth-largest city in this state. It also happens to be one of my favorite places to go when I need a reprieve from the heat and humidity of central North Carolina. With its charming historic riverfront, shops, delicious restaurants, parks, water sports and beautiful beaches, it’s a great place to relax and unwind. The last thing one should have to worry about is the safety of the local drinking water.
Over the past couple of months, Wilmington residents have learned that DuPont and its spinoff company Chemours have been dumping unregulated chemicals into the Cape Fear River for decades and only recently stopped at the request of the governor. The result: Disturbing levels of chemicals like 1,4-dioxane, GenX and PFOA have been found in the drinking water of residents in Wilmington, Brunswick and the surrounding area.
These types of of chemicals, called fluorinated compounds, have been linked to cancer, thyroid disease and obesity. GenX and other fluorinated compounds are used in the making of Teflon, Scotchgard and other stain-resistant and water-repellant products. They are designed so that they are water- and oil-repellant, which means that they are extremely difficult to treat in water-treatment plants before they hit our taps.
While GenX has received a lot of the attention, the chemical 1,4-dioxane – which is much more well-studied – has been found in some places to be in excess of 35 parts per billion, a level at which, when consumed regularly over the course of a lifetime, cancer risk becomes two orders of magnitude higher than that at generally acceptable levels. Many Wilmington residents have been drinking this water their whole lives. Now they must worry about the risks to their and their children’s health.
Wilmington has asked the EPA to start looking into GenX and investigating the safety of its water. But with asbestos denier Scott Pruitt and chemical industry representative Nancy Beck overseeing EPA’s program in charge of regulating these chemicals, I don’t have much faith in their investigation. Now, the Trump Administration has nominated Michael Dourson to lead the entire toxics program at the EPA. Will Mr. Dourson provide hope for Wilmington?
A look at his background also leaves me skeptical. In 2002, DuPont hand-picked Dourson’s firm Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA) to advise West Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality on setting health levels for PFOA, one of the same chemicals now found in Wilmington’s water. His firm came up with a level that was thousands of times less protective than a later EPA assessment. 1,4-dioxane is currently under review by the very office that Mr. Dourson has been nominated to lead. Yet he also published research on that chemical paid for entirely by PPG, a company responsible for discharging this chemical and contaminating Ohio’s waterways.
Saturday, I went to a Rally for Clean Water in Wilmington to talk with residents about their concerns. They want what we all want – to know that when they open up the tap, they can drink the water without worrying about toxic chemicals. And they deserve better: corporate polluters that are held accountable for egregious pollution and government officials who will protect their health and safety at the local and the national level.
By Ansje Miller resides in Hillsborough and is the director of policy and partnerships for the Center for Environmental Health.
Categories
Top FERC To-Do List – Gas Pipelines
Now that its quorum has been restored, one of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission‘s top priorities will be breaking the logjam of natural gas pipeline projects needing approval that built up over the six months since the body was last able to perform its duties.
The U.S. Senate brought FERC back to fighting shape earlier this month with the confirmation of commissioners Republicans Robert Powelson, a member of the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission and president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, and Neil Chatterjee, a senior energy policy adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
The two men, along with sitting Commissioner and acting Chair Cheryl LaFleur, a Democrat, give the five-member agency the three commissioners it needs to decide on any action requiring a vote.
While there’s a lot for the commission to catch up on, from projects to policy and regulatory matters, gas pipeline proposals are likely to be at the top of the list for quick action, said David Wochner, a partner at K&L Gates LLP and the firm’s policy and regulatory practice area leader.
“Pipeline infrastructure in the natural gas space … certainly provides one of the best opportunities for a newly constituted FERC,” Wochner said. “It’s an opportunity to really advance President Trump’s infrastructure initiatives, which obviously he talked about all through the campaign.”
