Environmental groups and Louisiana residents of a rural, majority-black area on the Mississippi River filed a records request Monday seeking answers to why St. James Parish officials “basically changed the black district into the petrochemical district.”
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Tag: cancer
The NRDC hopes its new research into municipal pollution can help organizers push for sound, equitable policy.
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In just two years, President Trump has unleashed a regulatory rollback, lobbied for and cheered on by industry, with little parallel in the past half-century. The trade-offs, while often out of public view, are real — frighteningly so, for some people — imperiling progress in cleaning up the air we breathe and the water we drink, and in some cases upending the very relationship with the environment around us. Mr. Trump enthusiastically promotes the changes as creating jobs, freeing business from the shackles of government and helping the economy grow. Read more NYT.
The Tonawanda Coke plant near Buffalo, NY, closed its doors this past Sunday marking a huge victory for the local residents who have fought for years to shut down the facility. Read more here.
“It’s sending the message to students, parents and employees that we really don’t care about public education in Detroit, that we allow for second-class citizenry in Detroit,” Vitti said then. “And that hurts my heart and it angers me and it frustrates me that I can’t fix it right now.”Nikolai Vitti, is the superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools Community District. Read more.
Pollution tied to infant deaths and cancer in adults has shown up for decades in the groundwater beneath a nuclear fuel factory less than two miles from Michael Daugherty’s house.The uranium leak in Hopkins, South Carolina occurred in June. It was reported to state and federal authorities on July 12, according to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Mildred Myers, a Gadsden resident, said she is glad DHEC is investigating, but that she always has been worried about the Westinghouse plant. The recent spill only reinforces her concerns, said Myers, a founder of the Lower Richland community group, S.C. Environment Watch.
“They always say they have got it under control and they are doing this or that. But they really have not done anything yet that is very efficient at cleaning things up,’’ Myers said. “So many things have occurred and things have not really gotten better.’’ Read more.
While the EPA’s decision not to place the North Birmingham Alabama 35th Avenue Alternatives Superfund site on the NPL was disappointing to many in the community, it was perhaps understandable given the strong vocal opposition with the state. It is now abundantly clear, as evidenced by the July 19, 2018 convictions of a former state legislator, a business executive and attorney on a number of federal charges including conspiracy, wire fraud and bribery, that the EPA’s initial public review process was undermined by an illegal misinformation scheme to prevent the North Birmingham site from being added to the NPL. Being listed provides more opportunities for citizen participation, grants and hard deadlines for action.
Jimmy Smith has lived in Collegeville all of his life. At 85 years old he’s seen the community during it highs and lows. He’s lived side by side with contamination from what was the life blood of the community: the steel industry. He suspected something wasn’t right when three members of his family, himself included, were diagnosed with various cancers. Smith said, “It just so happened out of my four daughters, two of them had cancer. My oldest daughter, the preacher of the family, the good Lord called her home as a result of the cancer.” Read more.
Ten months after Maria hit water quality still seems inconsistent, and local residents aren’t taking any chances. “The water comes out of the tap white, and sometimes dark and dirty, with particles in it,” Marta Rivera said. “Before the hurricane, the water wasn’t like that. My house was full of water; it smelled really bad. Me, my son, my aunt and even the doctor here have got sick in some way. It’s made me a little paranoid. Traumatized.”
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“Even before Hassan Amjad’s family buried him on a West Virginia hillside, phone calls flooded his daughter’s office.
The callers remembered him as a kind man, boundless in his curiosity, fiery in his convictions, who had long maintained a medical clinic in nearby Oak Hill, in an old whitewashed house with a squeaky screen door and creaking wood floors.
Her father had made it his mission to get justice — or at least answers — for the people of this once-thriving coal town an hour south of the state capital. He told anyone willing to listen that industrial chemicals dumped decades ago by the now-defunct Shaffer Equipment Co. had long been poisoning residents.” Read More
“Anytime you operate near any Superfund site, it’s very noteworthy …The fire’s probably the most simple thing that you have to worry about.”
Asbestos still lingers in Operable Unit 3’s trees and soil. Research shows that when this material burns, the majority of asbestos fibers stay in the ash rather than go airborne. But the fibers’ direction and impact can be difficult to predict, especially in a large fire. Read more.