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ACC AM 19/02/19
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(ACC Mentioned) Lake Erie Bill of Rights Group Takes Aim at 'Attack Ads'
Feb 18, 2019 | Toledo Blade
By Tom Henry
Toledoans for Safe Water said at a news conference Monday that its proposed Lake Erie Bill of Rights is being smeared on radio advertisements by a Columbus-based firm with deep pockets. -
(ACC Mentioned) Solutions Through Science Elects New Officers
Feb 18, 2019 | Leesville Daily Leader
Together, these officers represent one of our state’s critical industries and the thousands of Louisianans it employs at several independent companies. -
Consumer Push for Sustainability Masks Massive Growth in Plastic Demand
Feb 19, 2019 | Platts
By Philip Reeder
Barely a week goes by without another headline decrying the use of plastics and plastic packaging in Europe. -
These Toxins Last ‘Forever.’ But the EPA is Going Slow
Feb 19, 2019 | Roll Call
By Jacob Holzman
When two officials from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality showed up at Sandy Wynn-Stelt’s Belmont, Michigan, house in July of 2017 asking to test her private water well, she didn’t anticipate trouble. -
Federal PFAS Action Plan Doesn't Wow Vermonters
Feb 18, 2019 | Rutland Herald
By Keith Whitcomb
The federal government’s plan to tackle PFAS chemicals, released Thursday, isn’t getting much love from Vermont’s environmental leaders. -
EIA Adds New Plays to Shale Gas, Tight Oil Reports
Feb 18, 2019 | Journal of Petroleum Technology
By Stephen Whitfield
The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has added new play production data to its shale gas and tight oil reports. -
Proving the EPA Can Be Relied Upon
Feb 18, 2019 | The Wheeling Intelligencer
With some local residents expressing concern about the ethane cracker plant that may be built in Belmont County, it is important that government regulatory agencies ensure there is reason to have faith they will enforce environmental rules. -
Letter: The Trains – And Their Representatives – Are Coming
Feb 19, 2019 | The Suburban Times
By David Anderson
The board of the Tillicum Woodbrook Neighborhood Association (TWNA) has received a request from the design-build contractor for the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to update this community concerning I-5 construction as it relates to the two interchanges for Tillicum. -
Yes, the Green New Deal is Audacious. But We Have No Choice but to Think Big.
Feb 18, 2019 | The Washington Post
By Eugene Robinson
Who’s afraid of the Green New Deal? -
Amazon Aims to Cut Shipment Carbon Footprint in Half by 2030
Feb 18, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
Major online retailer Amazon is making a push to halve the carbon footprint of its shipments by 2030.
Industry and Association News
TSCA News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) Lake Erie Bill of Rights Group Takes Aim at 'Attack Ads'
Feb 18, 2019 | Toledo Blade
By Tom Henry
Toledoans for Safe Water said at a news conference Monday that its proposed Lake Erie Bill of Rights is being smeared on radio advertisements by a Columbus-based firm with deep pockets.
Markie Miller, Toledoans for Safe Water organizer, said Strategic Public Partners Group is “putting fear into the public” with 11th-hour falsehoods leading up to Toledo’s Feb. 26 special election. She said it is doing so under the name of a group called “Toledo Jobs and Growth Coalition,” which she and others contend was created as a front to attack their proposed amendment to Toledo’s city charter.
The firm has represented major pharmaceutical companies, the American Chemistry Council, Coca Cola Corp, FedEx, Bank of America, Ford Motor Co., the National Football League, and others, according to a joint statement by her group and Advocates for a Clean Lake Erie.
“We expected this in a way,” Ms. Miller said.
Tom HenryOhio court rejects final Lake Erie Bill of Rights ballot challenge
VIDEO: Sam Wright, Advocates for a Clean Lake Erie
Sean Nestor, who also belongs to Toledoans for Safe Water, said in a Facebook post that Toledo Coalition for Jobs and Growth is one of two “shadow PACs” that were “formed in the last week out of nowhere to attack the Lake Erie Bill of Rights.”
The other, he said, is a group called Real Solutions for Lake Erie. Neither has websites. Real Solutions for Lake Erie recently had a Facebook page created. But nearly all posts are from critics who claim it is a phony group created to attack the campaign.
The former has been airing a series of attack ads on local radio stations, while the latter is focused on social media, according to Mr. Nestor.
“It shouldn't surprise anyone that an innovative effort to protect Lake Erie and hold its polluters accountable is being hit with a well-funded smear campaign full of outright lies,” Mr. Nestor wrote in his Facebook post. “The same people that make money by not cleaning up their mess are paying slick [public relations] firms to convince people to vote against protecting their own water supply.”
Brandon Lynaugh, a partner at Strategic Public Partners Group, is listed on Lucas County Board of Elections documents as the coalition’s treasurer.
Tom HenryLake Erie Bill of Rights headed to Feb. 26 ballot
Mr. Lynaugh refused to be interviewed, but said in a statement on behalf of the coalition that the Lake Erie Bill of Rights is “a misguided effort that threatens the economic security of Toledo families.” The statement went on to claim that small businesses, places of worship, and labor organizations “will all suffer under this proposal,” but gave no explanation.
The coalition has not yet run any television ads.
According to the website OpenSecrets.org, Strategic Public Partners is a lobbying-public relations firm listed as a political action committee — or PAC — and has donated to several of Ohio’s Republican members of Congress and no Democrats.
Recipients have included U.S. Sen. Rob Portman (R., Ohio), U.S. Rep. Bob Latta (R., Bowling Green), and U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R. Urbana).
Among the coalition’s multiple claims is that the Lake Erie Bill of Rights campaign is being run by out-of-state extremists.
