In eastern Washington, a push to clean PCBs from the Spokane River faces a dirty legacy and global pollution problem.
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Tag: water
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Making America’s Waters Burn Again
The Trump administration’s new Dirty Water Rule seeks to strip the Clean Water Act’s protections from an overwhelming number of our waterways and return our water to levels of pollution we last saw before the Clean Water Act’s enactment in 1972.
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Sustainable Earth: Water
CLEAN WATER IS essential for life, but most people in the developed world don’t think much about the water they use for drinking, food preparation, and sanitation. In developing nations, however, the search for safe drinking water can be a daily crisis. Millions of people die each year, most of them children, from largely preventable diseases caused by a lack of access to clean water and proper sanitation.
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MD Reject Permit for “Potomac Pipeline”
In what environmentalists hope is a major shift in state energy policy, Governor Larry Hogan voted to reject a permit necessary for a fracked-gas pipeline known as the “Potomac Pipeline.” During the Maryland Board of Public Works’ semi-monthly meeting, January 2nd Hogan and the other members of the board unanimously rejected a right-of-way easement for the project, which is proposed by a subsidiary of notorious energy company TransCanada.
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A water treatment plant in Tucson is replacing more than 56 tons of activated carbon to address newly-discovered perfluorinated compound contamination from the nearby Superfund site. “The fact that we have a treatment plant there at all is entirely driven by the Superfund site,” said Tim Thomure, director of Tucson Water.
The 10-square-mile Tucson International Airport site was designed as a Superfund in 1983. Superfund sites are considered some of the most contaminated places in the county. The water treatment plant was set up 11 years later to address the groundwater contamination. “The main process that we use is designed to remove TCE and 1,4 dioxane,” Thomure said. But with the recent discovery of perfluorinated compound contamination, the plant decided updates were needed to have specific management of perfluorinated compounds and other carcinogenic contaminants.
A panel of federal judges has rejected permits for the Atlantic Coast natural gas pipeline to cross two national forests and the Appalachian Trail in Virginia, finding that the U.S. Forest Service “abdicated its responsibility” and kowtowed to private industry in approving the project. <Read more>
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Drugs and Hormones In Your Water?
Researchers found at least one hormone or pharmaceutical in 7 percent of the 844 aquifers at depths used for public water supply and 14 percent of 247 sites at aquifers used for domestic supply. Emerging contaminant threats in the United States water supply — things like pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, and hormones — are garnering attention from public health experts and the federal government. Read more.
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State Stops Plan to Burn PFAS Waste
The state of Vermont changed its mind about sending about 2,500 gallons of the hazardous fire depressant known as PFOA and PFOS to a hazardous waste incinerator, when it discovered that the operator of the plant had been cited for numerous clean air violations. The Heritage Thermal Services incinerator in East Liverpool, OH has consistently and repeatedly been in violation of federal and state environmental laws and has been a Significant and Habitual Non-Complier of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and High Priority Violator of the Clean Air Act continuously for years. For the past three years running, for the 12 consecutive quarters from October 2014 to today, Heritage Thermal Services has been and continues to be a High Priority Violator of the Clean Air Act due to the release of excessive amounts of hazardous air pollutants and hydrocarbons. That’s 100% of the time. This is an increase over the three (3) year period from 2010 to 2012 when Heritage Thermal Services was a High Priority Violator 67% of the time.
What’s odd about the decision to burn this waste is that the very reason this family of chemicals are used by fire fighters is that it suppresses flames and is difficult to burn. It’s very likely that the much of the PFAS waste that would be burned in an incinerator would end up going out the smokestack creating air pollution problems.
The state changed its mind once it learned about Heritage’s track record. There was also public pressure from local citizens groups in Vermont who raised significant concerns about burning foam at a hazardous waste incinerator. Alonzo Spencer of the local groups Save Our County in East Liverpool credited the Conservation Law Foundation which has an office in Vermont with stopping the delivery of the waste. “I would like to personally thank Jen Duggen [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][Vermont director of CLF]. Heritage was on the verge of accepting waste from Vermont that Heritage couldn’t handle correctly. It was Duggan’s Foundation that opposed that. That waste would have been on its way now if she hadn’t intervened,” Spencer told a local paper.
