Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 12/29
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(ACC Mentioned) Saving NAFTA a Lost Cause, Canadian Union Chief Says
Dec 29, 2017 | Plastics News
By Eric Kulisch
The North American Free Trade Agreement "is going to blow up in 2018." -
(ACC Mentioned) $180bn Invested in Plastic Production Risks Irreversibly Damaging the Environment
Dec 29, 2017 | Science Trends
By Daniel Nelson
The world uses a massive amount of plastic, which threatens the integrity of the world’s oceans and food chains. -
Federal Court of Appeals Gives EPA One Year to Update Lead-Based Paint Standards
Dec 29, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Tom Neltner
This week, the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appealsdirected the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to update its regulations defining lead-based paint and how much lead in dust represents a hazard. -
Ninth Circuit Orders EPA to Revise Standard for Levels of Lead in Paint and Dust
Dec 29, 2017 | The National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson
On December 27, 2017, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Ninth Circuit) ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to revise its nearly 17-year-old standard for levels of lead in paint and dust within one year. -
Environmentalists Say EPA Rule Delay Slows Firms' TCE Replacement
Dec 29, 2017 | Inside EPA
Environmentalists are blaming the Trump EPA's slow-walking of two rules the Obama EPA proposed to ban certain uses of the common solvent chemical tricholorethylene with industries' ponderous efforts to replace the chemical in their facilities, arguing that EPA action would protect workers from the chemical. -
Six Ways Oil and Gas Development Can Contaminate Land and Water (and What to Do about It)
Dec 29, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Adam Peltz and Nichole Saunders
As oil and gas production increases, so does the risk of toxic waste leaking to the environment. -
EPA Settles Air Act NSR Violations with Three 'Carbon Black' Producers
Dec 29, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
EPA and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are proposing settlements with three producers of “carbon black” to resolve allegations that the companies violated the new source review (NSR) Clean Air Act program in enforcement actions first filed by the Obama administration against producers in Ohio, Kansas, Louisiana and Texas. -
The Trump Administration's Position on Climate Change Is All Over The Place
Dec 29, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
There was never really much doubt that Donald Trump doubted the science of climate change.
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(ACC Mentioned) Saving NAFTA a Lost Cause, Canadian Union Chief Says
Dec 29, 2017 | Plastics News
By Eric Kulisch
The North American Free Trade Agreement "is going to blow up in 2018."
That blunt assessment comes from the equally blunt Jerry Dias, president of the Canadian union Unifor, which represents workers in a range of the country's largest industrial sectors.
Dias has long been a harsh critic of NAFTA. He says it has been disastrous for Canadian and U.S. manufacturing workers — on that much, he and President Donald Trump agree. And it hasn't done much for Mexican workers, whose low wages and weak labor rights prevent them from being able to afford the vehicles they build, he said.
While there have been some exceptions, for the most part representatives for the plastics industry have expresssed support for NAFTA during hearings in 2017.
The Washington-based American Chemistry Council, for example, said NAFTA and free trade deals in general are key for the plastics industry to fully realize export benefits from the shale gas boom.
In testimony June 28, an ACC executive said NAFTA has created a deep and cost effective economic integration of supply chains between the three countries — trade within the same or closely related companies makes up 50 percent of U.S. chemical exports and 70 percent of chemical imports.
Dias, for his part, would prefer to see NAFTA not scrapped, but strengthened with better wage and labor standards for Mexicans that would make Canadian manufacturing a more competitive proposition and help stem the southward migration of jobs.
Many private-sector interests still hold out hope that the Trump administration's hard-line positions are simply negotiating tactics that will lead to a compromise, or that Congress will block attempts to unwind a deal that has helped increase U.S. manufacturing exports by 258 percent since its inception.
But given where the talks stand now, Dias said, that won't happen.
"I'm convinced that unless Donald Trump folds, which he won't, then NAFTA is gone," Dias said during a nearly 90-minute editorial board meeting with Automotive News. AN is a sister publication of Plastics News.
If that happens, Dias said, a pre-existing U.S.-Canada free-trade agreement will live on.
