Breaking News
- Concern Grows Over Diesel Fumes
- Toxic Releases Drop, But Worst Toxins Persist
- Frustrated Family Copes with Asbestosis
- Federal Court Throws Out Weak PVC Standards
NJ Concerns Grow Over Diesel Fumes
The Asbury Park Press
June 16, 2005
Cheryl Dluoik, a 33-year-old physical therapist from Deptford, often worries about the children who get on buses at the special-needs school where she works.
The staff frequently closes the doors of the building because of the nasty fumes from the buses.
"I think they have something to do with all the allergies and asthma we're seeing," Dluoik said of the buses.
In fact, an ever-growing body of health studies suggests that this is the case. Diesel exhaust is a complex and unhealthy mixture of inorganic and organic carbon particles, with doses of toxins and metals thrown in.
Not all buses are bad. But many are older and lack even rudimentary pollution controls.
New Jersey ranks second only to New York in health risk linked to diesel emissions, which caused an estimated 880 premature deaths in the state in 1999, according to a recent Clean Air Task Force study. The task force is a Boston-based nonprofit dedicated to improving air quality.
While some researchers are just now launching studies to determine whether diesel exhaust indeed leads directly to death and what mechanisms are at play, the state Department of Environmental Protection considers diesel emissions to be a major public health threat. The DEP says diesel exhaust is a key contributor of fine-particle soot that can cause asthma, bronchitis, cancer and premature deaths.
The DEP now prohibits trucks from idling for more than three minutes. Signs alerting truckers to the prohibition can be seen posted at convenience stores across the state.
"The reality is that people aren't enforcing the law at the local level," said Amy Goldsmith of the New Jersey Environmental Federation. But she expects a federal requirement that trucks and buses use cleaner-burning, low-sulfur fuels beginning Sept. 1, 2006, to bring about a major reduction in pollution from diesel vehicles.
A bill sponsored by Assemblyman John F. McKeon, D-Essex, would require low-sulfur fuels for off-road vehicles as well.
Environmentalists plan to push for a revamping of state gasoline taxes to create a fund for pollution-equipment retrofits of commercial vehicles after passage of the McKeon bill.
One of the key hurdles McKeon faced in advancing his bill was ensuring public money will be available to pay for upgrades. The state is required to cover the cost of complying with programs it mandates.
As a result, voters will be asked in November to vote on a constitutional amendment shifting money collected from the corporate business tax for other environmental programs to pay for the diesel program. This would make $16 million available annually, McKeon said.
The process of retrofitting vehicles will take several years, with school buses coming first. They will be equipped with devices to enclose crankcases, the primary source of diesel pollution inside the cabins of school buses.
The New Jersey bill estimates the cost of retrofitting school buses at $800 each. The DEP will conduct a study to determine if further pollution controls are needed to protect the health of children.
Peg Sturmfels, 55, of Jackson said her 5-year-old grandson spends more than three hours a day on a bus. She believes fumes in the cabin exacerbate his asthma.
"I really believe that if you're putting all these children on school buses, public dollars should go to saving those kids first," she said. "They're so young, and their systems are just starting to develop. They breathe twice as fast as us."
Toxic Releases Drop But Worst Toxins Persist
ABCNews.com/Christian Science Monitor
By Brad Knickerbocker
May 18, 2005 -- The good news about toxic pollutants in the air, soil and water is that overall levels are coming down. But according to the Environmental Protection Agency some of the most toxic substances, mercury, dioxin, lead and PCBs, remain an increasing problem.
The recent announcement of another round of military base closures could put more focus on the problem of toxic waste and how to solve it.
The EPA notes significant pollution problems at some 100 military bases, and 34 already-shuttered bases are among the most toxic "Superfund" sites, according to a survey by The Associated Press. Problems persist with such hard-to-remove contaminants as cleaning solvents, asbestos, radioactive materials, unexploded ordnance and lead paint. The Pentagon already has spent $8.3 billion cleaning up recently closed military sites, and the total bill could top $12 billion.