The ingredients of these fire-fighting foams have been found to be toxic. PFOS and PFOA belong to a class of compounds called PFAS chemicals that have been linked to cancer, thyroid disease, developmental problems in children and immune system problems. They were banned for use by fire departments in the early 2000s and have become an emerging drinking water contaminant across the country. An estimated 110 million Americans have PFAS in their water according to a report by the Environmental Working Group. There are 32 military sites and 17 private sites contaminated with PFAS that are on the federal Superfund list. For more, <read here>.
Alonzo Spencer told his local paper, “The city has been spared a ‘disaster.’”[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League called upon Virginia Inspector General Michael Westfall to investigate the firing of two State Air Pollution Control Board members by Governor Ralph Northam. The request also cites threats by the state attorney general to disband the Governor’s Advisory Council on Environmental Justice. The request centers on a proposed natural gas pipeline compressor station air permit.
Sharon Ponton, BREDL’s Stop the Pipelines Campaign Coordinator, stated, “Governor Northam’s actions to replace Rebecca Rubin and Sam Bleicher are unethical and corrupt.” The letter of request written by Ponton to the IG details events she observed during the last few weeks. She concluded, “We believe that when the Governor sees a decision being made he doesn’t like, he puts his thumb on the scale to ensure Dominion Energy gets its way.”
Lou Zeller, BREDL’s Executive Director stated, “Governor Northam, throughout the pipeline permitting process in Virginia, has tried to straddle the fence, but his true position has been made clear in the last few weeks. He is disregarding the environmental racism being perpetrated on the freedmen community of Union Hill.” BREDL has a case on the compressor station now before the Virginia Supreme Court, with arguments set for December 4.
Ponton’s request to the IG also pointed to recent actions by Northam to dismiss the findings of the Governor’s Advisory Council on Environmental Justice. She said, “We have asked the Inspector General to complete a thorough investigation into the Governor’s actions. We believe the Governor abused his power, corrupted the permitting process, and broke with the public trust,” Ponton concluded.
The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League is a Virginia corporation with members and projects throughout the state. Its chapter in Union Hill, Virginia, Concern for the New Generations, was founded in 2016 to oppose the natural gas pipeline and compressor station proposed by Dominion Energy.
By: Sharon Franklin
In a November 5, 2018 Katie LaGrone and Matthew Apthorp of ABC Action News Tampa Florida, reported that “most Florida school districts don’t test for lead on campus”. They reported that Florida law requires school officials to protect children’s health and safety, but the law does not require schools to sample for lead in drinking water. Throughout the United States, there are only six states that require school systems to test for lead in drinking water. They are California, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey and New York. Across the country and around the state of Florida, lead-contaminated drinking water has put schools in the spotlight and under the microscope. In Florida’s Hillsborough County, 54 schools have tested above 15 parts per billion, the federal standard for action. Water fountains at the school recently tested 50.5 parts per billion (ppb) and 73.7 (ppb), nearly four and five times above that federal standard. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends lead levels should not exceed one part per billion (1/ppb).
The lack of consistent lead testing at schools in Florida is a statewide failure spelled out in a 2017 Environment Florida Report, where the sunshine state got an “F” for failing to keep school water from becoming laced with lead. Jennifer Rubiello, Executive Director of Environment Florida, a state advocacy group, said “lead testing is like Russian roulette”.
Believe it or not, there is no federal requirement for schools to test for lead in their water. Only 43% of school districts in the United States are purported to say that they have tested their water for lead in 2016 or 2017, according to the Government Accountability Office, and 37 percent of those districts found at least some of the toxic metal.
In a report by the USPIRG Education Fund Environment America Research & Policy Center released in February 2017, Get the Lead Out Ensuring Safe Drinking Water for Our Children at School by John Rumpler and Christina Schlegel, they stated the health threat of lead in schools water deserves immediate attention from state and local policymakers. They give two main reasons for this conclusion, (1) Lead is highly toxic and especially damaging to children, impairing how they learn, grow, and behave. (2) Current regulations are too weak to protect children from lead-laden water at school.
Where are we now on this issue? Currently, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has repeatedly delayed revisions to the Safe Drinking Water Act, which had earlier stated that eliminating lead from plumbing materials is the only way to guarantee nobody will drink lead-tainted water. . However, while we wait, our children are being still being exposed to another lethal threat. For additional information, see CHEJ resources fact sheets on water: http://chej.org/healthy-water-resources/