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Backyard Talk

Southern Community Groups Call for the Right to Say No to Natural Gas Facilities

Campaign to Safeguard America’s Resources Today community groups in Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia called for the establishment of local veto power over natural gas extraction, transport and use. At rallies, marches and other public events extending from Floyd, Virginia, across North Carolina to Valdosta, Georgia, people joined in a chorus of protests against pipelines, compressor stations, power plants, hydrofracking wells and waste dumps and for the restoration of property rights and local control over energy policy in the Southeast.

Lou Zeller, Executive Director of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, said, “Today we launch the campaign to Safeguard America’s Resources because of our nation’s dangerous reliance on fossil fuel, including natural gas, which pollutes the air and water. But we also see a parallel danger to our communities, to our society and to our democracy from a dominant oil and gas industry.”

At press conferences in county courthouses, community buildings, a university and a small church, League chapters called for action to halt natural gas facilities in their communities. Following the speeches, they joined caravans and parades to focus public opposition at the local government level. Events across the region echoed the twin themes of danger and opportunity.

Kim McCall, Secretary of the Concerned Citizens of Richmond County, North Carolina, spoke against hydro-fracking and the expansion of Duke Energy’s natural gas power plant in Hamlet. She said, “We are petitioning local governments for the ability to veto projects that threaten our homes, our families and our neighbors.” The group has petitioned EPA to deny the air permit to increase toxic air pollution by 36% from the combustion turbine electric power plant in her backyard.

To launch their campaign in Lee County, North Carolina, members of EnvironmentaLEE held a prayer vigil and rally at Mount Calvary Baptist Church, which is located in front of the brickyard in Sanford where the dumping 8 million tons of Duke Energy’s toxic coal ash is proposed. Deb Hall, a member of EnvironmentaLEE, said, “We are already ground zero for fracking, and the North Carolina General Assembly stripped local governments of their ability to control fracking and coal ash dumping. This threatens our health, the environment, community self-determination, and property rights.”

Mark Laity-Snyder, a founding member of Preserve Franklin county, joined others carrying black coffins in a caravan to Floyd, Virginia. He said, “We chose a coffin to represent the loss of a basic American right, the right to be secure in our homes without private companies taking our land.” Jenny Chapman, from nearby Preserve Bent Mountain, said, “For a corporation like Mountain Valley Pipeline to override the rights of private citizens to their land, safety and quality of life is unacceptable.”

Pat Hill, co-founder of Person County PRIDE in Roxboro, North Carolina, said, “My husband and I live next to the Republic mega-dump. We want to have a voice in protecting our water and air quality because we live with it every day.” She continued, “The toxic wastes deposited here endanger our health and the health of our neighbors. Coal ash contains arsenic, lead and many other poisons. Because hydrofracking uses secret contaminants, it could have an unknown number of dangerous compounds.”

Michael G. Noll, President of Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy in Valdosta, Georgia, sounded a note of hope, saying, “This is the beginning of a new era, where we see the unified efforts of communities across the nation to safeguard America’s resources, to wean ourselves of fossil fuels, and to protect the unalienable rights of citizens to clean water and air. I am convinced that safe and renewable sources of energy like solar and wind will be the lunar landing of our generation.”

Mara Robbins, Virginia Campaign Coordinator for the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League and organizer of the Floyd March and Demonstration, said, “We chose to have this action here because we stand in solidarity with all the counties that are resisting the threat of the Mountain Valley Pipeline.” She pointed to many different communities in three states that are calling for community-level veto power over fossil fuel projects. Referring to her success in pushing the pipeline route out of her home county, she said, “Though Floyd is not in the line of fire at the moment, we claim the right to say NO to dangerous proposals that utilize eminent domain over the wishes of the people. And we think all communities deserve that right.”

The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League was founded in 1984. The organization has a thirty-year track record of victories over polluting facilities.

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Backyard Talk

The Circle of Poverty and Poison

This past month I’ve spent time with several grassroots organizations fighting to protect their families from environmental chemical threats. In each case I was reminded of how impossible it is for parents, with dreams of a bright successful future for their children, to achieve their goals while living in the circle of poison and poverty.

Many parents in low wealth communities, tell the story of how they work hard to support their children in school. Moms and dads make sure their homework is done, provide the healthiest breakfast and lunch they can afford and attend as many meeting and events that time allows. They want their children to succeed in school, to learn the skills needed to later secure a job that will bring them a better life.