All of this makes it difficult for the Pentagon to convert such facilities to state or privately owned properties, the Government Accountability Office reported recently. In most cases, it takes years, if not decades, to finish the cleanup. In some places, for example, poisonous chemicals have seeped into groundwater flowing off-base.
According to the GAO, which looked at the previous four rounds of base closures going back to 1988, 28 percent of the total acreage has yet to be transferred "due primarily to the need for environmental cleanup."
Some Progress, But PBTs Building
While new base closures announced last week will add to that problem, total amounts of toxic pollution in the U.S. environment have edged down.
In its latest annual Toxics Release Inventory, which covers more than 23,000 facilities and about 650 chemicals, the EPA reports that 4.4 billion pounds of toxic chemicals were released in 2003 (the latest available figures), about 6 percent less than the previous year. Most of the decrease was in metal mining and chemical manufacturing. Since 1998, before which fewer chemicals and fewer facilities were reported, toxic releases have gone down 42 percent.
At the same time, EPA officials and environmentalists note the worrisome release of persistent bioaccumulative and toxic chemicals, which increased by 50 million pounds or 11 percent in the latest reporting year. These include dioxins, mercury, and polychlorinated biphenyls.
"PBT chemicals are of particular concern," reports the EPA, "not only because they are toxic, but also because they remain in the environment for long periods of time and are not readily destroyed [they persist] and build up or accumulate in body tissues [they bioaccumulate]."
In 2003, for example, mercury and mercury-compound releases jumped 41 percent. Mercury is a highly toxic substance that can poison wildlife and cause brain and nervous system damage in children and fetuses. Unlike most other pollutants, mercury tends to concentrate in dangerous "hot spots."
"Although it is good news that overall releases are back on track, it is a major concern that some of the most hazardous chemicals have increased so dramatically," says Meghan Purvis, an environmental health specialist with U.S. Public Interest Research Group in Washington.
Assessing the Future
Meanwhile, according to the watchdog group Environmental Integrity Project, the 50 dirtiest among the nation's 359 largest power plants generate as little as 14 percent of the electric power but account for a disproportionately large share of pollution emissions: up to 50 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions, 42 percent of mercury, 40 percent of nitrogen oxides and 35 percent of carbon dioxide.
"A huge share of these emissions comes from a handful of unnecessarily dirty power plants that have not yet installed modern pollution controls, or which operate inefficiently," says Eric Schaeffer, director of the Environmental Integrity Project and the EPA's former chief of regulatory enforcement.
Others take a longer view of pollution in the United States.
"In reality, the data is very clear," says Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council in Washington, which lobbies on behalf of power plants and utilities around the country. "Power plant emissions, along with other indicators of air quality in the United States, continue to improve as part of a trend dating back several decades."
"With a decade of compiled research . we've found that it is nearly impossible to paint a grim, doom-and-gloom picture anymore," says Steven Hayward of the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank in San Francisco that co-publishes the "Index of Leading Environmental Indicators" with the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "The facts speak for themselves, and the facts are hugely encouraging."
Other more recent facts may be less encouraging, however. For example, the Sierra Club reported last month that leaky underground storage tanks "are a growing threat to public health."
In all, there are some 130,000 leaking tanks around the country, including 17,544 needing cleanup in Florida, 15,049 in California, 9,039 in Michigan and 1,221 in Tennessee.
"More than 100 million people drink groundwater in states where thousands of underground storage tanks are leaking and need cleanups," says Grant Cope, a toxics specialist with the Sierra Club. "These sites include toxics like benzene, toluene, and heavy metals that can quickly pollute groundwater, threaten public health, burden taxpayers with cleanup costs, and hurt real estate values . A pin prick-sized hole in one fuel tank can leak 400 gallons of contamination a day, and one gallon of gasoline can pollute 1 million gallons of groundwater."
