Preview Newsletter
PM ACC Clips Report - March 19, 2019
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State Weighs First-In-Nation Plastic Ban at Restaurants
Mar 19, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
By Audrey McAvoy
Hawaii would be the first state in the U.S. to ban most plastics at restaurants under legislation that aims to cut down on waste that pollutes the ocean. Dozens of cities across the country have banned plastic foam containers, but... -
ALL ABOUT: Nestle’s New Cleanup Plans for Plastic Products
Mar 19, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
Fast-moving consumer goods companies have drawn fire for how much plastic litter their products generate—including Switzerland-based multinational Nestle SA. Nestle found itself in the crosshairs in late 2018 when... -
SCOTUS Says Manufacturers May Be Liable for Third-Party Parts
Mar 19, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
A manufacturer may be held liable under maritime law for asbestos-related injuries caused by third-party components, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled March 19. Manufacturers have a duty to warn when their product requires incorporation... -
Linking Pollution and Infectious Disease
Mar 19, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
Thousands of seals died along the coasts of the heavily polluted Baltic Sea in the late 1980s. Scientists traced the deaths to a virus similar to the one that causes distemper in dogs. Last year, the same virus struck hundreds of seals in... -
Feature: Miami Beach Is Fourth Tourist Spot to Consider Sunscreen Ban
Mar 19, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Caroline Byrne
Miami Beach is rethinking its approach to oxybenzone and octinoxate, the chemicals used in sunscreens like Hawaiian Tropic and Banana Boat to deflect ultraviolet rays. It is the fourth tourist destination to consider banning sunblock... -
State Water Board Unveils Aggressive Plan to Issue Investigative Orders for PFAS
Mar 18, 2019 | National Law Review
By Kamran Javandel, Vaneeta Chintamaneni, Sandi L. Nichols, and David D. Cooke
Environmental & Natural Resources: Within the month, the State Board will issue orders requiring investigation of potential PFAS contamination, a widely used class of chemicals, at more than a thousand California facilities. -
White House Pushes Cuts for Cleanups despite PFAs Concerns
Mar 19, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Courtney Columbus
The White House yesterday proposed cutting the Pentagon's funding for environmental restoration by more than 10 percent. The Army, Navy, Air Force and defensewide budget proposals for environmental restoration would each see... -
Glyphosate Herbicides Are Altering the Food Chain
Mar 19, 2019 | Truthout
By Lindsey Konkel
As the active ingredient in Bayer’s Roundup herbicide is increasingly scrutinized for human health impacts, scientists say it also could be altering the wildlife and organisms at the base of the food chain. Glyphosate is one of the most... -
The Dangerous Food Additive That’s Not on the Label
Mar 19, 2019 | Civil Eats
By Rachel Cernansky
A report released earlier this month by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group (EWG), found that an estimated 2,000 synthetic substances are permitted in non-organic products, where they’re used to extend shelf-life and add... -
Tariffs Frustrate Us-China Trade in Plastic Resins and Finished Products
Mar 19, 2019 | S&P Global Platts
By Kristen Hays and Yi-Jeng Huang
Trade in polyethylene resin and finished products slowed in the fourth quarter of 2018, becoming a casualty of the US-China trade war. Last year, the Trump Administration launched a full-scale trade war with China, imposing three... -
Houston Leads the Way as Texas Ships 80 Percent of Nation's Crude Exports
Mar 19, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum
The Houston Ship Channel region is shipping out more than 35 percent of the nation's crude oil exports after the Houston area roughly tripled its volumes from 2017 to 2018. All of the Texas Gulf Coast accounts for about 80 percent... -
Colorado’s Tougher Approach to Oil and Gas Advances in House as Democratic Lawmakers Weigh Climate Change Push
Mar 19, 2019 | Denver Post
By Bruce Finley
State lawmakers’ attempt to re-focus Colorado’s regulation of the $10 billion fossil-fuel industry gained momentum Monday after scores of supporters and opponents packed a first committee hearing in the House on the proposed oil... -
Oregon House Approves 10-Year Fracking Ban
Mar 19, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Zack Budryk
The Oregon House on Monday voted by a large margin to approve a 10-year ban on fracking in the state, according to a report by The Oregonian. The state house voted 42-12 in favor of outlawing the practice, in which pressurized liquid is... -
Baker Hughes-Backed Fracker Pulls IPO Amid Tough Conditions
Mar 19, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Wethe
One of America’s biggest providers of fracking services is pulling back on plans to go public as oil’s hired hands continue to dig out of the worst crude crash in a generation. BJ Services Inc. confirmed the move March 18 in a letter... -
TIPRO Analysis Details Texas Oil & Gas Workforce Trends
Mar 19, 2019 | World Oil
Rising production of oil and natural gas in the Lone Star State is opening new doors for Texans seeking employment opportunities with energy companies. A new analysis released today by the Texas Independent Producers & Royalty... -
Houston Chemical Blaze Intensifies After Loss of Water Pressure
Mar 19, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Simon Casey, Kevin Crowley, and Jack Kaskey
A fire at a petrochemical storage facility that’s covered Houston in a thick pall of smoke for the past two days intensified overnight after firefighters briefly lost water pressure. Two additional storage tanks are ablaze, bringing the... -
Crews Work to Control Fire at Texas Petrochemicals Plant
Mar 19, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
By Juan A. Lozano
Officials say it's unclear how long it will take to extinguish a fire at a Houston-area petrochemicals storage facility where a large blaze is burning several storage tanks filled with gasoline components. Harris County Fire Marshal... -
On the Campaign Trail, Climate Change Can No Longer Be Ignored
Mar 19, 2019 | Roll Call
By Elvina Nawaguna
The 2020 elections are still many months away, but 17-year-old Michael Minsk is already following it closely as more candidates enter the race. Eager to vote for the first time next year, the high school junior is looking for a candidate...
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Environment News
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State Weighs First-In-Nation Plastic Ban at Restaurants
Mar 19, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
By Audrey McAvoy
Hawaii would be the first state in the U.S. to ban most plastics at restaurants under legislation that aims to cut down on waste that pollutes the ocean.
Dozens of cities across the country have banned plastic foam containers, but Hawaii's measure would make it the first to do so statewide. The liberal state has a history of prioritizing the environment — it has mandated renewable energy use and prohibited sunscreen ingredients that harm coral.
A second, more ambitious proposal would go even further and prohibit fast-food and full-service restaurants from distributing and using plastic drink bottles, utensils, stirring sticks, bags and straws.
The Hawaii efforts would be stricter than in California, which last year became the first state to ban full-service restaurants from automatically giving out plastic straws, and broader than in Seattle, San Francisco and other cities that have banned some single-use plastics.
Activists believe the foam container measure has a better chance of passing in Hawaii.
"We have this reputation of setting the example for the world to follow, and that's what we're trying to do here," state Sen. Mike Gabbard, lead author of the more ambitious measure, said to the Senate. "Our state can once again take the lead in protecting our environment."
Gabbard, father of Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, said 95 percent of plastic packaging worldwide is thrown out after being used once. In the U.S., 500 million plastic straws are used and thrown out every day, he said.
Discarded, slow-to-degrade plastic is showing up at sea, as in a massive gyre northeast of the Hawaiian islands, and on beaches.
Plastics also contribute to climate change because oil is used to make them, said Stuart Coleman, Hawaii manager for the Surfrider Foundation.
Eric S.S. Wong, co-owner of two fast-food establishments on Oahu, said not being able to serve food in plastic foam containers would drive up his costs at a time when he faces rising health insurance charges for his employees and a possible minimum wage hike that lawmakers also are considering.
He said he'll have to raise prices.
"Now, all of [a] sudden, your family's $30 dining experience became $37 or $38," Wong said.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/03/19/stories/1060127615
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ALL ABOUT: Nestle’s New Cleanup Plans for Plastic Products
Mar 19, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
Fast-moving consumer goods companies have drawn fire for how much plastic litter their products generate—including Switzerland-based multinational Nestle SA.
Nestle found itself in the crosshairs in late 2018 when Greenpeace and other nonprofit groups sought to identify the companies behind trash piling up on beaches around the world. It came in third, behind Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc., in the ranking of companies linked to the most plastic trash.
Nestle “is a brand that you very commonly find in the environment because they sell in every country,” said Delphine Levi Alvares, European coordinator of the #BreakFreeFromPlastic coalition of environmental groups that was behind the 2018 beach cleanup.
The company—which daily sells a staggering 1.2 billion products, often wrapped in plastic—says it’s gotten the message.
Plastic “is CEO-level, it’s really something we debate,” the company’s executive vice president, Marco Settembri, told Bloomberg Environment at a briefing in Brussels.
Upgraded Strategy
The company upgraded its strategy on plastic waste in January. The approach covers changes to packaging design and the use of plastic raw materials sent to, and processed in, recycling plants.
It also covers packaging take-back initiatives—such as for Nespresso coffee capsules—along with support for programs to stop plastic getting into the oceans and research on new biopolymers that would fully biodegrade in the soil or the ocean.
The company has taken “a clear positive step towards better recycling,” but should also look at reducing its plastic packaging and regularly communicate on progress in meeting its targets, Alvares said.
What works in terms of limiting plastic in one market might not work in another, Settembri said. For example, Nestle believes in boosting trash collection and recycling in developed countries, where there is a “western mindset” that systems work and can be improved, he said.
Other Approaches
But in less-developed countries, where trash collection barely functions, other approaches are needed.
These could include packaging that uses biopolymers made from feedstocks such as canola or soy oil. Manufacturers like Bainbridge, Ga.-based Danimer Scientific—which Nestle is partnering with— have developed such options but in reality, full commercial roll-out of such materials could be a decade away, Settembri said.
Biopolymers could also generate their own problems if they are produced from crops that could otherwise be used for food. Such trade-offs will be tackled by the Nestle Institute of Packaging Sciences that the company set up in December to develop and test sustainable packaging, which would then be used for all of its products.
Nestle’s goal is for all its packaging to be recyclable or reusable by 2025, with its PET (polyethylene terephthalate) drinks bottles and other packaging containing 35 percent to 50 percent content from recycled material.
If the company succeeds, it will be ahead of a European Union law, currently being finalized, that would require a minimum of 25 percent recycled content in PET bottles by 2025.
The company’s size and sales volumes mean that in terms of packaging, “the more Nestle can change itself, the better it will be for the planet,” Settembri said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/all-about-nestles-new-cleanup-plans-for-plastic-products
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SCOTUS Says Manufacturers May Be Liable for Third-Party Parts
Mar 19, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
A manufacturer may be held liable under maritime law for asbestos-related injuries caused by third-party components, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled March 19.
Manufacturers have a duty to warn when their product requires incorporation of a part such as asbestos that the manufacturer knows is likely to make the integrated product dangerous for its intended use, the court said.
Application of the “bare-metal defense,” which shields a manufacturer from liability for aftermarket replacement parts containing asbestos made by another company, had divided the federal circuits.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the court, joined by Justices John Roberts, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.
Justice Neil Gorsuch filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/scotus-says-manufacturers-may-be-liable-for-third-party-parts
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Linking Pollution and Infectious Disease
Mar 19, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
Thousands of seals died along the coasts of the heavily polluted Baltic Sea in the late 1980s. Scientists traced the deaths to a virus similar to the one that causes distemper in dogs. Last year, the same virus struck hundreds of seals in Maine. In both instances, researchers believe that persistent organic pollutants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins, and furans, played an indirect role in the seals’ demise.
