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Climate Change Worsens Toxic Exposures

Flooded neighborhood
Photo credit: AP/ Jason Dearen

By Leila Waid.

Climate change is one of the leading environmental challenges facing our world today. This will wreak havoc on all aspects of society and in some instances it already has from increasing droughts and wildfires to stronger storms and hurricanes. But one consequence of climate change that gets overlooked is its effects on toxic waste sites.   

Toxic waste sites are those where the waste disposed is dangerous to human health. Waste is defined as being hazardous when it “may leach hazardous concentrations of toxic substances into the environment when disposed.” The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classifies such hazardous locations as a Superfund site. Currently, there are 1,336 active Superfund sites – meaning there is still toxic waste present at the site. There are also 38 proposed locations that could become a Superfund site.

These Superfund sites can be found in almost every state, excluding only North Dakota. The Northeast region of the country has the highest concentration of waste sites – with New Jersey coming in at number 1 with a total of 115 sites. On the West Coast, California has the most at 96 sites.

How can climate change impact all these different waste sites? One example is that flooding and heavy rain can free debris from coal operations that would then contaminate the groundwater in surrounding areas. That contamination can then further spread through storm surges or rising sea levels. After that has happened it becomes more difficult to track and clean the toxins.

Wildfires are another concern for toxic waste sites. For example, California has a Superfund site with extremely high levels of asbestos. A “worst-case” scenario for this site includes a scenario where the wildfire smoke carries off the asbestos to hundreds of miles away –  impacting thousands of people in the vicinity who might inhale the toxin-contaminated smoke. 

What can you do to act on this issue today? Contact your representative and let them know you support bill H.R. 1444, titled Preparing Superfund for Climate Change Act of 2023. The bill would require that clean-up efforts consider the impacts of climate change when deciding the proper clean-up techniques.

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Backyard Talk Homepage News Archive

The Day My Life Changed Forever

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.
 

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Backyard Talk

Environmental Justice for Overburdened Communities: A View from New Jersey

 Last year, the New Jersey state legislature passed a landmark environmental justice bill that requires the state’s Department of Environmental Protection to identify overburdened communities in the state and to evaluate whether facilities seeking operating permits pose a   disproportionate, cumulative environmental impact on these communities. Facilities located in the same census tract as overburdened communities are subject to this requirement and include facilities that are major sources of air pollution (as defined under the Clean Air Act); resource recovery facilities or incinerators; sludge processing facilities, combustors, or incinerators; sewage treatment plants with capacity over 50 million gallons per day; and certain kinds of landfills.
This important piece of legislation was signed into law by the governor making New Jersey the first state to require a mandatory denial of a permit for new facilities and to impose conditions on renewal and expansion permits for existing facilities based on environmental justice (EJ) concerns alone. A new permit will be denied for facilities “where an [EJ] analysis determines a facility will have a disproportionately negative impact on overburdened communities.”
An overburdened community is defined in this bill as any census block group that fulfills at least one of the following criteria:

  • At least 35% of households qualify as low-income
  • At least 40% of residents identify as minority or as members of a tribal community
  • At least 40% of households have limited English proficiency

A low-income household is one that is at or below twice the poverty threshold (determined annually by the US Census Bureau)
A household with limited English proficiency is one where no adult speaks English “very well,” according to the US Census Bureau.
The bill requires that a company that wants a permit for a new facility, an expansion of a facility, or a permit renewal for an existing facility and if that facility is located partially or completely in an overburdened community, then the company must do the following three things:

  1. Write an environmental justice impact statement that evaluates the unavoidable potential environmental and health impacts associated with the facility and  the environmental and health impacts already affecting the overburdened community.
  1. Provide the environmental justice impact statement to government entities and the Community.
  1. Hold a public hearing no sooner than 60 days after providing the environmental justice impact statement:
    • The public hearing must be publicized in at least two newspapers that serve the community (including one non-English language newspaper).
    • The notice of the public hearing must include: description of the proposed facility, summary of the impact statement, date/time/location of the hearing, address at which community members can submit written comments.
    • The state Department of Environmental Protection will post the impact statement and the information about the public hearing on its website.

