air pollution

April 9, 2024

In “crucial step”, EPA finalizes rule to reduce cancerous chemical plant emissions

By Carey Gillam

More than 200 US chemical plants face new requirements that should slash toxic air pollution and reduce cancer risks for hundreds of thousands of people living near the facilities, officials said on Tuesday.

The action formalizes a hotly debated proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to cut out over 6,000 tons of toxic air pollution annually. The agency is taking specific aim at emissions of ethylene oxide (EtO), which is used in the production of many products and for sterilization of medical equipment, and chloroprene, used to make synthetic rubber.

Most of the impact would be seen in plants in Texas and Louisiana, as well as in the Ohio River Valley, in communities that have become notorious for high rates of cancer. People living near a chloroprene plant in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana, face a cancer risk 50 times higher than the national average, for instance. The community has been dubbed “Cancer Alley.”

“This final rule delivers on EPA’s commitment to protecting public health for all, especially communities historically overburdened by pollution,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a press conference.

An EPA analysis shows that once the final rule is implemented, “no one will again face elevated cancer risks from EtO or chloroprene emissions from the equipment and processes covered by this rule,” Regan said. He said agency actions would cut the cancer risk for people living near the plants by 96%.

The move is part of a “government-wide commitment to ending cancer as we know it,” he said.

March 1, 2024

EPA moves to limit frequent chemical accidents

By Shannon Kelleher

Hundreds of chemical facilities around the US must implement new procedures to try to better safeguard communities from accidents that are happening with alarming frequency and jeopardizing human and environmental health.

New measures announced Friday by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) require industrial operators to “prevent accidental releases of dangerous chemicals that could otherwise cause deaths and injuries, damage property and the environment, or require surrounding communities to evacuate or shelter-in-place.”

The final rule, which amends the EPA’s Risk Management Program (RMP) that applies to plants dealing with hazardous chemicals, asks facilities to evaluate the risks of natural hazards and climate change, makes information about chemical hazards more accessible for people living near these facilities. The rule also allows for plant employees to stop working when they think there is a potential hazard.

This new requirements are expected to reduce the frequency and severity of accidents, building on revisions proposed in 2022. They provide the most protective safety provisions for chemical facilities in the EPA’s history, EPA deputy administrator Janet McCabe said on a press call.

Accidental releases of chemicals from industrial facilities cost the US more than $540 million each year, McCabe said on the press call, not including major catastrophes that can individually cost much more.

January 12, 2024

As Biden awards nearly $1 billion for electric school buses, can utilities keep up?

By Johnathan Hettinger

The largest form of mass transit in the US is getting an overhaul – as long as utility companies can keep up.

The Biden administration this week announced nearly $1 billion for 2,700 cleaner school buses across 37 states in an attempt to curb fossil fuel pollution and improve children’s health. The vast majority of the $965 million, which is awarded by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), went to electric school buses that are supposed to replace older diesel buses.

“As the wheels of the new, electric school buses go round and round, carbon emissions and pollution are going to keep going down and down,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in an EPA statement.

The funding for the five-year, $5 billion Clean School Bus Program comes through the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure and Jobs Law. So far, the program has invested nearly $2 billion to fund around 5,000 electric and low-emission school buses. In this week’s award, 86% of funding went to low-income, tribal or rural communities. But the rollout of electric school buses faces some practical challenges, according to the EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), which released two reports about the program last month.

While the EPA’s top watchdog found that supply chain issues are not likely to arise because companies are ramping up production, the watchdog raised concerns about utility providers’ abilities to upgrade infrastructure.

“The increased demand on manufacturers and utility companies may impact the timeliness of replacing diesel buses and ultimately may delay program health and environmental benefits,” the report said.

The biggest hurdle to the electric fleet is how quickly utility companies can build infrastructure for the buses, the EPA said in another recent report. Bus chargers often lead to a need for new transformers, electrical lines and switch changers, according to the report. In order to be successful, school districts need to plan ahead, the EPA said.

“One utility company we interviewed stated while it had experience with electric vehicles and buses, it did not have experience at the projected scale,” said the report. “One utility company explained that it could take nine months to two years to complete construction.”

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October 26, 2023

Postcard from California: Freeways fracture communities, poison the air and heat the planet

In 1957, California opened its first double-decker freeway: The Cypress Street Viaduct, slicing through the heart of West Oakland toward the Bay Bridge to San Francisco. The construction displaced hundreds of Black families and businesses from a neighborhood once known as the Harlem of the West. The freeway’s eight lanes cut off West Oakland from downtown, stifling development and exposing residents to the toxic pollution of 160,000 vehicles a day.

On Oct. 17, 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake rocked Northern California, collapsing a mile of the freeway’s upper span onto the lower deck. Though first responders feared that hundreds of rush-hour commuters had been crushed, miraculously the death toll was limited to 42. West Oakland residents organized and pushed Caltrans, the state transportation agency, to reroute a new approach to the bridge away from the neighborhood. The Cypress Street Viaduct was replaced by Mandela Parkway, a tree-lined boulevard with walking paths and bike lanes. Dozens of new businesses sprang up and air pollution dropped dramatically.

It shouldn’t take a natural disaster to open our eyes to the damage natural disasters do to disadvantaged communities.

West Oakland was just one of many lower-income communities of color across the country where residents, lacking the resources and political clout to resist “urban renewal,” were displaced by freeways.

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September 27, 2023

Justice Department sues eBay over unlawful sales of pesticides, other products

By Shannon Kelleher

Online retail giant eBay has been illegally selling hundreds of thousands of harmful pesticides and other unsafe products, posing “unacceptable risks” to communities across the country, according to a complaint filed Wednesday by the US Department of Justice (DOJ).

The legal action was filed on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in federal court in New York. It argues that the company’s actions violated environmental laws including the Clean Air Act (CAA), the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), and the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

“The complaint filed today demonstrates that EPA will hold online retailers responsible for the unlawful sale of products on their websites that can harm consumers and the environment,” David Uhlmann, Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, said in a press release.

The DOJ and EPA allege that eBay sold at least 23,000 unregistered, misbranded, and restricted use pesticides, including a highly toxic insecticide banned in the US, and products that make false claims about protecting against the virus that causes COVID-19.

This was not eBay’s first alleged FIFRA violation. In June 2020, the EPA ordered eBay, as well as Amazon, to stop selling pesticide-containing products that claimed to prevent COVID-19. The following summer, the agency ordered eBay to stop selling an additional 170 unregistered or misbranded pesticide products.

September 22, 2023

Booming natural gas exports threatening Gulf Coast fishing communities

By Shannon Kelleher

Most mornings, Nathan Berwick rises well before dawn at his home in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, setting out on nearby Lake Charles in a small fishing boat to check his crab traps. If it’s not too hot and the water is calm, Berwick’s family occasionally joins him on the boat. His eleven-year-old daughter enjoys playing with baby crabs that fall from the traps as Berwick hauls them from the water.

Berwick comes from a long line of crabbers dating back to the 1820s, when his ancestors first arrived in the heel of the Louisiana boot – the state’s southwest corner.

“Thirty years from now I want my children to be able to say, ‘this is my home, this is where eight generations of Berwicks have lived,’” he said.

But this simple dream is in danger from a growing threat facing Berwick and others who contribute to – and depend on – the $1.5 billion fishing industry along Louisiana’s Gulf Coast.

The fossil fuel industry has identified the Gulf region as a key site for expanding liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminals. Eight new terminals are planned for southwest Louisiana alone, with a total of at least 16 new LNG projects anticipated for the Gulf region in coming years.

The terminals take in gas from transmission pipelines, cool it to a liquid, and store it for overseas exports. LNG is considered the cleanest of fossil fuels because it produces less carbon dioxide than coal and oil. And industry groups, including the Center for LNG, claim the fuel is vital to a clean energy future, with the potential to provide energy security and “lift people out of poverty.”

But environmental groups and concerned residents call the claims “greenwashing,” citing emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane and other air pollutants associated with LNG facilities, leakage, and emissions along its supply chain. They also point to a history of alleged shoddy operating practices that jeopardize public health and safety – all forced on communities with little consent.

August 9, 2023

Rise in air pollution fuels antibiotic resistance, study suggests

By Grace van Deelen

Air pollution could be helping drive a rise in drug-resistant infections, which pose a dangerous threat to global public health, according to a new study.

The paper, published Monday in Lancet Planetary Health, concludes that particulate air pollution (PM2.5), which comes from burning fossil fuels for energy, industrial processes, and transportation, may be one of the largest contributors to the spread of antibiotic resistance worldwide. The link between the two phenomena has strengthened over time, according to the research.

“The benefits of controlling air pollution could be two-fold: not only will it reduce the harmful effects of poor air quality, it could also play a major role in combating the rise and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria,” said Hong Chen, the paper’s lead author and a professor of environmental science at Zhejiang University in China, in a statement.

The vast majority of the world’s population lives in areas where air pollution exceeds health standards set by the World Health Organization (WHO), meaning that they breath air containing high levels of pollutants, including PM2.5. Breathing polluted air raises the risk of premature death from heart disease, lung disease, stroke, and cancer affecting the lungs or airways. The Biden Administration has proposed multiple new policies to try to limit PM2.5, including tighter standards for soot pollution, new vehicle emissions standards, and improved reporting of air pollutants.

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June 11, 2023

As wildfire smoke clears, scientists warn air quality impacts aren’t over

By Shannon Kelleher

On Tuesday morning, Austin Channell was starting his day at home in Hudson, New York when he discovered the rays of sunlight on his wall were an odd orangey pink. As the day progressed, the sky grew stranger.

“By the afternoon we couldn’t see the sun at all,” said Channell, who works as the events director for an aviation museum.

The rest of the week, Channell described feeling a sense of helplessness as smoke from Canadian wildfires enveloped the northeastern US, bringing hazardously high air pollution levels to millions of people. On Wednesday, New York City’s air quality index (AQI) reached a staggering 460 – the highest level of air pollution recorded in the city since measurements began in 1999 and more than an order of magnitude higher than the safe daily average of 35 set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Dangerous air pollution levels were also detected in Philadelphia and Washington, DC.

Channell mostly stayed indoors, making coffee and sending emails under an Armageddon orange sky, his air purifier running nonstop. When he tried to go for a walk, he quickly found it hard to breathe.

As the smoke blotted out the sun in Brooklyn, Jes Lyons, a publicist who suffers from asthma, decided to wear a mask even while in her apartment. She feared her drafty apartment windows would not provide sufficient protection from the toxins wafting through the air.

May 11, 2023

After repeated air pollution violations, Shell plastics plant hit with federal lawsuit

By Dana Drugmand

A unit of the British multinational Shell plc is repeatedly violating state and federal air pollution rules and harming the health of area residents, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court by an environmental group after a series of air permit violations at the company’s new plastics production plant in Pennsylvania.

The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania by the Clean Air Council against Shell Chemical Appalachia, seeks monetary penalties and demands an end to the plant’s release of illegally high levels of pollutants that include nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

Breathing VOCs can cause difficulty breathing and nausea and damage the central nervous system and other organs, according to the American Lung Association. Some can cause cancer.

“Illegal air emissions, smoking flares, and malfunctions at the Plant have resulted in excess emissions of VOCs, NOx, particulate matter (“PM”), benzene, and other harmful pollution,” the complaint states.

Shell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The filing comes six months after Shell announced the start of operations at the plant in November and one month after a malfunction at the facility’s waste water treatment system caused a chemical leak that released a foul odor and sent cancer-causing benzene and other toxins over the fence-line and into the surrounding community.

Residents reported experiencing headaches, nausea, irritated throats and watery eyes during the April 11 chemical leak incident. Shell’s passive air monitors recorded benzene levels of up to 110 micrograms per cubic meter that week, far exceeding the 29 micrograms per cubic meter minimal risk level under federal guidelines.

In addition to the benzene release, uncombusted emissions documented by optical gas imaging spewed from the plant’s ground flare on April 13 and 14, according to video released by the environmental organization Earthworks. These incidents were just the latest in a series of what the groups say are major pollution events at Shell’s Pennsylvania facility.

April 18, 2023

Beyond East Palestine, report finds widespread toxic vinyl chloride pollution

By Dana Drugmand

When the Norfolk Southern train transporting hazardous material derailed in East Palestine, Ohio on February 3, the subsequent release and explosion of chemicals fouled the air and exposed the community to a toxic cocktail of contaminants, including a substance known to cause cancer called vinyl chloride. More than two months later, air sampling data continues to show elevated levels of vinyl chloride in the area, and residents fear for their health.

A new report released last week shows that what happened in East Palestine was far from an isolated incident, and that many other communities are regularly exposed to vinyl chloride pollution, particularly those living in low-income areas and communities of color.

“It is outrageous that so many communities are being exposed day-in and day-out to the same dangerous chemical and plastic that burned in the Ohio train derailment,” Mike Schade, director of Mind the Store, a program of Toxic-Free Future, said in a statement accompanying the report.

Vinyl chloride is a colorless gas used to make polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics used for such things as pipes, vehicle upholstery, and plastic kitchen ware.

Vinyl chloride contamination is primarily emanating from petrochemical production and waste disposal facilities, according to an investigation by the nonprofit Toxic-Free Future.

The group said it analyzed data collected by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), finding that in 2021, US vinyl chloride and PVC plastic producers released more than 400,000 pounds of vinyl chloride into the air, and that just five companies collectively are the source for more than 97% of the nation’s vinyl chloride air pollution.

Those five – Westlake Chemical, Formosa Plastics, Occidental Chemical, Shintech, and Orbia – collectively manufacture more than 10 billion pounds of vinyl chloride per year, according to Toxic-Free Future.