Dias said that while he's not at the negotiating table, he has a close-up view of the proceedings. He is among a group of stakeholders consulting with Canadian officials on the pact and has had multiple meetings with Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, chief negotiator Steve Verheul and other Canadian officials, as well as U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
'Unfettered access'
"I've been having unfettered access to those who make the decisions, but I've also had a complete green light, understood and sanctioned by the government, to say whatever the heck I feel like," Dias said. "It's not as if they're going to change my mind. But they understand that bringing in labor as part of the team is quite helpful."
Unifor represents workers in 20 of Canada's largest industrial sectors, including telecommunications, health care and autos. That diversified membership gives the union a broad political base and more clout, Dias said, especially with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's pro-labor Liberal Party.
The reopening of NAFTA negotiations presented the union an opportunity to lay out its full agenda, including pushing for stricter enforcement of labor standards in Mexico.
But between Trump's pledge to build a wall on the Mexican border and fresh disputes with Canada over softwood lumber and aerospace, he said, it has been clear there isn't enough good will to keep the talks on track toward a new agreement.
"I am probably going to win more wine in 2018 than anyone in the history of wineries because I have bet every journalist in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. that NAFTA would not be re-signed by the end of 2017," Dias said. "I have to put in a wine cellar in my condo."
The pending U.S. demands make that a much surer bet, Dias said, especially the Trump team's call for an 85 percent regional content requirement, with 50 percent U.S. content, on all vehicles imported into the U.S. It would leave Canada and Mexico fighting for a scrap of the remaining share, Dias said, and Canada's $37-an-hour wages couldn't hope to compete with Mexico's $2 rate. Canada will never agree to the U.S. content requirement, he said.
He also pointed to the U.S. push for a five-year sunset clause as a sign of bad faith. "If we signed NAFTA in 2018 with a five-year sunset clause, who is going to make a major investment in 2020 knowing that it can blow up in three years?"
"Nobody believes the United States wants an agreement," Dias recalled telling Ross in one meeting, adding: "Once Canada and Mexico got the indication that the United States wasn't serious about an agreement, it's all done."
At this point, neither Canada nor Mexico would be motivated to offer even a face-saving outcome for Trump.
"Nobody in Canada and Mexico wants to throw him a victory party," Dias said. "He's inherently unpopular. They think he's dangerous and foolish. For Trudeau, who's riding pretty high in the polls, to be perceived as folding to Trump is politically damaging."
The sixth round of NAFTA talks is set to begin Jan. 23 in Montreal.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20171229/NEWS/171229930/saving-nafta-a-lost-cause-canadian-union-chief-says
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(ACC Mentioned) $180bn Invested in Plastic Production Risks Irreversibly Damaging the Environment
Dec 29, 2017 | Science Trends
By Daniel Nelson
The world uses a massive amount of plastic, which threatens the integrity of the world’s oceans and food chains. The problem is so widespread that a massive pile of plastic garbage million square miles wide (or roughly the size of Mexico) exists in the middle of the Pacific ocean. Furthermore, plastic fibers have recently been found within the stomachs of animals that live in the ocean’s deepest depths. Given the size of the problem, many conservation groups are urging us to cut back on our use of plastics.
Yet fossil fuel companies and other companies have invested approximately 180 billion dollars into the creation of new plastic plants that will go up over the next ten years. The plastic facilities will be constructed by corporations such as Shell Chemical and Exxon Mobile. The move worries environmental scientists who warn of an impending ecological disaster.
300 Million Tons of Plastic a Year
The president of the US Center for International Environmental Law, Carroll Muffett, argues the investment comes at a time when society needs to be cutting back on its use of plastic, not investing in more plastic plants which will run for decades to come. Muffett argues that the relationship between oil and gas companies is to blame for much of the problem because most of the base chemicals used in the creation of plastic are fossil fuels.
Underscoring the link between fossil fuel companies and plastic production is the fact that much of the plastic production which happens in the US is driven by a shale gas boom, which means that the fossil fuels needed to create plastics are very cheap. Shale gas is actually so cheap that it has enabled the planning of 318 new plastic plants since 2010. Currently, half of these projects have been completed, according to the American Chemistry Council, while the other half is currently still in planning stages.