The seals are one example of a phenomenon of increasing importance to toxicologists: the interplay between exposure to environmental contaminants and infectious disease. More than two decades ago, researchers reported that exposure to low levels of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo- p-dioxin (TCDD), the most toxic of the dioxins, decreases resistance to an influenza virus in mice (Fundam. Appl. Toxicol. 1996, DOI: 10.1006/faat.1996.0004).
Scientists have since shown that exposure to other chemicals, including perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), mercury, and arsenic, can also alter the immune response and increase susceptibility to infectious diseases in multiple species of laboratory animals. Epidemiology studies in humans have linked exposure to various chemicals in the womb with reduced levels of antibodies triggered by childhood vaccines and increased risk of infectious diseases.
Chemicals also affect pathogens and in some cases can make them more dangerous. Researchers have shown a link between multidrug-resistant bacteria and exposure to zinc, lead, and disinfectants. Epidemiologists are investigating whether exposure to phthalates is also associated with multidrug-resistant bacteria.
“Environmental pollutants affect how we are infected,” Linda Birnbaum, director of the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, said during opening remarks at a January workshop on the interactions between chemicals and pathogens sponsored by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Studies so far have revealed tantalizing clues about the scope and mechanisms of these interactions, but more work needs to be done to understand the full effects of chemical exposure on public health, said Birnbaum and other toxicologists, epidemiologists, and infectious disease experts who attended the workshop.
FLUOROCHEMICALS IMPAIR IMMUNE FUNCTION
Birnbaum has been investigating the intersection between environmental pollution and infectious diseases for many years. She pioneered the work on exposure to TCDD and decreased resistance to an influenza virus in mice in the mid-1990s while working as a researcher for the US Environmental Protection Agency. Studies led by other scientists have linked perinatal exposure to PCBs (PLOS Med. 2006, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0030311) and to perfluoroalkyl substances (J. Immunotoxicol. 2017, DOI: 10.1080/1547691X.2017.1360968) with decreased immune responses to childhood vaccines in people living in the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic Ocean. “Understanding environmental immunotoxicity will be critical to making successful vaccines,” Birnbaum emphasized at the workshop.
Researchers are now increasingly concerned about exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). These substances are widely used in consumer products because of their water- and oil-repellent properties. They are found in food packaging, nonstick products, stain-repellent clothing, cleaners, and many other household items. Firefighting foam is also a large source of PFAS groundwater contamination near military bases and airports.
Perfluoroalkyl carboxylates, particularly PFOA, have received a lot of attention because of their potential to suppress the immune system, says Berit Granum, a senior scientist at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. Even though industry has phased out the use of PFOA, blood serum levels of PFOA in humans “have decreased at a slower rate than predicted,” she tells C&EN. Researchers attribute the slow decline to continuous exposure to perfluoroalkyl carboxylates from sources such as drinking water, milk and dairy products, meat, seafood, eggs, indoor air, house dust, and industrial emissions.
From these same sources, people are also exposed to other compounds that get metabolized into perfluoroalkyl carboxylates, Granum says. Such precursors include polyfluoroalkyl phosphate monoesters and diesters that can metabolize into PFOA, perfluorononanoate, perfluorohexanoate, and perfluoroheptanoate, she notes.
Philippe Grandjean and colleagues at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health were among the first to find an association between elevated PFAS concentrations in mothers’ blood and reduced response to vaccinations in their children, specifically how Faroese children responded to diphtheria vaccination (JAMA, J. Am. Med. Assoc. 2012, DOI: 10.1001/jama.2011.2034).
Granum and colleagues subsequently also linked exposure to perfluoroalkyl substances with decreased antibody levels triggered by vaccines and altered immune-related health effects in early childhood (J. Immunotoxicol. 2013, DOI: 10.3109/1547691X.2012.755580). The researchers measured concentrations of PFOA, perfluorononanoate, perfluorohexane sulfonate, and PFOS in blood collected from pregnant women in Norway when they gave birth in 2007 and 2008, and in blood of the children at three years of age. They found that higher maternal levels of the four PFAS correlated with fewer antibodies against rubella in the vaccinated children.
Granum and colleagues also observed a correlation between maternal levels of PFOA and perfluorononanoate and the number of common colds in the Norwegian children, and between maternal levels of PFOA and perfluorohexane sulfonate and gastroenteritis in the children. The scientists followed up with a study investigating gene expression associated with PFAS exposure in the Norwegian mother-child pairs (J. Immunotoxicol. 2015, DOI: 10.3109/1547691X.2015.1029147). They compared whole-genome transcriptomics data from umbilical cord blood with maternal blood concentrations of four PFAS. The team identified that PFAS exposure is associated with changes in expression of 52 genes involved in immunological and developmental functions. They discovered that expression of those same genes is also associated with decreased rubella antibodies and increased episodes of the common cold in children.
In other work, Granum and colleagues reported that exposure to several PFAS is associated with an increased number of respiratory tract infections in the first 10 years of life (Environ. Res. 2017, DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2017.10.012). On the flip side, the researchers also found an inverse association between maternal concentrations of perfluoroundecanoic acid and atopic eczema in girls. However, they did not see an association with asthma or allergy-related health effects for other PFAS.
Most recently, they showed possible gender differences in respiratory infections and gastroenteritis associated with PFAS exposure, with the majority of correlations identified only in girls (Environ. Int.2019, DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2018.12.041).
The work is important for regulators around the world who are grappling with setting limits for PFAS in drinking water, food, and hazardous waste sites. Interestingly, risk assessors in the US and European Union came to similar conclusions for PFOA and PFOS using different approaches, Granum says. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published its assessment of the risks of PFOA and PFOS in food in December 2018. EFSA used human epidemiological studies to recommend a maximum limit of 13 ng/kg of body weight per week for PFOS and 6 ng/kg of body weight per week for PFOA.
In the US, the Agency of Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) published a draft risk assessment of PFOS and PFOA in June 2018. ATSDR used animal studies to propose a minimum risk level of 14 ng/kg of body weight per week for PFOS and 21 ng/kg of body weight per week for PFOA. ATSDR is working with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct exposure assessments in communities near military bases that have PFAS in their drinking water.
The regulatory agencies have yet to set limits for PFAS other than PFOA and PFOS.
ARSENIC ALTERS VACCINE RESPONSE
Scientists have known for a long time that arsenic also affects the immune system. Case reports from the 1920s to 1940s show that arsenic given to patients at high doses to treat syphilis led to effects that sound like immunological responses, Molly Kile, an environmental epidemiologist at Oregon State University, said during the January workshop.
Kile presented a study demonstrating an association between total arsenic levels in urine and a lack of serum antibodies against varicella zoster, the virus that causes chicken pox and shingles (Environ. Health Perspect.2015, DOI: 10.1289/ehp.1408731). She also showed that higher arsenic exposures were associated with higher odds of past hepatitis B infection (Environ. Res.2018, DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2018.06.023).
Kile also presented preliminary, unpublished data showing that the timing of arsenic exposure appears to be important. Working with colleagues in Bangladesh, her group examined the effects of in utero exposure to arsenic from drinking water on the risk of infectious disease in Bangladeshi children. One of the studies found a strong association between arsenic levels and a decrease in serum antibodies for diphtheria in vaccinated children. The researchers did not find an association between arsenic and tetanus.Environmental pollutants affect how we are infected.Linda Birnbaum, director, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Whenever there is an outbreak of infectious disease, people are quick to blame an unvaccinated child as the source of the infection. “But there are a lot of people who get caught up in these outbreaks who have been vaccinated,” Kile noted. People’s immunological responses to vaccines vary, and some vaccines are known to produce relatively short periods of protection—this is why adults should receive booster shots for tetanus and diphtheria every 10 years. But vaccine protection “may wane quicker if people are exposed to environmental pollutants,” Kile said.
Other studies looking at mother-child pairs in New Hampshire (Environ. Health Perspect. 2016, DOI: 10.1289/ehp.1409282) and Bangladesh (Environ. Health Perspect. 2011, DOI: 10.1289/ehp.1002265) found similar associations between developmental exposure to arsenic and increased risk of lower respiratory infections and diarrheal disease in children during the first year of life.
MERCURY TURNS THE BODY ON ITSELF
Scientists know that mercury has neurotoxic effects, but evidence is growing that it also interferes with the immune system. People can be exposed to many different forms of mercury: elemental mercury from broken thermometers and small-scale artisanal gold mining, inorganic mercury from fluorescent light bulbs and dental amalgams, methylmercury from eating contaminated fish, and ethylmercury from the preservative thimerosal used in some vaccines.
All forms of mercury produce some kind of effect on the immune response, says Jennifer Nyland, a professor of biology at Salisbury University. But they don’t all affect the immune system in the same ways, and they don’t have the same level of toxicity, she adds. They are also metabolized differently. Researchers have reported evidence of mercury altering immune function in animal studies, in vitro cell cultures, and human epidemiological studies.
As a postdoc at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Nyland demonstrated that exposure to low doses of inorganic mercury exacerbate an autoimmune disease triggered by the Coxsackievirus in mice (Toxicol. Sci. 2011, DOI: 10.1093/toxsci/kfr264).
Coxsackievirus causes hand, foot, and mouth disease, and nearly everyone is infected with the virus at some point in their lives, Nyland says. Most people clear the infection without long-term adverse effects. But some susceptible individuals develop an autoimmune disease that affects their heart long after they have cleared the infection, she says. Somehow the immune system gets triggered to send cells called macrophages back into the heart. Those cells initiate an inflammatory response that eventually damages the heart tissue, leading to a flabby heart that is unable to function properly. Nyland and colleagues showed that exposure to mercury followed by Coxsackievirus infection makes this particular autoimmune disease worse in mice.
While at Hopkins, Nyland worked with others to investigate the effects of mercury on human immune cells in cell cultures (Toxicol. Lett. 2010, DOI: 10.1016/j.toxlet.2010.06.015). The researchers isolated the cells from blood samples and stimulated them with bacterial antigens to mimic an infection. They also dosed the cells with varying concentrations of mercuric chloride, methylmercury, and ethylmercury. All three forms of mercury affected the immune response by altering the release of signaling proteins called cytokines, but in different ways and to varying degrees. “The bottom line is that all of the different forms of mercury have the potential to be immunotoxic,” Nyland says.
The researchers also studied artisanal gold miners who use elemental mercury (Environ. Res. 2010, DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2010.02.001) and people who eat contaminated fish downstream of gold mines in Brazil (Environ. Health Perspect. 2011, DOI: 10.1289/ehp.1103741).
They showed an association between mercury levels in urine from the gold miners and levels of an autoantibody in their blood. That autoantibody is one that physicians use to help diagnose the autoimmune disease lupus, Nyland says. The scientists also found a correlation between total levels of mercury and methylmercury in hair or blood of people who consumed contaminated fish and levels of the autoantibody in their blood, although the correlation was not as strong as in the gold miners.
At Salisbury, Nyland’s work recently moved toward looking at the mechanism of how mercury is interacting with the immune response. The work is just beginning, Nyland says. Her group is investigating the pathways involved in the inflammasome—a multiprotein complex that detects pathogens and activates the release of proinflammatory cytokines. The team is investigating how the interplay of various doses of mercury species, coexposure to other chemicals, and pathogen infections affects gene expression of inflammasome components.