Flanked by about 30 other Toledoans inside One Government Center, Ms. Miller flatly denied that. Many of those in attendance were locals who had gathered signatures to get the proposal on the ballot. Toledoans for Safe Water also had its ballot initiative represented in front of the Lucas County Board of Elections and the Ohio Supreme Court by Terry Lodge, a Toledo attorney.
Sam Wright, an ACLE member, said he finds the accusation baseless and insulting.
“I find it extremely offensive and I think it's just fear mongering,” Mr. Wright said. “Nothing could be further from the truth. This is a local initiative.”
Ms. Miller acknowledged early in the campaign and again Monday that the only outside involvement has been consulting from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which is based in Mercersburg, Pa., and has worked with communities in at least 10 states to enact what are known as “rights to nature” laws. It also has done work in Nepal, India, Cameroon, Colombia, Australia, and other countries.
Such efforts, according to a six-page analysis published Feb. 8 by Ohio State University Extension, have “a bad track record in courts nationwide.”
VIDEO: Markie Miller, Toledoans for Safe Water
In a second prepared statement submitted to The Blade, Mr. Lynaugh said the coalition stands behind its radio ad. He said it is “designed to highlight the fact that an out of state organization called the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund is pushing these reckless and legally dubious issues on local ballots all across the country without regard to their negative impact on jobs and local economies."
Records show only one contribution has been made to Toledoans for Safe Water by a person affiliated with the CELDF. That was a $100 donation on Sept. 21, 2018 by Tish O’Dell, of Broadview Heights, Ohio, who is CELDF’s Ohio organizer.
Toledo Jobs and Growth Coalition is too new to have campaign contributions on file. Mr. Lynaugh said the group is a ballot issue committee that “will file all the required reports outlining campaign contributions and expenditures at the next filing deadline.”
A lengthy article about the proposed bill led the Sunday New York Times National page.
“I hope people realize the world is watching,” Ms. Miller said. “This might be a local effort, but it’s a local effort that’s part of a larger national movement — the community rights movement, the rights of nature.”
Both Toledoans for Safe Water and Advocates for a Clean Lake Erie are Toledo-based groups formed in response to Toledo’s 2014 algae-driven water crisis. ACLE was created by two-time Toledo mayoral candidate and former Toledo City Councilman Mike Ferner.
https://www.toledoblade.com/local/environment/2019/02/18/lake-erie-bill-of-rights-group-denounces-attack-ads/stories/20190218109
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(ACC Mentioned) Solutions Through Science Elects New Officers
Feb 18, 2019 | Leesville Daily Leader
Together, these officers represent one of our state’s critical industries and the thousands of Louisianans it employs at several independent companies.
Each year, members of Solutions Through Science (STS), a partnership of chlorine producers and users in Louisiana, choose officers responsible for assisting and directing the group’s educational, professional and legislative efforts.
Together, these officers represent one of our state’s critical industries and the thousands of Louisianans it employs at several independent companies. At a meeting on February 15, the STS executive committee elected the following officers:
John Eskew, Occidental Chemical Corporation--Chairman; Jaclyn Tubre, Olin Chlor Alkali--Vice Chairman; Ed Flynn, Louisiana Chemical Association--Treasurer; and, Alexis Schlatre, Solutions Through Science--Secretary.
John Eskew is the Plant Manager at Occidental Chemical Corporation’s Geismar facility. During his 30-year career with OxyChem he has worked a variety of positions in Alabama, Texas and Louisiana.
Jaclyn Tubre is the Production Leader for Olin’s St. Gabriel facility. She previously worked as the Production Leader for Olin’s Plaquemine Per/Tet & EDC plants and as a design engineer in the Engineering Solutions Department at the Dow Chemical Company in Plaquemine.
Ed Flynn is the Vice President of Health, Safety & Security for the Louisiana Chemical Association. He represents the chemical industry at the state and local levels to media, educators and the general public. Prior to joining LCA, he worked in Washington D.C. at the United States Department of Commerce (NOAA) and at the DYNAMAC Corporation, an engineering firm in Rockville, Maryland.
As the executive director of Solutions Through Science, Alexis Schlatre is responsible for public and legislative outreach on behalf of the organization’s members. She previously worked as the communications director for Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick and later directed public and governmental relations consulting firms in Austin, Texas.
“I am thrilled with the new leadership that will be taking over the organization,” said Judith Nordgren, immediate past-chairwoman of Solutions Through Science. “Our officers bring a wealth of knowledge and experience in the chlorine chemistry industry, and they will represent STS very well.”
The other members of Solutions Through Science’s Executive Committee include: Joe Andrepont, Director of Government Affairs, Westlake Chemical Corporation; Tim Bergeron, Environmental Manager, Shintech Louisiana; Paul Heurtevant, Plant Manager, Formosa Plastics; and Judith Nordgren, Managing Director for the Chlorine Chemistry Division of the American Chemistry Council.
For more information on Solutions Through Science and its activities in 2019, visit us online at http://www.stsla.org/.
https://www.leesvilledailyleader.com/news/20190218/solutions-through-science-elects-new-officers
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Consumer Push for Sustainability Masks Massive Growth in Plastic Demand
Feb 19, 2019 | Platts
By Philip Reeder
This is the first installment in a three-part series exploring oil, plastics demand and sustainability.
Barely a week goes by without another headline decrying the use of plastics and plastic packaging in Europe. Plastics are clogging up our oceans, overflowing our landfill sites and even finding their way into our food.
But as the world wakes up to the environmental damage caused by plastic waste and pollution, it may come as a surprise to learn that the industry is looking to dramatically ramp up production, not slow it down.
The International Energy Agency now forecasts demand for petrochemical feedstocks – the specific group of refined oil and gas products used to produce plastics – to grow by nearly 5 million barrels per day to 2040. Meanwhile, the petrochemicals sector itself is now being positioned as the largest driver of global oil consumption at more than a third of the growth in oil demand to 2030, and nearly half to 2050.
