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PM ACC Clips Report - April 25, 2019

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Basel Talks Consider Changes To Plastic Scrap Trade
Apr 25, 2019 | Plastics News
By Steve Toloken

Should it be much more difficult to export low quality recycled scrap plastic around the world, if there are serious doubts about whether it can be handled in an environmentally sound way in the country it is bound for?
(ACC Mentioned) Preventing Misdeclared Cargo Dangers
Apr 25, 2019 | JOC.com
By John Nikolich

Misdeclared cargo is a sensitive issue, and we like to think that nobody does it intentionally, but the numbers are telling. According to the National Cargo Bureau, as many as 20 percent of stowage plans in 2017 had errors with...
White House Cracks Down on Agency Use of Science
Apr 25, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By White House cracks down on agency use of science

The White House Office of Management and Budget released new guidance yesterday for federal agencies on the quality of information they use in rulemaking. Critics warn the changes could give industry groups more opportunities...
Retail Group Backs Single-Use Plastic Bags Ban
Apr 25, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
By Marina Villeneuve

Maine could join a handful of states that have banned single-use bags as retailers that are growing weary from varying local bag bans call for consistency. The Legislature began considering a Democrat's proposal at a public hearing...

TSCA News

US EPA Round-Up
Apr 25, 2019 | Chemical Watch

TSCA proposals, asbestos Snur formally published: The US EPA has published in the Federal Register: a proposed rule to establish a plan for how the agency will require substantiation for, and review the validity of, claims to withhold the...
Advocacy Groups Sue EPA Over Worker Exclusion From Methylene Chloride Ban
Apr 25, 2019 | Safety & Health Magazine

A coalition of groups representing worker rights has filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency and Administrator Andrew Wheeler for not including workers in the agency’s final rule banning methylene chloride for...

Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) New US Asbestos Rule Criticised as Outright Ban on the Carcinogen Ditched
Apr 25, 2019 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is under fire for a new policy that, rather than banning asbestos outright, requires that manufacturers notify the agency and seek its approval before resuming use of the known...
US FDA Refuses Advocates’ Request for Perchlorate Hearing
Apr 25, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins

The US FDA has denied a request submitted by nine NGOs for a public hearing to challenge the agency’s conclusions on the use of perchlorate in food packaging. The agency’s decision is the latest development in an ongoing...
Massachusetts Notifies Expansions to Reportable Substances List
Apr 25, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin

Massachusetts’s Department of Environmental Protection has provided guidance on recent additions to its list of reportable substances under the state’s Toxics Use Reduction Act (Tura). A 3 April notice outlines changes to the...
PFAs Contamination Is Michigan's Biggest Environmental Crisis in 40 Years
Apr 25, 2019 | Detroit Free Press
By Keith Matheny

Sandy Wynn-Stelt knows it's too late for herself. The chemicals she drank for perhaps 25 years out of her tap — the ones that now poison her blood at levels 750 times the average American's — will remain inside her body.
Rutgers Team Predicts Toxicity by Mining PubChem Data
Apr 25, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Dr Emma Davies

A US team has created an algorithm to predict the toxicity of unknown chemicals by mining bioassay data held in a US National Institutes of Health database. Many studies use computers to compare untested chemicals with structurally...
Apple Develops Framework for Prioritising Chemicals of Concern
Apr 25, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer

Technology giant Apple has developed a framework for prioritising chemicals of concern in products and manufacturing processes. The framework, which it calls a Chemical Prioritisation Protocol, "adapts and extends"...
Echa Round-Up
Apr 25, 2019 | Chemical Watch

Online ‘collaboration channel’ goes live: Echa has released Interact Portal, a website which allows member state authorities and committee members to work with each other and the agency to access and share process-specific...

Energy News

Offshore Drilling Ban Proposed by Bipartisan Group of Florida Lawmakers
Apr 24, 2019 | Roll Call
By Jacob Holzman

A bipartisan group of Florida lawmakers introduced a measure to permanently ban drilling off their coast, the latest sign resistance may be swift among coastal Republicans if the administration tries to open their states’ waters to oil...
Pipeline ‘Bubble’ Risks Repeat of Coal’s Collapse, Group Says
Apr 25, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Caleb Mutua

An estimated $632.5 billion of oil and natural gas pipelines under development globally risk repeating the kind of over-expansion that led to multiple bankruptcies in the coal industry, according to Global Energy Monitor, an environmental...
Americans Need More Oil and Natural Gas Pipelines
Apr 24, 2019 | Real Clear Energy
By Jude Clemente

Unfortunately, the "Keep It in the Ground" movement has devolved into blocking more U.S. oil and natural gas production and demand by blocking the pipelines that transport these two crucial energy sources that account for 60-65% of all...
Colorado Regulators Offer Draft Outline for Implementing New Oil, Gas Law
Apr 24, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) has asked for public input over a draft set of objectives and a guidance document to a new state law that calls for fundamental changes to the agency.
The Energy 202: Fossil Fuel Ban on Public Lands Becomes Issue in 2020 Democratic Race
Apr 25, 2019 | Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni

The issue of what to do with the hundreds of millions of acres of federally controlled lands usually does not get much attention in presidential elections — despite the vastness of the U.S. government’s holdings. But the 2020 contest...
Houston Oil Companies Seek Next Boom Amid Azaleas and Live Oaks
Apr 25, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum

A row of pink azaleas and centuries-old live oaks lead to the Catalpa Plantation cottage here, where Mary Thompson, the fifth generation of her family to own the property, frets about its future. In historical terms, the plantation is...

Chemical Security News

Ammonia Leak Sends 31 to Hospitals in Chicago Suburb
Apr 25, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)

Plumes of a toxic gas that leaked in a northern Chicago suburb this morning sent at least 31 people to hospitals and prompted an order for residents to stay locked inside their homes with windows shut tight, officials said.
Ammonia Spill in Beach Park Sends at Least 32 to Hospitals; Authorities Warn Residents to Stay Indoors
Apr 25, 2019 | Chicago Tribune
By Katherine Rosenberg-Douglas

An ammonia spill in north suburban Beach Park sent at least 32 people to hospitals and prompted school closings and warnings from Lake County sheriff’s officials for residents of the area to stay inside. The spill began about 4:30 a.m. in...
3 Horses Dead After Train Carrying Ethanol Derails
Apr 25, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)

At least three horses were killed and several Texas homes were evacuated early yesterday when a train carrying the highly flammable liquid ethanol derailed and caught fire. It wasn't immediately clear what caused the Union Pacific...
CSB Calls on EPA to Review Current Hydrofluoric Acid Study
Apr 24, 2019 | Fox 21 Local News

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board released a letter Tuesday asking the EPA to review its current study on Hydrofluoric Acid (HF) and the “viability of utilizing inherently safer alkylation technologies in petroleum refineries.” CSB Interim Executive...

Transportation and Infrastructure News

(ACC Mentioned) Cargo Logistics Bolsters Bulk Liquid Transloading Capacity
Apr 25, 2019 | Bulk Transporter

Cargo Logistics International recently opened an advanced rail transloading facility in Savannah GA. The facility, developed in association with an industry leader in the handling and storage of bulk liquid products, is directly...

Environment News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Basel Talks Consider Changes To Plastic Scrap Trade

Apr 25, 2019 | Plastics News

By Steve Toloken

Should it be much more difficult to export low quality recycled scrap plastic around the world, if there are serious doubts about whether it can be handled in an environmentally sound way in the country it is bound for?
That's a question that will be before a United Nations meeting kicking off next week to update the Basel Convention, a 1989 treaty governing global trade in hazardous waste.
More than 1,500 people are expected in Switzerland from April 29 to May 10 for a once-every-two-years rewrite of the Basel treaty and two related international agreements.
With rising concerns around both plastic marine litter and packaging flooding overburdened waste collection systems in the developing world, the Norwegian government wants the Basel delegates to change how trade in some scrap plastics is regulated.
Basically, Norway wants to put them into a category of hazardous materials that requires the countries receiving them to give their "prior informed consent" that they're willing to accept them.
It would classify some types of plastic scrap under the same rules as things like old TVs and computer monitors containing mercury.
Environmental concerns over exporting such e-waste to developing countries was one of the early drivers toward forming the Basel Convention in the 1980s. Now some want certain plastic waste to be considered the same way.
Environmental groups like Greenpeace and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives are pushing for Norway's restrictions, while industry groups and recycling trade associations have raised concerns that it could do serious unintended harm to responsible trade in plastic recycling.
Groups like the American Chemistry Council, the Plastics Industry Association and the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries have argued that marine litter stems from poor waste management practices, particularly in developing countries, and that limiting trade will not solve that.
"In short, the time, energy, and resources required to negotiate and implement the amendments could instead be directed at more productive global initiatives to improve plastics waste management practices," the groups said in an August letter, shortly after Norway first made its proposal.
"The Norwegian proposal will do little, if anything, to support infrastructure improvements or mobilize international resources for those purposes," they said. "Instead, the plastics recycling industry would be weakened despite the important contributing role it stands to play in addressing marine litter."
But environmental groups see new Basel restrictions as a necessary upgrade to global trade rules, after China banned imports of plastic scrap last year and the material began flowing to other places in Asia.
"Once one country regulates plastic waste imports, it floods into the next unregulated destination," said Kate Lin, a senior campaigner with Greenpeace East Asia, in a statement. "When that country regulates, the exports move to the next one. It's a predatory system, but it's also increasingly inefficient."
Environmental groups believe requiring shippers of plastic scrap to get permission in advance could force more of the waste to be handled in the countries it comes from.
"As wealthy nations dump their low-grade plastic trash onto country after country in the global south, the least the international community can do is safeguard a country's right to know exactly what is being sent to their shores," said Beau Baconguis, regional plastics coordinator at GAIA Asia Pacific, in a statement. "However, ultimately, exporting countries need to deal with their plastic pollution problem at home instead of passing the burden onto other communities."
Greenpeace said its analysis of national trade data from the 21 largest exporters and importers of recycled plastic found that China's ban, along with similar action from neighbors in Asia following suit, has dropped global plastic waste exports from 12.5 million tons in 2016 to 5.8 million tons in the first 11 months of 2018.
The upcoming Basel talks are being watched closely in the recycling industry. Several speakers raised concerns at the Plastics Recycling Conference in mid-March in National Harbor, Md., for example.
Steve Wong, the executive president of the China Scrap Plastics Association, said in a speech there that it could have a big impact on recyclables trade.
He put the Basel discussions into a larger picture, saying it's part of a trend to recycling closer to the source of the waste and turning the materials into recycled plastic pellets. Then, he said, those pellets would be shipped around the world, akin to virgin resin, to be immediately used in factories.
A scrap trade ban is not the only plastics discussion expected at Basel. According to an online briefing conducted by convention organizers, delegates will also be considering new standards for marine litter and microplastics, as well as debating a general partnership on plastic waste under the terms of Basel.
Some industry analysts have suggested that Norway, in response to industry concerns, was open to revising its proposal to focus more on low quality and non-recyclable plastics and wanted to create dialogues.
Whatever the end result of the Basel talks over the next two weeks, plastic waste has gotten increasing attention in international bodies this year.
The U.N. Environment Assembly, basically the body's environmental parliament, in March took formal action to highlight worries around plastic pollution. At that meeting, Malaysia, for example, urged developed countries to sharply cut back on plastic waste exports and noted upcoming Basel talks.