“Mercury could be interacting with one of the steps that helps to make that inflammasome form,” Nyland says. “It could also be changing how that inflammasome does its job once it is formed.”
CHEMICALS BOOST PATHOGENS’ VIRULENCE
In addition to changing the immune response in numerous species, some substances can also make pathogens more virulent or resistant to antibiotics.
Meghan Davis, a professor of environmental health and engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is investigating how various chemicals that people encounter every day affect methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), leading to multidrug-resistant strains.
Unlike typical staph infections that respond well to antibiotics, MRSA infections are difficult to treat because the bacteria don’t make a particular protein that binds to penicillin, methicillin, and cephalaosporins. “None of the β-lactam antimicrobials bind” to MRSA, Davis says. These are the first-tier drugs used for treating skin and soft-tissue infections, which is where MRSA arises most commonly, Davis says.
Researchers like Davis get concerned when multidrug-resistant strains of MRSA pop up. These strains resist other antibiotics in addition to β-lactams, making it even more challenging to treat infections.
Scientists in the Netherlands discovered one of these superstrains of MRSA in pigs in 2005. This particular strain had the gene for tetracycline resistance and, in some cases, a gene for zinc resistance, Davis says. It spread throughout Europe, Canada, and the midwestern US. Danish scientists later reported a link between the bacteria in pigs and feed supplemented with tetracycline or zinc (Vet. Microbiol. 2011, DOI: 10.1016/j.vetmic.2011.05.025).
Both tetracycline and zinc in feed may have contributed to the strain’s surviving in animals and therefore being available to infect exposed people—who can then transmit it to other people, Davis says.
Zinc is not the only metal associated with more virulent strains of S. aureus. Researchers recently reported a correlation between exposure to lead and greater detection of MRSA (Environ. Health2018, DOI: 10.1186/s12940-017-0349-7).
Davis and colleagues are investigating how disinfectants and other chemicals found in the home can affect MRSA. The work is starting to show that disinfectants might exert selective pressure on S. aureus, leading to multidrug-resistant strains.
Next on Davis’s list are phthalates, which are used as plasticizers in many plastics, inks, paints, and other consumer products and have been linked to respiratory diseases such as asthma. S. aureus, too, is a driver of inflammatory, noncommunicable disease in people; some strains of the bacteria produce superantigens that affect the immune system. Davis plans to analyze bacterial, fungal, and chemical elements in archived dust samples from several studies related to asthma. “I’m trying to explore the potential for phthalates to exert selective pressure on the microbial communities in the home and in the child” to promote disease, she says.
COMPLEX INTERACTIONS
The interplay between exposure to chemicals in the environment and disease is complicated. Chemicals can affect both pathogens and the infected person. And they can influence the person directly or indirectly through the microbiome—the bacteria, fungi, viruses, and other microorganisms living in and on an individual or other environments. Studies have shown alterations in the microbiomes of mice exposed to arsenic, lead, manganese, PCBs, or the pesticide diazinon, Birnbaum noted at the January workshop. Some of the studies suggest that those microbiome changes induce metabolic effects that could lead to obesity, atherosclerosis, and neurological diseases, she said.
Environmental contaminants may also play a role in emerging public health threats. The National Toxicology Program (NTP) is currently investigating why so many pregnant women in Brazil infected with the Zika virus in 2015 and 2016 gave birth to babies with microcephaly, a birth defect in which the baby’s head is smaller than expected.
“The severity of the brain effects of Zika in Brazil may have been related to coexposure to environmental pesticides in use there,” Birnbaum said. Birnbaum serves as director of the NTP as well as the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. NTP scientists are investigating the larvicide pyriproxyfen, which is used in drinking water in Brazil, Birnbaum noted. They did not see any effects in standard developmental, reproductive studies in rats and rabbits, but there might be an effect on the developing brain in studies in zebrafish, she said. The next step will be for the NTP to look at what happens when pyriproxyfen and the Zika virus are combined.
Evidence is growing that chemicals in the environment can alter how people and wildlife respond to pathogens. Wildlife, such as the seals in the Baltic and off the coast of Maine, serve as sentinels of exposure to toxic chemicals in the environment. “If we don’t learn from the critters around us, whether domestic or wildlife, even the plants, we are bound to ignore warning signs,” Birnbaum said.
Birnbaum and other participants at the workshop emphasized the need for more research on the effects of the environment combined with infectious diseases on human health. One particular challenge is finding funding for this type of research, which spans multiple disciplines. But such work is urgently needed, Birnbaum said, to inform public health policy.
https://cen.acs.org/environment/persistent-pollutants/Linking-pollution-infectious-disease/97/i11
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Feature: Miami Beach Is Fourth Tourist Spot to Consider Sunscreen Ban
Mar 19, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Caroline Byrne
Miami Beach is rethinking its approach to oxybenzone and octinoxate, the chemicals used in sunscreens like Hawaiian Tropic and Banana Boat to deflect ultraviolet rays.
It is the fourth tourist destination to consider banning sunblock containing oxybenzone (benzophenone-3) and octinoxate (octyl methoxycinnamate) for environmental reasons. Key West, a city at Florida’s southern tip, and the US state of Hawaii have already voted to ban the products by 2021, and the Pacific archipelago nation of Palau will prohibit their sale starting in January 2020.
Florida, the so-called ‘Sunshine State’, is keen to protect hundreds of miles of shallow coral reefs which create specialised breeding sites for plants and animals, and draw millions of divers, snorkelers and sun worshippers to the southern US each year.
"We have one reef," Key West Mayor Teri Johnston told the city commission before February’s vote. "And we have an opportunity to do one small thing to protect that."
Not everyone agrees on the best approach, however. Miami Beach considered a ban similar to Key West’s last week but the issue was deferred until April so commissioners can question experts and study the scientific research. Away from the spotlight, there is much debate about the science underpinning the bans.
Coral bleaching
"More than ten years ago, we were part of a team that carried out experiments showing that there are chemicals, in particular, benzophenones and oxycinnamates, found in common commercial sunscreens, that have dire effects on marine organisms such as corals and sea-urchins even at very low doses (micrograms and noanograms per litre water)," Professor Ariel Kushmaro, senior lecturer in the Department of Biotechnology Engineering at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, told Chemical Watch.
"In these controlled laboratory studies, we showed that for the model coral Stylophora pistillata, oxybenzone (also known as benzophenone) is a photo-toxicant and that adverse effects are exacerbated in the light. Whether in darkness or light, oxybenzone transformed planulae from a motile state to a deformed, sessile condition."
The issue heated up in 2016 when Craig Downs, a Virginia, US-based forensic ecotoxicologist, and his team published research from Hawaii and the Virgin Islands in the Archives of environmental contamination and toxicology. They reported that as much as 14,000 tonnes of lotion ends up in coral reefs every year, and that oxybenzone can bleach coral and cause genetic damage to organisms including adult male fish, sea urchins and sea turtles.
When Hawaii voted to ban the sale or distribution of sunscreens containing oxybenzone and octinoxate in 2018, the rift in the academic community widened.
"In our opinion, there is little definitive scientific research supporting the associated concerns and that before this evidence exists, given the benefits of oxybenzone-containing sunscreens in skin cancer prevention, this (Hawaii’s) ban is premature," Rachel S Mirsky et al, wrote in the December 2018 publication Skin, the journal of cutaneous medicine.
Environmental concerns
Terry Hughes, an authority on coral reef science and professor of marine biology at Australia’s James Cook University, waded into the debate in February with an article in The conversation entitled: "There’s insufficient evidence your sunscreen harms coral reefs."
Australians are keen to protect the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef, but Dr Hughes argues that a ban on sunscreens isn’t the answer.
"There is actually no direct evidence to demonstrate that bleaching due to global heating is exacerbated by sunscreen pollutants," Dr Hughes says. "Similarly, there is no evidence that recovery from thermal bleaching is impaired by sunscreens, or that sunscreens cause coral bleaching in the wild."
But Cheryl M Woodley, a scientist at the US government’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science in South Carolina, argues that research documenting the toxicity of oxybenzone on corals is already "extensive", and there is enough evidence showing oxybenzone is toxic to coral and threatens overall coral reef health.
In response to questions from Chemical Watch, Dr Woodley’s office sent a copy of her letter to Hawaiian legislators in 2017.
"The preponderance of scientific evidence indicates that oxybenzone is toxic to coral and threatens overall coral reef health by inducing coral bleaching; harming or killing coral larvae by inducing gross deformities, DNA damage, and bleaching; acting as an endocrine disruptor; and bioaccumulating in coral tissue," Dr Woodley writes."Managing exposure of corals to oxybenzone is a key step in threat‐reduction, and is a critical aspect in improving coral reef health now and for the future," she concludes.
The human factor
In light of Key West’s decision to ban the sunscreens, the Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA) and the Personal Care Products Council urged commissioners to do more research to understand the "real causes" of coral decline, such as global warming, pollution, over-fishing and agricultural runoff.
The environment isn’t the only concern. Skin cancer prevention is an important part of the debate, sparking disagreements between scientists, NGOs, dermatologists, public health officials, company representatives and politicians. Some fear the bans will push sun-seekers to forgo skin protection altogether.
"This irresponsible action will make it more difficult for families to protect themselves against the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays," the CHPA said.
The US NGO Environmental Working Group (EWG), which has published an annual sunscreen guide for the past 12 years, says oxybenzone is a potential hazard to both the environment and human health.
Two-thirds of the 650 beach and sport sunscreens examined for EWG’s latest report offered "inferior sun protection or contain worrisome ingredients like oxybenzone, a hormone disruptor, or retinyl palmitate, a form of vitamin A that may harm skin. And despite scant evidence, the government still allows most sunscreens to claim they help prevent skin cancer."
"Americans shouldn’t be used as guinea pigs to show that chemicals are harmful, and they need to be taken off the market," Nneka Leiba, director of EWG’s healthy living science programme, said in an emailed statement to Chemical Watch. "Rather, manufacturers should first prove that the ingredients in their products are safe."
But Edgewell Personal Care, the Missouri-based company that manufactures Banana Boat and Hawaiian Tropic sunscreens among other products, says the company complies with all relevant regulations and produces sunscreen products free of oxybenzone and octinoxate so consumers have a choice.
"While the science around coral reefs is evolving, at Edgewell Personal Care we respect the need to protect the environment. We always work with experts to evaluate the ingredients we use and are proud that we have introduced products with simplified formulas to meet consumers’ interest," Edgewell says.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website recommends consumers choose sun protection with a combination of chemical agents, including oxybenzone, to provide broad-spectrum protection against UVA and UVB rays: "For UVA protection, look for the following active ingredients: zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, avobenzone, ecamsule, oxybenzone, dioxybenzone, or sulisobenzone."
Henry W Lim, chair emeritus of the dermatology department at Detroit’s Henry Ford Health System, said in a 2018 study in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology: "While there is emerging evidence that chemical sunscreen ingredients could enter the water supply and affect marine life, including fish and coral reefs, more research will be necessary to draw any firm conclusions, and there have been no demonstrable harmful effects in humans."
Palua’s day in the sun
The World Wildlife Federation says reefs form the nurseries for about a quarter of the ocean's fish. As a result, sunscreen bans are not only being discussed in the US.