Yet, no matter how hard parents try they often can’t stop the environmental poisons in the air, water or land. As the children leave for school the toxic air triggers an asthma attack. A parent must lose a day of work, daily earnings, and take the child to the hospital or care for the child at home. When a child is exposed to other environmental chemicals, or maybe even the same ones that cause the asthma, they can suffer from various forms of central nervous system irritants that cause hyperactive behaviors, loss of IQ point or a host of other problems that interfere with learning potential.

The end result is the child becomes frustrated because s/he can’t keep up with what is required at school because of being sick or unable to focus and often drops out of school. That child and the parent’s dreams disappear. A healthy baby, poisoned for years from environmental chemicals, life is forever altered. Often unable to earn enough money to ever leave the poisoned community, possibly even raising their own families in that same neighborhood, continues another generation within the circle of poverty and poison.

America’s environmental protection agencies are responsible for a healthy environment. As we all know the agencies fail often and even more frequently in low wealth communities. In my conversations with leaders in such areas I hear over and over again, parents saying we had so much hope for our child but the chemicals destroyed that hope. Our family can’t afford to move and our children can’t succeed if we stay and they are poisoned. What are families supposed to do?  I can’t answer that question, except to say keep speaking up and out. Can you answer parent’s cries for a solution?

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Backyard Talk

SAN Trimer: The hidden killer behind the Reich Farm Superfund Site

Styrene-acrylonitrile trimer. It sounds like some sort of noxious mega-rocket fuel that Wile E. Coyote used to power his Acme rockets as he tried to take the Roadrunner down. Turns out styrene-acrylonitrile trimer, or SAN trimer for short, is not so far from being just that as the residents of Toms River, NJ painfully and tragically found out.

SAN trimer is a compound set of similar semi-volatile chemicals that are formed during the production of acrylonitrile styrene plastics. This compound is relatively new to modern toxicology, having been studied in depth only within the past decade and a half. As a result, its toxicological properties remain poorly understood – and the residents of Toms River and its surrounding areas paid the price for our lack of understanding and, most importantly, our carelessness.

In 1971 a waste hauler working for Union Carbide improperly disposed of drums containing toxic solvents on a section of the three-acre Reich Farm property in Toms River leading to massive soil and groundwater contamination with volatile organic compounds such as trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE). Consequently, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and USEPA worked to address the site’s contamination, introducing it into the National Priorities List in 1983, developing a cleanup plan in 1988 and culminating the soil portion in 1995 (groundwater treatment was ongoing).

However, the SAN trimer lay hidden in the groundwater undisturbed by the treatment system – silently eating away at the health of the local residents. In 1996, significantly elevated rates of certain childhood cancers were found in the Toms River area. A staggering total of 90 cases of childhood cancer were reported from 1979-1995. New Jersey authorities were baffled by this and frantically looked for possible causes. Finally, with the help of the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, they found a possible culprit as high concentrations of the SAN trimer in groundwater surrounding the Reich Farm Superfund Site were detected. Despite having practically zero understanding of the toxicity of SAN trimer, this find led to an update in the groundwater treatment system designed to remove the SAN trimer. Simultaneously, the National Toxicology Program was asked to conduct studies on the SAN Trimer to determine its health effects, and they completed their review in 2012.

The results concluded that the SAN trimer has potential to cause peripheral nerve degeneration, bone marrow hyperplasia and urinary bladder hyperplasia, while also concluding that it has no carcinogenic effects. However, the study consisted of 7 week, 18 week, and 2 year reviews of rats exposed to the SAN trimer as well as bacterial assays. These studies were quite limited and simply underscore our incomplete knowledge of SAN trimer toxicity. Furthermore, although not statistically significant, dose-related increases in DNA damage in brain and liver cells of test rats were observed pointing the way towards a possible association with cancer.

What is clear is that the SAN trimer is one of many new chemicals whose toxicity we simply do not understand. The reality is that it was present for nearly 20 years at the Reich Farm Superfund Site, and it ate up the lives of the children living there. Now, over 35 years since the site became contaminated, EPA held a public meeting in Toms River last Friday to explain how the SAN trimer is not responsible for the cancer cluster that devoured so many lives. And what are they basing this assessment on? On the lie they tell themselves and the rest of the public – that we understand how the SAN trimer works on our bodies, and that this hidden killer is not responsible for ruining 90 lives.

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Backyard Talk

Ohio Govenor Kills Green Energy & NYS Invests

It was only a short while ago when the Ohio Legislature essential killed all efforts to bring clean green energy and energy use reduction to the state. Ohio Gov. John Kasich dashed the hopes of environmentalists, leading manufacturers and renewable-energy businesses in June when he signed a bill shelving requirements for utilities to ramp up the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency. Kasich welcomes fracking and other nasty industrial processes to his state while other states are taking a more proactive and protective direction.