There clearly will be a lot for delegates from countries, NGOs and industry groups to consider, but it's another sign of how fast the political landscape around plastic waste is changing.
https://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20190425/BLOG03/190429957/basel-talks-consider-changes-to-plastic-scrap-trade

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(ACC Mentioned) Preventing Misdeclared Cargo Dangers

Apr 25, 2019 | JOC.com

By John Nikolich

Misdeclared cargo is a sensitive issue, and we like to think that nobody does it intentionally, but the numbers are telling. According to the National Cargo Bureau, as many as 20 percent of stowage plans in 2017 had errors with dangerous goods, and CINS estimates that 21 percent of cargo moves through ports as misdeclared. So as an industry, it is our collective duty to pay careful attention for reasons of safety, costs and overall responsibility.
Often, it’s coverage of a ship fire where material with a high flashpoint was not properly classified and stowed next to the engine room that garners the interest of safety officers and supply chain managers. The story gets a lot of attention when we read about a ship a thousand miles from any coast with two dozen mariners on board in peril. The end results are catastrophic – damaged goods, crippling financial repercussions and most important the potential for loss of life.
With so many partners involved in getting goods from their point of origin to final destination, it’s vital that everyone in the chain understands their role in reducing the risks of misdeclared cargo. It’s our industry responsibility to be proactive.
The first step to avoiding misdeclared cargo is to ensure that the manufacturer has everything properly classified. It’s a sensitive topic and grey area when it comes to who is responsible for declaring the cargo. To avoid ambiguity, the first step is for the manufacturer to provide complete and accurate information to their transportation provider, freight forwarder or shipping line. Consignees should request confirmation of the booking by the seller that the goods have been properly declared to the carrier as dangerous goods. In the event of an incident, an investigation will take place and investigators will often times go back to all of the parties involved - from origination to destination - to find out whether the information was correct or not properly classified.
This is where shippers have a choice and a great deal of control. With regard to moving chemicals, partner with a logistics management company or 3PL that is well-versed in the complexity of chemical logistics and the importance of actively engaging in associations committed to the safe transport of materials.
For example, partner with a company that is a part of the American Chemistry Council’s Responsible Care program with a core plan designed around auditing a manufacturer’s processes and procedures when shipping chemicals. From a manufacturer standpoint, there is the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic) organization in Europe. For carriers there is an organization called the International Vessel Owners Dangerous Goods Association (IVODGA).
While misclassifications are often inadvertent mistakes due to lack of expertise and understanding of global logistics, there is the risk that cargo can be purposefully misdeclared.
This can be the case when a certain class of cargo isn’t going to make it through a port leading the shipper to misclassify it to get it through. This is a dangerous situation that puts everyone at risk. Steamship lines and non-vessel operators should adopt a zero-tolerance policy whereby shippers who knowingly misrepresent the commodity they are shipping should be prevented from shipping future cargo.
An experienced partner will understand the lead time, the different port requirements and know that misdeclaring or misidentifying cargo isn’t the solution. The harsh reality is that there are proven cases where ship fires have occurred because cargo coming from one point to another was misdeclared. The bottom line is we all have a responsibility to ensure information is accurate and properly declared.
Misdeclared cargo isn’t just limited to ships. It can also affect the entire supply chain, from trucking, intermodal and rail. The responsibility falls on the entire supply chain, and it’s important to partner with a third-party logistics provider and transportation provider who can do this from door to delivery with a focus on safety.
We are at a crossroads where the industry has an opportunity to better manage this risk instead of it being managed by regulators. An ethical and savvy partner will navigate the intricate details and complexities of shipping cargo in a safe and expedient way as long as it starts its journey with the proper classification and proper labeling. In the end, a quality logistics partner will work to make sure that everyone is a good player at critical shipping points — avoiding delays, penalties or sanctions — to get the cargo to its end location safely.
https://www.joc.com/preventing-misdeclared-cargo-dangers_20190425.html

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White House Cracks Down on Agency Use of Science

Apr 25, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire

By White House cracks down on agency use of science

The White House Office of Management and Budget released new guidance yesterday for federal agencies on the quality of information they use in rulemaking.
Critics warn the changes could give industry groups more opportunities to delay the implementation of new mandates and could threaten the use of certain public health data.
In the memo, acting Director Russell Vought offered updated standards for how agencies should comply with the Information Quality Act.
Vought noted the updated guidance was necessary to "address changes in the information landscape and to incorporate best practices developed over time."
Agencies must now tailor their definition of what qualifies as "influential information" rather than rely on a 2002 memo. Influential information is considered key for drafting rules and is subject to more rigorous review.
OMB is also asking agencies to provide the public more data so outside groups can reproduce the findings underlying rulemaking.
Notably, this includes making the computer code used in data analysis public, "if consistent with applicable law and policy."
OMB suggested that at minimum agencies should be sharing "specific methods, design parameters, equations or algorithms, parameters, and assumptions used."
The memo also changes how agencies should handle requests for correction, where members of the public can flag information that "does not comply with agency guidelines."
Regulators should not "opine" on agency policy decisions in their responses, says the memo, and answer technical questions about data quality within 120 days.
Then they must share their responses with OMB for review. Individuals requesting changes will have an opportunity to appeal.
Agencies have 90 days to come up with their own specific guidelines for how they will ensure information quality based on the parameters is laid out in the memo.
Congressional Republicans have long sought such reforms. During the Obama administration, they and industry allies frequently questioned agency science and whether it justified tougher mandates.Advocates pounce
Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said OMB's action is similar to EPA's "Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science" rule.
It would have only allowed EPA to use data that was reproducible and would have required the agency make the data used in rulemaking publicly available.
Critics said the proposal would preclude EPA from using key public health data because of privacy concerns or because the research was based on a specific event, like the aftereffects of a chemical spill, that cannot be ethically reproduced.
"They ignore the cost of doing this. The Government Accountability Office estimated to implement EPA's transparency rule would cost hundreds of millions of dollars," Rosenberg said.
He wondered who would be responsible for making sure the agencies would make the data public, where the data could be accessed and suggested the whole process would carry a hefty price tag.
"There is no indication from OMB how any of this will be done," said Rosenberg.
He called the guidance favorable to companies seeking to block public health and safety policies, suggesting industry groups could hire consultants to repeatedly ask for corrections.
Amit Narang, a regulatory policy advocate at left-leaning Public Citizen, said the memo would give OMB more discretion to "second-guess" agency experts' analysis.
He noted that if the administration was serious about improving the quality of data in rulemaking, it could have acted differently concerning EPA and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration's clean car rules.
Narang noted NHTSA had not been willing to share its underlying modeling to justify freezing fuel economy standards. He also challenged the quality of the data justifying any reconsideration of the use of co-benefits in EPA's rulemaking.
"It's quite ironic that OMB is putting out this memo when across agencies their rulemakings have been based on suspect evidence, if they have based on evidence at all. Most have been based on cost savings to industry," he said.
Rosenberg also critiqued OMB for not consulting with science groups before releasing such "cross-cutting" guidance.
"This memo would be durable until superseded," he said. "If it becomes standard practice, it will carry well beyond this administration. I think it's a real risk. It would take a long time to get this rolled back."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/04/25/stories/1060217927

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Retail Group Backs Single-Use Plastic Bags Ban

Apr 25, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)

By Marina Villeneuve

Maine could join a handful of states that have banned single-use bags as retailers that are growing weary from varying local bag bans call for consistency.
The Legislature began considering a Democrat's proposal at a public hearing yesterday morning.
Democratic state Rep. Holly Stover's bill aims to prohibit retailers from using single-use, carry-out bags at the checkout line by April 2020.
California and New York have also prohibited the use of plastic bags, while all of Hawaii's counties have passed such a ban, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Maine's bill comes as at least 20 of its municipalities — and all New England states, including Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire — also consider such bans.
Maine's bill would allow retail stores to provide recyclable paper bags for at least 5 cents per bag at the checkout line. That fee wouldn't apply to restaurants and stores with relatively few food sales, or to consumers who bring their own single-use plastic bags or use governmental food benefits.
Single-use bags are hard to recycle and take a thousand years to decompose, according to David Ayer, who is the campaign manager for the End Plastic Pollution campaign at Earth Day Network.
"For a product that's so easily replaceable, they cause an outsize amount of damage on the environment," said Ayer, who praised Maine's bill.
When thrown out or blown away, the bags can wind up in landfills, lakes and oceans, where marine animals such as turtles can mistake them for jellyfish.
The bill's supporters include the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and the Retail Association of Maine, whose members are trying to make sense of varying local bag bans.
"The real driving reason is we're asking for statewide consistency," said Retail Association of Maine President and CEO Curtis Picard.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/04/25/stories/1060217283

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TSCA News

US EPA Round-Up

Apr 25, 2019 | Chemical Watch

TSCA proposals, asbestos Snur formally published
The US EPA has published in the Federal Register: a proposed rule to establish a plan for how the agency will require substantiation for, and review the validity of, claims to withhold the identity of a substance as confidential, initially announced on 10 April; proposed revisions to the TSCA chemical data reporting (CDR) rule and update to the small business definition for reporting purposes, first announced on 12 April; and a final TSCA significant new use rule (Snur) for asbestos, originally announced on 17 April.
Comments on both the confidential business information (CBI) proposal and the CDR revisions will be accepted until 24 June. The asbestos Snur takes effect on the same day.
EPA prints correction to PV29 notice
The US EPA has issued a correction to its 17 April Federal Register notice that reopened the comment period for its risk evaluation of pigment violet 29.
The agency clarified that the comment deadline, advised as 17 April, should read 17 May.
TSCA PBT risk management proposal heads to interagency review
The agency has submitted a proposed regulation for five persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) substances to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval.
Under the reformed TSCA, the EPA must take ‘expedited’ action on PBTs meeting certain criteria. For these, it will skip their risk evaluation and proceed directly to a risk management rule to reduce their exposure "to the extent practicable".
Announced in October 2016, the five substances that met the PBT definition are: decaBDE; hexachlorobutadiene (HCBD); pentachlorothiophenol (PCTP); tris(4-isopropylphenyl) phosphate (IPTPP); and 2,4,6-tris(tert-butyl) phenol.
The proposed rule was received at OMB on 24 April. The EPA is required to issue the proposal by 22 June, with a final version due 18 months later.
https://chemicalwatch.com/76706/us-epa-round-up

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Advocacy Groups Sue EPA Over Worker Exclusion From Methylene Chloride Ban