In the US, ready access to low-cost unconventional oil reserves has already led to the investment of more than $200 billion in new chemical manufacturing facilities since 2010, while in Europe new investments are counting on exports of US chemicals to produce even more plastics for consumption worldwide. Coal and methanol to olefins projects in China are driving self-sufficient plastics production in East Asia, while at the same time a wave of new capacity additions for ethylene – one of the major building blocks of plastics production –in South Korea, India and the Middle East are being met by an average global demand growth year on year of 3.4% from 2018 to 2028 according to S&P Global Platts Analytics.
As the public backlash against plastics intensifies, however, the industry is being forced to manage a difficult double act: meet growing demand while attempting to transition from a single-use economy to true sustainability.
Media spotlight drives policy
Reducing our reliance on single-use plastic and boosting recycling rates is certainly getting lots of attention in the media at the moment and that is a good thing. The 2017 BBC documentary Blue Planet II may have been a turning point, bringing home the scale of the damage plastics are doing to the world’s oceans. The shift in opinion against plastics has been as decisive as it has been central to recent decisions taken to curb their usage.
The European Commission is now moving aggressively to implement stricter recycling measures, the UK is proposing a ban on plastic straws and cotton buds as part of a 25-year plan to eliminate plastic waste, and India is committed to doing the same, only by 2022. Elsewhere, brand-owners such as Coca-Cola, Evian, Unilever and Nestle have committed to higher standards of product design and recycling content targets, and in April last year, supermarkets across the UK signed up to a ‘plastics pact’ which set targets to use 30% recycled material in all plastic packaging.
Yet while efforts are clearly being made to reduce the production of the world’s most harmful plastics, the focus until now has been almost entirely centred on single-use plastics. Legislation to restrict disposable plastic is an obvious win for legislators in Europe, representing a kind of low-hanging fruit to appease both consumers and voters, but the fact is these efforts are likely to do little to offset the massive underlying growth of chemical products globally. The truth is that plastics and the petrochemicals that are used to produce them are an integral part of modern society, and that is not going to change any time soon.
Plastic is everywhere
Chemicals derived from oil and gases are used in just about everything. Besides the manufacture of plastic straws, cotton buds, shopping bags and food packaging, they are used in digital devices, medical equipment and clothing. Synthetic rubber derived from the petrochemical butadiene is used in tires for cars, trucks and bicycles. Polypropylene – a polymer derived from cracking the hydrocarbon chains of distilled fractions of oil and then connecting the by-products – is used to keep tea bags from falling apart.
Beyond even tea bags, however, the attractiveness of plastics also extends to investments in clean energy infrastructure. Silicone is used in solar cells and thermoplastic foams are needed to make wind turbine blades lighter and more durable. Plastics also compose many of the materials needed for the light-weighting of electric vehicles –a fleet expected to number 280 million in 2040, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics.
To achieve the grand challenge of reducing our global carbon footprint, plastics will continue playing a crucial role in leading the transition away from fossil fuels to low-emission, low-cost alternatives.
Investment and innovation
Given the vital role plastics are expected to play in meeting the needs of future economies, major oil and gas companies have already begun moving to integrate downstream assets within their operations. For oil companies with deep pockets, the focus on major downstream initiatives in petrochemicals is both an effort to diversify portfolios and also a hedge against future reductions in road transportation fuels as the world moves to electric powered vehicles.
The recent acquisition by Saudi Aramco of Saudi Basic Industries Corp., the Middle East’s largest producer of plastics and chemicals, is one of many examples of oil giants that now perceive chemicals to be one of the future growth engines of the economy. Last year the company announced its latest investment will be the building of a crude-to-chemicals complex with a capacity to process 400,000 b/d of crude to produce 9 million mt per year of various petrochemicals. News quickly followed that Aramco will be investing $100 billion in chemicals over the next decade and will use 70% of its crude oil in petrochemical production.
Almost paling by comparison then, was news last month of the launch of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, a partnership of companies committed to spending $1 billion to keep plastic waste out of the environment. Despite grabbing headlines, the pact seems unlikely to tackle the production problem at its source. The signatories in the alliance include Shell and Exxon, companies that are actively investing many more billions building integrated chemical production plants worldwide. With global production of more than 300 million metric tons of plastic each year and massive growth expected worldwide, sustainability concerns are unlikely to temper plastics demand.
However, many companies are beginning to see the economic potential in building infrastructure for plastics disposal and re-use. In 2017, furniture giant IKEA acquired a 15% stake in a Dutch polypropylene and high density polyethylene (HDPE) recycling plant. Petrochemical giant Borealis acquired German recycler mtm plastics in 2016 and Austrian recycler Ecoplast in 2018. Add to that list the purchase last summer of French recycler Sorepla by polyethylene terephthalate (PET) producer Indorama.
There are also signs that oil and gas companies are strengthening their links with recycling players, with the signing of an agreement in August last year between oil and gas major MOL and German recycler APK to support completion of the latter’s ‘Newcycling’ plant which will enable recycling of multi-layer packaging.
As the field of waste management evolves, the future of the industry may even lie in a new generation of plastic to fuel (PTF) conversion technologies, aimed at recovering synthetic crude oil from plastic waste. PTF may well be the first step in a move to a truly circular economy, irrespective of the massive increase in plastics demand that recent headlines seem to have missed.
https://blogs.platts.com/2019/02/19/consumer-push-sustainability-masks-growth-plastics-demand/
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These Toxins Last ‘Forever.’ But the EPA is Going Slow
Feb 19, 2019 | Roll Call
By Jacob Holzman
When two officials from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality showed up at Sandy Wynn-Stelt’s Belmont, Michigan, house in July of 2017 asking to test her private water well, she didn’t anticipate trouble.