The Pacific Ocean holiday destination of Palau, population 25,000, was catapulted into the headlines worldwide when it announced plans to ban products that contain any of ten designated chemicals in skincare products including oxybenzone and octinoxate.
The legislation was passed after a study on Palau’s Jellyfish Lake, a Unesco World Heritage site, involving the accumulation of sunscreen in the endemic golden jellyfish and lake water. It found oxybenzone in the water, sediment and jellyfish samples.
Retailers and others who breach the ban face fines of $1,000 (£760) when the law comes into effect in 2020.
"These provisions walk a smart balance between educating tourists and scaring them away," Palau's president Tommy Remengesau said in a statement.
The 'Sunshine state'
Miami Beach’s Sustainability and Resiliency Committee, which deals with environmental issues, is now studying the scientific literature and potential impacts on health and the environment. If its proposed law is passed, Miami Beach is considering fines ranging from $250 to $1,000 with the ban taking effect from 1 January 2021.
Miami Beach is not alone. Surfside, a town just north of the city, is debating a separate sunscreen law. Meanwhile, Florida senator Linda Stewart, an Orlando Democrat, has filed Senate Bill 708 calling for a state-wide ban on sunscreens containing oxybenzone and octinoxate without a prescription.
If Ms Stewart has her way, Florida could prohibit the sale or distribution of the skin care products as early as 1 July, at the height of the tourist season.Proactive and precautionary approaches
The sunscreen debate has divided researchers, trade associations and consumers for more than a decade. Here are a selection of comments on all sides of the debate:
-"Claims that sunscreen ingredients currently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration are toxic to the environment or a hazard to human health have not been proven," – American Academy of Dermatology Association statement May 2018 following the announcement of Hawaii’s ban.
-"While additional research may incrementally add to our understanding of its impacts to additional coral reef species, additional research on the impacts of oxybenzone should not be a prerequisite to management action," – Cheryl M Woodley, a scientist at the US government’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science in South Carolina.
-"Considering the many stresses already faced by reefs and current concerns about the toxicity of certain components of sunscreens to corals, a proactive and precautionary approach to dealing with this issue may be required," – ICRI Forum 2018 report examining the impact of sunscreen on corals.
-"We see this as a public health issue ... Whether you vote for the ordinance or vote it down, you’re not going to see coral thrive in Key West unfortunately," – Carlos Gutiérrez of the US Consumer Healthcare Products Association.
https://chemicalwatch.com/75134/feature-miami-beach-is-fourth-tourist-spot-to-consider-sunscreen-ban
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State Water Board Unveils Aggressive Plan to Issue Investigative Orders for PFAS
Mar 18, 2019 | National Law Review
By Kamran Javandel, Vaneeta Chintamaneni, Sandi L. Nichols, and David D. Cooke
Environmental & Natural Resources
· Within the month, the State Board will issue orders requiring investigation of potential PFAS contamination, a widely used class of chemicals, at more than a thousand California facilities.
· Phase I targets airports and landfills.
· Phases II & III, to be implemented later this year, will include refineries, bulk terminals, fire training facilities, wildfire areas, manufacturers, wastewater plants, and domestic wells.
On March 6, the California State Water Resources Control Board announced it will soon issue orders to owners and operators of more than a thousand facilities in California requiring environmental investigation and sampling for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known by the acronym PFAS. As “Item 10” in a four-hour meeting providing updates on state and federal programs addressing PFAS, Darrin Polhemus, Deputy Director of the State Board’s Division of Drinking Water (DDW), and Shahla Farahnak, Assistant Deputy Director of the Division of Water Quality (DWQ), unveiled an aggressive “Phased Investigation Plan.”
ABOUT PFAS
PFAS are a class of chemicals widely used for decades in many consumer products for their grease- and stain-resistant properties, including nonstick products, carpeting, furniture, and makeup. PFAS were also commonly essential ingredients of firefighting foams used at airports and other locations where large quantities of flammable fuels were present. PFAS compounds are potentially toxic at extremely low levels. In the last several years, public scrutiny of PFAS has accelerated as their environmental prevalence has become better understood. Testing performed in connection with the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA’s) third “Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule” (UCMR3) identified 133 PFAS detections in California drinking water systems, and follow-up testing resulted in nearly 300 more detections.
PHASE I ORDERS IMMINENT
In Phase I of its investigation plan, the State Board will issue orders to 31 airports it believes to have used PFAS-containing aqueous firefighting foam, and 252 landfills it believes to have accepted materials that contain PFAS. The State Board will also issue investigative orders to operators of 578 drinking water wells within a two-mile radius of one of the airports, and 353 drinking water wells within a one-mile radius of the landfills. It will also issue orders for 389 drinking water sources within a mile radius of PFAS impacts identified in the UCMR3 testing.
State Board staff have already drafted the Phase I orders and expect to issue them by the end of this month, if not sooner.
PHASES II & III EXPECTED SUMMER/FALL 2019
The State Board is still formulating the next phases, but staff said “high priority” targets in Phase II will be refineries, bulk terminals, and non-airport fire training areas. Phase II would also include manufacturers of PFAS, if any. (Presently, the Board does not believe there are any in California, but it intends to verify that understanding as part of the investigation.) In the second phase, the State Board will also test storm water in areas of the massive 2017 and 2018 California wildfires to evaluate whether burning of consumer products in those fires resulted in PFAS releases to the environment.
Phase III will focus on so-called “secondary manufacturers” – those that use PFAS in their products or processes. Board staff specifically mentioned plating facilities as potential targets. The third phase will also include wastewater treatment and pre-treatment plants, and domestic wells.
State Board staff expects to implement Phases II and III in the summer and fall of this year.
TIMELINE AND STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS FOR RESPONDING TO ORDERS
If you get an order, you will need to be prepared to respond quickly. Targeted source facilities will receive an order issued by the State Board under the authority of California Water Code section 13267. These orders will require businesses to respond to a questionnaire regarding the historical use of PFAS-containing products within 30 days, and to submit work plans for conducting testing within 60 days. After the work plans are accepted, businesses will have 90 days to perform the testing and submit the results.
Regulated entities should use great care in responding to these orders. Failure to comply may be punished by fines ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 per day per violation. Under the statute, the burden, including costs, of the ordered reporting must “bear a reasonable relationship to the need for the report and the benefits to be obtained from the reports” and responding parties may take steps to protect their trade secrets from public disclosure as a result of required reporting. Moreover, appropriate execution of the required testing is critical. Because PFAS are so widely used in consumer products, there are myriad opportunities for cross-contamination that could result in false positives if exacting sampling protocols are not utilized.
Targeted water system operators will receive an order from DDW under California Health & Safety Code section 116400. Those orders will require periodic PFAS analyses, likely on a quarterly basis, unless DDW determines that a different schedule is reasonable.
FEDERAL PFAS ACTION PLAN AND NEXT STEPS IN CALIFORNIA
California’s Phased Investigation Plan comes on the heels of the February 14 release of the USEPA’s PFAS Action Plan, identifying short- and long-term actions USEPA plans to take over the coming years. USEPA said it will set federally enforceable Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) – two members of the PFAS family, designate those chemicals as hazardous substances under the Superfund law, require monitoring for additional PFAS in the next UCMR, and develop interim cleanup standards for PFAS in groundwater. The Action Plan would give the federal government greater enforcement authority over PFAS and has come under fire from a number of consumer advocacy and political organizations.
The State Board, somewhat uncharacteristically, has not been on the forefront of PFAS regulation. In 2016, the USEPA published a Health Advisory Level of 70 parts per trillion (ppt) in drinking water for combined PFOA and PFOS. Then, in November 2017, New Jersey announced that it would be the first state to establish a legally enforceable MCL for PFOA, setting it at 14 ppt, the most stringent standard in the country.
California has been more measured in its response. As Allen Matkins previously reported, in November 2017, the state added PFOA and PFOS to the Proposition 65 list of chemicals “known to the state” to cause reproductive toxicity, and in July of last year DDW set “notification levels” of 13 ppt for PFOS and 14 ppt for PFOA, and a "response level" of 70 ppt for combined PFOA and PFOS. Yet, to date, there is no enforceable drinking water or cleanup standard for PFAS in California, and Deputy Director Polhemus’ comments at the March 6 meeting made clear that none is imminent. The State Board and others are struggling with how best to address the whole class of thousands of PFAS chemicals without undertaking the massive regulatory effort required to set MCLs for each individual chemical in the family. Given this challenge, DDW has not requested a Public Health Goal (PHG) for any PFAS chemicals, and Deputy Director Polhemus said any such PHG is still at least a couple of years off, with potential MCLs at least a few years behind that.
The release of DDW’s Phased Investigation Plan, however, is the first major step in California’s systematic approach to investigating the release of PFAS to the environment, and signals an imminent new regulatory regime.
More information on the State Board’s March 6, 2019 meeting is available here.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/state-water-board-unveils-aggressive-plan-to-issue-investigative-orders-pfas
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White House Pushes Cuts for Cleanups despite PFAs Concerns
Mar 19, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Courtney Columbus
The White House yesterday proposed cutting the Pentagon's funding for environmental restoration by more than 10 percent.
The Army, Navy, Air Force and defensewide budget proposals for environmental restoration would each see cuts, with total funding reduced from $987 million this fiscal year to $855 million for fiscal 2020.
Money for environmental restoration at formerly used Department of Defense sites would also see a reduction, from $249 million to $216 million.
Rachel Jacobson, special counsel with the law firm WilmerHale and former deputy general counsel of environment, energy and installations at DOD, said the Pentagon has made progress in dealing with legacy pollution on its bases.
"Each of the armed services conducts a risk-based prioritization of cleanup needs, and prepares budgets accordingly," she said in an email.
"The President's budget request may not reflect that prioritization process," Jacobson said, "which means some sites may not get the anticipated remediation effort in this fiscal year."
Environmental restoration includes cleanup of contaminants such as the toxic nonstick chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.
The proposed cuts come as the Pentagon faces pressure from lawmakers and activists to address PFAS-contaminated water near current and former military installations.
The persistent chemicals are found in firefighting foam used by the military, as well as a wide range of other industrial and consumer products.
"The fact that they're proposing less funding for environmental restoration when they're facing this huge problem across many, many military bases all across the country just doesn't make a lot of sense. It is a massive problem," said Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of the Concerned Scientists.
The budget documents released yesterday also call for cutting $220.6 million from four EPA research programs related to PFAS.
The Defense Department wants $20 million for communities where water has been polluted by PFAS-containing firefighting foam used at Air National Guard bases (E&E News PM, March 18).
A Pentagon spokeswoman declined to comment.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/03/19/stories/1060127633
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Glyphosate Herbicides Are Altering the Food Chain
Mar 19, 2019 | Truthout
By Lindsey Konkel
As the active ingredient in Bayer’s Roundup herbicide is increasingly scrutinized for human health impacts, scientists say it also could be altering the wildlife and organisms at the base of the food chain.
Glyphosate is one of the most widely used herbicides in history. Farmers in 2014 sprayed enough of the chemical to cover every acre of cropland in the entire world with nearly a half-pound of the herbicide, according to a 2016 study published in Environmental Sciences Europe.
Long thought to be relatively benign to non-target plants and animals, evidence is growing that glyphosate, the active ingredient of Roundup, may impact the metabolism, growth and reproduction of aquatic creatures and could be altering the essential gut bacteria of animals such as bees.