Recently, New York Governor Cuomo announced a ban on fracking in NY sighting the many unknown health issues that  have not been addressed and the potential impacts are too great to allow fracking to proceed in the state at this time.

Acting Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said that in other states where fracking is already happening, he found that state health commissioners “weren’t even at the table” when decisions about the process were made.

Zucker add “I cannot support high-volume hydraulic fracturing in the great state of New York,” also noting that he would not live in a community that allows fracking and would not want his children to play in the soil in such a place.

We give the Governor of NY an A+ for his due diligence in protecting the citizens of NY and the Governor of Ohio a big fat red letter F for his lack of caring or concern for the residents of his state.


This January 2015 NYS Governor began pushing for investments in clean green energy.

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Backyard Talk

President Obama Holds the Power to Protect America from Keystone

In the first week of 2015, President Obama sent a clear message to the new Republican congress that he intends to stand firm in his commitment to uphold the health of environment and the American public. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said on January 6 in a public statement that president Obama would veto any effort to move forward with the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline Act. Now, after the Keystone Act was passed in the House and is scheduled for a vote in the Senate, we hope that the President will stand firm by his promise.

This Keystone XL Pipeline Act is an effort that pushes for the completion of a pipeline that would transport oil tar sands from the Canadian province of Alberta, through Montana and South Dakota, and into Nebraska. Republican leads have been pushing for the Keystone pipeline since 2008, with a virtually identical bill failing to make it through the Senate as recently as last November. However, with the newly shaped senate in place and an already approved vote of 266-153 in the House of Representatives, the President faces a tough task in keeping the pipeline from harming the health of millions of Americans.

The concerns surrounding the Keystone pipeline are staggering. Firstly, the type of oil being mined and moved, oil sand tar, produces as much as 22% more carbon emissions than other fuels according to a Stanford University study commissioned by the EU in 2011. Secondly, the potential for a spill is highly likely, as is evidenced by the previous A tar sand spill in Mayflower AR, and could contaminate drinking water and agricultural land with toxic chemicals as the Environmental Working Group’s Poisons in the Pipeline investigation revealed.

Now that the Keystone Act is in the Senate floor and multiple amendments that would mitigate the pipeline’s destructive effects are being shot down by the Republican majority, the President’s resolution will be tested to its fullest. Although the Act has every chance of making it through the Senate, the president still hold the ultimate say. His veto power may be the only thing that stands to protect the American public from the unthinkable harms that the Keystone Pipeline would bring.

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Backyard Talk

Commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. left many legacies – as a crusader for civil rights, voting rights, religious harmony, peace and economic justice. As we reflect on his legacy, I was struck by a story written by Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post that talked about how “timeless” King’s economic message was (“to our society’s great shame”) and how much further we still have to go.

In the weeks before his death, King was preparing for a march on Washington as part of the Poor People’s Campaign, and he formulated a speech called “The Other America.” Although not as well known as King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, there’s much that still rings true in this speech five decade later. Robinson quotes King’s speech given in New York City in March 1968:

“One America is flowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of equality. That America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies, culture and education for their minds, freedom and human dignity for their spirits … But as we assemble here tonight, I’m sure that each of us is painfully aware of the fact that there is another America, and that other America has daily ugliness about it that transforms the buoyancy of hope into the fatigue of despair. In that other America millions of people find themselves forced to live in inadequate substandard housing, and often dilapidated housing conditions…

“In this other America, thousands of young people are deprived of an opportunity to get an adequate education … because the schools are so inadequate, so over-crowded, so devoid of quality, so segregated if you will, that the best in these minds can never come out.

According to Robinson, the problem was structural as he quoted King further: “This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor.”

Robinson states that King continued this theme eight days later when he addressed striking sanitation workers in Memphis: “Do you know that most of the poor people in our country are working every day? They are making wages so low that they cannot begin to function in the mainstream of the economic life of our nation. These are the facts which must be seen, and it is criminal to have people working on a full-time basis and full-time job getting part-time income.”

According to Robinson, King explained the shift in his focus:

“Now our struggle is for genuine economic equality, which means economic equality. For we know that it isn’t enough to integrate lunch counters. What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn’t earn enough money to buy a hamburger and a cup of coffee?“

Robinson concludes with “What King saw in 1968 – and what we all should recognize today – is that it is useless to try to address race without also taking on the larger issue of inequality.”