Apr 25, 2019 | Safety & Health Magazine

A coalition of groups representing worker rights has filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency and Administrator Andrew Wheeler for not including workers in the agency’s final rule banning methylene chloride for consumer use.
The groups, which filed a petition for review April 18 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, allege that the rule leaves thousands of workers at risk by not finalizing a previous proposal related to commercial paint and coating removal.
Published in the March 27 Federal Register, the final rule prohibits manufacture (including import), processing and distribution of methylene chloride in paint removers for consumer use and requires manufacturers, processors and distributors to notify retailers and others in the supply chain about the ban.
However, in contrast to a proposed rule issued in January 2017, EPA is not finalizing “a determination of unreasonable risk from the use of methylene chloride in commercial paint and coating removal,” the final rule states.
In 2014, EPA found that exposure to methylene chloride – frequently used for bathtub refinishing – may cause adverse health effects, including cancer, harm to the central nervous system and toxicity to the liver. The rule states that EPA is aware of four fatalities linked to the substance in paint and coating removal since publication of the proposed rule, as well as 49 from 1976 to 2016.
The lawsuit petitioners include Earthjustice, on behalf of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement; the Natural Resources Defense Council; Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families; and the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. Also listed are Lauren Atkins and Wendy Hartley, whose adult sons died from methylene chloride exposure, according to an April 23 Earthjustice press release.
“If dozens of confirmed deaths are not enough to get the Trump administration to protect workers from methylene chloride paint strippers, nothing short of a court order will,” Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, an attorney for Earthjustice, said in the release. “There is no law, science or policy behind the exclusion of workers from EPA’s methylene chloride rule. It is a craven and illegal giveaway to companies that want to continue to manufacture and sell deadly paint strippers.”
In May 2018, EPA issued a press release indicating that the agency planned to submit finalized rulemaking of the consumer and commercial ban to the White House Office of Management and Budget “shortly.”
On behalf of LCLAA and NRDC, Earthjustice in February filed a lawsuit against EPA and Wheeler in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, challenging the ban’s delay.Sign up for Safety+Health's free monthly email newsletters and get the news that's important to you.
Methylene chloride is among the first 10 chemicals EPA is evaluating for potential health and environmental risks under the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act. In the March 27 Federal Register, EPA published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking seeking public comment on potential training, certification and limited access program guidelines for commercial use of the chemical.
Comments on the ANPRM are due May 28, the same day the final rule is set to take effect.
https://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/18360-citing-fatalities-advocacy-groups-sue-epa-over-worker-exclusion-from-methylene-chloride-ban

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Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) New US Asbestos Rule Criticised as Outright Ban on the Carcinogen Ditched

Apr 25, 2019 | Chemistry World

By Rebecca Trager

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is under fire for a new policy that, rather than banning asbestos outright, requires that manufacturers notify the agency and seek its approval before resuming use of the known carcinogen.
The EPA’s final significant new use rule, issued on 17 April, mandates that companies obtain approval in order to domestically manufacture or import specific types of products containing asbestos. The EPA says its goal is to ensure that asbestos products no longer on the market cannot return to commerce without the agency evaluating them and putting in place any necessary restrictions or prohibitions on use. Environmental groups have said that the new policy is inadequate, however.
‘This new rule makes it more difficult for industry to resume some abandoned uses of asbestos, but that is a half-step at best,’ stated the Environmental Working Group’s legislative attorney, Melanie Benesh. She faulted EPA chief Andrew Wheeler for not using the agency’s authority under the updated Toxic Substances Control Act (Tsca) to simply prohibit all uses of asbestos.
Some key lawmakers on Capitol Hill also denounced the EPA’s latest action. ‘Just last week, Administrator Wheeler sat before my committee and committed to an outright ban of ongoing uses of asbestos,’ said Representative Frank Pallone, who chairs the House energy and commerce committee. ‘Today’s rule is a complete betrayal of that commitment,’ he continued. ‘It does nothing to restrict ongoing uses of asbestos; instead it provides a pathway to market for uses that had previously been phased out, such as in floor tiles and insulation.’
The EPA argues that the new rule strengthens its ability to ‘rigorously review an expansive list of asbestos products’ that are no longer on the market before they could be sold again in the US. ‘Prior to this new rule, the EPA did not have the ability to prevent or restrict certain asbestos products from being reintroduced into the market,’ Wheeler saidin a statement.
The American Chemistry Council (ACC), a chemical industry trade group, endorsed the EPA’s new rule. The ACC said the new rule will strengthen the agency’s ability to regulate asbestos by requiring manufacturers and importers to provide notification of potential new uses of asbestos, and then requiring that the EPA subject those proposed uses to a ‘rigorous safety review, regulation and restrictions’.
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/new-us-asbestos-rule-criticised-as-outright-ban-on-the-carcinogen-ditched/3010422.article

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US FDA Refuses Advocates’ Request for Perchlorate Hearing

Apr 25, 2019 | Chemical Watch

By Lisa Martine Jenkins

The US FDA has denied a request submitted by nine NGOs for a public hearing to challenge the agency’s conclusions on the use of perchlorate in food packaging.
The agency’s decision is the latest development in an ongoing disagreement over the substance’s use in food contact materials (see box).
NGOs have argued that perchlorate has the potential to harm foetal and infant development because it impairs the thyroid’s ability to use iodine in the diet to make a hormone essential to brain development. And the substance can migrate from plastic materials into food, they say.
The groups requested a formal evidentiary public hearing in June 2017 to challenge the agency’s decision to deny their petition to block the use of perchlorate in dry food packaging materials.
But on 24 April, the FDA issued its decision not to grant the hearing. In a Federal Register notice, the agency said it "may deny a hearing request if the objections to the regulation do not raise genuine and substantial issues of fact that can be resolved at a hearing."
"As the 2017 denial states, the petitioners' [requests] are not within the scope of a food additive petition," says the notice. "Therefore, the provision for objections and public hearing … does not apply."‘Considering legal options’
The petitioning organisations, however, continue to disagree with the agency’s stance.
Erik Olson of the Natural Resources Defense Council said: "FDA is falling down on the job. The agency should be protecting kids’ developing brains from the dangers posed by hazardous perchlorate in our food."
"The development of the brain is like a one-way street; there is no U-turn to go back and fix the problems perchlorate exposure may have caused," added Dr Maricel Maffini, who works with the Environmental Defense Fund. "It is absolutely unnecessary to use this well-known endocrine disrupting chemical in contact with food."
The EDF said the organisations will consider their legal options to challenge this decision in the courts.
NGO petition over a decade in the making
Perchlorate was initially approved for use in plastic packaging for food in 2005. A group of NGOs petitioned the FDA for a ban on the substance in 2014, and filed a suit in 2016 over the agency’s failure to act on that petition.
That petition requested that the agency: revoke its 2005 approval of "threshold of regulation" (TOR), which allows up to 1.2% sodium perchlorate monohydrate in dry food packaging; prohibit the use of perchlorate as a conductivity enhancer in the manufacture of antistatic agents used in food contact articles; and remove potassium perchlorate as an allowed additive in sealing gaskets for food containers.
While the FDA did ultimately revoke potassium perchlorate’s food contact material authorisation in 2017, it did so in response to an abandonment petition submitted by the Plastics Industry Association.
The rest of the petition was denied around the same time. The FDA’s ruling on these requests said the first two objectives "are not within the scope of a food additive petition".
The NGOs, however, hold that the authorisation of the substance’s use is based on "flawed science", and maintain that the FDA is "ignoring its own data showing significantly increased exposure for children, woefully underestimating exposure based on a flawed migration test, and unrealistically assuming that perchlorate-laden plastic would only contact food once."
They consequently requested an independent judgement of the determination via an evidentiary hearing, despite the fact that this type of proceeding is relatively uncommon.
https://chemicalwatch.com/76864/us-fda-refuses-advocates-request-for-perchlorate-hearing

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Massachusetts Notifies Expansions to Reportable Substances List

Apr 25, 2019 | Chemical Watch

By Kelly Franklin

Massachusetts’s Department of Environmental Protection has provided guidance on recent additions to its list of reportable substances under the state’s Toxics Use Reduction Act (Tura).
A 3 April notice outlines changes to the reporting scheme, which requires users of large quantities of certain toxic substances to report annually and pay a fee.
Among these is a requirement to begin reporting next year for C1-C4 halogenated hydrocarbons and halocarbons. These are defined as "chemicals with four or fewer carbons, at least one halogen, and only hydrogen as the other constituent, that are not already individually listed on the Tura chemical list."
Effective in reporting year 2020, the state will also require reporting for a nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs) category.
MassDEP notes that, although these reports will not be due until 2020 or 2021, it is important that companies begin tracking the substances’ use now.
The notice also clarifies that for the current reporting year, reports must be submitted for the hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) category. Reports covering 2018 activities are due on 1 July.
Under Tura, facilities that manufacture, process or use a regulated chemical above certain reporting thresholds are generally required to report to the state. The state’s list of reportable substances includes those on the US EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) list and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (Cercla) ‘Superfund’ list.
https://chemicalwatch.com/76861/massachusetts-notifies-expansions-to-reportable-substances-list

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PFAs Contamination Is Michigan's Biggest Environmental Crisis in 40 Years