Plastic use has exploded since the 1950’s when hardly any was used. Today the globe produces more than 300 million tons of plastic a year, which is more than the net weight of humanity. According to an investigation done by The Guardian, more than a million plastic bottles are purchased every minute around the world. Most of these bottles will end up in a landfill, but many of them will end up in the sea. The trend doesn’t seem like it will be stopping anytime soon.
The Center for International Environmental Law’s Steven Feit says that the correlation between the shale gas boom in the US and the production of plastics is strong, and that plastic production is only likely to increase unless substantial pressure is put on plastic companies. This is attributed to a growing demand for plastic, both in the US and abroad. While many of the new plastic plants are being created in the US, much of the product created in this plant will be sent to China and Europe. As long as demand for plastic products increases so will supply.
In preparation for the production of more plastics, companies like Ineos, a petrochemical giant, have been using massive “dragon ships” to ship natural gas supplies to the UK and the rest of Europe over the past year. The company is gearing up to start shipping natural gas liquids to China starting in 2019.
Environmental activists, scientists, and policymakers continue to express their concern, urging society to move away from the use of convenient but damaging disposable plastic products.
The Permanent Pollution of the Earth
The University of California at Santa Barbara’s Roland Geyer lead a study which was published early in 2017. The study reported that the globe has created almost 8.3 billion tons of plastic since the 1950’s. Given that plastic does not degrade for hundreds of years, Geyer and his team warned that society risks the de facto permanent pollution of planet Earth.
Despite warnings from activist, corporations like Shell and Exxon Mobile continue to pursue the creation of new plastic production plants. Groups like the American Chemistry Council remain unconcerned about the environmental damage, arguing that studies have found that using plastic actually reduces damage to the environment.
Steve Russell, the vice president of the ACC, says that new plastics let us “do more with less” and enable us to drive less heavy cars, create more fuel-efficient homes, release less carbon, etc. The ACC also argues that the new plastic plants will create hundreds to thousands of jobs and enable the widespread manufacturing of parts for a variety of different purposes, such as vehicle components, computer parts, medical instruments, and building parts.
Developing Less Pollutive Plastics
It isn’t just the US that is investing in the creation of new plastics, the French plastic parts company Plastic Omnium SA just recently announced that it would be expanding its current production capacity over the next four years through the investment of 2.5 billion euros ($2.9 billion dollars). Plastic Omnium SA mainly builds plastic parts for cars, and in a somewhat ironic twist, some of its current projects involve the creation of energy storage solutions for electric and hybrid vehicles.
This points to the fact that it is possible for plastics to be massive polluters in some ways and less pollutive in others. The challenge is in finding a balance, a way to maximize the benefits of plastics and reduce the drawbacks. Environmental researchers and activists acknowledge there are some benefits to plastic use but remain concerned about the disposable plastic industry, as it continues to be responsible for billions of tons of pollution a year.
In order to try and maximize the benefits of plastics, research into technology like biodegradable plastics is being carried out. A team of scientists from the NYP School of Chemical and Life Sciences in Singapore has recently found a way to turn coffee waste into a form of biodegradable plastic that could be used in plastic bags and other products. A French engineer is also working on a project to reduce plastic waste, through the creation of a biodegradable water bottle that uses sugarcane as a base. It remains to be seen how effective these products will be at reducing plastic waste, but efforts to reduce plastic waste are always welcome.
It may be up to society as a whole to find a solution, likely involving both reducing our dependence on plastic and inventing less pollutive plastic technologies.
https://sciencetrends.com/180bn-invested-plastic-production-risks-irreversibly-damaging-environment/
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Federal Court of Appeals Gives EPA One Year to Update Lead-Based Paint Standards
Dec 29, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Tom Neltner
This week, the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appealsdirected the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to update its regulations defining lead-based paint and how much lead in dust represents a hazard. The court gave EPA 90 days to issue a proposed rule and one year to publish a final rule with an option to convince the court that it needs additional time. The court said the agency had unreasonably delayed action on a citizen’s petition submitted in 2009. The science showing the need for action has only become more compelling in the eight years since EPA acknowledged the shortcoming of its rules. Rather than drag out this litigation, the agency should move quickly to revise its lead-based paint hazard standards to better protect children’s health.
EPA set the dust-lead hazard standard in 2001 after determining that a child living in a home with those levels had only a 1 to 5% chance of having an elevated blood lead level (EBLL) as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The scientific evidence now shows that the risk is greater than previously estimated. In addition, CDC has tightened its definition of an EBLL. As a result, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the risk to a child of having an EBLL in a home that meets EPA’s current dust-lead hazard standard is more than 50%.
The Ninth Circuit found that EPA has a duty under the Toxic Substances Control Act to update its lead-based paint hazard standard to ensure it is sufficient to protect children’s health. The court said:
“This statutory framework clearly indicates that Congress did not want EPA to set initial standards and then walk away, but to engage in an ongoing process, accounting for new information, and to modify initial standards when necessary to further Congress’s intent: to prevent childhood lead poisoning and eliminate lead-based paint hazards.”
The court made a similar finding for the agency’s definition of lead-based paint when it stated that “[t]he lead-based paint standard set out originally by Congress also appears to be too high to provide a sufficient level of safety.” The Congressional definition, set in 1992, was based on a definition from the 1970s and was not related to the risk lead exposure poses to children. Congress authorized EPA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to update the definition to accomplish the goals of preventing childhood lead poisoning and eliminating lead-based paint hazards.
The 2009 citizen’s petition was submitted to EPA by the National Center for Healthy Housing, Sierra Club, United Parents Against Lead (UPAL), and nine state and local organizations. EPA responded by saying it would begin an appropriate proceeding. With no proposed rule in sight seven years later, in August 2016, Sierra Club, UPAL, and six other state and local organizations, with Earthjustice serving as counsel, asked the Ninth Circuit to issue a writ of mandamuscompelling EPA to act on the 2009 petition. In June 2017, the court heard oral arguments from EPA and Earthjustice. In an unusual move, EPA told the judges that it would not mediate a settlement and opted to force the court to issue the writ of mandamus. And yesterday, the court did just that.
Now, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt must decide whether he is serious about his commitment to protecting children from lead. In December 7, 2017 testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment, Pruitt declared that “there's a multifaceted approach we need to evaluate if we are to declare a 'war on lead,' if you will.” Rather than delaying action by seeking review of the case by the Supreme Court or a larger panel of Ninth Circuit judges (neither of which would be warranted here), he should focus on updating the lead dust and paint standards based on the latest science. He should also consider updating the hazard standard for lead in soil, which is similarly outdated.
The federal court decision comes on the heels of the historic decision in November 2017 by California’s Appellate Court for the Sixth District holding that three companies – Sherwin-Williams Company, NL Industries, and ConAgra Grocery Products – created a public nuisance by promoting the use of lead-based paint in the interior of residences built before 1951, even though they had actual knowledge of the harm the paint would pose to children. The trial court is now determining the amount that defendants must pay into a fund to remediate the lead hazards and appointing a suitable receiver to manage the fund.
These two cases serve as an excellent reminder that not only does the Earth need a good lawyer (as our friends at Earthjustice say); so do kids. While lead-based paint is not the only source of lead exposure to children, it is the most significant for those children living in homes with lead-based paint, especially when the paint is deteriorated. Thousands of children still live in homes with lead-based paint hazards – with poor and minority children at greatest risk. This court decision is an important step in protecting these children.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that “The new information is clear in this record: the current standards for dust-lead hazard and lead-based paint hazard are insufficient to accomplish Congress’s goal.” With homeowners, renters, landlords, contractors, and health departments taking thousands of paint and dust samples every year, they need to be comparing the results to standards based on the latest science instead of outdated one that underestimates the risk. EPA has a duty to update those standards to better protect children across the country from the dangers of lead.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2017/12/29/9th-circuit-lead-paint-hazard-standard/
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Ninth Circuit Orders EPA to Revise Standard for Levels of Lead in Paint and Dust
Dec 29, 2017 | The National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson
On December 27, 2017, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Ninth Circuit) ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to revise its nearly 17-year-old standard for levels of lead in paint and dust within one year. A Cmty. Voice v. EPA, No. 16-72816. The Ninth Circuit held that “EPA was under a duty stemming from the Toxic Substances Control Act and the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act of 1992 to update lead-based paint and dust-lead hazard standards in light of the obvious need, and a duty under the Administrative Procedure Act to fully respond to petitioners’ rulemaking petition.” The decision stems from a petition filed in June 2016 by environmental and health groups seeking this action. The order came in the form of a writ of mandamus, an unusual court order and extraordinary judicial remedy that requires an official or agency to perform a certain duty, in this case for EPA to issue a proposed rule within 90 days of this decision and to promulgate the final rule within a year of when the proposed rule is issued. The court stated that in doing so, it was mindful of the Agency’s arguments that officials needed more time to deliberate a complex new standard.
Commentary
While not entirely surprising given the Circuit, the decision relies on a seldom used remedy that rarely succeeds in judicial settings. It reflects the court’s sharp rebuff of the Administration’s apparent decision to delay action on the lead standard. Given the many challenges EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics will face in the New Year, complying with the court’s order will not be easy.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/ninth-circuit-orders-epa-to-revise-standard-levels-lead-paint-and-dust
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Environmentalists Say EPA Rule Delay Slows Firms' TCE Replacement
Dec 29, 2017 | Inside EPA
Environmentalists are blaming the Trump EPA's slow-walking of two rules the Obama EPA proposed to ban certain uses of the common solvent chemical tricholorethylene with industries' ponderous efforts to replace the chemical in their facilities, arguing that EPA action would protect workers from the chemical.
The Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition Dec. 21 released its new report, “Toxic Vaping," based on industry surveys, which shows “that while some industrial firms are phasing out use of this toxic chemical for vapor degreasing, the vast majority seem to be holding back to 'wait and see' if [EPA] ever adopts its proposed ban on the use,” the group's Dec. 21 press release states.
“EPA proposed a ban on the commercial use of TCE for vapor degreasing nearly a year ago. Further delay in adopting this health-protective rule keeps workers at an increased risk for serious health impacts,” Liz Hitchcock, the group's acting director, added.
The group's criticism is directed at the Trump administration's decision to delay finalizing a set of rules that would ban uses of TCE as a degreaser and spot cleaner in dry cleaning, as well as similar proposals that would have banned uses of methylene chloride (MC) and N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) in paint strippers.
A 2012 Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment linked TCE exposure to certain cancer, as well as fetal cardiac malformations when pregnant animals were exposed in a toxicological study. The strict assessment resulted in controversial new standards from EPA on cleanup sites and vapor intrusion, as well as the rules the Obama administration proposed last year.
But the group's report suggests that facilities are moving slowly, if it all, to replace TCE.
In all, the group surveyed 143 facilities that reported releases of TCE into the environment as reported to EPA as required by section 313 of EPCRA. EPA's Toxics Release Inventory program makes the information available to the public on the internet. Using the program's 2015 data, the most recent, complete data available when the group started its work, staff contacted 143 facilities that reported releasing TCE.
Of these, more than half, 76 facilities, did not respond. Of the rest, “17 industrial plants earned a grade of A, B, or C for planning to replace TCE with a safer alternative, replacing or planning to replace TCE with an undisclosed alternative, or continuing to search for a safer alternative; 16 facilities were awarded a D grade for failing to search for safer alternatives or for switching to a 'regrettable substitute' that poses other known hazards; [and] another 34 industrial sites were slapped with an F for failure to respond to stakeholder queries,” the report says.
The report concludes by calling on EPA to “Finalize the proposed vapor degreasing rule without further delay,” and it calls on industry to switch to safer alternatives “without waiting for EPA to finalize its rule.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/environmentalists-say-epa-rule-delay-slows-firms-tce-replacement
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Six Ways Oil and Gas Development Can Contaminate Land and Water (and What to Do about It)
Dec 29, 2017 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Adam Peltz and Nichole Saunders
As oil and gas production increases, so does the risk of toxic waste leaking to the environment. The massive amount of briny wastewater generated from oil and gas development can cause serious damage if it comes into contact with the public or our environment.
Consider what happened to the Johnsons, a 4th generation ranching family in New Mexico. More than 400,000 gallons of wastewater spilledon their ranch leaving a dead zone no longer viable to raise cattle or grow crops.
This is not an isolated incident. The Environmental Protection Agency says the vast majority of land and water contamination from oil and gas development is caused by surface spills and poorly constructed and maintained wells.
Pathways for Contamination
1) Well failure at production sites can create major problems for drillers and for the 17 million Americans who live within a mile of one of these wells. Poor design, cracked casing, or flawed cement work can cause dangerous well blowouts, and toxic leaks from malfunctioning wells can occur even after the well stops producing.
Solution: States can significantly reduce the risk of a well failure by requiring operators to ensure wells are properly designed, constructed, maintained, and plugged, and by adequately enforcing those standards. Standards should be updated regularly to keep pace with emerging technologies and practices.
2) Wastewater storage systems that aren’t properly designed, constructed, monitored, and eventually closed and cleaned up are also a contamination risk. Images from the U.S. Geological Survey reveal how brine releases from poorly managed tank sites can wreak havoc on surrounding vegetation.
Solution: Strong industry-wide standards and rules can help ensure operators are following the best maintenance and management practices for wastewater storage facilities. This includes smart engineering that accounts for possible failure, ensuring that construction adheres to design, and routine inspections, maintenance and other leading practices like using liners and leak detection.
3) Wastewater transport — whether by flowline, pipeline or truck – creates many opportunities for fluids to spill or leak, especially as operators increasingly transport larger quantities of wastewater longer distances for recycling. The more it moves around, the more likely a spill can occur.
Solution: Regulators and industry must adhere to advanced design and construction standards for pipelines, and also improve monitoring and reporting requirements in order to quickly identify and remediate accidents after they occur. Better information on why, when, and how spills occur is a vital step in preventing them in the first place.
4) Disposal wells are usually considered one of the most economically and environmentally sound solutions for managing oilfield wastewater, but site-level malfunctions and improperly permitted disposal wells can contaminate groundwater, and increased disposal in some states has caused an uptick in small earthquakes.
Solution: Ensure disposal wells meet proper construction standards, follow permit operating guidelines, and are regularly evaluated for integrity. To reduce injection-induced earthquakes, some states have successfully started to reduce injection volumes and rates, or even prohibit disposal wells altogether in areas near fault lines. Some states have also begun policing hydraulic fracturing operations, which are responsible for a relatively small portion of induced quakes.
5 ) Releasing wastewater onto roads, land and waterways can cause significant contamination if water isn’t treated to meet quality standards that need to be advanced. For example, one recent Penn State study found that releasing millions of gallons of wastewater – even if treated – can have long lasting impacts on the environment.
Wastewater can be intentionally released under existing permitting schemes in a number of ways. For example, under current laws, operators located west of the 98th Meridian can get permits to discharge wastewater into rivers or streams if the water is deemed “good enough” for agriculture and livestock. The problem is there is little agreement on what “good enough” means, and no set standard. In fact, we only have regulator-approved tests for identifying 25% of the 1600 chemicals that may be present in wastewater, which makes it difficult to set standards that can confidently protect the environment and public health.
Solution: Additional research on the content of wastewater and water treatment technologies must be conducted to determine if oil and gas wastewater can be released on our soil or into fresh water sources without cause for concern.
6) Using oilfield wastewater to irrigate crops is a practice used in drought-stricken regions of California and being considered by other states and companies as well – especially as demand for water or disposal cost increases. Unfortunately oil and gas companies, regulators, and scientists don’t have the scientific evidence to confirm this practice poses no risk to public health or the environment.
Solution: Further assessment of the risks of using oilfield wastewater for crop or livestock irrigation must be undertaken before it is more widely piloted or permitted. This includes learning more about the chemicals present in wastewater, as well as the potential toxicity of treated waste streams to crops, soil, livestock, as well as aquatic resources and human health. New potential ‘users’ of this wastewater, as well as regulators who may permit these practices, need better data to enable informed decisions in the future.
While many of these are familiar challenges for the oil and gas industry, others are just now emerging – in either case, attention and concern around these issues will only increase as drought and other environmental concerns plague many of the regions where oil and gas development is intense. If the industry works collaboratively with regulators and environmental scientists, we can address these problems while still supporting a reliable energy industry.
http://blogs.edf.org/energyexchange/2017/12/29/six-ways-oil-and-gas-development-can-contaminate-land-and-water-and-what-to-do-about-it/#more-16941
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EPA Settles Air Act NSR Violations with Three 'Carbon Black' Producers
Dec 29, 2017 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
EPA and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are proposing settlements with three producers of “carbon black” to resolve allegations that the companies violated the new source review (NSR) Clean Air Act program in enforcement actions first filed by the Obama administration against producers in Ohio, Kansas, Louisiana and Texas.
The proposed settlements are among the first in which the Trump administration is seeking to address alleged violations of stringent NSR and prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) permit programs, which are top reform priorities for the Trump administration and industry groups.
But environmentalists are pledging to challenge administration efforts to overhaul the program, including an NSR settlement the Trump administration proposed with an Exxon facility in Texas, which they charge is unlawful.
The draft consent decrees with the three carbon black producers were entered in three federal district courts Dec. 22 and are open to public comment ahead of final court approval.
They generally require installation of sulfur dioxide (SO2) scrubbers and nitrogen oxides (NOx) selective catalytic reduction (SCR) controls by certain deadlines. They also include requirements to get rid of flares by certain deadlines; as well as payment of civil penalties and on-site environmental mitigation projects.
The settlements include one with Sir Richardson Carbon & Energy Company to resolve an earlier compliantagainst the company that operates in Texas and Louisiana; one with Orion Engineered Carbons to resolve a compliant that it violated the air law in Louisiana, Ohio and Texas; and one with Columbian Chemicals Companyover a complaint about its plants in Kansas and Louisiana.
EPA and DOJ said in joint statements that the state-of-the-art pollution controls are expected to cost about $100 million, and the companies are required to pay civil penalties at various amounts to the federal government and affected states.
Three Settlements
Sir Richardson will pay $999,000 in penalties and nearly $500,000 in on-site environmental mitigation projects, to revolve allegations that it failed to obtain PSD and/or maximum achievable control technology (MACT) permits at three facilities.
EPA says the settlement will reduce SO2 by nearly 11,000 tons per year (tpy) and NOx reduction of 984 tpy.
The draft Orion settlement requires the company to install scrubbers and SCR, pay civil penalties of $800,000 and conduct environmental mitigation valued at $550,000 at four facilities. EPA says the Orion controls will reduce SO2 by 10,000 tpy and NOx by 1,663 tpy.
The draft Columbian settlement requires similar pollution control installations, a civil penalty of $650,000 and environmental mitigation valued at $375,000. EPA says it will reduce SO2 by 5,889 tpy and NOx by 465 tpy.
Carbon black is a powder used in tires and ink, and its production creates larges amounts of SO2 and NOx, along with toxics that are controlled by MACT limits, EPA says.
A source familiar with the settlements says carbon black is made from petroleum refining byproducts, and that until now none of the facilities had installed any pollution-specific controls for SO2 or NOx. The source says the environmental mitigation projects are not EPA-approved supplemental environmental projects and instead consist of work being done largely inside the facilities' fencelines.
The source says making carbon black is highly competitive with tight profit margins, and that the three companies agreed to settle only if “everyone else did.”
There are some differences between the proposed settlements, including that some facilities are getting more time to install controls or close flares -- which toxic emissions. EPA insisted that the facilities get rid of the flares, which were installed 10 to 15 years ago, and now the waste gas will be burned off in the boiler that will be subject to the scrubbers and SCRs, according to the source.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-settles-air-act-nsr-violations-three-carbon-black-producers
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The Trump Administration's Position on Climate Change Is All Over The Place
Dec 29, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
There was never really much doubt that Donald Trump doubted the science of climate change. He had tweeted to that effect repeatedly before becoming president. He told this publication he wasn’t a “big believer” in human-caused climate change.
That he has now used a bout of cold weather to mock climate change — committing the most basic of errors on the topic, which is to confound any given day’s weather and with long-term trends in climate — should not come as a surprise.
What’s been more surprising, however, is the wide variety of positions taken by the broader Trump administration on the matter — where nobody but the president seems to talk like the president, and where at times, it isn’t even clear whether other members of the administration are representing Trump’s views.
Consider the following three sets of “administration” views on climate change:
Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has questioned whether we can measure “with precision” the role of humans on the climate, and he suggested therefore that humans are not the primary driver of global warming.
The U.S. Global Change Research Program, the federal coordinating body for climate change research across the government, recently released a report that is completely incompatible with this view, finding that there is “no convincing alternative explanation” for the planet’s warming other than human causation.
Somewhere in the middle, but perhaps closer to Pruitt, is Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s view that carbon dioxide is changing the atmosphere but “our ability to predict that effect is very limited.” Tillerson says he knows the change is happening; he’s just not clear on the consequences or how bad they’ll be.
Meanwhile, and as The Washington Post’s Brady Dennis recently chronicled, two of the U.S.’s top Earth-science agencies, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, routinely release new analyses and products that document just how warm the planet is, just how much of its ice is melting, just how rapidly its seas are rising, and more.
They, like the federal climate change science program, show little sign of being censored or suppressed.
Indeed, earlier this month, NOAA released a report finding that the Arctic is now warmer than it has been in at least a millennium and a half. The document’s release was embraced by none other than Trump appointee and acting NOAA administrator Tim Gallaudet, who said that the document’s findings “directly relate to the priorities of this administration” — namely, national security goals in the fast-changing Arctic region.
Even at the EPA — which took down a scientifically accurate Web page about climate change, and where rolling back the Obama administration’s climate change policies is a top priority — the planet’s warming is accepted as a premise, at least in technical documents.
The draft Regulatory Impact Analysis that the agency released to analyze the costs and benefits of rolling back President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan greatly downgraded government estimates of the economic cost of emitting a ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — but it still said each ton has a cost.
That, itself, is tantamount to accepting that global warming is real and has at least some impact on the world.
At times, it isn’t even clear if top administration officials are actually reflecting the President’s own views on climate change. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said earlier this year that Trump “believes the climate is changing, and he believes pollutants are part of that equation.”
There are at least two questions we should ask about this not-very-consistent approach to climate change in the Trump administration: Why it exists, and how to evaluate its consequences.
As Dennis’s story noted, climate science seems to be far less fettered at science focused agencies than at regulatory agencies — with NASA and NOAA a prime example of the former and the EPA of the latter. At the same time, NASA and NOAA do not yet have permanent administrators in place.
Yet during the administration of George W. Bush — which, like the Trump administration, tried to slow-pedal action on climate change — scientists at NASA and NOAA complained of having their work or ability to communicate with the media interfered with, and scientific documents were edited by political actors.
The difference, really, seems to be that the more tightly organized Bush administration didn’t much appreciate having the president’s message contradicted and potentially undermined by federal scientists. Whereas in the thinly staffed and often chaotic Trump administration, such a push toward message consistency has really never taken hold.
On the one hand, letting scientists and climate science doubters alike say what they think, and then wrestling with the contradictions, seems in many ways consistent with a nation that celebrates free speech but also pays ample tax dollars to employ an army of government scientific experts.
It’s also potentially consistent with a principle that American scientists themselves have stood up for throughout their many decades of marriage to the federal government: Scientists tell it like it is, and then policymakers get to decide what to do about that.
Thus, the Trump administration can go about withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, and rolling back the Clean Power Plan (these are policy decisions), or even choosing to defund some climate research — but it can’t tell its scientists what to say or think.
So far, so good — but at the same time, there’s that small but nagging matter of intellectual consistency.
After all, the experts do largely have one voice on climate change. The top analyses all do say it’s real, it’s happening, and moreover, the window is closing fast if you want to do anything about it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/12/29/the-trump-administrations-position-on-climate-change-is-all-over-the-place/?utm_term=.44cadebaabb1
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