At the hearing the company “shall provide clear, accurate and complete information.”
For a full text of the bill, go to: https://legiscan.com/NJ/text/S232/2020

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In Georgia, 16 Superfund Sites Are Threatened by Extreme Weather Linked to Climate Change

From a distance, the inland marsh a few miles from the Atlantic Ocean in Brunswick, Georgia, looks like a broad, green mat broken by silvery threads of meandering rivers and creeks. There’s cordgrass four feet tall, and sea daisies that add a splash of starburst color.

The marsh is home to shrimp, blue crab and sea trout, and it’s the nesting site of Great Egrets. Bottlenose dolphins inhabit the nearby Turtle/Brunswick River Estuary in Glynn County.

But looks can be deceiving.

Beneath the bucolic green expanse, the water and sediment contain toxic mercury and PCBs from the now closed LCP Chemical plant, which produced chlorine gas, hydrogen gas, hydrochloric acid and other caustic chemicals from 1955 to 1994, at what has since been declared a Superfund hazardous waste site, managed by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The shrimp, crab and sea trout are tainted by the contaminants, putting local residents who still fish in the waters at risk for cancer, liver and kidney damage, according to a federal health assessment of the site.
Back in 2010, a researcher found “extremely high concentrations” of persistent organochlorine contaminants (POCs) in the local bottlenose dolphin population, with LCP Chemical and other nearby Superfund sites considered potential sources of the contamination.
With climate change a leading issue in Georgia’s two closely watched Senate runoff elections on Jan. 5, the effects of a warming planet directly threaten LCP Chemical and 15 other Superfund sites in the state. They could be potentially affected by intensified hurricanes, flooding, sea level rise or wildfires.
Read More
Photo Credit: NOAA

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Backyard Talk

Residential Segregation and Disproportionate Exposure to Airborne Carcinogens

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis published a paper late last year that found carcinogens present in the air of the St. Louis metropolitan area to be highly concentrated in Black and poor neighborhoods. They found that approximately 14% of the census tracks in the city had elevated cancer risk due to exposure to toxic chemicals in the air and that these air toxic hots spots were independently associated with neighborhoods with high levels of poverty and unemployment, and low levels of education. Census tracks with the highest levels of both racial isolation of Blacks and economic isolation of poverty were more likely to be located in air toxic hot spots than those with low combined racial and economic isolation.
This paper is important because the authors used an innovative geospatial approach developed by other researchers to identify spatial patterns of residential segregation in their study area. This approach captures the degree of segregation at the neighborhood level and identifies patterns of isolation of different metrics, which in this study was black isolation and poverty isolation. This approach differs from tradition methods that looked at the percentage of blacks or poverty in a neighborhood.
The authors used these two segregation measures – Black isolation and poverty isolation – to identify neighborhoods segregated by race and income in the St. Louis metropolitan area and evaluated the risks of exposure to carcinogens in the air in these areas. The cancer risk data came from the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Air Toxics Assessment and the census track sociodemographic data came from the American Community Survey. All spatial analyses were conducted using Arc GIS software.
These researchers found that census track levels of poverty, undereducation and unemployment were associated with toxic hot spots, while factors such as per capita income and median household income were inversely associated with toxic hot spots. These findings support other studies that identified disparities in exposures to ambient air emissions of toxic chemicals and that raised questions about whether residential segregation leads to differential exposure to air pollutants.
While the authors discuss a number of possible pathways connecting segregation and health, the relationship between segregation and exposure to air toxics is unclear. They discuss various factors that result in segregation leading to the “cycle of segregation” that includes neighborhoods with low social capital, few community resources and low property values which tends to attract more low income and minority residents and exposures to unhealthy air toxics.
The authors concluded that this study provides strong evidence of the unequal distribution of carcinogenic air toxics in the St Louis metropolitan area and that residential segregation leads to differential exposure to chemicals in the air that cause cancer.

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Stories of Local Leaders

Karen Nickel and Dawn Chapman: Just Moms STL

By: Jenna Clark, Communications Intern
Karen and Dawn will tell you that they are “just moms,” but you shouldn’t believe them. Just Moms STLIn their
community of West Lake, Missouri, these two moms have led the battle against nearby nuclear waste. For 8 years, they have diligently organized community members, educated
local officials, spearheaded investigations into toxic waste mere miles from their homes, called EPA administrators day in and day out, and ultimately achieved their goal: federal recognition of its responsibility for the nuclear waste that threatens their community’s health, and its impending removal. 
Rather than “just moms” it might be better to say that they are “moms, and…” Moms first, unequivocally and with pride, but just moms, never.
For Karen and Dawn, their kids are inextricable from their stories of the fights, challenges, and victories of their mission. Karen potty trained her youngest while calling the EPA: “When I first got involved in this, 2012, 2013, that was right when my youngest was potty training. And we’d be on a conference call with the EPA, and he’d be hollering for me from the bathroom. And I’d be quietly slipping him Cheerios and books and saying ‘you can’t get up until you go!’” Her kids are now 10, 12, and 14, and the oldest has an autoimmune disorder, likely caused by the toxic waste practically in their backyard.   
Karen not only raised her own children near to tons of nuclear waste, she grew up there herself. After learning in 2012 that the Army Corps of Engineers was cleaning up a site adjacent to her home in West Lake, she realized that both she and her children had been exposed: “After attending that meeting I learned that I was raising my own four kids now, miles from a burning radioactive landfill. The fire had been burning since 2010, and I had been raising my own kids here for the past 20+ years. So, I have 4 kids, 3 of them are grown, one just graduated from high school, and I have grandchildren. We’ve been working on educating, promoting, raising awareness about the West Lake Landfill.” 
The problems with the West Lake Landfill begin with the Manhattan Project in 1942. As the U.S. military sought to build the world’s first nuclear bomb, barrels of toxic waste from the uranium purification process were left outside of St. Louis. In the 1970s, efforts were made to clean up the site, without much success. Some was sent to be stored in Colorado, but much of the radioactive soil was dumped illegally into the West Lake Landfill.  
For decades the presence of nuclear waste wasn’t acknowledged. However, in 2010 a fire began in the nearby Bridgeton Landfill, which is adjacent to the West Lake Landfill. With the fire came an intense stench. Karen and Dawn started to notice. 
Dawn explained how she and Karen began working together: “Karen and I were neighbors and we didn’t even know. We had been living right around the corner from each other for years. I found out because I could smell the toxins from the fire that were coming out. And I put a call in to the local municipality, and they didn’t want to answer any questions. And I thought, oh God. And they sent me to the state regulator, which was the Department of Natural Resources…He was just pouring information out, and was really panicked. And I thought, this is a big deal.”  
Once Karen and Dawn learned about the waste, they began a long term effort for its removal, and founded their organization, Just Moms STL. Karen credits team-work and connectivity as a major reason for their success: “Most importantly we used the connections that we had, both Dawn and I being involved with PTA’s in school and what not. We literally started one family at a time, sitting down and showing them documents that we had read about the fire. We spent really the first 2.5 years just educating, 24 hours a day, sitting with documents, just learning what we could learn. And then taking that out into the community and building relationships with other community leaders…You have to make those connections because you have to start building your army. Because this is a fight, and we need an army.”  
Their best advice for activists just getting started? Find a team you trust. And if you can’t find one, create one: “Find a Karen. Find a Karen Nickel. Don’t isolate yourself within this fight, find a group, find somebody that you can really trust and count on,” says Dawn.  
She adds, “Have a goal. What do you want to see happen at the end of this? And be prepared that should you achieve it, validation doesn’t feel like you think it is going to feel...Forget everything you knew about how change happens.”  
For Karen and Dawn, this means that even now, after they “won” their battle, they still have work to do. Many of the problems caused by the nuclear waste and other toxic materials in their community still exist. Many people in the area, including Karen, will be dealing with negative health effects from the pollution for their entire lives.  
 Acknowledging this, Karen and Dawn’s story illustrates the power of team-work and community activism. With enough determination and drive, it is possible to create change. The groups responsible for large scale pollution can be held accountable for their actions, and you don’t need professional training or to be a policy or legal expert to do it. Yes, you can even be “just” a mom. As a part of our new series, Living Room Leadership, we recently spoke with Dawn and Karen. Watch our conversation here.