Apr 25, 2019 | Detroit Free Press

By Keith Matheny

Sandy Wynn-Stelt knows it's too late for herself. The chemicals she drank for perhaps 25 years out of her tap — the ones that now poison her blood at levels 750 times the average American's — will remain inside her body.
They may naturally work their way out over years, toxicologists say. But no one can tell Wynn-Stelt definitively what her prolonged exposure to massive levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — PFAS, the emerging contaminant causing a rising crisis across Michigan and the country — will mean for her future health.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's health advisory level in drinking water for two of the most common PFAS compounds, known as PFOS and PFOA, is 70 parts per trillion. The levels in Wynn-Stelt's drinking water tested as high as 76,000 parts per trillion.
Michigan may have more than 11,000 sites contaminated with these once-common chemicals, now linked to cancer and a host of other ailments. Regulators have identified 46 sites statewide with levels above the EPA's health limit in groundwater.
"It's kind of this fatalistic view when you realize you've drank so much of this, and you've got so much in you," said Wynn-Stelt, 59.
PFAS in Michigan:  What to know about contaminant, exposure risk, drinking water concerns
She learned in 2017 that her drinking water well was tainted by a plume of PFAS groundwater contamination that came from a landfill across the street from her house in the Kent County community of Belmont, where Wolverine Worldwide, the longtime shoe and leather products maker in neighboring Rockford, for years dumped waste sludge from its tannery.
Wolverine made popular Hush Puppies shoes treated with ScotchGard for water resistance. That water resistance came from PFAS compounds.
"I don't know if I worry about my health so much at this point because there's nothing I can do about it," Wynn-Stelt said.
"I'm trying to put my time and energy into making sure this doesn't happen again."
PFAS contamination is Michigan's most widespread, serious environmental crisis since the 1973 PBB disaster, when polybrominated biphenyl fire retardant was accidentally mixed with cattle feed at the Velsicol Chemical factory in St. Louis, Michigan. More than 500 contaminated Michigan farms were quarantined, and 30,000 cattle, 4,500 pigs, 1,500 sheep, and 1.5 million chickens were destroyed. Approximately 85% of the Michigan public received some exposure to the contaminant, tied to cancer, thyroid and hormonal disorders. Studies on long-term effects are still continuing.
There are thousands of PFAS chemicals, many of them little-understood byproducts. Though the chemicals were distributed, purposefully and inadvertently, by 3M, DuPont and other chemical companies for generations, virtually nothing is known about most of them. But PFOS and PFOA — the compounds most frequently cited by regulators because they have received more scrutiny — have been linked to cancer; conditions affecting the liver, thyroid and pancreas; ulcerative colitis; hormone and immune system interference; high cholesterol; pre-eclampsia in pregnant women, and negative effects on growth, learning and behavior in infants and children.
From the late 1940s to the 2000s, PFAS was the 3M Corporation's wonder product. The compounds made by the Minnesota-based company repelled grease and water, so they could be used for a host of processes and consumer products, from wrapping paper for hamburgers to microwave popcorn bags, from nonstick cookware to carpet and upholstery stain guards, from waterproofing shoes and clothes to use in chrome plating industries and even dental floss.
The qualities that made it so useful, however, also make it virtually impossible to break down in nature — giving the compounds the ominous nickname "the forever chemical." PFAS can now be found in the blood of nearly 99% of Americans. It has even been found in polar bears in the Arctic Circle, as the chemicals have worked their way up the food chain from fish and seals.
The ramifications from PFAS's widespread use, its persistence and its harm continue to reverberate in Michigan and elsewhere:
-Some 46 Michigan locations have PFAS compounds in groundwater that exceed the EPA's 70 parts-per-trillion health advisory level. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (now known as the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy) has estimated PFAS could be found at more than 11,300 sites in Michigan — fire stations, municipal airports, military sites, refineries and bulk petroleum stations, wastewater treatment plants, old landfills, and various industrial sites.
-Seventeen rivers, lakes, streams and ponds throughout Michigan have "do not eat" fish advisories, or limitations on consumption of fish, because of PFOS contamination, including Saginaw Bay, Lake St. Clair and portions of the Au Sable, Huron, Flint, Saginaw and St. Joseph rivers.
-Michigan last year became the first state to issue a PFAS-related, do not eat advisory for deer — in a 5-mile radius of Clark's Marsh, near the shuttered Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda, after a deer there was found with elevated PFOS levels in its blood.
-Anecdotal evidence of a chilling effect on hunting and fishing in affected locations could harm a hunting and fishing economy in Michigan that the nonprofit Michigan United Conservation Clubs, in a report released in January, put at $11.2 billion and 171,000 jobs each year.
-Homeowners are worried the emerging contaminants are damaging their property values and discouraging new, local businesses. Iosco County's largest employer is in limbo on plans to expand its operations at the Oscoda-Wurtsmith Airport because of the ongoing contamination concern.
-PFOS and PFOA were largely phased out of U.S. production by 2015, under EPA pressure. But the chemicals have never been outright banned, and their production shifted to China and other countries, so the contaminants continue to pollute the globe.
-Two of the first PFAS-like compounds the chemical industry has begun making and using to replace PFOS and PFOA, called GenX and PFBS, have their own health and environmental concerns. The EPA in November announced that toxicology studies show human livers are sensitive to GenX chemicals, and the kidney and thyroid are sensitive to PFBS. The state of North Carolina in 2017 discovered GenX now pollutes the Cape Fear River and surrounding groundwater, a significant source of public drinking water. State regulators tie the pollutant to a chemical plant in Fayetteville owned by Chemours, a spinoff company from DuPont, which manufactured Teflon containing PFAS compounds for decades.
-Having known at least since the 1990s of health and environmental concerns associated with PFAS, the EPA still has only set an advisory limit — with no enforcement power — for two types of PFAS compounds, out of thousands. Michigan is following the EPA number, though a science advisory panel convened by former Gov. Rick Snyder concluded last December that the number "may not provide a sufficient margin of safety" for public health. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has directed that Michigan develop its own, enforceable PFAS drinking water standards by the end of this year.
-Other states are more restrictive. California and New Jersey both have groundwater advisory levels set at 13 parts per trillion for PFOS and 14 parts per trillion for PFOA, and New Jersey is considering making its an enforceable limit, one by which regulators can direct a polluter to clean up until the pollution no longer exceeds the standard. Vermont sets a limit of up to 20 parts per trillion total combined for PFOS, PFOA and three other PFAS compounds. Most U.S. states, however, still have no PFAS water contamination standard in the works.
It's not just Michigan's problem. Products containing PFAS were used almost everywhere. The Pentagon last year identified 401 military sites across the U.S. where there are known or suspected releases of PFOS and PFOA through the use of firefighting foam. On at least 160 of those sites, the PFAS contamination in groundwater exceeds the EPA's health advisory level.
An analysis by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, using EPA data, last year found that up to 1,500 public drinking water systems nationwide, serving 110 million Americans, contain PFOA, PFOS and other PFAS compounds.
"The whole PFAS issue kind of shows the failure of the entire environmental protection effort that's going on in this nation," said Robert Delaney, a DEQ remediation project manager at Wurtsmith, where PFAS contamination first rose into Michigan's consciousness. Delaney, the first official in Michigan to sound an alarm on the pervasiveness and danger of PFAS contamination statewide, emphasized he was speaking for himself, and not the DEQ.
"Industry understood that these chemicals were toxic maybe 40 years ago. And yet today, we're having a hard time getting the federal government to address even two of the maybe 3,000 to 5,000 PFAS chemicals that are out there."
Wynn-Stelt moved to her House Street home in Belmont with her husband, Joel, in 1992, attracted to the surrounding forests and Christmas tree farm on the other side of the street, providing their front-window view. No one told the couple that the trees were planted over the former sludge dump from Wolverine Worldwide's leather tannery.
Joel died on March 26, 2016, at age 61 of liver cancer, only a few weeks after being diagnosed. Wynn-Stelt says she has no idea whether the exposure to PFAS contamination caused her husband's cancer.
"I will never know, and that is part of what keeps you up," she said. "It makes it really hard to grieve when you have all of these unknown questions kind of going through your head."
***
In 1938, Dr. Roy J. Plunkett, working at the DuPont Company's Jackson Laboratory in Deepwater, New Jersey, discovers nonstick PFAS chemicals by accident during a failed experiment with refrigerants. The white, waxy material was the slipperiest substance ever found, and heat-resistant. Initially used in military and industrial applications, within 10 years, DuPont was producing about 2 million pounds of PFAS compounds per year, as it exploded into a variety of consumer uses. It was produced from PFAS chemicals provided by the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co., or 3M.
A statewide problem in Michigan
Major centers for Michigan's PFAS crisis are on two different sides of the Lower Peninsula: Oscoda, near Lake Huron, where the contaminant first emerged at the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base and is now affecting ground and surface water in the surrounding community; and in west Michigan, where more than 1,500 private wells are contaminated in northern Kent County in and around Belmont and Rockford from PFAS associated with Wolverine Worldwide's leather operations. About an hour south, in Parchment in Kalamazoo County, a paper mill's landfill leached PFAS compounds into the community's drinking water supply.
But they are not the only PFAS problem sites in Michigan. The 46 sites at which groundwater contamination exceeds the EPA's 70 parts-per-trillion health advisory limit for PFOS and PFOA cover much of Michigan:
-In Grand Haven, Robinson Elementary School was quickly switched to bottled water last October after its well water tested for PFOS and PFOA at levels above the EPA health advisory mark. The source of the contamination there is unknown.
-Sites in the Upper Peninsula near Marquette and Escanaba have high levels of PFAS in soils and groundwater, related to operations at the now-closed K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base.
-Around Grayling and Alpena, military-related facilities that used PFAS-containing firefighting foam are also contaminated.In Grand Traverse County's Blair Township, the use of firefighting foam on a 1995 tire fire — one fire, more than 20 years ago — has left groundwater with excessive levels of PFAS compounds.
-In Cass County's Howard Township, a 2016 tanker truck fire in which the foam was used has also left PFAS contamination in water and soil.
-The Clinton River and Lake St. Clair near the Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Monroe County's Harrison Township is contaminated because of firefighting foam use over years on the base.
The State of Michigan, in addition to testing public water systems, surface waters and fish for PFAS exposure statewide, is also beginning to assess just how exposed its citizens have become in the west Michigan hot spots.
Federal, state and local health officials are collaborating to assess the exposure levels of those with drinking water tainted from Wolverine Worldwide's sludge disposal sites.
Affected residents are being contacted and asked to participate in clinics, where they provide demographic data and a blood sample. Health officials are hoping to get 400 samples of blood from two resident groups: Those whose water tested for PFAS compounds above 70 parts per trillion, and those who had some PFAS in their water, but below 70 parts per trillion. After exposures are characterized, further studies may be conducted to examine how health issues potentially correlate with PFAS blood or water levels.
Oscoda's dilemma: To complain or not
In Oscoda, the community faces a tough choice, Oscoda Township supervisor Aaron Weed said.
The Air Force is not effectively acting to curtail the PFAS contamination that is emanating from the former base, where it was used in firefighting foam over decades. The contamination is getting to residential wells, Van Etten Lake and the Au Sable River, Weed said.
Township residents need to call attention to the Air Force's inaction, he said. But Oscoda is heavily reliant on summer tourism, cottage rentals, hunting and fishing. And every bit that the community is tied to a contamination problem potentially harms that economic driver.
"This is the problem we run into," Weed said. "We have a lot of people who are affected, who are upset about it, but don't want to be public about it."
"We take a hit," said Arnie Leriche, a co-founder of Need Our Water, or NOW, a grassroots community group engaged on the PFAS problem at Wurtsmith. "We're a resort community, a low-density population, and we take a hit for every single word in the press (about PFAS) …
“(But) it's good that it's there. It needs to be portrayed that this is a statewide issue, and the state government, the past eight years, (hasn't wanted) to send that message out."