So she was stunned when they discovered incredibly high levels of a class of chemicals that are raising serious pollution and health concerns as communities around the country discover their water is contaminated with them.
The compounds, known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, were used for decades in manufacturing products such as cookware, microwave popcorn bags, carpeting, rainwear and shoes, as well as polishes, cleaning products and fire retardants because they make surfaces resistant to heat, water and staining.
The threat posed by PFAS, which are so slow to degrade they’ve been nicknamed “forever chemicals,” and safety concerns about their replacements have become a new national environmental crisis.
“It’s more than just a crisis, it’s actually a tragedy when you read about the people who’ve been affected, like the folks in West Virginia,” said Daniel Rosenberg, an environmental attorney and director of the toxics program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. He was referring to the thousands of people in and around Parkersburg, West Virginia, who were exposed to a form of PFAS used at a DuPont and Chemours Co. plant that has manufactured Teflon cookware and other products for decades. In 2017 DuPont agreed to pay more than $670 million to settle 3,550 damage claims related to the exposure.
Congress is starting to wake up to the problem, but the EPA under the Trump administration has been slow to act: a long-awaited action plan released Thursday did not include clean water standards for two types of PFAS chemicals — PFOA, also called the Teflon chemical, and PFOS, better known as Scotchgard. Instead, the agency offered cleanup guidance to states and said it will initiate rule-making for maximum drinking water contaminant levels at the end of the year, a delay that drew immediate criticism from activists.
House Democrats are also in the initial stages of investigating the administration’s possible suppression of a report by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found certain PFAS could be dangerous in drinking water in amounts significantly below the current EPA health advisory level of 70 parts per trillion. House Energy and Commerce Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee Chairman Paul D. Tonko, a New York Democrat, had said the panel’s approach to oversight of the chemicals would depend on whether the EPA set a drinking water standard.
Inaction at the federal level has given way to action at the state level to find out the scope of the problem. At least seven states, including California, New York, New Jersey and Vermont, have either promulgated or proposed PFAS regulations for drinking water.
Last spring, Michigan began conducting statewide drinking water sampling for the chemicals, the first initiative of its kind. To date it has found at least 38 contaminated sites, and state data show almost 1.9 million people get drinking water with at least some degree of contamination.
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In Wynn-Stelt’s water, the state found PFOS and PFOA at levels 540 times higher than considered safe by the EPA.
One state official told the local press it was the highest concentration of those chemicals found in a drinking-water well “in the U.S. so far.”
When Wynn-Stelt and her late husband, Joel, bought their home decades ago, they were unaware the surrounding land had been used previously by a leather tannery owned by Wolverine Worldwide, makers of a popular shoe called Hush Puppies. The plant treated the shoes with Scotchgard and dumped the waste on the adjacent land.
“I had no idea there had been dumping there,” Wynn-Stelt said. “When we moved here, all of this acreage around us was a Christmas tree farm. Isn’t that idyllic? Who doesn’t want to move to a Christmas tree farm?”
After the state’s alarming findings, Wynn-Stelt had her blood tested. The results showed a presence of the chemicals in her body 750 times higher than the national average, based on a study last year by the American Red Cross. Her husband died in March 2016 from liver cancer.
Since her water was tested, the question of whether the contamination was a factor in his illness has dogged her. She remembers that after the water was first tested, she called her sister-in-law Peggy to tell her about the test results.
“I was like, ‘God, the weirdest thing happened to me today. I have this thing called PFAS,’” she recalled. Her sister-in-law immediately burst into tears. “That’s what killed Joel. I know that’s what killed Joel,” she said.
The same year he died, EPA released a new lifetime health advisory for the chemicals in drinking water saying the chemicals were dangerous at levels significantly lower than previously believed.
Flashback: Protesters interrupt confirmation hearing on Trump’s EPA pick
A host of concerns
The most consequential study conducted so far of PFOS and PFOA effects on humans came out as a result of the class-action lawsuit against DuPont over the exposures in West Virginia. It found probable links between PFOS and PFOA exposure and six diseases: heart disease, thyroid disease, hypertension and preeclampsia, ulcerative colitis, and kidney and testicular cancer.
The study did not find a probable link to liver cancer, but animal studies have suggested the human liver is particularly susceptible to possible effects from these chemicals.
Michigan is far from alone in grappling with the problem; experts say if you look for PFAS almost anywhere, you’ll find it in some quantity. A project out of Northeastern University in Boston has since then identified at least 196 polluted sites across the country — from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Warminster, Pennsylvania, to Hoosick Falls, New York, and Parchment, Michigan — sourced to factories, military bases and other sites.
And if EPA’s standards are strengthened to those recommended by the federal CDC, the number of contaminated sites would likely grow exponentially.
“Communities are very concerned about this,” said Liz Hitchcock, director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, an environmental group focused on the problems. “PFAS is such a crazy ball of wax because of the many uses for these chemicals.”
For most of the second half of the 20th century, PFAS chemicals spread through the environment in popular products and flame retardants that were added to everything from baby clothes to furniture as a way to reduce fire damage. But as sales of the products boomed, the manufacturers of the chemicals, including 3M and DuPont, did their best to hide studies raising serious questions about their safety.
In 2000, 3M announced it would no longer manufacture them and later reformulated Scotchgard, one of its top-selling products. However, DuPont continued to produce PFOA.
In 2005, the EPA discovered that for years DuPont failed to submit studies and health monitoring information that showed the chemicals may be toxic to humans. The lack of disclosure violated a 1976 law known as the Toxic Substances Control Act, and DuPont reached a settlement with the agency to pay $10.3 million in civil penalties and perform more than $6 million in environmental projects — at the time the largest civil penalty the EPA had ever assessed.