There are five projects that are ready to be reviewed by the commission:
· The $5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a Dominion Energy Inc. project
· The $3.5 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline — a joint effort between EQT Midstream Partners LP, NextEra Energy Inc. subsidiary NextEra US Gas Assets LLC, Consolidated Edison Inc. subsidiary Con Edison Transmission Inc., WGL Holdings Inc. unit WGL Midstream, and RGC Resources Inc. unit RGC Midstream LLC
· The $2.2 billion Nexus Pipeline, a DTE Energy Co. and Enbridge Corp. venture
· The $1.8 billion Mountaineer Xpress Pipeline, a TransCanada Corp. project
· The $1 billion PennEast Pipeline, a joint effort between Southern Co. Gas subsidiary AGL Resources, New Jersey Resources Corp. subsidiary NJR Pipeline Co., PSEG Power LLC, South Jersey Industries Inc. unit SJI Midstream, Enbridge Corp., and UGI Corp. subsidiary UGI Energy Services LLC
All have received their final environmental impact statements from FERC and are waiting for commissioners to decide whether to issue certificates of public convenience and necessity. Those certificates, issued under Section 7 of the federal Natural Gas Act, convey the power of eminent domain to the project owners to use as they construct a pipeline along a right-of-way approved by FERC.
Wochner said he thinks the Nexus and PennEast projects are the best candidates to be handled first, saying they’re both significant infrastructure projects that should be prioritized.
Dena Wiggins, president and CEO of the Natural Gas Supply Association, said there’s no FERC meeting until September, so that would be the earliest any project could be aired in a public meeting. She said the projects could be certified “notationally,” meaning the members can vote on paper — outside of a meeting — and issue a certificate that way. But she added that’s unlikely.
“For big orders, usually staff makes a presentation to the commissioners,” Wiggins said. “Sometimes commissioners will want to make public statements.”
While the pipeline projects have made it through most of the FERC process so far, Kelly Martin, deputy director for the Sierra Club‘s Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign, said that won’t be the end of the story.
“There is major pushback from communities around use of eminent domain, especially in Virginia and in West Virginia,” Martin said. “There are landowners that don’t want their land taken through the use of eminent domain when there’s no public good in the state where they are, or any need.”
In fact, both the Mountain Valley and Nexus pipelines are the subject of new lawsuits, both targeting FERC’s authority to grant eminent domain powers to pipeline companies.
Ohio residents are suing FERC and Nexus Gas Transmission LLC, the company created by DTE and Enbridge to develop the project, alleging the pipeline will primarily export gas, disqualifying it from meeting the “necessity” component of a FERC certificate of approval. The plaintiffs say exporting gas is not a public use for purposes of the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment and is beyond the scope of the Natural Gas Act and FERC jurisdiction in cases involving eminent domain.
Separately, Virginia residents are suing FERC and Mountain Valley LLC, the company created to carry out the Mountain Valley Pipeline project, in another Fifth Amendment takings clause constitutional challenge to the eminent domain provisions of the Natural Gas Act.
Eugene Elrod, a partner at Latham & Watkins LLP, said the lawsuits show that landowners and other parties are looking for new ways to stop pipeline projects.
“If the lawsuits are successful, they would have far-reaching effects, because all pipelines that get certificates of public convenience and necessity from FERC need to exercise this power of eminent domain to condemn the property over which the pipeline will run,” Elrod said.
Martin said groups like the Sierra Club could also ask FERC to reconsider any authorizations granted on climate change or cumulative impact grounds.
“A major concern for us is the climate impacts of methane, which is released at the drilling site, from the pipelines along the way and then from a power plant, if that’s the end use,” she said.
–Additional reporting by Adam Lidgett, Michael Phillis and Keith Goldberg. Editing by Philip Shea and Katherine Rautenberg.
By Juan Carlos Rodriguez Law360, New York (August 14, 2017, 8:48 PM EDT) —
“The whole thing has so little to do with the core missions, which is protecting citizens and the environment we live in.” said Lois Gibbs, founder of the Virginia-based CHEJ. “It really is like a blueprint for redevelopment and investors, not ‘how do we protect the environment, how how do we make responsible parties pay.’”
Gibbs pointed to a section in the report that encourages private investment as an example of this redevelopment blueprint, and said the report does not lay out how companies that were already reticent to get involved with clean-ups would change their minds, particularly with the Trump administration’s proposal to slash the Superfund budget, which could hamper federal enforcement.
“Why is company X suddenly going to play differently than they played in the past?” Gibbs said. “There is no money to use as leverage.”
Read the whole story here:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/skeptics-voice-concerns-epa-plan-worst-toxic-waste-sites/
It has been almost 40 years since the nation heard the cries for help from Love Canal, a school and neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York built on a toxic dump filled with 21,000 tons of chemical waste. Children were sick, parents were scared and families lost their homes.