Robert Tasior is vice chairman of the township planning commission and a member of the Wurtsmith Restoration Advisory Board, or RAB, a body that meets quarterly, giving community members a chance to meet with the Air Force, the DEQ, the health department and others on where the cleanup stands.
Tasior said his wife, Devon, a real estate agent in the community, has lost sales related to the ongoing PFAS situation.
"One couple was looking at half-million-dollar homes on Lake Huron, but they decided because of the contamination that they were going to look down the road, farther away from Oscoda," he said.
"She's lost a couple of sales on Van Etten Lake because of the contamination — she has had people say it's because of the contamination."
Kalitta Air, at the Oscoda-Wurtsmith Airport, is the largest employer in Iosco County. The company ships cargo by air and also provides jet engine maintenance for others, including Boeing and General Electric.
"They've got 1,400 employees here, air mechanics who make pretty good money, right here on the (former) base," Leriche said.
Already boasting 240,000 square feet of hangar and engine shop space, company officials are interested in expanding by one or two additional hangars, expecting to create 150 additional jobs. But the company wants protection from the U.S. government against liability from the existing PFAS contamination, and the Air Force has refused, Leriche said.
"They don't own the land — the township redevelopment authority owns the land; it was given to them by the Air Force," he said. "The Air Force has a covenant on the deed. That covenant allows the Air Force to do remediation, to do sampling, to even hold up a project until they clean up contamination."
But that cleanup is moving painfully slowly.
"Delay is hurting our businesses," Leriche said.
'We know we've got a toxic foam'
The DEQ last October issued its second Notice of Violation to the Air Force for its lack of response to the PFAS contamination near Wurtsmith.
“The slow response by the Air Force to the Wurtsmith contamination is having an increasingly negative impact on the people, wildlife, and environment in Oscoda,” Carol Isaacs, then-director of the Michigan PFAS Action Response Team, a group of state agencies working together on PFAS issues,  said at the time.
The DEQ has sought to require the Air Force to comply with the state's regulatory limit for PFOS where groundwater vents to surface waters,12 parts per trillion, to help address the continued problem of foam on streams, rivers and lakes near Wurtsmith, including into Lake Huron. Foam samples in the area have tested at more than 110,000 parts per trillion for combined PFOS and PFOA.
The Air Force, however, has declined, stating it is not required to comply with the state's rules, only CERCLA, the federal Superfund law. The DEQ believes the area around the base perimeter needs 18 granular activated carbon filtration plants to effectively contain and begin to clean up the contamination affecting surface waters; the Air Force has installed two.
"Those (filtration) plants only cover a small portion of the plume — there are still huge swaths that are not being taken care of," Weed said, adding he has met with "absolute resistance" from the Air Force, and that "it looks like they are trying to just avoid responsibility, even if they have to get ridiculous about it."
A recent revelation might shed light on why that's happening. The New York Times on March 14 wrote that the Pentagon, in a report to Congress last year, expressed support for a PFAS cleanup level at its military facilities of 380 parts per trillion, or more than five times the EPA health advisory level for drinking water. The Defense Department has identified 401 military facilities nationwide where PFAS compounds were used, and the drinking water or groundwater of at least 90 of those sites is contaminated with PFAS.
Said Weed, "I've told the Air Force, 'Get the money to fix this problem at Wurtsmith,' And they've said, 'Well, if we do that, then we have to get money for all the 40 other BRAC bases (Base Realignment and Closure, Air Force bases closed at the end of the Cold War).'
"And I said, 'What's the problem with that? You don't have to treat us special — treat them all. Take care of the problem.' "
Meanwhile, recreational activities are being affected by PFAS fish advisories.
Gene Kirvan is a charter captain in Oscoda, one of the few who offer year-round charters on both nearby Lake Huron and the Au Sable River. The DEQ issued a "do not eat the fish" advisory for Clark's Marsh and the eastern Au Sable River for resident, non-migratory fish as far back as 2012, after testing near the Wurtsmith base found astronomical levels of PFAS in some fish. That hurt Kirvan's business, he said.
"It was a bit of a shell shock," he said. "When a lot of people saw the signage, they didn't quite understand what species were specified, what area was specified. Clarification would have helped soften some of the bomb blast."
After educating potential charter-takers that prized migratory fish caught out of the Au Sable — walleye, rainbow trout, steelhead, and salmon — aren't affected by PFAS restrictions, "they are fine," Kirvan has found.
While sensitive to the impact fish advisories can have on a business like his, Kirvan questions why regulators haven't yet done more testing of fish — and more informing of anglers — on Van Etten Lake, just outside Wurtsmith.
"We know Van Etten Lake is another hot spot" for PFAS, he said.
"We know we've got a toxic surfactant foam out on the lake. We know that foam is hazardous to humans. However, we don't see any warnings posted, nothing to warn the consumer."
DEQ spokesman Scott Dean said new "Eat Safe Fish" guidelines for fish in Van Etten Lake were updated and distributed last year, factoring in the results of earlier testing of fish in the lake for mercury and PFOS.
Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, in a March 3 letter responding to inquiries by U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Michigan, said, "The situation at Wurtsmith is complex. While solutions do not come quickly under the CERCLA (Superfund) process, the Air Force is committed to working with Michigan to find effective solutions within our authorities."
***
In a study published in 2004 in the peer-reviewed Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, researchers examined whether PFAS compounds could be found in fish and animals in and around the Great Lakes. The study found PFOS in zebra mussels and small crustaceans called amphipods at levels 1,000 times greater than the waters surrounding them, indicating the chemical builds up and is stored in the organisms. PFAS compounds were found in every fish tested: round gobies and smallmouth bass, in the livers of chinook salmon taken on the Grand River, in the livers of lake whitefish from Thunder Bay in northern Lake Huron, in brown trout eggs from Lake Superior. It was found in the livers of mink and green frogs from Kalamazoo and in the livers of seven dead bald eagles collected at various locations in the Upper Peninsula. "Concentrations of PFOS were the greatest in mink and bald eagles," the study found.
Why PFAS stayed on the market
The U.S. approach to chemical regulation has led to a thriving, profitable, job-creating industry. But there are trade-offs.
"The fallout of having less restrictive regulations on what we produce is that we’re constantly performing an uncontrolled experiment," said Matthew Simcik, an associate professor of environmental chemistry in the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.
"We’re constantly putting these chemicals out there, people are constantly getting exposed, and we’re always playing catch-up on what are the effects."
Congress in 1976 passed the Toxic Substances Control Act, ostensibly to regulate potentially harmful or environmentally damaging chemicals before they came to market. But it never worked as advertised, and, under chemical industry pressure, it grandfathered in, without examination, 62,000 chemicals already in use at the time it was enacted, including PFAS compounds.
"What happens in the U.S. is we produce a chemical, make a bunch of money off it, and then somebody will realize something about it is bad," Simcik said.
It's different in the European Union. Under their chemical regulations, prior registration is compulsory when a company intends to manufacture or import a ton or more per year of a particular substance. Regulators can limit or ban the production, marketing or use of certain substances if they are deemed to pose an unacceptable risk to health or the environment.
The first substantive revision to the Toxic Substances Control Act in 40 years hasn't alleviated critics' concerns.
A 2016 revision to the law provided a process by which to assess new chemicals for safety before their widespread distribution. But within a year, the EPA, which was responsible for the evaluation, had a backlog of more than 600 new chemicals awaiting review, until President Donald Trump's then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced the elimination of the backlog in August 2017. The chemical industry applauded the announcement, while some environmentalists worried the process was shifting to a priority of quickly clearing chemicals for market rather than protecting public health and the environment.
Added David Andrews, senior scientist at the nonprofit, Washington-based Environmental Working Group, "The whole system for regulating drinking water contaminants is completely broken."
The process of regulation is hard to navigate by design, he said.
"Corporations, not just on PFAS but other chemicals as well, would like to see no changes ever in the regulatory requirements," Andrews said.
"There's an ever-increasing body of science on how widespread these PFAS contaminants are, of how big of an impact they are having on human health. Really expedited action on setting a drinking water standard is the lowest bar here."
But most of the U.S. doesn't yet have PFAS on its radar in the way that Michigan and a few other states do, Andrews said.
"We’re still really behind the ball on where this contamination is, where it’s coming from," he said.
"Nationally, there’s no dedicated effort to identify contaminated sites and clean them up. This issue is much bigger than PFOA and PFOS. There needs to be a national effort to understand and restrict these compounds. The data sets are woefully inadequate."
The EPA responded to Free Press requests for an interview with an emailed statement, touting the PFAS Action Plan the agency released in February. The plan, notably, does not include a timetable by which it will set an enforceable standard for PFOS and PFOA, one that can be used to force cleanups by polluters.
"EPA is continuing to work through the process outlined in the Safe Drinking Water Act to evaluate drinking water standards for PFOA and PFOS," agency officials stated. "This includes a formal process for public input and engagement with stakeholders and scientific advisors in order to ensure scientific integrity and transparency. We are also gathering and evaluating information to determine if regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act is appropriate for other chemicals in the PFAS family."
***
Researchers in a study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Occupational Medicine in September 1993 examined the mortality of employees at a production plant making PFAS compounds. Among their findings: "Ten years of employment in exposed jobs was associated with a 3.3-fold increase in prostate cancer mortality compared to no employment in PFOA production."
3M, in a voluntary agreement with the EPA in 2000, began a phaseout of its manufacture and use of PFOS and PFOA. But it sold the rights to make PFOA to DuPont, which used it in its Teflon product lines. DuPont would continue to use the product until 2015.
Parchment's tainted water supply
In Parchment, the PFAS contamination problem isn't tied to individual wells, but the municipal drinking water supply for the entire city, more than 3,100 people in the Kalamazoo County community and neighboring Cooper Township. It's the only city in the DEQ's review of more than 1,380 public water systems with PFAS levels above the EPA 70 parts per trillion benchmark, testing as high as 1,500 parts per trillion for combined PFOS and PFOA last July.
The city's name comes from the paper mill around which the community was built in 1909. The mill operated under varying names over the years, ultimately landing with paper products giant Georgia-Pacific. By the 1990s, 3M-made PFAS compounds were used at the mill to create products including grease-resistant food wrappers for hamburgers and other sandwiches. The mill disposed of its wastes in its own landfill near the site.
In April 2002, Georgia-Pacific entered a consent order with the DEQ, setting forth Georgia-Pacific’s responsibilities in closing the mill’s landfill. The DEQ noted that “[n]ot closing the landfill could result in contamination continuing to emanate into the Kalamazoo River.”
That same year, DEQ found that Parchment’s well field was “highly susceptible to potential contaminants." PFAS contamination was confirmed in Parchment's water last July.
With the exception of a stint in the military, David Dykehouse has lived his entire life in Parchment, on the same street, Parchmount Avenue.
The news of the drinking water contamination "instantly made my stomach upset, to think that not only myself, but my wife and daughter" were exposed for an unknown period of time, he said.
Then Dykehouse started thinking about his family's health history. He has elevated cholesterol levels; his wife has a thyroid condition that "is off the charts in comparison to a normal thyroid issue," he said. Both conditions have been tied to exposures of PFOS and PFOA.
Both Dykehouse's maternal and paternal grandmothers died of cancer on Parchmount Avenue, as did a grandfather. His aunt died of throat cancer in the same neighborhood at age 48.
"You can't help but wonder if the water had something to do with it," he said.
Dykehouse has signed on to class-action litigation against 3M and Georgia-Pacific.
"I've been here all this time, and kept in the dark about it," he said. "I think it's time people started knowing.
"I hope we get to the bottom of how this came about, and we fix it for future generations."