Despite the widespread use of the chemicals and mounting evidence of the harm they can do to humans, the EPA has done little but issue advisories suggesting what levels of exposure might be problematic.
“There are currently no enforceable regulations for the entire class of PFAS chemicals,” said Anna Reade, a staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. On top of that, the EPA continues to allow hundreds of new PFAS formulations into the marketplace every year, she said.
Reade’s NRDC colleague, Rosenberg, said there’s plenty of blame to go around.
“It’s not the case that only the Trump administration has allowed this dangerous class of chemicals to proliferate in our stream of commerce, in our drinking water and in our environment,” he said. “That is a shared responsibility of multiple administrations. And it further underscores how broken the system has been and still is — the TSCA system, the Safe Drinking Water Act and other mechanisms that haven’t been used to stop the chemicals.”An evolving crisis
In 2006, faced with growing evidence of health hazards and pressure from the EPA, the last producers of PFOS and PFOA voluntarily agreed to phase them out by 2015.
Despite the phase-out, PFOS and PFOA are still in the blood of most Americans. While levels in people’s bloodstreams have declined since 2006, recent CDC estimates suggest at least 95 percent of the U.S. population has at least some amount in their blood.
At the same time, manufacturers developed PFAS substitutes that some believe to be as harmful as the old compounds. In response, the companies say the fluorine-carbon chains in the new chemicals are shorter, so they are less likely to accumulate in the human body or be harmful to human health.
But there is little indication that consumers should have peace of mind. In November the EPA released a draft toxicology profile suggesting that two replacement chemicals, GenX and PFBS, while less persistent than PFOS and PFOA, carry similar concerns.
Last fall Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute for Environmental Sciences, told a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee the persistent and accumulative nature of the chemicals makes them similar to the insecticide DDT, which continues to be found in people and nature even though it was banned by the EPA in 1972.
“They never go away,” Birnbaum said of the chemicals. “They will persist in the environment, essentially, certainly as long as any of us are here,” she said, adding that many of the toxins have half lives of many years. “I think that is a concern for this class of compounds, that they will be with us long after they stop being made.”
According to the EPA, there are 4,730 PFAS-related chemicals identified globally. Of those, 1,220 are on the agency’s list of chemical substances made, processed or imported into the United States, and roughly 550 have reportedly been used in U.S. commerce in the past decade.
None of these chemicals have faced restrictions in commerce. Under the Toxic Substances Control Act, EPA can restrict use of a chemical through Significant New Use Rules. Yet despite multiple attempts in recent decades, the agency has not been able to finalize a rule for even PFOS and PFOA, let alone the replacement chemicals.
In 2016, Congress, acting at the behest of industry requests for a new TSCA law, passed an update that required EPA to evaluate compounds of greatest concern to public health and safety. PFAS were not on the initial list, but the EPA in the Obama administration was studying whether new limits were needed.
The agency’s handling of the chemicals shifted significantly after the start of the Trump administration, with efforts to suppress a report on the chemicals’ effects and a slowdown in developing a PFAS management plan.
In May, the Union of Concerned Scientists obtained emails through the Freedom of Information Act showing Trump administration officials discussed the explosive nature of a draft Health and Human Services Department toxicology profile of some of the chemicals, including PFOA and PFOS.
When the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at the CDC put out the report in June, the public learned why the officials were concerned about a backlash: It said PFOA and PFOS could be dangerous in drinking water at levels significantly lower than the EPA standard.
An agency document released in November affirmed their recommendations: While the EPA’s advisory limit for both PFOS and PFOA was 70 parts per trillion, the CDC recommended as low as 21 parts per trillion for PFOA and 14 parts per trillion for PFOS.Hill in the middle
The confusion caused by dueling narratives from the EPA and the CDC means that for any policy to really make an impact on PFAS, lawmakers will have to pick a side in an ongoing brawl between the chemical companies, the federal government, health experts and clean water activists over the potential dangers from water contaminated by the chemicals.
Some states have chosen to side with the CDC. In December, New York’s drinking water quality council estimated 23 percent of the state’s drinking water systems are contaminated at levels above HHS’ recommendations — roughly 645 systems.
The council recommended Gov. Andrew Cuomo set the first enforceable drinking water standard for PFOS and PFOA at 10 parts per trillion — seven times more stringent than the EPA’s lifetime health advisory.
At the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee hearing in November, Patrick Breysse, director of the CDC agency that oversaw the toxicological profile, said there is great uncertainty about so-called safe limits.
“If I can maybe be clear, that’s the level below which we know there’s no concern, above which there might be concern. Things are rarely in this arena this black and white where above a number is bad, below a number’s good,” Breysse said. “It’s a complex calculus.”
Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican, raised the issue during his re-election campaign. At least two towns in his district, Horsham and Warminster, have wrestled with rampant contamination from decades of fire retardant use at military bases in each community.
In September, he announced he was forming a task force to address the issue and invited local officials to participate.
At its first meeting in October, he and his staff took suggestions from the public on what was needed to develop legislative solutions.
The next week, he brought in officials from the Defense Department and the EPA. The meeting was emotional and at times tense. But Rick Rogers, director of the water protection division in EPA’s Region 3, provided the most controversy when he tried to reassure the audience that any contamination below EPA’s threshold for drinking water — 70 parts per trillion — was safe. He compared it to other contaminants like arsenic or radioactivity.
“At 50 parts per trillion, we’re talking about such a low level that, knowing what I know, I wouldn’t be concerned about that,” he said. He noted there are plenty of water systems with 50 percent of the maximum level of a contaminant.