I know, because my children, my family and my home were among them.
The Love Canal crisis created a public awareness and scientific understanding that the chemicals people are exposed to in their everyday environment can cause serious harm to their health, especially to pregnant women and young children.
This understanding of the serious risk of living near pollution was the impetus to creating the Superfund program in 1980. The program gives communities power to hold corporations responsible for cleaning up contamination.
The cornerstone of the program is the “polluter pays” principle.
President Jimmy Carter signed the Superfund bill knowing that other sites similar to Love Canal would have immediate resources to reduce and eliminate people’s exposure to toxic chemicals. And it worked well for 20 years, including under presidents Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, and Clinton, who all supported the program and the tax that funded it.
Then, in 1995, Congress allowed the tax to expire and by 2003, the entire financial burden of paying to clean up the worst orphan toxic sites fell to the taxpayers. As a result, the number of toxic sites cleaned up went from an average of 85 a year down to as few as eight a year now.
The recently appointed head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, says Superfund is his priority. As the “mother of Superfund,” as I am often called, I should be thrilled. Instead, I’m terrified.
How can Pruitt call Superfund a priority if he’s proposing cutting the program’s budget by $330 million without advocating for the polluters’ tax to be reinstated?
There are 1,300 sites on the Superfund list. Of those, 121 sites don’t have human exposure under control. Contaminant levels at these sites are unsafe and people are at risk. There are another187 sites where groundwater migration of waste isn’t under control.
Nearly 53 million people live within three miles of a Superfund site, 46 percent are people of color and 15 percent live below the poverty line.
Pruitt is forming a special task force to improve Superfund, but his directive sounds eerily like a plan to expand the Superfund Alternatives program, and that would be a disaster.
Under Superfund Alternatives, responsible parties agree to clean up a site to avoid the stigma of being listed on the National Priority List. The program benefits the polluter while punishing the victims. It gives power to corporations, takes it away from communities harmed by the toxic sites, and weakens EPA oversight.
Superfund Alternatives removes mandatory citizen participation and access to information and resources provided by Superfund. Under the program, technical assistance grants that allow citizens to hire their own experts to review data and plans are awarded by the polluter rather than the EPA.
The alternative approach also allows a company to avoid flagging a National Priority List site as a liability in its financial papers. This can have a significant impact, especially if the company is being sold.
If the polluter is cleaning up the site under Pruitt’s watch, it doesn’t take a crystal ball to see that the cleanup will be as minimal as possible. The result will be partially cleaned-up sites being used for other purposes – and on a path back to where we started 40 years ago.
Institutional controls are supposed to prevent land that is too contaminated for residential use from ever being used for homes and schools. At Love Canal, those institutional controls failed in the 1950s to stop construction of the 99th Street School.
Under Pruitt’s direction, families like those recently evacuated from contaminated public housing in East Chicago, Indiana, might still be there, getting sicker.
If Pruitt truly wants to protect people around Superfund sites, then his first steps should be to advocate for reinstating the “polluter pays” tax to provide funds to adequately clean up sites.
He should hold polluters, not taxpayers, responsible for cleanup costs and collect triple damages from polluters who force EPA to go to court. He should also continue the technical assistance grants that provide communities with the information they need to understand their cleanup options.
Pruitt must protect the power of communities to hold polluters responsible, because after 40 years, it is painfully clear that we can’t count on corporations.
Statement from Lois Marie Gibbs:
Superfund was created following the Love Canal crisis in Niagara Falls, NY to primarily protect public health. I know because I was a resident and community leader at Love Canal. I found EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s Superfund Task Force Report almost entirely void of public health concerns.
In fact, the report only mentions health six times with four of those in the Executive Summary. The report sounds like a blueprint to involve for bankers, investors and developers and a plan for corporations to reduce cleanup costs and increase profits at the expense of public health. Redevelopment is mentioned 39 times.
There is no mention of the public health risks that exist at these sites or that will be created during the cleanup of a site. The report begins by stating, “the core mission of the Environmental Protection Agency is to protect the health of our citizens and the environment in which we all live.” Yet, there is nothing in this report that begins to address this mission. In fact, the report reads as if there are no people living around these Superfund sites, people who are sick and who care about protecting their children’s health.