Nicholas Coulson, Dykehouse's attorney, said Georgia-Pacific is named as a defendant because it was "the entity that was responsible, pursuant to an agreement with MDEQ, for closing the landfill in a safe way." But the reasons the Parchment residents in the class-action suit have named 3M as a defendant go far deeper.
"All in the name of profit, they continued to suppress and actively make sure that no one found out how dangerous these chemicals were, and what impacts they had on animals," Coulson said.
"They did studies on rodents; they did studies on the blood concentrations of these chemicals in their own workers. And they sat on it all, and they affirmatively prevented other people's research from making it into the public eye. As a result, it was 2018 before anybody got around to looking in Parchment, Michigan, for these chemicals. And so, as a result of that, thousands of people were drinking it for time unknown."
3M responded to Free Press requests for an interview with an emailed statement.
"3M has dedicated substantial time and resources to researching PFAS and, to that end, we have invested more than $600 million on research, technology, and clean-up efforts related to PFAS," company officials stated. "As a responsible steward of our community, we have a record of sharing information we learn with government regulators, the scientific community, as well as local and federal officials."
***
"As a precautionary measure, approximately 25 women of childbearing potential have received job reassignments at the 3M Decatur plant this week so they will not be exposed to a type of fluorochemical that can cause birth defects in rats," 3M stated in a draft news release dated April 15, 1981.
"Preliminary results from a recent 3M toxicology study showed that three related fluorochemicals affected eye development in the fetuses of rats, according to Phil Raths, manager of the Chemical Resources Division plant."
3M would market and sell PFAS chemicals for two more decades, with no EPA action to stop it.
Warnings unheeded for years
The DEQ's Delaney started sounding the alarm over PFAS contamination long before the state took the actions it's taking now.
The Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda shut down in June 1993 after 70 years of operation, a casualty of the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
As the base for years hosted nuclear-armed B-52 bombers, personnel trained for rapid response to an aircraft fire.
"Weekly, they would go out and pour airplane fuel on the ground, basically diesel, and light it," Delaney said. "And they would put it out with firefighting foam, for practice for their airmen."
The Air Force, as it worked on environmental cleanups around the base before and after its closure, had told the DEQ that it had looked at the fire training areas and determined the firefighting foam wasn't a concern, that it could be broken down with bio-treatments — "basically, that the bugs ate the stuff up," Delaney said.
"There was never any concern about what they were fighting the fires with. It was all about the fuels, the spent solvents and other things that had gotten on the ground, and gotten into the groundwater."
Then Delaney attended a conference in Florida on emerging contaminants in 2010, and learned about problems related to persistent firefighting foam contamination. He went back to Oscoda and asked a consultant to get some groundwater samples at the shuttered base's fire training area, and to find a lab that could test for PFAS.
"I'm thinking these things are gone, because they are surfactants — it's essentially a soap," Delaney said. "I'm thinking they are going to be flushed away. But nope, they are there at relatively high levels."
A state toxicologist put the recommended cleanup criteria at 60 parts per trillion. A part per trillion equals one drop in 20 Olympic-size swimming pools.
"When we start talking parts per trillion, that means something is extremely toxic and dangerous," Delaney said."I realized, I've got this big problem dealing with the Air Force now. I've got to go and tell them that they're not done."
Delaney spent the rest of that year reading everything he could on PFAS and what was known about its danger. Up until the end of 2010, he said he was "just like everybody else," believing America had the strongest environmental safeguards anywhere, preventing new problems from emerging and allowing for cleanup of old problems.
"But in 2010, that worldview was shattered," he said.
"I became convinced by the end of the year that these things were really, really dangerous. ... I felt nobody realizes this. I honestly felt like I was looking down into the abyss."
Delaney prepared a slide show for DEQ management about the problem in February 2011. The agency later that year sampled fish in waters around the Wurtsmith base. The results came back on May 2, 2012, and fish were so contaminated that the district health department, that same day, put out "do not eat the fish" advisories for ponds in Clark's Marsh near the base and a nearby stretch of the Au Sable River for resident, non-migratory fish.
That spurred the Air Force into action on PFAS at the base, Delaney said. But the Air Force's limited efforts to contain the contamination weren't stopping it from emanating off the base and into the nearby community's groundwater, rivers and lakes.
By 2012, turnover at the DEQ left few around who'd seen Delaney's 2011 slide show presentation.
"It started dragging on and on," Delaney said. "I saw the department not doing anything."
'There will be many other sites in Michigan'
By August 2012, with the assistance of University of Colorado toxicologist Richard DeGrandchamp, Delaney had followed through on a promise to prepare a report for new DEQ Director Dan Wyant.
"There will be many other sites in Michigan that contain high levels of PFCs (per- or polyfluorinated compounds) in the environment and in biota (animal and plant life) and potentially in citizens of the state," Delaney prophetically stated in the report to Wyant and others at the DEQ. The report later added, "Communities with fire training facilities, other Department of Defense (DOD) bases, metal platers, other major airports, major transportation corridors, and other industrialized areas all could have extensive contamination by PFCs."
"When my report landed on (Wyant's) desk, they didn't know what to do with it, I think," Delaney said.
The DEQ began a statewide reconnaissance study of PFAS in fish and water in June 2013, according to a timeline the agency provided the Free Press. Sampling was completed one year later, and "do not eat the fish" advisories were issued on the Flint River and Rogue River in Rockford by 2014.
In Delaney's opinion, however, not much else was happening. The agency was not driving any concerted look at other military sites, airports, fire halls or other locations where PFAS compounds might be throughout the state, he said.
In the fall of 2017, a retired DEQ employee shared Delaney's white paper with Steve Gruber, a Lansing radio talk show host. By October, Gruber had Delaney on his show. Less than a month later, Gov. Rick Snyder announced the Michigan PFAS Action Response Team, MPART, which included the state departments of Environmental Quality, Health and Human Services, Military and Veterans Affairs and Agriculture and Rural Development. The group began undertaking an assessment of all municipal water supplies in the state of Michigan for 24 PFAS compounds, the first such statewide examination anywhere in the country.
An MPART science advisory panel, led by Brown University epidemiologist and toxicologist David Savitz, last December found that the 70 parts per trillion EPA health advisory limit, upon which Michigan is relying as a regulatory standard, is likely not protective enough of human health.
Delaney said he has come to believe that widespread chemical contamination is contributing to the crisis of emerging diseases and disorders in America and elsewhere.
"Our bodies are incredibly fine-tuned instruments," he said. "And if you start screwing around with chemicals our bodies have never seen, our bodies don't know how to process it. We can't break these chemicals down — our bodies were never designed to do that. So if they somehow interfere, you can have a huge problem."
***
In 1951, DuPont's Teflon was frequently turning out too lumpy in the manufacturing process. The company began using another PFAS chemical from 3M as a smoothing agent, known as perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA. It was also called C8, as the compound contained eight carbon molecules. It would soon be found in many PFAS-containing products, including ScotchGard protector, a stain repellent 3M began marketing in 1956. Five years later, in 1961, the federal Food and Drug Administration approves using DuPont's Teflon product to create nonstick cookware. Both consumer products take off in popularity.
'The kinds of things that make you fall to sleep at night and cry'
Despite the statewide warning flags Delaney had been waving in Oscoda since 2010, it was an odd coincidence that thrust Belmont and the northern Kent County PFAS problem into the spotlight about seven years later.
The Department of Defense, by 2017, had ordered all of its installations nationwide to test for the presence of PFAS compounds. That included the Belmont Armory, a former church.
"That armory was only used for band practice — they didn't do any firefighting training," said DEQ environmental quality analyst Karen Vorce.
But the armory came back as a hit for PFAS contamination, beyond the 70 parts per trillion EPA health advisory limit — not because of military contamination, but because of the nearby, closed, leaching landfill for Wolverine Worldwide's PFAS-laden tannery sludge.
"That really gave us the data to show to Wolverine, to say, 'You need to do this (neighborhood water testing) fast, and get on this,' " Vorce said.
It was a June day in 2017, a little more than a year after her husband's death from liver cancer, when Sandy Wynn-Stelt was met at her mailbox on House Street by DEQ staff, who asked whether they could test her home's water.
"They were saying, 'It's just out of an abundance of caution,' " she said.
Three weeks after testing, Wynn-Stelt got a call from a district health department official, who wanted to set up a meeting in her home with the health department, DEQ, a toxicologist and some others.
"I knew it wasn't good because you never get a committee to your house to give you results," she said.
As they told her of the sky-high PFAS levels in her drinking water, no one in the committee meeting mentioned Wolverine Worldwide, or the former landfill across the street, Wynn-Stelt said.
"Then we (contaminated House Street residents) got water and gift cards dropped off," she said. "And we were told that these were dropped off by Wolverine Worldwide. I think they said something like they are not taking responsibility for it, but they are trying to be good neighbors."
Only later did Wynn-Stelt find out about the long-closed sludge dump across the street, used in the 1960s.
Thirty-five houses along House Street tested high for PFAS compounds that summer, including Wynn-Stelt's 76,000 parts per trillion reading. Plumes have been discovered throughout about a 25-square-mile area, going in different directions from the tannery and at least two landfills. The DEQ has not yet defined the outer edges of the contamination plumes.
All told, 536 homes in the area have received whole-house, granulated activated carbon filtration systems for their water.
Tim and Jill Osbeck live in the Wellington Ridge development, about a mile from the North Kent Landfill, where Wolverine Worldwide also disposed of its sludge. Their home's well water initially tested at about 8,900 parts per trillion for PFAS compounds. It has since tested as high as 17,600 parts per trillion.
"You get angry; very angry," Jill Osbeck said. "You feel violated, when you think that your drinking water's been clean. And you think about, our kids were here, when they were younger, drinking it on a regular basis. And then our grandkids — we were feeding them formula bottles with our water. It gets you emotionally, very much so."
Now the Osbecks must build their life around weekly water tests and quarterly filter changes on the whole-house filtration system since installed in their home by Wolverine Worldwide's consultants. Their next-door neighbors, however, had only 3 parts per trillion of PFAS compounds in their well water.
"It's just the plume that you've hit," Tim Osbeck said.Show caption
Meanwhile, Wolverine Worldwide is claiming it's a victim of 3M as well, suing the company in late 2018 for "concealing information about Scotchgard and causing environmental issues."
Wolverine officials, in response to requests for an interview, referred the Free Press to a company statement:
"From the start, we’ve taken proactive, aggressive actions to ensure all affected residents have access to safe drinking water. In addition, we have worked closely with U.S. EPA, MDEQ, and other regulators to test sites for the presence of PFOA and PFOS, two of the chemicals contained in 3M Scotchgard used in Wolverine’s legacy operations. Most recently, we’ve taken legal action against 3M, which profited for decades from the manufacture and sale of Scotchgard to Wolverine and millions of others, yet refuses to take responsibility for the consequences."
The statement also notes that Wolverine has sampled more than 1,500 nearby residential wells, and provided more than 700 whole-house or point-of-use water filtration systems to affected residents.
Today, the PFAS-laden waste material at the House Street landfill and other sites in the Kent County contamination zone is still there, still emanating PFAS into groundwater. The EPA worked last year to characterize the type and extent of the waste, and plans to begin the work to remove it later this year.
Wynn-Stelt now looks out her window at the Christmas tree farm across House Street and feels far different emotions today.
"For all the years I lived here, no one came and told us what was disposed of there, when they knew it was dangerous," she said. "None of that information was ever shared with me.
"Those are the kinds of things that make you fall to sleep at night and cry, because you wonder: Had they told me that 20 years ago, would my life be different now?"
https://www.freep.com/in-depth/news/local/michigan/2019/04/25/pfas-contamination-michigan-crisis/3365301002/