Such impacts could have serious unexpected impacts on the tiny critters that form the base of the animal food chain, say environmental researchers, who warn the ecological impacts are likely to grow as glyphosate levels build up in the environment.
“No herbicide in the history of the world has ever been used this heavily. It’s a completely unprecedented case,” Charles Benbrook, an agricultural economist and author of the 2016 study, told EHN.
Ecological Impacts Emerge
Glyphosate has been used as a broad-spectrum herbicide, meaning it kills all vegetation it’s sprayed on, since the 1970s. Its use at the outset, however, was limited. Farmers and land managers could only spray it where they wanted to kill all vegetation, for instance, between the rows in orchards or vineyards, in industrial yards, or along train tracks or powerline rights of way.
That all changed in 1996, when the Missouri-based agrochemical company Monsanto (now part of the pharmaceutical giant Bayer) introduced glyphosate-tolerant crops — first corn, then soybeans, cotton and others. Farmers could spray it on and around their fields without accidentally killing their crops.
The chemical soon became the most heavily used herbicide in history.
Global glyphosate use has risen nearly 15-fold since the mid-90s, with an estimated 19 percent of global use happening in the U.S. alone.
Since this change, much has been made about the potential health impacts to humans from widespread use. In 2015, the World Health Organization classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” due to a growing body of research linking glyphosate to non-Hodgkin lymphoma and other cancers.
In August, a U.S. groundskeeper won a landmark lawsuit against Monsanto, saying his deadly form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma was due to years of exposure to the company’s herbicide. Monsanto and its German owner Bayer now face more than 9,000 similar lawsuits. The company repeatedly has maintained there is no link between glyphosate and cancer.
Numerous studies in laboratory animals, too, have suggested the chemical may have reproductive effects at levels considered safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
However, at the time it was introduced, glyphosate was considered a lot safer than other broad-spectrum herbicides, such as paraquat — which could cause deadly poisoning if breathed in or swallowed. Glyphosate, on the other hand, was considered “practically non-toxic” by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
That’s because glyphosate kills plants by blocking a step in a series of chemical reactions, called the shikimate pathway. Plants use this pathway to make the nutrients they need for growth. Animals and humans don’t have this pathway. We get our essential nutrients, instead, from the foods we eat.
“If you gave me a compound that inhibits a pathway not present in animals — without knowing anything else about the compound — I would not expect that compound to be very toxic to animals,” Nico van Straalen, an ecotoxicologist at Free University Amsterdam in the Netherlands, told EHN.
In addition to the increasing evidence the herbicide may harm human health, this supposed non-toxicity doesn’t square with the effects that van Straalen and other environmental researchers have observed on tiny organisms at the base of the food chain.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations first expressed concern about the food chain effects of glyphosate in 2005, after research showed that glyphosate residues can stick around in water and soil for several months, maybe even years. That means it has the potential to build up to higher levels in the environment with each use.
In aquatic and terrestrial environments, researchers have linked changes in metabolism, growth, behavior and reproduction of certain fishes, mollusks and insects with exposure to glyphosate-containing herbicides.
A recent study by researchers in France, for instance, showed that mosquito larvae dosed with glyphosate amounts similar to those found in the environment learned the difference between dangerous and non-dangerous shadows in the water slower than larvae not dosed with glyphosate. Mosquito larvae are an important food source for many bird, fish, and amphibian species.
Those dosed with glyphosate were slower to habituate to a non-threatening shadow, which means they wasted too much energy diving below the surface when they didn’t need to — a behavior linked with larval deaths. The findings, published in 2018 in the journal Environmental Pollution, weren’t the first to suggest cognitive impacts of glyphosate to insect species.
Studies in bees have suggested that glyphosate may affect their learning and increases how much time it takes them to find their hives — impacts that could have long-term consequences for colony health.
Several experiments with mussels, crayfish and other aquatic invertebrates, to date, have showed that exposure to Roundup or glyphosate can induce a slew of changes to cellular metabolic and reproductive pathways.
However, it’s not yet clear what these changes mean for the health of invertebrate populations in the wild.
Researchers can’t entirely explain these associations. Some experts say that additional chemicals in glyphosate mixtures, called adjuvants, that help improve herbicide activity, may be partially to blame. Studies in human cell lines suggest that adjuvants found in some Roundup formulations may be more toxic than the glyphosate active ingredient itself, though studies on the effects of adjuvants in wildlife are lacking.
Others suspect that glyphosate may target biochemical pathways that we don’t yet know about.
Little research has been done to assess the effects of glyphosate on the microscopic bacteria and algae — the autotrophs at the base of all aquatic and terrestrial food chains.
Messing with the base of the food chain, say environmental researchers, could have profound ecological effects.
Microbial Consequences
Some clues are starting to emerge that investigating the effects of glyphosate on microorganisms may be key to understanding its environmental effects.
“We’ve barely begun to investigate the microbiomes of animals and soil as possible targets for glyphosate toxicity,” van Straalen said.
Some of the bacteria and fungi that form the invisible scaffolding of our ecosystems use the shikimate pathway — the same series of chemical reactions that glyphosate blocks — to produce essential nutrients.
Two studies in 2018 found that glyphosate could be harming honey bees by targeting the specialized bacteria that honey bees harbor in their gut. These bacteria use the shikimate pathway, so researchers hypothesized they may be susceptible to glyphosate’s effects. They think these bacteria may be involved in helping the honey bee immune system fight off infection.
“One effect is that disruption of the microbiota by glyphosate seems to make the bees more susceptible to opportunistic pathogens,” Nancy Moran, a bee researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, told EHN. She is a senior author of one of the bee studies, published in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, last September.
Moran and her colleague at UT Austin, Erick da Silva Motta, said it’s too soon to know whether glyphosate could be having similar impacts on the gut bacteria of other animal species. Aside from a few studies in earthworms and ruminant farm animals, few studies have looked at potential effects of the chemical on the microbiome. “Gut bacteria have different roles and different levels of importance in different species,” Moran told EHN.
One of the main challenges in studying the effects of glyphosate on animals such as bees is that we don’t really know how often and how much they are exposed to the herbicide in real life after it is sprayed in a field. That’s important information to have when trying to set up experiments that test realistic exposure scenarios, da Silva Motta told EHN.
Some scientists worry about the effects that glyphosate may have on soil microbes. Many bacteria and fungi in the soil environment are sensitive to glyphosate, but some are naturally resistant, Maria Finckh, a plant pathologist at the University of Kassel in Germany, told EHN.
That means certain microbes might survive better than others under heavy glyphosate use. Soil microbes play a huge role in essential Earth processes such as carbon and nutrient cycling. Any selective pressure that might limit the ability of soils to carry out these important functions could have serious environmental ramifications, Finckh and others have warned.
A Problem of Scale
The environmental impacts that researchers are beginning to link to glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides may indicate a major problem with the scale at which we’ve applied the herbicide, Benbrook said.
There’s an old saying in toxicology: “The dose makes the poison.” It speaks to the tenet that all chemical substances — even water or oxygen — can be toxic if there’s too much of it for a biological system to handle. It’s possible that the environmental effects we are beginning to see with glyphosate-based herbicides have a lot more to do with the amount of the stuff we’ve put into the environment than the intrinsic toxicity of the chemical, he explained.
“It’s probable this would have happened with whatever herbicide had been associated with the [genetically engineered] crop revolution. It just happened to be glyphosate,” he said.
https://truthout.org/articles/glyphosate-herbicides-are-altering-the-food-chain/
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The Dangerous Food Additive That’s Not on the Label
Mar 19, 2019 | Civil Eats
By Rachel Cernansky
A report released earlier this month by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group (EWG), found that an estimated 2,000 synthetic substances are permitted in non-organic products, where they’re used to extend shelf-life and add flavor. On the other hand, fewer than 40 synthetic substances are approved for use in organic products.
But choosing organic at the grocery store won’t protect consumers from chemicals that originate in food packaging. And while there’s been a fair amount of focus on phthalates and perfluorinated “forever chemicals,” there is one important “additive” that doesn’t show up on ingredient lists at all, but has been finding its way into more foods—organic and conventional alike. The chemical, perchlorate, isn’t added to the food itself, but is used in packaging, and appears to have been contaminating a growing portion of food since it was approved as an additive by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s (FDA) in 2005.
Perchlorate, which comes from both natural and synthetic sources, has health experts concerned because it has an outsized impact on children. It’s been found to disrupt thyroid function, reducing production of a hormone needed for healthy brain development; insufficient levels of this hormone in a developing fetus have been associated with significant declines in IQ, among other impacts.
Since the agency approved the chemical, the FDA’s own scientists have found that perchlorate exposure in children has climbed significantly. The agency published a study in 2016, for example, showing that infants were ingesting 34 percent, and toddlers 23 percent, more perchlorate through food between 2008 and 2012 than before it made its 2005 decision. Health experts are alarmed by these increases, and, because of how it interferes with their developing brains, by the fact that children are the most exposed to the chemical proportionate to their body weight.
“The numbers went up most for the foods that children were more likely to eat,” said Tom Neltner, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF)’s chemicals policy director, listing as examples infant formula, rice-based baby cereals, and dairy products. “We’re worried because that affects children’s brains.”
A number of environmental and health organizations, including EWG and the EDF, have been calling on the FDA to ban perchlorate in food. In the meantime, according to Neltner, some states are considering whether to take their own action. “We are also talking to food companies and others about testing food products for perchlorate contamination, since FDA apparently stopped its own testing program after 2012,” he said.
Particularly frustrating for Neltner and colleagues is that in most or all instances, perchlorate is entirely avoidable. It appears in food both deliberately and inadvertently; it’s added to plastic food packaging as a way to control static electricity, and is also a byproduct of bleach (which is widely used to clean food processing equipment and fresh produce) when it breaks down, often from age or improper storage.
The Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS) declined to discuss how companies might deal with a ban on perchlorate in food packaging, issuing this statement instead: “PLASTICS is not in a position to discuss whether any replacement substances would be technically suitable in this specific application.”
How Perchlorate is Contaminating Food
It’s easy to eliminate perchlorate coming from bleach, Neltner argues, because it doesn’t require any change other than due diligence in how the bleach is used and stored—not in the sun, for example. “You don’t have to get rid of bleach, you just have to better manage it,” said Neltner. In addition to calling for more effective regulation, he said he and colleagues are trying to work with bleach manufacturers to educate their own customers about best management practices.
In cases where perchlorate enters food through packaging, it’s considered a food additive, even though it’s not added to the food itself (the FDA defines a food additive as any substance used in the production, processing, treatment, packaging, transportation or storage of food). It plays an important role in packaging, since when static builds up, it can ignite sparks or worse. “Explosions are bad,” said Neltner. “But there are many, many ways that are not perchlorate to prevent explosions.”
What’s more, the impacts of perchlorate exposure may be mitigated in children who have adequate iodine intake. Most people lack iodine because sea salt is used in place of iodized salt, or due to the increase in specialized diets, which can be low in iodine, or higher consumption of processed foods, the salt in which is usuallynon-iodized.
Perchlorate interferes with the thyroid in part by blocking iodine uptake, and iodine is crucial, particularly during pregnancy and infancy, for healthy brain development. Deficiency can impair neurodevelopment, with impacts as simple and perhaps unnoticeable as reduced IQ and increased risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Pregnant women also tend to consume less iodine than the fetus needs, particularly when it’s most vulnerable to the impacts of perchlorate exposure.
The industry could avoid it, but doesn’t mean that consumers can. It enters food when it’s still upstream from becoming a retail product—in large-scale storage and facility cleaning, for instance—so even steps like buying shelf-stable foods in bulk or bringing your own cloth bag will not spare you the exposure.
In its response to the initial petition, the FDA suggested that the chemical doesn’t leach from bulk packaging into the food, but Neltner says the data shows otherwise. It’s hard to identify the full scope of where and how it happens, but, he says, it gets an open invitation when a dry food is transferred out of a massive storage bag.
If a bag holding a ton of rice, for example, is opened to release the contents, the speed of that much rice passing through a narrow opening creates a lot of abrasive contact between the bag and the food, causing the chemical to be released from the bag and into the food. “FDA did its analysis and it never considered abrasion as a source,” he said. “We think FDA got the science wrong.”
Neltner thinks this underscores a fundamental flaw in how FDA regulates what gets into the food supply. “Their whole system is built around testing and thinking of final packaging, and they haven’t thought and designed exposure studies to mimic what happens in real life,” he said, like the abrasion. Asked what consumers can do, he said people should make sure they are getting enough iodine, especially women and children. That’s totally achievable; iodine-rich foods include seaweed, certain kinds of fish, dairy and grains—and iodized salt. And, he added, “Expect more from manufactures and from FDA.”
After the agency approved perchlorate as a food additive, EDF, EWG, and other organizations filed a petition to fight that decision. The agency denied it in 2017—on the same day it approved an industry-supported petition to remove the use of potassium perchlorate in sealing gaskets for food containers. In response, the groups filed an objection to that decision, and requested a formal public hearing that would allow for an independent judgment of the evidence.
The FDA has not issued a response to that challenge, and the agency declined to be interviewed for this story. Neltner and colleagues expect a decision imminently, but say in the meantime, children continue to be put at risk.
Perchlorate in the Water Supply
Perchlorate is also turning up in water supplies, with one estimate from 2015 suggesting that 7 million people around the country had some level of perchlorate in their water. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which also declined to be interviewed for this story, has been working to reduce public exposure to perchlorate, but until it takes more rigorous action, health experts say the risks to children are that much greater.
“It does not really matter if perchlorate is coming from food or water,” said Olga Naidenko, senior science advisor at EWG. “Once it is ingested by the mother, it can interfere with the proper function of the thyroid system, and that can in turn harm the developing brain in the fetus.”
Setting a standard for perchlorate in drinking water can go a long way, she said. “Without a standard, any amount of perchlorate in water is legal,” added Naidenko. That makes it harder for state agencies to act on perchlorate contamination, because they have no healthy limit to point to; and as an unregulated substance, it’s not tested for routinely in food, meaning that current estimates of exposure likely significantly underestimate the extent of the problem.
Like in food, bleach is one source of perchlorate contamination in water; and like Neltner, Naidenko isn’t arguing for water agencies to stop disinfecting water, just for the EPA to require more due diligence in how they do it. “The EPA’s job is to make sure the disinfectants are not bringing in additional toxic chemicals,” she said.
For Neltner, the main thing he and colleagues want to see from the EPA is a proposed rule, which it is under court-ordered deadline to issue by the end of April, “sufficient to protect fetal and infant brain development,” he explained in an email. “Central to that is the ‘reference dose’—essentially the maximum daily intake from all sources—that the agency determines will prevent harm. That reference dose will be used to shape standards on bleach and guide FDA’s decision on food.”
There’s a lot about perchlorate, and other chemicals in food in general, that we don’t yet fully understand, because the research is so far behind.
“They’re using science from the 1980s, and not applying what we know today,” said Neltner about the FDA’s approach to acting on perchlorate. But while there are some things we don’t know yet, such as the full list of possible sources, or the full extent of foods that are contaminated, she added that the lack of information is all the more reason to be concerned. “We don’t know, but we think we should figure it out,” Neltner said.
https://civileats.com/2019/03/19/the-dangerous-food-additive-thats-not-on-the-label/
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Tariffs Frustrate Us-China Trade in Plastic Resins and Finished Products
Mar 19, 2019 | S&P Global Platts
By Kristen Hays and Yi-Jeng Huang
Trade in polyethylene resin and finished products slowed in the fourth quarter of 2018, becoming a casualty of the US-China trade war.
Last year, the Trump Administration launched a full-scale trade war with China, imposing three rounds of tariffs worth a cumulative $250 billion on Chinese products.
The move was intended to counter China’s practice of requiring US companies to turn over intellectual property as a condition for gaining access to the world’s second-largest economy. China responded with $110 billion in tariffs on US products, also in three rounds, signaling a commitment to protecting its interests and economic growth.
The petrochemical-heavy second and third rounds of these tariffs came as the US chemical industry started up the first wave of more than $200 billion in new and planned infrastructure.
US gas boom drives petchems ramp-up
This industrial build-up emerged from the domestic natural gas boom and its seemingly endless bounty of cheap feedstock, namely ethane. That feedstock advantage, shared only by the Middle East, prompted chemical producers to turn the US into a global supplier of raw materials and resins. Asia, and more specifically China, were the target markets, given the region’s projected demand growth that far surpasses the rest of the globe.
Much of the new US chemical infrastructure focuses on making polyethylene, a precursor to the most-used plastics in the world. Natural gas transmission pipes, opaque milk jugs, toys, grocery bags, buckets, cookie packaging and cellophane wrapped around meat at the grocery store are among the hundreds of products made with PE. Accordingly, PE manufacture dominates the petrochemical infrastructure currently starting up, under construction or planned in the US.
China originally announced in 2018 that its tariffs would target low density polyethylene (LDPE), which makes up about 7% of 13.7 million mt/year of new PE US production that is operational, under construction or planned from 2017-2027. However, China replaced LDPE with linear low density (LLDPE) and high density PE (HDPE) shortly before imposing its retaliatory tariffs in August. Those grades make up more than 90% of that new US output, 29% of which is operational – suddenly making it a significant concern to US producers.
Overall, US PE exports reached a record 4.3 million mt in 2018, up more than 24% from 2017, US International Trade Commission data shows. The share sent to China declined while some flows shifted to other markets, notably Europe and Vietnam.
Chinese Customs data show China’s Q4 2018 imports of US-origin PE resin nosedived 57% to 98,000 mt compared with the third quarter, with new inflows seen from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Taiwan and Singapore, according to China customs.
Total PE imports to China in Q4 actually rose 0.5% to 3.8 million mt from Q3, according to the data.
Data from Chinese firms who typically imports large quantities of US PE details this pullback.
Tetra Pak Hohhot, part of the multinational food and beverage packaging company Tetra Pak, saw its LLDPE resin imports from the US drop by 74% to about 600 mt in Q4 compared with Q3, as compared with its overall LLDPE resin imports, which fell 26%.
Weihai Lianqiao International, a textiles and garments company that lists US stores such as Walmart, Forever 21 and Macy’s on its website as clients, saw its US-origin HDPE resin imports fall by 93% to about 400 mt in Q4 compared with Q3, while its overall HDPE imports fell by about half.
This does not mean China has stopped buying PE from US companies altogether. US PE producers with global footprints have the option to reroute supply from their international operations. DowDupont, for example, can supply Asia from its Canadian assets as well as its Sadara joint venture in Saudi Arabia. ExxonMobil also can supply China via its Singapore operations, minimizing tariff fallout.
Bag trade blighted
Meanwhile, China’s petrochemical finished goods products were caught in the middle of the trade tensions as well. US imports of Chinese PE bags and sacks began declining last September, targeted by the US’ $200 billion in tariffs implemented the same month.
These imports fell 19% in Q4 2018 from Q3, according the data, reversing 2017 year-on-year growth of 35%, according supply chain data from Panjiva.
The growth decline is accelerating in 2019, with import figures plunging 38% in January and 45% in February compared with same month last year, according to the data.
The chief fallout from ongoing trade tensions between the US and China is uncertainty. No one knows how long tariffs will last.
Building a new plant can take up to five years from initial planning to startup, and companies make such investments based on long-term forecasts of supply and demand, not market volatility or geopolitics. Tariffs could be gone by the time a plant under construction in 2019 starts up in 2021 – or by the time one starts up in late 2019.
In addition, changing long-established supply chains can take up to 18 months or more, to conduct due diligence for quality control before a the arrival of a new supplier’s first shipment of key ingredients, for anything from medicines and cosmetics to flame retardants or packaging. That complex, expensive process could be rendered moot if the tariffs are suddenly lifted.
Conversely, if the trade war drags on, China could keep finding alternate sources for raw materials and plastics, siphoning market share that the US may not be able to retrieve – just as the shale revolution is offering it a competitive edge.
https://blogs.platts.com/2019/03/19/tariffs-us-china-trade-war-plastic/
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Houston Leads the Way as Texas Ships 80 Percent of Nation's Crude Exports
Mar 19, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum
The Houston Ship Channel region is shipping out more than 35 percent of the nation's crude oil exports after the Houston area roughly tripled its volumes from 2017 to 2018.
All of the Texas Gulf Coast accounts for about 80 percent of the nation's crude shipments with the Beaumont and Corpus Christi regions ranking second and third nationwide, according to a new report from Morningstar energy analyst Sandy Fielden.
This Texas dominance won't end anytime soon. Most of the new crude production is coming from West Texas' booming Permian Basin and there's a race to build a bevy of new export terminals along the Texas coast and even offshore of Texas. The proposed offshore terminals are in deeper waters that can more easily handle the world's largest crude vessels.
"The limit to world appetite for U.S. crude is unknown today, but current bets on export infrastructure assume it won't be reached soon," Fielden said.
Nationwide crude exports last year averaged about 2 million barrels of oil a day, up 73 percent from 2017. And, this year, volumes already are averaging more than 2.5 million barrels daily. Crude exports are expected to top 4 million barrels a day in the coming years, according to the International Energy Agency. More than 90 percent of those exports come from Gulf Coast ports in Texas and Louisiana. The remainder mostly is shipped from northern states to Canada.
More than 35 percent of the exports last year came from the Houston Ship Channel region from Houston to Galveston, or more than 700,000 barrels daily last year. That's more than triple the 2017 Houston Ship Channel volumes of about 225,000 barrels a day.
The Houston area is now outpacing the Corpus Christi region - for n0w - in exports. The Corpus area last year exported more than 440,000 barrels a day. But the Beaumont area also surpassed Corpus last year, growing from about 260,000 barrels a day to nearly 460,000 barrels.
Louisiana and Mississippi - largely from the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, called LOOP - combined to ship almost 250,000 barrels a day.
As for the race to build new exporting terminals, Houston's Enterprise Products Partners plans to build the Sea Port Oil Terminal, or SPOT, offshore of Freeport and Galveston.
A consortium led by Canada's Enbridge and Houston's Kinder Morgan plans another offshore one, Texas Crude Oil Loading Terminal, or COLT. And global commodities trading firm Trafigura is proposing another, but smaller, crude export terminal offshore of Texas.
Onshore, there are plans to build or expand terminals in Corpus Christi, Freeport and farther south in Brownsville.
These proposals add up to about 4 million barrels a day of additional crude exporting capacity if they're all built, Fielden said.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Houston-leads-as-Texas-ships-out-80-of-nation-s-13696641.php
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Mar 19, 2019 | Denver Post
By Bruce Finley
State lawmakers’ attempt to re-focus Colorado’s regulation of the $10 billion fossil-fuel industry gained momentum Monday after scores of supporters and opponents packed a first committee hearing in the House on the proposed oil and gas legislation.
The House Energy and Environment committee approved Senate Bill 181 by a 7-4 vote following a marathon hearing that lasted late into the night. The oil and gas bill next goes to the House Finance committee.
Democratic lawmakers also are looking at a more aggressive approach to climate change with a bill to be introduced this week that would adopt the Paris climate agreement’s goals, possibly as mandates, for reducing greenhouse gas emissions — linked to global warming — as part of Colorado law.
“It is a shift. We’re not going to be promoting” oil and gas extraction, House Speaker KC Becker, D-Boulder, said of the oil and gas legislation. “But they (state regulators) are still going to be providing permits” for new drilling.
These efforts to reform how Colorado handles fossil fuels “are related” to efforts to step in, along with other states, where President Donald Trump has stepped out in fighting global warming, Becker said, calling climate change a critical issue.
Colorado still relies on coal, a major source of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, for more than half of the electricity that the state’s residents use, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data.
“It affects Colorado particularly because of our geography,” Becker said. “We have a responsibility in this state to step forward … We’re going to see more catastrophic weather events. All we can do is our part to contain it.”
Industry leaders who are engaged with the oil and gas legislation are accepting requirements that companies control methane, a potent heat-trapping gas linked to global warming. Becker praised this, saying industry leaders “are recognizing their own role and stepping forward on addressing methane emissions.”
Behind the scenes, the 33-page draft bill has been tweaked to insert the words “reasonable” and “necessary” as checks on local power, a compromise for the industry. These legislative “guardrails” are aimed at making sure local governments and state regulators do not overreach in regulating industry operations. Even without that language, however, government agencies cannot legally take arbitrary or capricious action against companies.
Monday’s House Energy and Environment committee hearing built on SB 181 discussions in the Senate, where the bill passed Thursday, nearly two weeks after it was launched. The amending is expected to continue in two more House committees this month before the House floor votes. The bill still could move back to the Senate before reaching Gov. Jared Polis, who has indicated he supports the initial draft legislation.
It would change the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission’s long-standing mission of “fostering” oil and gas development “consistent with” health and the environment, ditching that language and replacing it with a mission of regulating the industry to protect public health and the environment. Colorado’s emerging new approach also would give local governments a greater say in where oil and gas facilities are located.
This re-focusing is happening amid expansion of oil and gas drilling along Colorado’s Front Range, with plans to drill wells closer and closer to cities including hundreds inside municipal boundaries — some near homes and schools. Residents, health researchers, wildlife advocates and conservationists for years have been raising concerns at COGCC hearings and elsewhere.
A voter initiative that would have required bigger buffers between future industrial facilities and homes, schools and streams was defeated 55 percent to 45 percent in November’s election. Oil and gas industry groups had spent at least $30 million on a campaign blitz to defeat the initiative.
Now oil and gas industry leaders are calling the new legislation, launched at the start of the month, “sweeping” and “an overhaul.” The Colorado Petroleum Council, a branch of the American Petroleum Institute, last week launched campaign-style television ads opposing the legislation-in-progress, accusing state lawmakers of operating “in the middle of the night” — a March 5 hearing in the Senate ran from the afternoon to past midnight — and claiming that the legislation is “to shut down energy production in Colorado.”
Industry advocacy groups have said passage of SB 181 would cause a $30 billion hit to the state economy.
On Monday morning, oil and gas worker activists demonstrated with signs outside the Capitol, some casting the bill as a ban on oil and gas production, trying to elicit honks from commuters.
The advancing legislation “is disconcerting for our field guys,” said Liz Wright, a spokeswoman for Liberty Oilfield Services, one of the demonstrators. “They’re working to put food on the table.”
Liberty Oil engineer Robert Henderson said crews were working through ice and sleet last week as lawmakers worked on the legislation. “There are some Colorado-only operators who are going to be in trouble if this passes,” Henderson said. “The rapidity is crazy.”
Inside the Capitol, House Speaker Becker addressed industry criticisms.
“The rhetoric is completely overstated,” she said. “I don’t think we have any proof, now, that this is going to hurt the economy … People file for permits dozens of years into the future … ”
“We care about the impacts,” she said, challenging assertions that local land-use powers could amount to a ban and drive away energy investors. “Having permits be subject to a higher health and safety standards is not going to be devastating for the industry.”
https://www.denverpost.com/2019/03/18/colorado-oil-gas-climate-change/
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Oregon House Approves 10-Year Fracking Ban
Mar 19, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Zack Budryk
The Oregon House on Monday voted by a large margin to approve a 10-year ban on fracking in the state, according to a report by The Oregonian.
The state house voted 42-12 in favor of outlawing the practice, in which pressurized liquid is injected into deep-rock formations to allow oil and natural gas to escape. There are no current fracking operations in Oregon but developers have long eyed the Willamette Valley as a potential site for methane fracking, according to The Oregonian.
The vote makes Oregon the fourth state to ban the practice after New York, Vermont and Maryland. Florida and New Mexico are also considering bans or restrictions.
Ban advocates claim the practice pollutes groundwater and contributes to earthquakes. The bill next heads to the state senate, which Democrats also control by about the same margin.
“Oregon’s natural beauty should be cherished and protected,” said bill sponsor Rep. Rachel Prusak in a press release. “This legislation is a common sense proposal to ensure that no one engages in this potentially destructive practice while we work to better understand its long-term impacts.”
“I am pleased that this legislation received bipartisan support today,” said Rep. Ken Helm (D), who co-sponsored the bill. “When it comes to protecting this state, we all have a vested interest in being thoughtful about how we regulate new industries that could have significant long-term impacts.”
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/434708-oregon-house-approves-10-year-fracking-ban
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Baker Hughes-Backed Fracker Pulls IPO Amid Tough Conditions
Mar 19, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Wethe
One of America’s biggest providers of fracking services is pulling back on plans to go public as oil’s hired hands continue to dig out of the worst crude crash in a generation.
BJ Services Inc. confirmed the move March 18 in a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The contractor filed its registration statement for an initial public offering back in July 2017, less than a year after the company was created by Baker Hughes, a fund managed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and private equity firm CSL Capital Management.
“We withdrew it because of the dated nature of the information in the filing,” Michelle Gray, a spokeswoman for BJ, said March 19 in a phone interview. “But we will continue to evaluate market conditions and take actions that are in the best interest of our equity holders.“
Since the IPO filing, oilfield service providers have failed to keep up with the overall oil-market recovery. The price of West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark crude, has climbed 27 percent in that time while the Philadelphia Oil Services Index has lost 27 percent of its value. Energy exploration companies are cutting back on spending while fracking service providers are working through a glut of pressure pumping gear.
About 70 percent of BJ Services’ frack fleet, which totals 2.2 million horsepower, was active at the end of last year, according to the company, which cited data from the oilfield consultant Spears & Associates. Baker Hughes has kept a minority stake in the company.
The IPO market is not completely dead in the oil patch. Brigham Minerals Inc., an exploration and mineral rights developer in the Permian backed by the private equity firm Warburg Pincus, filed this week to go public.
Baker Hughes declined to comment on BJ’s move. Representatives for CSL and Goldman couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/baker-hughes-backed-fracker-pulls-ipo-amid-tough-conditions
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TIPRO Analysis Details Texas Oil & Gas Workforce Trends
Mar 19, 2019 | World Oil
Rising production of oil and natural gas in the Lone Star State is opening new doors for Texans seeking employment opportunities with energy companies. A new analysis released today by the Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association (TIPRO) indicates the Texas oil and natural gas industry had approximately 90,700 job postings so far this year during the months of January and February, of which 15,375 job listings were unique. Employment opportunities for the state’s oil and gas industry have been most concentrated in the cities of Houston and Midland, which are central to much of the energy activity and business engagements for the Texas oil and gas industry.
According to TIPRO, industry employment postings have held a posting intensity of 6-to-1, meaning that for every six postings, there has been one unique job posting. This is close to the posting intensity for all other occupations and companies in the region (5-to-1), indicating an average effort toward hiring for these positions. The posting intensity for the upstream sector is 7-to-1, which suggests more difficulty in filling positions.
TIPRO’s new analysis also lists the highest number of open industry positions, as posted by occupation, so far in 2019, which have been heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers (1,020), retail salespersons (775), accountants and auditors (603). TIPRO’s latest report also shows leading skills sought for open jobs in the energy sector, which include oil and gas expertise (19%), followed by valid driver’s license (15%), and accounting (10%).
Other highlights from TIPRO’s employment analysis include:-From January through February, the Crude Petroleum Extraction sector posted the highest number of open positions (3,980).
-The city of Houston had the highest number of unique positions posted for the industry (4,973), followed by Midland (1,019) and San Antonio (684).
-The highest number of open positions by job title was customer service associates (734), followed by truck drivers (383).
-The top hard skill listed for open oil and gas positions was oil and gas (19%), followed by valid driver’s license (15%), and good driving record (10%).
-The top common skill listed for open oil and gas positions was management (42%), followed by operations (32%), and communications (29%).
-The top qualification sought for listed open positions was commercial driver’s license (979), followed by Master of Business Administration (226), and Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) Card (181).
-The leading posting source for open oil and natural gas positions was Nexxt.com (6,491), followed by Workintexas.com (5,218), and My.jobs (3,170).
https://www.worldoil.com/news/2019/3/19/tipro-analysis-details-texas-oil-gas-workforce-trends
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Houston Chemical Blaze Intensifies After Loss of Water Pressure
Mar 19, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Simon Casey, Kevin Crowley, and Jack Kaskey
A fire at a petrochemical storage facility that’s covered Houston in a thick pall of smoke for the past two days intensified overnight after firefighters briefly lost water pressure.
Two additional storage tanks are ablaze, bringing the total to eight, Intercontinental Terminals Co., the facility’s owner, said in an update in the early hours of Tuesday. The water pressure was subsequently restored and additional help in fighting the fire is expected to be on hand later this morning, it said.
The blaze is affecting tanks that store liquids used to make gasoline. The Deer Park facility, about 18 miles east of the city, has a total of 242 tanks located near the Houston Ship Channel, one of the busiest ports along the Gulf Coast. First responders said yesterday that the fire will likely burn for two more days.
“Air monitoring continues,” said ITC, a unit of Tokyo-based Mitsui & Co. “Readings are currently well below hazardous levels.“
Still, Houston residents were urged on Monday to stay inside and nearby schools and highways were closed as fumes soared up into the sky causing a black haze across the city.
The fire “demonstrates how chemical disasters happen far too often in our region, often due to lax regulatory oversight and enforcement,” said Stephanie Thomas, researcher for Public Citizen, which advocates for environmental protection.
She criticized the Trump administration for seeking to reduce funding to the Environmental Protection Agency and other government plans “which sought to bring greater safety to communities like Deer Park that are surrounded by the petrochemical industry.”
Potential health effects of the smoke include coughing, difficulty breathing and irritation to eyes and throat, according to the One Breath Partnership, an organization that works to improve air quality.
“You can really smell & taste it now,” real-estate agent Jon Gardella said on Twitter, referring to the black smog enveloping Houston on Monday morning.