Superfund sites are not islands unto themselves. Sites are connected to backyards, fence lines, drinking water sources and schools. Administrator Pruitt and those on the Task Force should be ashamed of their blatant disregard for public health and the innocent families whose health are impacted by these sites. They should reread the mission of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and throw this report into the recycling bin and start over.
We aren’t going to let him get away with this. We will not allow our voices to be drowned out by corporate interests. Superfund victims and activists from sites around the country have come together to create the People’s Task Force to advocate for our recommendations on the future of Superfund, based on our years of on-the-ground experience.
The Center for Health, Environment and Justice has been on the front lines in the fight for environmental health for 40 years. We train and support local activists across the country and build local, state and national initiatives that win on issues from Superfund to climate change.
Introducing The People’s Task Force on the Future of Superfund
Voices from Contaminated Communities Across the Country
The Trump Administration and newly-appointed EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt claim they want to return Superfund cleanups “to their rightful place at the center of the EPA’s core mission.” However their actions speak differently: their proposed budget includes a 30 percent cut in funding to the Superfund.
Last month, Pruitt assembled a Task Force to provide recommendations for the future of Superfund. His memo raises major concerns about decreasing cleanup oversight, privileging corporate interests over public health, and a lack of community involvement.
We aren’t going to let him get away with this. We will not allow our voices to be drowned out by corporate interests. Superfund victims and activists from sites around the country have come together to create The People’s Task Force to advocate for our recommendations on the future of Superfund, based on our years of on-the-ground experience.
Representatives of 25 Superfund sites and 70 environmental organizations have signed on to the People’s Task Force, which we are releasing to local and national media outlets today.
“Scott Pruitt must advocate with the White House to reinstate the Superfund Polluters Pay Tax. The American taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for corporate wrong doing.”
– Lois Marie Gibbs, Love Canal Leader, Mother of Superfund, CHEJ Founder
Here are the People’s Task Force recommendations, and a list of some of organizations that make up The People’s Task Force. Below are quotes from people living near Superfund Sites around the country.
So far, the Pruitt’s EPA has been markedly secretive. Unlike previous administrators, he has never made his schedule publicly available and ignores Freedom of Information Act requests. His Task Force has been similarly opaque: he has not disclosed who staffs the Task Force aside from Albert Kelly, a prior bank chairman with no environmental experience.
Furthermore, even though the 30-day time frame has expired, he has not released the Task Force recommendations or comments. Superfund cannot be lead like a business – decisions that affect the health of thousands of communities cannot be made behind closed doors by financially motivated industry stakeholders. This is why we have come together to publicly release our recommendations, and we urge Pruitt to act with integrity and do the same.
Quotes People’s Task Force Members
(Here is a list of some of The People’s Task Force members.)
“Scott Pruitt must advocate with the White House to reinstate the Superfund Polluters Pay Tax. The American taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for corporate wrong doing.”
Lois Marie Gibbs, Love Canal Leader and Mother of Superfund.
Center for Health, Environment & Justice
CHEJ.org
(703)-237-2249
chej2@chej.org
“Public health has to be the top priority in cleaning up toxic waste sites. The communities most affected by Superfund sites must be included in the process, but unfortunately that was not the case with Scott Pruitt’s Task Force.”
Robin Schneider (512) 326-5655
robin@texasenvironment.org
“Scott Pruitt’s plan to streamline the Superfund process in favor of cutting costs will lead to incomplete cleanups of contaminated neighborhoods, as demonstrated in the past at sites like MDI in Houston’s 5th Ward. Painted as a quick way to boost economic development, Pruitt’s recommendations are more akin to a fast track to injustice.”
Rosanne Barone (713) 337-4192
Rosanne@texasenvironment.org
Texas Campaign for the Environment
San Jacinto River Waste pits and other sites in Texas
“EPA leadership should prioritize the appropriate remedial solutions for sites on the NPL and assure the continued support from regional staff to local community members dealing with the hazardous situations.”
Josue Ramirez
Texas Low Income Housing Information Service
(956) 295-6868
Josue@texashousing.org
Texashousing.org
“A toxic plume is spreading through Pensacola’s drinking water aquifer because the Superfund Program is starved for money. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt must make polluters pay for cleanup though the Superfund Tax.”