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Rutgers Team Predicts Toxicity by Mining PubChem Data

Apr 25, 2019 | Chemical Watch

By Dr Emma Davies

A US team has created an algorithm to predict the toxicity of unknown chemicals by mining bioassay data held in a US National Institutes of Health database.
Many studies use computers to compare untested chemicals with structurally similar compounds whose toxicity is already known. But the results can be confounded by the fact that structurally similar chemicals may have very different levels of toxicity.
The new method uses fragments of chemical structures and biological information from in vitro tests. The approach not only predicts acute oral toxicity classification, but also hints at biological mechanisms, the researchers suggest.
A team led by Hao Zhu from Rutgers University, and including Thomas Hartung from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, first built a training database of more than 7,000 compounds with associated rat acute oral toxicity data. They then created "bioprofiles" for the chemicals based on in vitrodata in PubChem, a public database that is updated daily.
Using a new "clustering" algorithm, they picked out groups of bioassays that are likely to provide information on toxicity mechanisms underlying acute oral toxicity. The researchers then attempted to predict the animal acute oral toxicity of new chemicals using read-across, based on bioassay clusters.
They tested their system with 600 new compounds. Several bioassay clusters showed "high predictivity" for acute oral toxicity, they say.
The bioassay cluster-based models and another that combines cluster predictions "show great promise" for predicting acute oral toxicity, as well as informing on possible mechanisms contributing to toxicity, the researchers add.
Writing in Environmental Health Perspectives, they say that their method could "easily be expanded" to evaluate other animal toxicities beyond acute oral systemic toxicity.
Professor Hartung is one of the architects of a widely publicised computational tool for predicting chemical toxicity, commercialised by safety science company Underwriters Laboratories (UL).
https://chemicalwatch.com/76839/rutgers-team-predicts-toxicity-by-mining-pubchem-data

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Apple Develops Framework for Prioritising Chemicals of Concern

Apr 25, 2019 | Chemical Watch

By Leigh Stringer

Technology giant Apple has developed a framework for prioritising chemicals of concern in products and manufacturing processes.
The framework, which it calls a Chemical Prioritisation Protocol, "adapts and extends" established methodology for chemical hazard assessment.
It also adds new metrics covering specific factors relevant to the electronics industry, such as policy and social factors.
The framework (see box) produces a wide range of relevant information about chemical hazard, use, exposure potential and public concern into a "simple set of quantitative indicators".
In a 2018 report that sets out the framework, Apple says that with increasing attention on the safety of materials used across products and manufacturing processes, chemical management decisions increase in complexity and scope.
"The need for a data-driven methodology to support the evaluation and prioritisation of chemical substances has motivated the development of this Chemical Prioritisation Protocol," it says.Unsuitable tools
The company says that existing scientific tools and policy frameworks "do not provide immediately applicable and transparent methods that companies can use to identify chemicals of concern".
Apple reviewed existing prioritisation frameworks, including risk and hazard assessment methodologies, list-based screening tools, ecolabel certification criteria and public policy frameworks.
"We found each of these tools to be unsuitable on its own. Many existing frameworks either do not have sufficient depth, lack a detailed method of use, or do not evaluate all of the factors that we consider relevant to prioritising chemical substances for action," the report says.
For example, sophisticated hazard assessment frameworks such as the GreenScreen for Safer Chemicals offer "great depth and comparative power but focus exclusively on one aspect of a substance".
Some "excellent" alternatives analysis frameworks exist that incorporate a wide range of chemical safety and sustainability concerns, says Apple, highlighting as an example the US National Resource Council’sframework.
However, they are "mostly designed for deep, context-specific assessments that are more appropriate at a later stage of material selection than chemical prioritisation."
Apple’s framework is designed to be used by electronics companies, but the company says it can evaluate chemicals used in any manufacturing sector. Some parts of it address company-specific manufacturing, supply chain and policy factors. "These parts are designed to be flexible and adaptable to each company’s unique position," says Apple.
In its recently published 2019 environment progress report, the company says that it is evaluating the chemicals in the tens of thousands of components used in its products. "We’re working closely with our partners to construct a detailed map of every chemical inside our materials, including many of the chemicals used to manufacture them," it says.
In 2016, Apple launched its Full Material Disclosure (FMD) programme, which aims to help the company understand the "chemical composition of every substance in every part of our products".
This, it says, can be challenging because it requires suppliers to disclose proprietary information. "We overcome this by storing the data securely and limiting access to a select number of people within Apple who are responsible for toxicological assessments."
Prioritisation protocol
Apple’s framework evaluates chemicals according to three factors: hazard – the inherent ability of the substance to cause harm to health and the environment; presence – the presence of the substance in technical systems (electronic products and supply chains) and in the environments that are affected by chemical hazards; and focus – the nature and degree of industrial, regulatory and civil society concerns about the substance.
All substances that may exist in products, workplaces or manufacturing processes can be prioritised.
Each evaluation factor is organised into separate components, which integrate various metrics, criteria and data sources. These criteria are based on established science and assessment methods whenever possible, Apple says.
In evaluating substances, the framework applies technical criteria to generate detailed numeric scores. This system calculates an overall prioritisation score for each of the three factors. All three scores have a range of zero (lowest priority) to ten (highest).
https://chemicalwatch.com/76841/apple-develops-framework-for-prioritising-chemicals-of-concern

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Echa Round-Up

Apr 25, 2019 | Chemical Watch

Online ‘collaboration channel’ goes live
Echa has released Interact Portal, a website which allows member state authorities and committee members to work with each other and the agency to access and share process-specific information and tools.
The Interact Portal replaces the previous portal dashboards for member state competent authorities and national enforcement authorities.
Echa plans to develop the portal’s features and functionalities in future releases.
Two new features provided for REACH-IT
The agency has added two features to its REACH-IT online tool.
The tool now makes it easy to change the contact person for multiple assignments in one go. This could be used, for example, to change the contact person in a series of joint submissions.
Also, REACH-IT has added a ‘expired’ status for Product and Process Orientated Research and Development notifications (Ppord).
Users will be notified by messages on their REACH-IT account if their notifications have expired. An expired notification cannot be updated.
Announcement of BoA appeals
Echa has published two announcements of appeal. The contested decisions concern: Solvay Fluor, Germany: the agency rejected a weight-of-evidence approach to a requested prenatal developmental toxicity study and so found the company's registration dossier non compliant on 15 November 2018; and Arkema, France: the agency rejected an application on 7 December 2018 to establish the technical equivalence of an alternative source of the active substance, active chlorine released from sodium hypochlorite.
Webinar video: microplastics restriction
Echa has made available the video of its online information session on the microplastics restriction. The webinar gave an update on the proposed restriction of intentionally added microplastics and explained the objectives of the ongoing public consultation.
Participants also were able to ask questions to the panel of experts.
https://chemicalwatch.com/76833/echa-round-up

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Energy News

Offshore Drilling Ban Proposed by Bipartisan Group of Florida Lawmakers

Apr 24, 2019 | Roll Call

By Jacob Holzman

A bipartisan group of Florida lawmakers introduced a measure to permanently ban drilling off their coast, the latest sign resistance may be swift among coastal Republicans if the administration tries to open their states’ waters to oil and gas exploration.
The legislation introduced Monday by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., would bar oil and gas drilling off Florida’s coasts and call on the Coast Guard to determine what areas face heightened risk from oil spills. It was introduced with support from Republican Reps. Vern Buchanan and Matt Gaetz, a close ally of President Donald Trump.
The Interior Department last year proposed opening almost all Atlantic coastal waters to potential oil and gas drilling, including the entirety of Florida’s coastline. It was the first of three iterations required by federal law for the department to finalize a new five-year offshore leasing plan.
The idea was met with swift opposition. Republican Sen. Rick Scott, then the state’s governor, pressured the department to exempt Florida from drilling and then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke promised he would do so.
Following Zinke’s resignation in December, Florida’s congressional delegation showed signs it believed offshore drilling in Florida may be back on the table. The entire delegation wrote to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt asking for a verbal commitment he would follow through with what Zinke promised.
During his confirmation hearing last month, Bernhardt said the department’s planning process would involve “extensive input from the states and I can assure you that we listen to the states.”
“I don’t know what the timing is,” he said of the next iteration of the proposal. “I don’t think it’s going to happen immediately.”
http://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/offshore-drilling-ban-proposed-bipartisan-group-florida-lawmakers

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Pipeline ‘Bubble’ Risks Repeat of Coal’s Collapse, Group Says

Apr 25, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Caleb Mutua

An estimated $632.5 billion of oil and natural gas pipelines under development globally risk repeating the kind of over-expansion that led to multiple bankruptcies in the coal industry, according to Global Energy Monitor, an environmental group.
The pace of pipeline building worldwide has tripled since 1996, led by North America, which has 51.5 percent of all projects in pre-construction or construction stages, the group said Wednesday in a report.
The Permian Basin in the U.S. Southwest, the world’s biggest oil field, and Appalachia’s Marcellus and Utica basins are some of the areas where expansion is the most highly concentrated. Booming gas output in the Permian and a lack of pipeline capacity pushed prices to negative levels earlier this month, meaning some producers were paying other parties to take the fuel.
However, the group pointed to investor enthusiasm for the coal sector in the previous decade amid forecasts for strong Asian demand growth and a sustained cost advantage. Gas proved to be cheaper than coal, and governments and investors turned on coal amid growing concerns about pollution. There are “striking” parallels with the current gas boom and the rapidly declining cost of wind and solar power, according to the report.
The ‘‘enthusiasm spilling out of the fracking boom’’ is fostering unrealistic expansion expectations in midstream oil and gas infrastructure, Ted Nace, a coauthor of the report, said in a statement. ‘‘Investors are setting themselves up for disappointment.’’
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/pipeline-bubble-risks-repeat-of-coals-collapse-group-says

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Americans Need More Oil and Natural Gas Pipelines