To read the Robinson’s article in full, go to

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-mlks-call-for-economic-justice/2015/01/15/3599cb70-9cfe-11e4-96cc-e858eba91ced_story.html

To read King’s Other America speech in full, go to http://www.gphistorical.org/mlk/mlkspeech/mlk-gp-speech.pdf


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Backyard Talk

Former DNR Official Issues Open Letter About Handling of Burning Bridgeton Landfill

A former official with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources writes a sizzling farewell letter about the burning Bridgeton landfill. He has issued an open letter claiming politics – not science – is dominating the state’s handling of the landfill crisis. Norris says within the DNR, scientists are “losing their minds because they are fighting their own management structure,” which seems more concerned with politics than public safety. He says there is “an overall cozy relationship between the landfill owner and the DNR.” Read more.

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Backyard Talk

Winning Doesn’t Happen Because You’re Right – You Need To Be Organized

How can you get protective action from regulatory agencies or corporation? The answer has always been through organized people. It is not new news that corporations and powerful rich people can and will control what is or is not done as it relates to public health and the environment. However, what most people fail to realize is that people united in action can influence decision and yes can even win. CHEJ has been working with communities for over thirty years and we’ve seen the power of people in communities.

It was Mississippi citizens, opposed to a hazardous waste incinerator that stopped the facility in its tracks. The groups lawyers had no legal avenues and the scientists were outnumbered by the corporate or “cigarette scientists” by four to one. Local leaders could have just thrown up their hands and walked away in frustration but they didn’t. In a small room people gathered to brainstorm what they could do to stop the proposal and came up with a brilliant idea. An idea by the way that might just work for your fight.

Since there was only one road for trucks to travel when dropping off waste and returning home they needed to think about that road. There is a school, childcare center, church, store and more along that roadway, which would place a large number of families especially children at risk. So the local road is the focus, what can they do?

Since it’s a locally controlled road they asked their local government to place restrictions on the road. The group came up with a list of restrictions that the local government fully supported. Here’s the restrictions that were passed into local law: no trucks could travel on the road during the hours children enter or leave school; all trucks will be inspected before entering the populated area by a skilled inspector; the trucking company will pay a fee for that inspection; a police escort will travel with all trucks arriving during normal working hours and when there are evening school activities; the trucking company will pay a fee to cover the costs of the additional police officers needed to escort; and more.

The result of this was the company decided not to build near that community because of the costs associated with the local requirements. A victory that came from the people and their local representatives and worked within the existing laws.

Another example where people took control, refused to work within the confines or rules of the federal agency is in a small African American community in Florida. The group was looking for a proper clean up of their toxic dump site ask the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to come and hold an open meeting with local citizens to talk about the clean up. EPA said no to an open meeting and insisted on have a meeting where information would be shared through tables set up around the room where people can meet in small groups with the EPA representative discussing a part or segment of their efforts. This of course is a divide and concur technique that was developed to suppress community voices.

Local leaders opposed this staging of issue tables around the room by EPA because it doesn’t allow for community members to learn about issues and problems from other community members. In a large group setting everyone hears the same thing, people benefit from other community members questions and the associated responses from the agency. A large inclusive meeting also allow those who are shy to obtain information because they would never had asked.

So how did the community get what they wanted? Community leaders said yes to the small group tables in the basement of their church. Leaders also requested that the public availability be open in the morning and later in the evening. EPA agreed and set up their tables in the morning and spoke with some community members. When EPA left for lunch the local leader locked the church. When it was time for the evening session on the door of the church hung a sign that said the EPA informational meeting is being held a few doors down. Needless to say when EPA saw this they were angry they couldn’t get back in the church and sit at their little stations to talk with folks. With no slides, posters or other tools EPA walked down to the other meeting hall filled with over 100 people and took their place in front of the room. People we all able to hear and react with questions and comments about the plan to clean up their toxic site.

Community members were so glad that they all meet together. “I would have any idea about how to start the conversation with EPA about the toxic’s,” said one woman. “I am still learning. My neighbors and our community leaders really helped me with their comments and questions to understand the issues. I am so glad they did this even if it was a little radical.”

It is citizens across the country who have almost completely stopped the commercial land filling of hazardous wastes. Our laws and regulations still allow commercial land filling of hazardous chemicals, there are no laws prohibiting it, but the people refuse to allow such a facility to be built in their community, since 1982. When the people stand together we can accomplish more than what we can win in the regulatory arena.