When asked after the task force meeting if he believed Rogers’ claim about the drinking water threshold, Fitzpatrick cited the CDC profile and said it was clear “nobody really knows” what’s safe yet.
“Nobody’s talking about, ‘When are we going to definitively determine what, if anything, is a safe level?’” he said.
Activists, lawmakers and state governments alike hoped the EPA’s PFAS management plan, promised by officials throughout last year, would provide some clarity. But they were disappointed by the action plan unveiled Thursday.
“We don’t have to have [a maximum contaminant level] in order to enforce a cleanup,” said EPA acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler at an event in Philadelphia where he announced the plan. He added that the agency has continued to enforce a limit of 70 parts per trillion in the meantime.
While it is notoriously difficult for agencies to set drinking water thresholds for new chemicals under the Safe Drinking Water Act, that hasn’t stopped pressure from Republicans such as Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, home to the DuPont factory.
However, the issue is unlikely to hold up the nomination of Wheeler to formally head the agency. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee advanced Wheeler’s nomination Feb. 5 on a party-line vote, 11-10.
Capito, who sits on the committee, voted to advance the nomination, saying she received commitments from Wheeler to address her concerns over the agency’s PFAS management plan.
“However, I intend to closely track the steps EPA and other agencies are taking to address this public health and environmental health crisis, which has had a particular impact on West Virginians living in affected communities, to ensure that the federal government is efficiently responsive to their concerns,” Capito said.
https://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/forever-chemicals-pfas-epa
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Federal PFAS Action Plan Doesn't Wow Vermonters
Feb 18, 2019 | Rutland Herald
By Keith Whitcomb
The federal government’s plan to tackle PFAS chemicals, released Thursday, isn’t getting much love from Vermont’s environmental leaders.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s “action plan” for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) “outlines concrete steps the agency is taking to address PFAS and to protect public health,” according to the EPA’s website. The plan can be found at https://bit.ly/2N5lauQ
“I feel very fortunate we are not reliant upon (the EPA) to take action,” said Peter Walke, deputy secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, last week.
Late last month, the ANR announced its own plan to deal with PFAS chemicals, which have been found in wells near the Rutland-Southern Vermont Regional Airport in Clarendon, as well as private wells in North Bennington.
In Clarendon, the PFAS chemicals are believed to have come from firefighting foam used to fight a fire at the airport in the past. In North Bennington, the chemicals were byproducts of Teflon manufacturing.
Walke said recently that ANR has begun the rulemaking process to set “maximum contamination levels” for five types of PFAS. The Vermont Department of Health already has “health advisory” limits for the chemicals, but a maximum contamination level from the ANR would create more options for clean-up work.
He said ANR has begun reaching out to people and entities who will be affected by the maximum contamination level. It’s one of the first steps in the rulemaking process, he said.
Walke said the EPA’s action plan won’t have any great impact on Vermont, but many were hoping it would list PFAS chemicals as hazardous substances, allowing for federal “superfund” money to be used in cleaning up contaminated areas.
Walke said this is the first time he’s seen the EPA release an action plan for a chemical and, while this plan lacks specifics, it’s the right tool for the job.
The EPA plan lists a number of actions the agency plans to take. They are:
Expand toxicity information for PFAS
Develop new tools to characterize PFAS in the environment
Evaluate cleanup approaches
Develop guidance to facilitate cleanup of contaminated groundwater
Use enforcement tools to address PFAS exposure in the environment and assist states in enforcement activities
Use legal tools to prevent future PFAS contamination
Address PFAS in drinking water using regulatory and other toolsOthers weigh in
“Hundreds of communities across the country, including in Vermont, are dealing with toxic PFOA and other kinds of PFAS chemical contamination in their drinking water,” said U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders in an email on Monday. “Not surprisingly, Trump’s EPA has proposed a very weak ‘action plan’ that does not come close to protecting public health and a clean environment. It doesn’t even establish an enforceable drinking water standard for these toxic chemicals. This is not acceptable. The EPA must move aggressively to protect all Americans from these and other toxic chemicals, and Congress and the Trump administration must make a significant and prolonged investment in our aging drinking water infrastructure.”
U.S. Rep. Peter Welch said through a spokesperson Monday that the EPA’s action plan is, “... insufficient for the gravity of the threat to drinking water posed by PFAS.”
“EPA has completely failed to protect the public from dangerous PFAS chemicals over the past two decades, and their plan for drinking water is just more foot-dragging,” said Jen Duggan, vice president and director of Conservation Law Foundation of Vermont, in a statement released Thursday. “EPA has not even committed to setting standards for just two of thousands of toxic PFAS chemicals. We can and must do better. Now more than ever it is clear that Vermont will have to act to protect our drinking water.”
Her remarks came alongside statements from the Vermont Natural Resources Council.
“The threats posed by PFAS chemicals to drinking water are real, significant and here now,” said Jon Groveman, policy and water program director for the Vermont Natural Resources Council. “EPA’s proposal is too little and too slow to address health and environmental impacts on PFAS.”
According to the Conservation Law Foundation, PFAS has been linked to kidney and testicular cancer, impaired function of the liver, pancreas and immune system, reproductive problems, thyroid disease, high blood pressure and other health problems.
https://www.rutlandherald.com/news/local/federal-pfas-action-plan-doesn-t-wow-vermonters/article_377b04e1-4ad3-5e0a-9db6-6a5f3123e767.html
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EIA Adds New Plays to Shale Gas, Tight Oil Reports
Feb 18, 2019 | Journal of Petroleum Technology
By Stephen Whitfield
The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has added new play production data to its shale gas and tight oil reports. Last December, US shale and tight plays produced approximately 65 Bcf/D of natural gas and 7 million B/D of crude oil, accounting for 70% and 60% of US production in those areas, respectively. These totals represent a significant jump in the last 10 years: shale gas and tight oil accounted for 16% of total US gas production and approximately 12% of US total crude oil production, according to EIA statistics.