Francine Ishmael, Executive Director
Citizens Against Toxic Exposure,Inc
(850) 432-2228
fishmael@cate.gccoxmail.com
Pensacola, FL
“We need a strong EPA with strong enforcement authority to ensure our Superfund Alternative Site cleanup will be protective of our health and our environment. Now is not the time to cut either EPA’s enforcement authority or community involvement in ensuring the best possible cleanup.”
Marilyn Welker
People for Safe Water
937-484-6988
mwelker@ctcn.net
Tremont City Barrel Fill – Ohio
“The Tar Creek Superfund Site needs a strong EPA that is fully funded if it is to ever finish our three- decades long cleanup.”
Rebecca Jim
LEAD Agency, Inc.
(918) 542-9399
leadagency@att.net
Tar Creek Superfund Site
“Superfund is the only chance we have at getting the Waste Pits fully cleaned-up before a major hurricane strikes our coast. The parties responsible for the Pits don’t want to clean them up as the EPA has proposed and we need the EPA to hold the companies responsible to protect our environment and future generations!”
Jackie Young
San Jacinto River Coalition
(281) 608-6213
jyoung@txhea.org
San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund Site
“All Americans deserve the right to clean air and clean water. Hold corporate polluters accountable and give our children a healthy future.”
Michele Baker,
Founding Member, New York Water Project
(518) 461-7270
michele.baker@
“Public health and constituent welfare need to become the top priority in all Superfund legislation to ensure that inexcusable events like those which occurred in Sellersville, Pennsylvania won’t ever happen again.”
Gregory Bulfaro
Sellersville x 3 / Sellersville Truth
(267) 227-8433
gbulfaro@aol.com
“Scott Pruitt’s plan to streamline the Superfund process in favor of cutting costs will lead to incomplete cleanups of contaminated neighborhoods, as demonstrated in the past at sites like MDI in Houston’s 5th Ward. Painted as a quick way to boost economic development, Pruitt’s recommendations are more akin to a fast track to injustice.”
Rosanne Barone
Texas Campaign for the Environment
713-337-4192
rosanne@texasenvironment.org
San Jacinto River Waste Pits
# # #
The Center for Health, Environment and Justice has been on the frontlines in the fight for environmental health for 40 years. We train and support local activists across the country and build local, state and national initiatives that win on issues from Superfund to climate change.
People’s Action Institute is a national organization of more than a million people across 29 states working for economic, racial, gender and climate justice – with a goal of reversing the growing economic inequality by building an economy that expands opportunity for low-income families.
“… it’s corporate villainy where folks are outsourcing the costs and the burdens of their economic enterprise onto others and privatizing all their profits,” Booker said at Mount Triumph Baptist Church in the heart of southeast Louisiana’s industrial corridor along the Mississippi River. “It is absolutely unacceptable to steal folks’ livelihoods, to steal folks’ health and, literally, drive down the cost of their land.”
Read the full story here: http://www.theadvocate.com/acadiana/article_995ea5f4-5a8e-11e7-b1ab-476028b29dde.html
Dawn Chapman, Just Moms STL, had listened with surprise and skepticism as the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency vowed to clean up West Lake, the nuclear waste dump that has filled her days and nights with worry.
Read full article.
NAACP Florida State Conference Joins the NAACP Jackson County Branch to demand the Scott Administration deny the pending deep injection well permit. “The NAACP Jackson County Branch joins hundreds of citizens, community groups and elected officials in opposing a pending Waste Management permit by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Environmental injustice has a disproportionate impact on low income and rural communities in Florida and around the world. The ultimate goal for this well is to dispose leachate (garbage juice) into the ground. This technique will have a negative impact on the Florida Aquifer, thus resulting in irreversible damage to the communities’ water and health. Our community has raised too many questions and we won’t sit on the sidelines as we see environmental injustices in North Florida” says Ronstance Pittman, President of NAACP Jackson County Branch.
“The NAACP Florida State Conference is outraged at the Scott Administration’s pending decision after hearing from State Senator Gainer, the Jackson County Commission and local residents. This is yet another example of the egregious pattern of unsafe dumping of waste in low income communities and African American communities. In Jackson County, once again, another African-American community sits in peril, due to the too-often reckless practices of the waste industry,” says Adora Obi Nweze, President of NAACP Florida State Conference and member of the National Board of Directors.
Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest nonpartisan civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities.