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.
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Tag: toxic chemicals
What a nightmare.
EPA administrator Scott Pruitt promised to restore Superfund and the EPA’ s land and water cleanup efforts “to their rightful place at the center of the agency’s core mission.” He made this announcement in April while visiting a site in Indiana where hundreds of families must relocate because it is unsafe to live there. When I heard the announcement, I was excited. Unfortunately, soon afterwards his action spoke louder. Pruitt is not being honest. But judge for yourself.
On May 12th Susan Bodine was nominated to be assistant administrator for the EPA’s office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. Qualified? Well in a way, if she was fighting for the polluters. She represented polluting industries as a partner at Barnes & Thornburg, LLP a law firm. Bodine represented the American Forest and Paper Association (AFPA) from 2011 to 2014. Members of the AFPA have hundreds of EPA enforcement actions against them, including violations of the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act. She defended these industries against EPA.
This is the classic revolving door appointment. Since the enforcement office handles negotiations between the companies responsible for the pollution and the EPA, Bodine would be able to decide how extensive some cleanups are — and how much polluters have to spend cleaning them. Some of those enforcement action will be against her former clients.
How does she feel about poisoned communities? In testimony before a Senate hearing on Superfund in 2014, Bodine said she didn’t think most problems with the program were due to a lack of funding. Instead she blamed some of the delays in cleanups on community members who block access to sites. “If the agency can’t get access to the site, they can’t do the cleanup,” she said, adding that she believed the agency was doing its best.
Superfund’s progress has slowed to a near standstill in recent years, not due to communities who want the best cleanup possible, after all they live there. No, the problem is due to a lack of funding. A tax on polluting industries originally paid into a fund for the cleanups expired in 1995, leaving regular taxpayers to pick up the tab when the government can’t identify a polluter — or when a polluter doesn’t have enough money to pay.
Since there are fewer clean up actions the number of people exposed to dangerous pollution has climbed. In 2010, there were 75 Superfund sites where the government had yet to bring toxic exposure to humans under control. By last year, that number was up to 121, according to the most recent EPA data.
This week there were two other significant announcements related to Superfund. The budget cuts and a new taskforce. Superfund budget was cut by a third, 330 million dollars. Enforcement efforts will be cut by 40%. How does Pruitt think he’s going to keep his promise to fulfill the program, move it front and center with less money and a lead attorney who has been on the other side of the table for years representing polluters.
Pruitt’s new Superfund Task Force is even more absurd. He chose Albert Kelly to chair the taskforce an Oklahoma banker who has no prior experience with the program or with environmental issues at all, according to his résumé. However, Kelly has donated twice to Pruitt’s campaigns in Oklahoma, has spent the past 33 years working at Spiritbank, served as its chairman, which is headquartered in Tulsa. The “core competencies” listed on his résumé, include motivational speaking, business development, and “political activity.”
Washington D.C. seems to get crazier every passing day. For all of you who care about our environment, public health and fairness, take the time to get involved. Together we need to talk with our representatives at the home offices and demand change. If you don’t think that representative is listening or supporting your core issues than find someone to replace them and work on that person’s campaign. We can’t whine our way through this insanity we must get out and take actions.
A new study published last week in the Journal of Environmental Protection provides new evidence that the gas extraction process of hydrofracturing, known as fracking, is harming the health of people who live near these wells. This study found that counties in Pennsylvania with higher numbers of fracking wells had higher rates of infant mortality.
The authors compared early infant mortality for the years 2007-2010 in ten Pennsylvania counties that were heavily fracked to the rates for the rest of the Pennsylvania (excluding the 10 heavily fracked counties) for the years 2003-2006 which was considered a pre-fracking period. The results showed a statistically significant 29% excess risk for newborn infants of dying during the first 28 days of life if they were born in the ten heavily fracked counties during the 4-year period following development of fracking gas wells in these counties. The early infant mortality rate for the rest of the state decreased by 2% during this same time-period. The association with infant mortality was even greater in the five northeast Pennsylvania counties of Susquehanna, Bradford, Wyoming, Lycoming and Tioga where the early infant mortality rate increased by 67%. These counties had the greatest number of fracking wells. The early infant mortality rate was increased by 18% in the five southwest Pennsylvania counties of Washington, Westmoreland, Greene, Butler and Fayette where fracking also occurred but at lesser rates.
According to the report, about 50 more babies died in these 10 counties than would have been predicted if the rate had been the same over the study period as it was for all of Pennsylvania, where the incidence rate fell over the same period. Although the study could not prove what might be causing these increases in infant mortality, the authors did observe an association between early infant mortality and the number of drinking water violations in private wells in the five northeast PA counties. This finding led the authors to state that the increase risk of early infant mortality might be related to exposure to drinking water which may be contaminated. They further noted that this contamination might be due to the release of naturally occurring radioactive material, including radium, thorium and uranium caused by underground explosions set off by the natural gas extraction process.
In closing, the authors described early infant mortality as “a flag for genetic damage, and thus represents a “miner’s canary” for other ill health effects in children and adults, particularly cancer, though there is a temporal lag in cancer between exposure and clinical expression.” While this study has its limitations, it still raises serious questions about the safety of the natural gas extraction process called fracking. To read the full study, see http://file.scirp.org/pdf/JEP_2017042413181160.pdf.
Doctors found the first tumors in Christen Commuso’s ovaries in 2012. Before long, more turned up in her gall bladder, thyroid and adrenal glands. Lesions appeared on her liver. While she was undergoing multiple surgeries, her stepdaughter, then 7, was learning that she could no longer climb stairs without stopping to catch her breath. Eventually, she was diagnosed with asthma. Read more.
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Just Moms St. Louis, MO Closer To Buyout
Missouri senators have passed a buyout program targeting homes near a St. Louis-area Superfund site. Senators voted 30-3 Wednesday to send the measure to the House. It would allow residents to apply for buyouts for homes found uninhabitable due to contamination or within 3 miles of sites with high levels of dissolved radium in groundwater. The measure is aimed at homes near Bridgeton Landfill and adjacent West Lake Landfill, where Cold War-era nuclear waste was buried in the 1970s and adjacent to a burning landfill. Read more.
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March for Science
As a scientist, it’s not unusual to experience people not understanding the jargon and complexity of science. Part of what we’re trained to do is explain and interpret what we do. What’s much harder to understand is the total dismissal of scientific information and consensus around issues. While science does not have many critical answers for people exposed to toxic chemicals, it is nonetheless the foundation of what we do know. It can tell us what chemicals people are exposed to, the concentration of those chemicals, and the risks these exposures pose. We often don’t know how long a person was exposed, what interactions/synergistic effects might result if exposed to more than one chemical, or what specific health outcomes a person can expect or anticipate.
There are clear limitations in what we know, but that does not mean we ignore the science altogether. This what Donald Trump is proposing to do with climate change, ignore what the vast majority of scientific researchers who devote their life to studying this issue have coming to agree on – that human behavior is influencing the earth’s climate in a dangerous way that cannot be ignored.
This is why the scientific community is stepping out of its comfort zone and organizing a march on Washington to protest the dismissal of worldwide scientific consensus on the issue of global climate change. As described on its website the “March for Science is a celebration of science. It’s not only about scientists and politicians; it’s about the very real role that science plays in each of our lives and the need to respect and encourage research that gives us insight into the world.”
There’s a lot of push back coming from within the scientific community that generally shuns public involvement in politics. But this is an unusual time. Not only has the President of the United States called global warming a “hoax” … “created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive,” but there is an alarming tend towards dismissing scientific facts and consensus, and an illogical attack on research funding that threatens our basic world understanding. These threats have left scientists with little choice but to come together and speak out.
This is an unparalleled opportunity to highlight the value of science and show your opposition to the war on science. Join the March for Science on April 22nd in Washington, DC. For more information, see https://www.marchforscience.com/
Indigenous people from around the world gathered to promote sovereignty, resistance, respect, justice and love at the Native Nations Rise March 10th. I was honored to walk along side of Indigenous women, children and men. The weather was freezing with rain, sleet and snow. The wind howled as if joining the marches with a powerful message of protecting the earth and halting the harms.
The march began at the United States Army Corps of Engineers building and then moved past the Trump International Hotel. In front of the Trump Hotel a short demonstration was held to let guests and Trump hear the voices of the people. Now completely frozen, I continued to march to the White House. Throughout the march there was a unified message aimed at President Donald Trump and his administration: Mni Wiconi, “Water is Life!” The chant has become a shorthand for tribes’ struggle to reassert tribal sovereignty and self-determination over their physical and spiritual spheres. The phrase was joined by many other expressions aimed at attracting the attention of the federal government: “We stand with Standing Rock!” – “Keep the oil in the soil, you can’t drink oil!” – “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Donald Trump has got to go!” – And, “Shame, shame, shame!”
A rally with extraordinary speakers joined at the end of the March at a park, in front of the White House. Powerful words were voiced by Native leaders. It was a march that I will always hold close to my heart. Although I was frozen to the bone – I felt fire in the belly and ready to take on the fight for justice.
Read more here.
Pennsylvania officials say they’ve confirmed the state’s first fracking-related earthquakes took place last year in Lawrence County, northwest of Pittsburgh. As a result, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is stepping up its requirements for drilling in that part of the state, which is known for seismic activity. Read more.
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An Open Letter to New EPA Chief Scott Pruitt: You’re Not in Oklahoma Anymore
02/17/2017 06:02 pm ET
Ken Cook Environmental Working Group
Dear Mr. Pruitt:
On Friday, in a near-partisan vote, the Senate confirmed you as the next administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s sad to say, but this is the darkest moment in the history of an agency that for 46 years has worked to ensure that Americans drink clean water, breathe healthy air and are protected from dangerous toxic chemicals.
As Oklahoma attorney general, you filed or supported more than two dozen lawsuits against the very agency you now must lead. Most notoriously, you sought to block the EPA’s efforts to combat climate change. But you also opposed initiatives to protect children from mercury poisoning, and reduce air pollution that causes asthma and thousands of premature deaths, among other measures to protect public health. In your home state, you did little or nothing to curb water pollution from toxic manure discharged by big chicken and pig farms.
In your confirmation hearing you could not name a single EPA regulation you thought was a good idea – not even removing lead from gasoline.
The day before your confirmation, an Oklahoma judge ordered the release of 3,000 emails between your office and the fossil fuel industry next week. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided Americans did not have the right to know what was in those emails before the confirmation vote. For now, we can only speculate about their contents, but your record shows you have collaborated with polluters with the same coziness Gen. Michael Flynn displayed as he communicated with Russia’s ambassador about election tampering.
There has never been a nominee for EPA administrator opposed so strongly by environmental and public health advocates, scientists, and hundreds of current and former EPA officials. We are determined to fight back against what we expect will be an unprecedented assault on public health and the environment. But we also have a word for you:
You’re not in Oklahoma anymore.
It is shameful that someone with your anti-environment record and philosophy has been handed the most important environmental job in the world. But you will not get a free pass to trash America’s air and water as you did in Oklahoma, when you claimed that the interests of polluters were synonymous with the interests of the people of your state.
You will not get a free pass to ignore science or muzzle scientists. You will not slash the EPA budget as you slashed environmental enforcement in Oklahoma – not without a fight.
You will not degrade or subvert the rule of environmental law that represents one of America’s distinctive contributions to the welfare of our planet just to please your polluter cronies, their friends in Congress or their cheerleader in the White House.
Why? Because the American people will rise up and fight you every step of the way.
Our nation’s leadership in environmental protection is a prime example of what has made America great again and again and again – for decades. We have no intention of standing by while you dismantle that hard-won legacy at the behest of fossil fuels or elected fools.
We aren’t going anywhere, Mr. Pruitt. And you are not in Oklahoma anymore.
Gov. Eric Holcomb signed an executive order declaring a disaster emergency for East Chicago’s USS Lead Superfund site.
The declaration provides for 30 days of enhanced state assistance for the estimated 100 residents who have yet to relocate from the lead contaminated West Calumet Housing Complex, as well as other lead-impacted citizens in the affected area.
Governor Holcomb did what Pence refused to do last year. Residents and community groups heavily criticized Pence last year for not meeting personally with those affected by the lead and arsenic contamination. Read more.