EIA updated its production volume estimates to include seven addition shale gas and tight oil plays, increasing the share of shale gas by 9% and tight oil by 8% compared with previously estimated shale production volumes. The change captures increasing production from new, emerging plays as well as from older plays that had previously been in decline, but are now rebounding because of advancements in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.
These plays include the Mississippian formation, located mainly within the Anadarko Basin in Oklahoma. While the play has produced liquids and natural gas for some time, newer completion techniques have driven recent production gains. EIA said the Mississippian is the most productive of the newly added plays in its ledger.The Mississippian is the most-productive of the shale gas and tight oil plays newly added to the EIA’s reporting. Source: EIA
The other plays included are the Burket and Geneseo formations in the Appalachian Basin of Pennsylvania and West Virginia; the Uteland Butte member of the Green River formation in the Utah’s Uinta Basin; and the Turner, Frontier, Sussex-Shannon, and Teapot-Parkman formations in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming.
Burket and Geneseo are dry-shale-gas formations that lie above the Marcellus Shale but do not cover as large an area as the Marcellus. The Uteland Butte comprises primarily limestone, dolostone, and organic-rich mudstones and siltstones. The other formations are mainly fine-grained sandstone with interbedded silt and shale. They lie below and above the Niobrara formation, the Powder River Basin’s primary hydrocarbon-bearing formation.
https://www.spe.org/en/jpt/jpt-article-detail/?art=5119
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Proving the EPA Can Be Relied Upon
Feb 18, 2019 | The Wheeling Intelligencer
With some local residents expressing concern about the ethane cracker plant that may be built in Belmont County, it is important that government regulatory agencies ensure there is reason to have faith they will enforce environmental rules.
A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announcement last week may help in that regard.
EPA officials said they are investigating whether a chemical manufacturer, the Chemours Co., broke laws in two West Virginia communities and one in North Carolina. The Mountain State concern involves alleged contamination of water wells around Chemours factories near Parkersburg and Fayetteville. In North Carolina, the firm allegedly failed to notify the EPA before beginning to manufacture new compounds.
If Chemours is guilty of infractions, the firm should be penalized, of course. Such action would give area residents more confidence the government will act aggressively to protect both the environment and public health.
http://www.theintelligencer.net/opinion/editorials/2019/02/proving-the-epa-can-be-relied-upon/
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Letter: The Trains – And Their Representatives – Are Coming
Feb 19, 2019 | The Suburban Times
By David Anderson
The board of the Tillicum Woodbrook Neighborhood Association (TWNA) has received a request from the design-build contractor for the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to update this community concerning I-5 construction as it relates to the two interchanges for Tillicum.
There are two parts to this presentation scheduled for May 2, 6:30 P.M. at the Tillicum Community Center, 14916 Washington Ave. SW, Lakewood.Picture Source?
The first “is to provide a construction schedule update specific to Thorne Lane and the impacts on Union Avenue, as it will need to be closed for an extensive amount of time to raise the profile of it to match the new elevation of the Thorne overpass. You can see just how tall the Berkeley overpass is. Expect that Thorne will be just as tall.”
Presenters of WSDOT’s rail division will also be on hand to update the community concerning high-speed Amtrak trains coming through town.
Shortly after the December 18, 2017 derailment just south of Tillicum, a horrific crash of a train on its inaugural run that made international news as it took three lives and injured 62 others of the 77 passengers on board, the TWNA Board contacted WSDOT requesting the neighborhood be placed on the list of “communities along the bypass” that would be reached out to before service resumed.
As of this current announcement, the rail division is “still not certain when they will be returning to the Point Defiance Bypass, but they might have more information by May.
“No date has been set as they are awaiting the results of the investigation.”
Tillicum, along with the rest of Lakewood, has long opposed the rerouting of Amtrak Cascades service from along the Puget Sound waterfront to the life-congested neighborhoods paralleling I-5.
Turns out the fears of death by train – not an infrequent occurrence on the more remote shoreline – were not unfounded.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation into the derailment of train 501 “is about two-thirds complete,” according to WSDOT’s project website.
Not until the NTSB issues its full report however can Amtrak Cascades return to the bypass.
Preliminary findings, according to a July 10, 2018 article by Mike Lindblom, Seattle Times transportation reporter, determined that the engineer of the train traveling at 80 mph on a 30-mile curve “tried in vain to see a speed-limit sign.”
The engineer had made only “one southbound training run in the new corridor between Lakewood and Nisqually.”
The engineer “told investigators about a last-minute change in locomotives” leading the NTSB to speculate that “his peripheral vision was hindered within the unfamiliar locomotive.”
“Event-recorder data say emergency brakes weren’t applied before the December crash.”
Michael DeCataldo, vice president of Amtrak operations, “admitted that as many as seven people rode in the front cab last year during night practice trips, exceeding Amtrak standards, in the Lakewood-Nisqually area.”
“The board mentioned the lack of ‘cab signals,’ that trigger an alarm if a speeding train passes trackside detectors.”
Positive Train Control (PTC) – lifesaving technology – had been required by Congress in be in place by the end of 2015 but as of the derailment in December of 2017 that had not been done.
One day after the derailment a co-authored story in “The Seattle Times” stated that “to fully collect federal stimulus money, construction had to be completed by mid-2017,” leading to the suggestion – one WSDOT disputes – that “officials pushed ‘aggressive’ timeline before safety technology was ready.”
The Amtrak derailment in Washington led six congressmen from the state in early January, 2018 to propose a bill that would prohibit the use of new passenger train routes until the train-stopping technology had been installed, according to Lindblom.
In July of 2018, Washington State Senator Steve O’Ban demanded to be brought to account those found derelict in their duties to ensure safety.
“It is my hope that upon the conclusion of its investigation, the NTSB will hold accountable those responsible for the events that led to the loss of life in my district.
“The victims’ families and my constituents deserve accountability from the appropriate personnel and agencies that caused this accident.”
According to a KIRO 7 report by Deborah Horne, September 15, 2018, PTC has now been installed.
For more information, WSDOT has a question and answer page on their website about the derailment.
https://thesubtimes.com/2019/02/18/letter-the-trains-and-their-representatives-are-coming/
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Yes, the Green New Deal is Audacious. But We Have No Choice but to Think Big.
Feb 18, 2019 | The Washington Post
By Eugene Robinson
Who’s afraid of the Green New Deal? I’m not. It’s ambitious, aspirational, improbable, impractical — almost as audacious as putting a man on the moon. We used to be able to think big. Let’s do it again.
Since the 14-page resolution was introduced in Congress this month by Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), critics have been falling over themselves to denounce the Green New Deal’s policies as prohibitively expensive, totally unworkable or somehow Venezuelan. If those opponents would stop shouting long enough to actually read the document, they’d see that it’s not a compendium of concrete policies at all, but rather a set of goals.
And they are the right goals. The Green New Deal seeks to outline a national project for our time — not just a response to a grave environmental threat, but a framework for enhanced growth, opportunity and fairness.
The laudable aim is to play offense, not defense, in the fight to limit climate change. We are going to have to wage that battle one way or another. Why not do it on our terms, before Miami slips underwater and the yet-unburned parts of California go up in flames?
The best historical analogy is not the New Deal but World War II, when mobilization of the nation’s vast productive capacity not only defeated Germany and Japan but also generated unprecedented domestic economic growth, hugely expanding the middle class. Once again, the planet faces a dire threat. Once again, the United States can help lead the world to victory.
It’s a massive overreach, critics of the Green New Deal say. But any effort to address climate change that is commensurate with the scale of the problem is going to look like an overreach. Worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases — the cause of global warming — are beginning to level off, but they need to start falling, and fast, if we are to spare our grandchildren and great-grandchildren an ecological nightmare.
Can we really shift entirely to clean energy sources within 10 years, as the resolution pledges? Well, certainly not if we don’t try. In 1961, when President John F. Kennedy announced the goal of sending an American to the moon and back by the end of the decade, NASA scientists had only a vague idea how to do such a thing. They figured it out, and succeeded in 1969.
Breakthroughs will be needed, for example, in solar energy technology and battery storage. Why should China — now the world’s biggest producer of solar panels — be allowed to make these innovations and reap the resulting economic benefits? Why not the United States?
It’s too expensive, naysayers complain. They point to a clause in the resolution that calls for “upgrading all existing buildings in the United States” to make them more energy-efficient. That sounds absurd — until you remember the massive blackout drills that took place across the country during World War II. People participated. It was their patriotic duty.
Windows, roofs, doors, appliances — all have to be replaced every once in a while, and all can be made less wasteful of energy. And as for goals such as making sure every American has “high-quality health care” and “affordable, safe and adequate housing,” well, those have been Democratic Party positions for a very long time.
Acting alone would be pointless, skeptics say. Indeed, China is now by far the world’s biggest carbon emitter, with the United States second and India a fast-rising third. What would be the point of going to great effort to reduce U.S. emissions while others just burn more coal?
Think about it, though. We are, after all, the second-biggest emitter, which means that any substantial reduction would indeed have measurable impact. Also, officials in China and India, unlike those in the Trump administration, understand and accept the conclusions of climate scientists. China may be adding coal-fired power plants, but it is also making massive investments in clean energy. Do you really want Beijing to lead the way into the future? Shouldn’t it be Washington?
That’s a rationale for the Green New Deal that the Make America Great Again crowd should embrace. If you believe in American exceptionalism, you believe that the United States has a duty to lead at moments of crisis. This is such a moment.
Look at the big picture. Unless you deny the science of climate change, you have to believe that we need to take bold action. Stop all the nitpicking. Enough with the posturing. Let’s talk about what to do.
Read more from Eugene Robinson’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/yes-the-green-new-deal-is-audacious-but-we-have-no-choice-but-to-think-big/2019/02/18/40ee4d02-3098-11e9-8ad3-9a5b113ecd3c_story.html?utm_term=.e6ab29426432
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Amazon Aims to Cut Shipment Carbon Footprint in Half by 2030
Feb 18, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
Major online retailer Amazon is making a push to halve the carbon footprint of its shipments by 2030.
The company, which relies largely on shipping packages across the globe, said Monday it ultimately aims to make all its shipments carbon neutral.
The new push, titled “Shipment Zero,” ultimately aims to make all of the retailer's shipments have a carbon footprint of zero. The company says it plans to meet its 2030 goal by utilizing electric vans, using renewable energy sources such as solar power and pushing more retailers to reuse packaging. It also hopes the rise of aircraft biofuels will aid in its plan.
“It won’t be easy to achieve this goal, but it’s worth being focused and stubborn on this vision and we’re committed to seeing it through,” Amazon said in a statement.
The company plans to start with transparency by publishing its overall carbon footprint later in the year. The data release will follow a two-year project by the company to better understand its own source of carbon use.
“We believe that lower costs include lowering the costs to the environment we all live and work in every day. We’ll keep you posted as we work towards achieving Shipment Zero,” Amazon said.
Amazon is joining a number of national retailers like McDonalds, Coca-Cola and Starbucks that are aiming to cut down on their impact to the globe through recycling, ditching plastics, using renewable energy and cutting back on emissions.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/430474-amazon-aims-to-halve-carbon-footprint-by-2030
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