Frustrated Family Copes with Asbestosis
Trentonian.com
by Pete Daley
April 24, 2005
TRENTON -- Had he known the risks of his job, Gerardo Ramos might have done things differently.
But for Ramos, who emigrated to Trenton from Puerto Rico as a bright-eyed 17-year-old, the ability to secure a well-paying and respectable job at the W.R. Grace Zonolite plant in Hamilton only a year after coming to the United States matched success with his ambition.
Ramos worked hard as a mixer at the plant on Industrial Drive, part of the process by which some 350,000 tons of vermiculite ore shipped from a Montana mine was transformed for use as fireproofing and concrete filler from 1948 until the closing of the plant in 1994.
It was 1970, and Ramos was making enough money to send some back to his family in Puerto Rico. A few years later, he met and married his wife, Linda, and they settled down in Trenton, content with life.
Like so many other former Grace workers, Ramos said he was kept in the dark about the hazards of working with vermiculite, which contained high levels of naturally occurring asbestos.
Confusion and anger have reigned among the former workers and their families since state and federal health authorities began investigating the Hamilton site and scores of other Grace plants across the country for possible asbestos contamination.
Two weeks ago, officials with the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services and the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said at a public meeting what many of the affected families already knew -- that workers at the plant were "exposed to hazardous levels of asbestos" along with those they lived with.
Further testing is not guaranteed, though recent samples by Hamilton Township of five sites around the Zonolite plant revealed little or no asbestos contamination and local representatives like assemblywoman Linda Greenstein (D-Mercer) and Rep. Chris Smith are lobbying for a criminal investigation and more funding.
"I guess he probably feels deprived of a good quality of life because Grace knew of the hazards and didn't tell the employees," said Linda, speaking for her husband because a stroke in 2003 has left him unable to speak.
Gerardo Ramos also suffers from asbestosis, a progressive and incurable affliction whereby asbestos lodged in the lungs makes breathing and daily tasks difficult. The Ramoses believe Gerardo's heart problems and stroke are a result of his exposure to asbestos, though doctors cannot say with certainty that they are related.
W.R. Grace did screen its employees for lung and heart problems, but even those checkups have proved frustrating and contradictory, Linda Ramos said.
Medical records kept by the Ramoses since 1975 show conflicting accounts of Gerardo Ramos' health.
A 1975 report from a private physician says Ramos has "no significant abnormalities." Three years later, a checkup by the former Helene Fuld Medical Center says Ramos has "no silicosis or asbestosis."
Yet in 1983, 13 years after Ramos began working at the Zonolite plant, another Fuld checkup says Ramos' lungs show signs "consistent with very slight asbestosis."
For the next five years, the records were unattainable, Linda Ramos said. Then, three consecutive Fuld reports from 1989, 1990 and 1991 stated: "Examination of the chest reveals the lung fields to be clear."
The 1991 medical record goes on to say Ramos is "qualified for hazardous waste site work."
At this point, the Ramoses had three children and a mortgage, leaving Gerardo Ramos with an easy choice: leave the only job he ever knew or continue to work at Grace with a condition that he was led to believe wouldn't prevent him from providing for his family or affect his long-term health. He worked at Grace until the plant was closed in 1994.
"Of course, there's no treatment for asbestosis," Linda said in an interview at their Trenton home. "If we had known this, maybe we would've done things differently to protect ourselves. We probably wouldn't have had children if we knew the risks of (Gerardo) bringing the asbestos home on his clothes."
"But even if he left the next day (after finding out he had asbestosis), the damage was done at that point," Linda said. "I don't think it would have saved my husband and I don't think it would change what happened to the McCalls."
Ramos referred to another former worker, Bobby Lee McCall, who died in January at the age of 49, leaving behind a wife with few answers to a thousand questions.
Gerardo Ramos used to do woodworking around the house, and, with their daughters grown, the Ramoses say their dreams of vacationing and visiting relatives in Puerto Rico are gone.