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Homepage News Archive Superfund News

Superfund and Climate Change Events: A Personal Account of Flooding and the Risk of Toxin Release in Midland, Michigan

Climate change has resulted in devastating flooding and natural disasters that have overwhelmed and greatly impacted communities. The Edenville dam along the Tittabawassee River in mid-Michigan collapsed due to large amounts of rainfall on May 19th, resulting in the collapse of another nearby dam. The resulting impacts of these events led to extreme flooding and the evacuation of nearly 10,000 residents in the surrounding areas. Communities with Superfund sites are in specific danger due to the potential mass movement of toxins into communities during flooding. Mary McKSchmidt, an author, photographer, and community member in Midland County, Michigan reflects on extreme flooding events that have put surrounding communities at risk for exposure to toxic chemicals from a Dow chemical complex and a large Superfund site. The Government Accountability Office has recommended that Superfund sites should be actively protected by planning for possible climate change events. However, the EPA has yet to address this issue. Read More

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Flooding at Dioxin Superfund Site in Midland, Michigan

Midland, Michigan is still assessing the damages after torrential rain and dam failure flooded the area. The height of concern was the status of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Saginaw River Dredge Material Disposal Facility that houses dioxin contaminated sediments that could have spread from the storm water. The facility appears to have remained in tact; however, there is still concern that the flood could have spread river sediment already contaminated with dioxin from Dow towards residential properties. It may take some time to fully determine the extent of the damage in Midland as many properties are still under water. Read More.

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Flooding Creates Problems for Dow Superfund Cleanup

Flooding from two breached dams on Wednesday, May 20, has created problems for the Dow chemical plant in Michigan. Downriver from the plastics plant is a Superfund site located on the Tittabawassee River. Allen Burton, a professor at the University of Michigan explains that the flooding water creates concern for the site cleanup because it can stir contaminated sediments with the river water and carry the contamination further downstream. Further concern is raised at how climate change could impact Superfund site cleanup efforts with increases in flooding, severe storms and wildfires. Read More.

The following story is reprinted on the CHEJ website from the New York Times and written by Hiroko Tabuchi.

Dam Failure Threatens a Dow Chemical Complex and Superfund Cleanup

By Hiroko Tabuchi

Floodwaters from two breached dams in Michigan on Wednesday flowed into a sprawling Dow chemical complex and threatened a vast Superfund toxic-cleanup site downriver, raising concerns of wider environmental fallout from the dam disaster and historic flooding.

The compound, which also houses the chemical giant’s world headquarters, lies on the banks of the Tittabawassee River in Midland, where by late Wednesday rising water had encroached on some parts of downtown. Kyle Bandlow, a Dow spokesman, said that floodwaters had reached the Dow site’s outer boundaries and had flowed into retaining ponds designed to hold what he described as brine water used on the site.

The Superfund cleanup sites are downriver from the century-old plant, which for decades had released chemicals into the nearby waterways. The concern downriver, according to Allen Burton, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Michigan, is that contaminated sediments on the river floor could be stirred up by the floodwaters, spreading pollution downstream and over the riverbanks.

“You worry about the speed of the current, this wall of water coming down the river,” he said. “It just has a huge amount of power.”

Mr. Bandlow did not provide information on the status of the cleanup sites.

 Over the years the Dow complex has manufactured a range of products including Saran Wrap, Styrofoam, Agent Orange and mustard gas. Over time, Dow released chemicals into the water, leading to dioxin contamination stretching more than 50 miles along the Tittabawassee and Saginaw Rivers and into Lake Huron. Research has shown that dioxins can damage the immune system, cause reproductive or developmental problems, and cause cancer.

There is also a tiny nuclear research reactor on the site, used to create material that can be used in product experiments. Overnight, Dow filed an “unusual event” report with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission warning of potential flooding at the site. But the reactor had already been shut down because of the coronavirus crisis, and there were no indications of flood damage on Wednesday.

A federally funded Superfund cleanup of the Tittabawassee River began in 2007, and was slated for completion next year. Cleanup of other contaminated waterways is set to take longer.

“I would hate to see 13 years of work literally go down the drain if this flood wipes away the effort,” said Terry Miller, chairman of the local environmental group, Lone Tree Council, which has for years campaigned for a cleanup. “We were almost nearing the end.”