Ships in the area at the time of the incident have been cleared out and they are currently not permitted to enter or depart the area, U.S. Coast Guard Watch Supervisor Alberto Hernandez said by phone Monday morning.
Prices for naphtha on the U.S. Gulf Coast rose 2.45 cents to $1.5002 a gallon Monday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The tank farm occupies 265 acres on the Houston Ship Channel east of the city. It can store more than 13 million barrels of chemicals, petroleum, fuel oil and gases. It serves marine, train and trucking transport with five tanker berths and its own rail spur.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/houston-chemical-blaze-intensifies-after-loss-of-water-pressure
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Crews Work to Control Fire at Texas Petrochemicals Plant
Mar 19, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
By Juan A. Lozano
Officials say it's unclear how long it will take to extinguish a fire at a Houston-area petrochemicals storage facility where a large blaze is burning several storage tanks filled with gasoline components.
Harris County Fire Marshal Laurie Christensen said at a news conference today that she doesn't know how long it will take for the fire to burn itself out.
The fire erupted Sunday at Intercontinental Terminals Co. in Deer Park, about 15 miles southeast of Houston (Greenwire, March 18). Firefighters were working to control the blaze, and the company said the risk of explosion remained "minimal."
ITC has said all employees have been accounted for and no injuries have been reported. A huge plume of smoke could be seen for miles, including from the Galveston Ferry, about 35 miles southeast of the blaze. Officials estimated the plume rose 3,000 to 4,000 feet into the air.
Authorities say a drop in water pressure caused the fire to intensify overnight and spread to additional storage tanks early this morning. Company officials said today that five tanks are still burning and three have burned out.
The substances in the tanks are components of gasoline and also are used in nail polish remover, glues and paint thinner.
A report done by the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health, a local environmental consultancy hired by ITC, shows the air quality around the facility was below levels that would represent a health concern, ITC spokeswoman Alice Richardson said.
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said yesterday that the county is performing its own monitoring of air quality and reviewing data from the state.
"The latest information available doesn't show levels beyond a threshold that would make this dangerous," she said.
But city and county officials warned that smoke from the fire could cause skin and eye irritation and respiratory issues. Schools in the area were closed yesterday as a precaution.
Isaias Lopez's grandson stayed home after classes in La Porte were canceled. The two walked his dog at a park yesterday and looked at the dark plume of smoke.
"I've seen the smoke since yesterday," Lopez said. "It's been blowing like that. Today it's been making more wind than yesterday. So it's not so bad as long as the smoke don't come around this area. I guess we'll be OK."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/03/19/stories/1060127609
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On the Campaign Trail, Climate Change Can No Longer Be Ignored
Mar 19, 2019 | Roll Call
By Elvina Nawaguna
The 2020 elections are still many months away, but 17-year-old Michael Minsk is already following it closely as more candidates enter the race. Eager to vote for the first time next year, the high school junior is looking for a candidate promising bold action on climate change.
“Climate change is definitely one of the issues I will be voting on along with other social and economic problems,” said Minsk, who lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. “I am tired of corruption in government that prevents politicians from acting on it, so I want someone that will stand up and make changes.”
Minsk said he has two candidates in mind. But he has a wide field to pick from — on the Democratic side at least — where the candidates are trying to out-green each other as they roll out their campaigns and tours.
The major Democratic candidates for the presidential election are hoping to make climate change a decisive issue in the already crowded race, especially capitalizing on public anger over President Donald Trump’s inaction to address it.
Trump has consistently dismissed climate change and wrongly cited recent winter snow storms to dispute the scientific consensus that carbon emissions are causing earth temperatures to rise.
Democrats hope they can use climate change to distinguish themselves from Trump, whose administration has unwound several environmental protections, including measures to curb greenhouse gases, and has weakened regulations in order to boost domestic energy production from fossil fuels. Trump has also rejected his own administration’s findings and warnings that climate change could decimate the U.S. economy if quick action is not taken.
“Not only is it an important issue in terms of the environment, health and economy, it’s a good way to show just how reckless a fact-free governing can be,” said Mo Elleithee, executive director at Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service.
Recent reports with more dire predictions are spurring greater urgency this presidential campaign, said one of the candidates, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey. “The more the science comes up, the more the urgency,” he said.
This comes after years of presidential candidates dancing around the issue, careful not to lose centrist voters uncertain about the threat.
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Candidates’ calls for urgent action now appeal to young people like Minsk and throngs of youth activists who have participated in demonstrations to force the party to prioritize climate action.
But analysts say Democrats face the difficult task of convincing middle class Americans that climate solutions are worth the priority and the price.Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and other Democratic presidential hopefuls are betting that climate change will be a big issue in 2020. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo)
Democratic Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, of New York, Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Vermont independent Bernie Sanders, who are also running for president, have similarly spoken loudly about climate change in the early weeks of their campaigns.
“For Democratic candidates, it is a necessary but not sufficient issue for victory,” said Christopher Borick, a professor of political science and director of Muhlenberg College’s Institute of Public Opinion.
Borick explained that while each candidate’s environmental bona fides may not necessarily earn them a win in a crowded field, for Democratic voters, “if you’re not seen as giving due diligence to the issue, you could be putting yourself at a disadvantage.”
Polling shows increased interest in climate change, especially among likely Democratic voters. While most polls show the economy and health care remain the top priorities for most Americans, growing numbers consider acting on climate change important.
“It will probably play pretty well in the primaries,” said Barry Rabe, a professor of public and environmental policy at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. “The problem is what happens when you get through the primaries.”
Democrats are heading into the 2020 campaign against Trump as he benefits from a strong economy, which polls say resonates more with voters than climate change.
Democrats’ challenge will be tying climate change to the economy as they try to persuade voters worried about the costs of solutions, analysts say.
“In fact they’re making the case that by going all-in on green energy, you’re helping the economy,” said Borick of Muhlenberg College.
Under pressure from young environmental activists, most of the Democratic candidates have endorsed the Green New Deal, a proposal made recently popular by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democrat, who calls for addressing climate change and its consequences through a radical multisector overhaul of the U.S. economy. The legislation would not have the force of law, but the Green New Deal is so far the boldest policy, dovetailing climate change to all sectors of the economy. It calls for broad changes, including moving the country to 100 percent renewable energy, transforming the agriculture and financial sectors, and social and racial justice reforms.
“Climate change is real and it is happening now,” Harris said when she kicked off her campaign on Jan. 27 in Oakland, California. “We’re going to act based on science fact, not science fiction.”
The boldest stance has come from Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who on March 1 kicked off his presidential bid with a video montage talking about climate change over a long time span.
Inslee, who has made global warming the top issue of his campaign, said it is the single most important threat facing the U.S. and combating it should be the country’s “first, foremost and paramount” duty. “Climate change is not more important than the economy; it is the economy … climate change is already impacting our economy, and fighting climate change will build our economy,” he said.
At a podium in Seattle against the backdrop of his campaign logo with his name superimposed over a greenish globe, Inslee said, “We are the first generation to feel the sting of climate change and we are the last generation that can do something about it.”
A recent Pew Research Center report on the public’s priorities found that the share of people who say global climate change should be a priority for the president and Congress has jumped from 26 percent in 2011 to 44 percent.
A separate Yale University and George Mason University study published Feb. 12 found that about 60 percent of people in the U.S. were “alarmed” or “concerned” about global warming in 2018, up from 43 percent in 2013.
Still, the issue remains a higher priority for Democrats and independent voters than for Republicans.
“It’s incredibly important with Democratic primary voters, and the party generally has been increasingly ringing the alarm louder and louder,” said Georgetown’s Elleithee, who is also a former spokesman for the Democratic National Committee and for former State Secretary Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. “Any Democratic candidate is going to have to prove themselves on this issue.”
The surge of young, energized progressive activists who helped push the issue to the top of the Democratic Party agenda in the November 2018 elections, plan to keep up the pressure for the 2020 campaigns.
“Young people are making it really clear to politicians that if they want to win the youth vote, acting on climate change in line with what scientists demand is not negotiable,” said Stephen O’Hanlon, a spokesman for Sunrise Movement, a youth-driven activist organization.
The group has led throngs of young advocates in climate demonstrations across the country and on Capitol Hill, where they have protested at the offices of congressional leaders, demanding support for and action on the Green New Deal, including from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“We will be at rallies and town halls in early primary states starting this summer to demand all the candidates make the Green New Deal a day-one priority and ensure that their Green New Deal platforms call for a World War II-scale mobilization in line with what science demands,” O’Hanlon said.
Recent floods, wildfires and other extreme weather events, he said, have made the need to act on climate change more urgent.
Indeed, parts of the U.S. are still undergoing long recoveries from historic storms like Hurricanes Harvey and Maria that caused billions of dollars in damage in 2017, as well as raging wild fires in the west made worse by dry conditions and a more active than predicted 2018 hurricane season that included Florence and Michael, which caused significant destruction in the southeast.
While individual extreme weather events can’t be blamed solely on global warming, scientists say rising earth temperatures exacerbate them. Rabe, of the University of Michigan, said candidates are reminding voters of those events and the more urgent calls for action made by scientists.
“What we are seeing is really building on some of the recent climate reports that began to show that this is a more immediate threat to health and the environment, but also the economy,” Rabe said. “It’s been a rough year in terms of localized weather [impacts].”
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2018 was the world’s fourth warmest year on record as rising global temperatures linked to carbon emissions from human activity persist. The record setter: 2016. That year was the warmest in the agency’s 139 years of tracking temperatures, followed by 2015 and 2017.
A report issued in October by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change calls for “unprecedented” action to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius as the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change become more imminent. A government report issued in November echoed those calls and warned of the risks to sectors of the U.S. economy from agriculture to transportation.
“I want to live in a world — when my generation is older — that is clean and habitable,” said Minsk, the high school junior eager to cast his first vote next year. “I do not want the economic problems it will bring, and certainly do not want to have to contend with natural disasters, sea level rise and high temperatures.”
While the issue remains less important for most Republicans, Elleithee said a minority in the GOP care about climate change, and a potential Trump primary challenger who brings up climate change may weaken the president’s chances in some states.
“The Democratic field is going to make this the conversation of this campaign, but I don’t think you’re going to see very much differentiation between them,” Elleithee said. “I suspect that the president will take that bait and want to talk about it and that’s going to help Democrats.”
But Nick Loris, an economist focusing on energy and environmental issues at the conservative Heritage Foundation said that while climate change is important to Democratic candidates, it may not necessarily be a winning strategy in 2020.
“It’s certainly not surprising … they’ve historically been climate champions in the past and feel like it’s important to their base,” Loris said. Bold climate proposals Democrats are pushing, including the Green New Deal, may be “appealing on the surface,” he said, but once voters understand their implication for jobs and electricity prices, the support will drop.
“It’s still a pocketbook issue to a lot of people,” Loris said. “Bumper sticker messages sound good to a youth movement — to the kind of people that are storming Pelosi’s office — but when you convey these messages to mainstream America, support drops.”
To counter the Democrats’ message in 2020, Loris said, Republicans can be expected to highlight the costs associated with their bold ideas, while proposing free-market options to control climate change, including industry-led innovation and technology.
“The message is going to be that what the left is pushing for are very costly, ineffective solutions, no matter where you are on the science,” Loris said.
While young people have helped push climate change to the top of Democratic candidates’ conscience, Rabe said, their success in the general elections will depend on extending that political engagement and activism to the voting booths.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/campaign-trail-climate-change
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