"If they said the asbestosis was gone tomorrow, that would be the best gift in the world," Linda said. "But I know there's no cure. Everything has been taken away from him."
Federal Court Throws Out Weak PVC Standards
Earthjustice.org
April 24, 2005
Washington, D.C.-- A decision from the United States Court of Appeals For The District of Columbia Circuit ended with an important win for citizens seeking protection from the highly toxic chemicals emitted by polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plants. There are 27 PVC plants located in the following states: Louisiana, New Jersey, Texas, Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, California, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Florida.
The citizens groups Mossville Environmental Action Network (MEAN) and Sierra Club, represented by Earthjustice, had challenged the Environmental Protection Agency's emission standards for PVC plants ¾ standards that provided absolutely no toxic emission reductions from PVC plants, even though the agency itself concluded in 1998 that these emissions "may reasonably be anticipated to result in an increase in mortality or an increase in serious, irreversible, or incapacitating reversible illness."
"This decision gives people in the communities near PVC plants a breath of fresh air," said Earthjustice attorney Jim Pew. "EPA will now have to write a new rule from scratch and, this time, it will have to do a better job."
PVC plants emit large quantities of vinyl chloride, a known human carcinogen, as well as dioxins, toxic metals such as chromium and lead, and hydrogen chloride, a highly corrosive acid. EPA's now-discarded rule had merely readopted 1970s-era standards for vinyl chloride, and included no standards for other hazardous air pollutants.
"The federal court did the right thing," said Edgar Mouton, President of Mossville Environmental Action Now. "In Mossville, Louisiana, we have suffered as a result of EPA's failure to establish a protective standard decades ago." Mossville is home to 300 residents and 14 industrial facilities, including a PVC facility located near Lake Charles.
The State air officials responsible for overseeing PVC plant operations had informed EPA during the rulemaking process that the agency's rule was woefully inadequate, but EPA dismissed their concerns.
"The court's found that EPA's 'just do nothing' response to deadly emissions from PVC-plastics plants was just dead wrong," said Marti Sinclair, Air Quality Committee Chair for Sierra Club. "EPA has the opportunity to redeem itself by acting quickly to extend the protection of the Clean Air Act to affected communities."
Last June, the Court threw out EPA's rule after finding that the agency had failed to set emission standards for all the hazardous air pollutants that PVC plants emit and that the agency's claim that re-imposing the decades-old emissions standard for vinyl chloride alone would somehow prove adequate to control vinyl chloride, lead dioxin, chromium, and all other toxic pollutants was just not credible.
In October, EPA petitioned for rehearing requesting that the Court merely send the PVC rule back for further analysis and explanation, instead of throwing it out altogether. In today's ruling, the Court rejected EPA's request, and affirmed its decision to vacate the rule in its entirety. This decision will offer states and community groups a chance to participate in the drafting of a new rule regarding PVC plant emissions.
PVC is used in a variety of plastic products including pipes, insulation for electric wiring, raincoats and seat covers. Without strong controls, however, the plants that manufacture PVC itself release a bouquet of poisonous chemicals into neighboring communities. Vinyl chloride, one of the main pollutants released is known to cause cancer. Dioxins, chromium, lead, chlorine, and hydrogen chloride - all of which are also released from vinyl chlorine plants - are associated with a wide variety of serious adverse health effects including cancer and reproductive damage as well as damage to the nose, throat and lungs.
There are six PVC plants in Louisiana; one plant each in Mississippi, California, Florida, New York, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania; five plants in Texas; four plants in New Jersey; three plants in Delaware; two plants in Illinois; and two plants in Kentucky.
In other news, EPA's failure to establish protective emission standards for chlor alkali facilities creates a conflict with international efforts to protect public health and the environment. The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, an international treaty signed by the United States in 2001, requires in part the reduction of harmful toxins that are released into the environment by chlor alkali manufacturers and other industries. An international study released today shows that eggs from free-range chickens collected from the United States in the Mossville community have significantly harmful levels of these toxins