Two Dams That Failed Were Rated ‘High Hazard.’ A Third of Michigan’s Dams Hold a Similar Risk.
More than 300 dams in the state are classified as having the potential to cause loss of life or economic and environmental damage in the case of a failure, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

A former lawyer for Dow who oversaw the cleanup for more than a decade, Peter C. Wright, now runs the federal government’s Superfund cleanup program within the Environmental Protection Agency. A 2018 New York Times investigation found that while Mr. Wright led Dow’s legal strategy relating to the cleanup, the chemical giant was accused by regulators, and in one case a Dow whistle-blower, of submitting disputed data, misrepresenting scientific evidence and delaying cleanup.

Mr. Wright has pledged to recuse himself from cleanups related to his former employer, and was not involved in the government’s response to the flooding, said Francisco Arcaute, a Chicago-based spokesman for the E.P.A.

The agency was prepared to assist Michigan “in assessing and responding to any public health and environmental impacts from the Tittabawassee River Superfund Site and Dow’s Midland facility due to the ongoing flooding,” Mr. Arcaute said, including dispatching emergency personnel to the area.

Dow has not reported chemical releases into the river, Mr. Arcaute added. He said that the company’s Superfund agreement with the agency would require the company to survey for recontamination or any other effect on cleanup efforts after the flooding.

Dow agreed last year to pay another $77 million to fund projects that would attempt to restore nearby fish and wildlife habitats to compensate for decades of pollution from its plant. Signs along the river warn locals not to eat fish caught there, and to avoid contact with soil and river sediment.

The threat to the Dow complex highlights the risks to Superfund and other toxic cleanup sites posed by the effects of climate change, which include more frequent and severe flooding. A federal report published last year found that 60 percent of Superfund sites overseen by the E.P.A., or more than 900 toxic sites countrywide, are in areas that may be affected by flooding or wildfires, both hazards that may be exacerbated by climate change.

The Trump administration rejected the report’s recommendation that the federal government provide more clarity on how it intends to incorporate climate research into readying these sites to withstand a changing climate.

Hiroko Tabuchi is an investigative reporter on the climate desk. She was part of the Times team that received the 2013 Pulitzer for explanatory reporting.
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A Pandemic of Pollution

The death toll due to Covid-19 passed the 90,000 mark in the United States this week. This is a truly staggering if not sobering number that raises many questions about how we as a nation respond to this incredible loss of life. These are not just numbers, but people – someone’s mother, father, brother, sister, grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt, friend, lover, child… The daily news boils this down to statistics. Numbers of new cases and deaths are reported each day before the newscaster moves on to the next story. Are we normalizing this staggering loss of life? Even worse, are we accepting it?
Yet I look at the leadership of this country and I don’t see people who empathize with those who have lost someone to this deadly virus. I don’t see people who are taking steps to minimize the impact of this insidious virus.
There is still much that we don’t know about Covid-19 and its effects on people, but it is becoming quite clear that low income residents and people of color are disproportionately impacted by exposure to the coronavirus. It’s also become clear that underlying health conditions, such as respiratory problems like asthma and COPD; diabetes, high blood pressure, immune diseases like lupus multiple sclerosis make people more vulnerable to covid-19, not just among the elderly, but among people of color and others with these diseases.
Why then is the USEPA doing all that it can to dismantle (repeal or weaken) regulations that protect people’s health. A report released today by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee describes how specific actions taken by EPA to weaken or repeal air pollution rules and regulations will “harm public health and potentially add to COVID-19 risks.”
The report specifically points to seven rules that were initially designed to remove greenhouse gas, soot, mercury and other pollution from the air that the agency has targeted and proposed or finalized actions since March 1st that “will result in increased air pollution and could cause tens of thousands of premature deaths. EPA has, in short, unleashed a pandemic of pollution in the middle of an actual pandemic, the respiratory effects of which may be amplified by pollution exposure.”
The committee is clear that the agency should reverse its deregulating efforts and strengthened rather than weaken the country’s air pollution laws and regulations, and take steps to address the Covid-19 specific risks posed by air pollution. In the committee’s words:
“EPA should re-focus its enforcement, compliance and monitoring activities in a manner that prioritizes the early detection of high exposure to air pollutants in communities that have both historically experienced such exposures and those at greatest risk of adverse outcomes from COVID-19.”
This and other recommendations made by the Senate Committee offer hope that we will not accept 90,000 deaths and counting as the cost of doing business in the United States. There are steps we can take to reduce and minimize the impacts of Covid-19.
Read the full report here.