So the track record is clear, more collective action and more thinking out of the box – not just asking ourselves what can we do within “their defined rules and systems,” will win a safe, clean environment for us all.

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Backyard Talk

Senator Lautenberg– A Hero

The passing today of Senator Lautenberg leaves a tremendous void on Capitol Hill. His passing will be felt for decades. He was a very courageous man, willing to take big risks and work tirelessly for issues he cared about. I met him for the first time when discussing Right-To-Know and Superfund. He was the “father of the Right –To-Know” laws while I’m often referred to as the “mother of Superfund . . . Frank and I go way back.

I think in his lasting legacy, is the bill he introduced to protect everyone from chemicals in their environment and products. The Safe Chemicals Act he authored is visionary and by far the most meaningful legislation to reform TSCA. As the Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee with jurisdiction over the regulation of toxic chemicals, Senator Lautenberg held hearings and introduced his legislation which placed the burden on chemical companies to provide data to the EPA so that Americans can be assured the chemicals they are exposed to safe before they are sold and used throughout the country. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released principles for reform that closely parallel Senator Lautenberg’s legislation.

Today, I worry about who is going to bring that leadership, willingness to take huge risks and support other champion colleagues like Senator Boxer as they try to move protective policy through the senate. Senator Lautenberg was respected by all sides and was able to have meaningful conversations and at times debates on issues with friends and foes.

I remember like it was yesterday when medical waste and plastic debris washed up on the shore line in New York and New Jersey. Senator Lautenberg took the lead to ban ocean dumping of sewage and plastics, and changed federal laws to get companies to use stronger “double-hulled tankers” to prevent oil spills. He also passed vital laws that have made our air, water and land dramatically cleaner. He was a strong advocate for addressing climate change, reducing carbon pollution and putting a priority on renewable energy from solar, wind, geothermal and other sources.

Senator Lautenberg was a hero, a visionary and someone I could always count on to work toward protecting people and our environment from toxic chemicals in every way. Thank you Frank, may you rest in peace knowing that you were loved, respected and that we will continue to carry on your visionary work.


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News Archive

Love Canal activist Lois Gibbs joins R.I. effort to keep law on school siting strong

PROVIDENCE — In 1978, Lois Gibbs took on the powers-that-be when she learned that her son’s school and Love Canal neighborhood in New York were built on a toxic waste dump. Her battle led to the evacuation of hundreds of houses, sparked a massive environmental cleanup, and inspired a made-for-TV movie and the creation of the federal Superfund program.

On Wednesday, 35 years later, Gibbs climbed the steps of the State House to congratulate Rhode Island for enacting what she called the nation’s strongest law against building schools on contaminated sites. She has taken the 2012 bill to Michigan, Massachusetts and New York to promote it as a model.

So why, she asked, would anyone want to “undo the best piece of legislation in this country? … It’s less than a year and already they are trying to tear up the law.

“Why,” she continued, “would people want to put Love Canal beneath a school?”

Gibbs, having learned of the attempt to weaken the law, traveled from Virginia to lend her experience and fame to support the year-old law prohibiting school construction where toxic vapors pose a risk. She joined the rally organized by the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island, Clean Water Action, and the Childhood Lead Action Project.

The groups lobbied for several years for the so-called “school siting law” after losing a fight to stop Alvarez High School from being built on the former Gorham Manufacturing property in Providence. They were not satisfied with the pollution control systems installed at Alvarez.

Under the law, a school cannot be built on land where vapors from contaminants could potentially infiltrate a new building through cracks and holes. The source of the vapors must be removed or a different site chosen.

But if the law is amended as proposed in House and Senate bills, it would permit the use of engineered solutions that the activists oppose as unreliable and costly to maintain for taxpayers — dollars that could otherwise be spent on education.

The understanding of toxic vapors is “a new science,” said Jamie Rhodes, director of Clean Water Action. “There’s no need to make kids guinea pigs.”

Gibbs, who in 1981 founded the Center for Health, Environment and Justice in Virginia, said both of her children became ill from Love Canal.

“We got sick not from the dump itself,” she said. “We got sick from vapor intrusion.”

The bills were drafted after the Rhode Island Mayoral Academies raised concerns about the law. The organization’s efforts to turn the site of the former Red Farm Studios greeting card company in Pawtucket into another Blackstone Valley Prep Charter School were halted when the law was enacted last year.

Story by: Richard Salit
Original Link: http://www.providencejournal.com/breaking-news/content/20130522-citizens-protest-legislation-that-would-ease-the-construction-of-schools-on-old-toxic-sites.ece