Apr 24, 2019 | Real Clear Energy

By Jude Clemente

Unfortunately, the "Keep It in the Ground" movement has devolved into blocking more U.S. oil and natural gas production and demand by blocking the pipelines that transport these two crucial energy sources that account for 60-65% of all U.S. energy supply. This is a very dangerous anti-shale push.
We surely know that a lack of pipelines in the six New England states, New York, and California have installed much higher energy costs. These states, for instance, have the highest electricity prices in the country, at least 50% above the national average. Their goal has become an insidious chain reaction: to increase energy prices.... to lower demand... to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
This is a national concern because more money is the basis of American health and economic prosperity. Nearly 75% of U.S. economic growth is contingent on consumer spending, so higher cost energy for an indispensible good such as electricity inevitably equates to "Americans having less money." Higher cost energy is bad for our families because it reduces their discretionary income, which is the basis of their health: "Rich Americans live up to 15 years longer than poor peers." Higher cost energy is bad for our businesses because it negates the competitive advantage that the U.S. shale revolution has provided them.
To illustrate, higher cost energy is a fundamental reason why Chief Executivemagazine regularly ranks New York and California respectively as 49th and 50th for "best states for business," with the New England states not far behind. Surely, other states don't want to follow that same destructive path.
Further, what makes their anti-pipeline stance so illogical is that these states themselves still use oil as their primary transportation fuel and gas as their primary source of electricity - overwhelmingly so. So by blocking pipelines they simply have to turn to outside sources of supply, too often foreign sellers.
For example, Saudi Arabia is now the main source of foreign oil for California, lacking the pipelines and policies to connect with neighbor Canada. And for the past two winters, Everett LNG terminal in Boston has been taking gas imports from Russia because it doesn't have the pipeline capacity to get flowing shale supply from Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio during the high demand season. This is about as non-sensical as energy policy can get. Russia is a sanctioned U.S. country and nearby Appalachia now produces 37% of U.S. gas, holding the Marcellus shale play - probably the largest gas field in the world.
Hoplessly out-of-touch, anti-pipeline positions devastate U.S. energy security and force us to turn to a precarious international market that is controlled by politically riskier OPEC and Russia. And not building pipelines also erodes our environmental security. For example, Pennsylvania has proven how more natural gas can help drastically lower emissions in the power sector. Gas is also the required backup fuel for intermittent wind and solar power, for those frequent times when "the wind doesn't blow" and "the sun doesn't shine." Indeed:"Thanks to Natural Gas, U.S. CO2 Emissions Lowest Since 1985.""Why New York's Fracking Ban For Natural Gas Is Unsustainable.""Record U.S. Oil And Natural Gas, Falling Methane Emissions.""Natural Gas Is The Flexibility Needed For More Wind And Solar."
Especially in these current shale boom days, certain states purposefully lacking access to domestically produced oil and gas is a the epitome of "bad energy policy." Since 2008, U.S. crude oil production has boomed 140%, with gas production up 55%. And even more is coming (see Figure). Over the past four years alone, for instance, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has upped its forecast for U.S. oil production in 2040 by 50%, with the gas production forecast up nearly 20%.
In other words, each time we model out to predict how much oil and gas we will producing, we see more and more production. Indeed, already supporting over 10.3 million jobs, this ongoing boom for the U.S. oil and gas industry will add millions more. "U.S. Oil And Natural Gas Led For New Energy Jobs in 2018."
The anti-pipeline states should know that they will continue to face increasingly stiff competition for supply, making more pipelines even more critical to support their own usage. For example, DOE reports that natural gas will add 235,000 MW of new U.S. generation capacity in the coming three decades, or nearly 10 times more than what wind and 34% more than solar additions. And increasingly, U.S. oil and gas will be going global via an export boom to an oil- and gas-thirsty world. Already the largest oil and gas producer, the U.S. could become the largest international oil and gas seller before 2025.
The good news is that there is some $32 billion in new gas pipeline investment coming to Appalachia, with 23 Bcf/d in new takeaway capacity (for comparison, the whole area today produces 33 Bcf/d). This will help out other states increasingly turning to gas to lower costs and emissions, so it would be a shame for close-by New England and New York in particular to continue to miss out.
Policymakers must take note: higher cost California, New England, and New York demonstrate exactly what happens when an area of the country stands opposed to new oil and gas pipelines. "What Happens When You Don't Build Natural Gas Pipelines?"
The reality, of course, is that "pipelines are safer, cheaper, and greener." Surely as vital as building new bridges and roads, the need for bigger and better pipelines is an essential part of the $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan that has bi-partisan support.
U.S. and state energy policies must remain practical or foreign suppliers will benefit. According to DOE's Annual Energy Outlook 2019, oil and natural gas will still supply over half of U.S. energy through at least 2050. Constructing the domestic infrastructure needed to support this reality is absolutely essential.
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2019/04/24/americans_need_more_oil_and_natural_gas_pipelines.html

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Colorado Regulators Offer Draft Outline for Implementing New Oil, Gas Law

Apr 24, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence

By Richard Nemec

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) has asked for public input over a draft set of objectives and a guidance document to a new state law that calls for fundamental changes to the agency.
Subscription required for full article.
https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/118151-colorado-regulators-offer-draft-outline-for-implementing-new-oil-gas-law

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The Energy 202: Fossil Fuel Ban on Public Lands Becomes Issue in 2020 Democratic Race

Apr 25, 2019 | Washington Post

By Dino Grandoni

The issue of what to do with the hundreds of millions of acres of federally controlled lands usually does not get much attention in presidential elections — despite the vastness of the U.S. government’s holdings.
But the 2020 contest for the Democratic nomination seems to be different.
Already, a number of liberal lawmakers, mostly from the Northeast and West Coast, have begun calling for an end to leasing parcels of Western land to coal miners and oil and natural gas drillers.
The rationale is that the single largest holder of energy assets in the nation — that is, the federal government — should turn off the spigot of oil and other fossil fuels if it wants to stop runaway global warming.
Between 2005 and 2014, the extracting and burning of fossil fuels from federal lands made up nearly a quarter of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions, according to a recent U.S. Geological Survey report.
But other presidential candidates, hailing from oil-and-gas-producing states, have stopped short of calling for such a moratorium, bringing into relief a potential fault line among Democrats as the presidential primary heats up.
“It’s an issue staring everyone in the face,” said Kate Kelly, director of public lands at the liberal think tank Center for American Progress.
So far, the latest, and loudest, call for a moratorium comes from Sen. Elizabeth Warren. As part of the detailed policy proposals the Massachusetts Democrat has rolled out in recent weeks, Warren vowed “to sign an executive order that says no more drilling” on her first day in office.
“Any serious effort to address climate change must include public lands,” Warren wrote in a Medium post explaining her overall approach to public lands management, which also included setting a goal of getting 10 percent of the country’s electricity from renewable sources offshore or on public lands.ADVERTISING
“Sen. Warren is out in front,” said John Noel of Greenpeace, one of several environmental organizations leading the keep-it-in-the-ground movement that have undergirded opposition to pipeline projects such as Keystone XL and Dakota Access.
“It’s important for candidates to understand where the bar is for climate leadership in 2020,” he added.
Yet she is not alone. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) co-sponsored a bill in 2017 that would have stopped new leases and ended existing non-producing leases on both on- and offshore fossil-fuel extraction.
Since then, the idea of a fossil-fuel moratorium has gained momentum among Democrats. Last month, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who has made climate change the centerpiece of his White House bid, endorsed the Keep It in the Ground Act.
And just this week, the campaigns of Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, told The Washington Post that their candidates also want to freeze fossil-fuel leasing on public lands.
But other candidates, while still voicing support for rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions, are withholding support for an outright moratorium.
Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, for example, has in the past praised the “immense climate-related benefits and economic benefits” of increased natural gas production as it replaces coal-fired power.
Still, he is not ruling out a fossil-fuel freeze.
“Specific policy measures, including this one, that garner his support will depend on consensus that derives from those public-private conversations because he's committed to bringing all sides to the table first to make sure that solutions are practical and effective,” Ryan campaign spokeswoman Julia Krieger wrote in an email.
Similarly, John Hickenlooper admonished the Trump administration for “expanding drilling on public lands” in a recent Post op-ed.
But the former governor of Colorado, the fifth-largest gas-producing state, has been mum on the moratorium question. His campaign did not reply to a request for comment.
One issue that keep-it-in-the-ground supporters must contend with is the unintended consequence of banning new leasing. In additional to potential local job losses, a fossil-fuel moratorium on public lands could eventually deprive state governments of revenue streams from royalties used to fund schools, parks and other projects liberals usually like.
“I imagine we will see a range of other approaches to accelerating the transition to clean energy on public lands,” said the Center for American Progress’s Kelly, whose group has not formally taken a position on a moratorium but who still calls it “a strong policy framework.”
Still, the vows to shield public lands from more leasing matter because unlike other liberal priorities such as expanding Medicare or lowering the cost of higher education, the president has the authority to put in place such a moratorium with a stroke of a pen, legal experts say.
In fact, President Barack Obama took a significant step on that front in his last year in office when he ordered a moratorium on new leases for coal mined from federal lands.
“The next president could issue an even broader moratorium, covering oil and gas as well as coal,” said Michael Gerrard, an environmental law professor at Columbia Law School.
Obama’s ban has proven to have staying power despite President Trump’s efforts to repeal it as part of his platform of reviving the nation’s recent struggling coal sector.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris in Montana ruled that the Trump administration acted illegally when lifting the Obama-era ban because it did not adequately take into account potential environmental impacts.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2019/04/25/the-energy-202-fossil-fuel-ban-on-public-lands-becomes-issue-in-2020-democratic-race/5cc0d685a7a0a46fd9222b18/?utm_term=.3a8316b0684c

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Houston Oil Companies Seek Next Boom Amid Azaleas and Live Oaks

Apr 25, 2019 | Houston Chronicle

By Jordan Blum

A row of pink azaleas and centuries-old live oaks lead to the Catalpa Plantation cottage here, where Mary Thompson, the fifth generation of her family to own the property, frets about its future.
In historical terms, the plantation is invaluable. But what’s underneath can be priced to sell. That’s why Thompson, a retired schoolteacher managing a 19th century property in dire need of repairs, turned to an unlikely source of money — a lease with the Houston oil company EOG Resources to drill on her 60 acres sitting above the crude-bearing Austin Chalk formation
“There’s so many things I want to do here with renovations that I’ve always joked if I win the lottery or get an oil well, I can do it,” Thompson said. “I never buy a lottery ticket, and I had very little hope of getting an oil well, but now there’s a little slight possibility.”
Houston oil companies such as EOG, ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil are betting they can find oil and gas in the section of the Austin Chalk that extends deep into rural Louisiana and Mississippi. With South Texas’ Eagle Ford shale aging and West Texas’ thriving Permian Basin increasingly dominated by supermajors such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron, Houston’s top operators are exploring the Louisiana chalk as they seek the next big find in the nation’s shale revolution.
EOG, ConocoPhillips and Marathon have each leased more than 200,000 acres in Louisiana at about $1,000 an acre — compared to $100,000 an acre in parts of the Permian — and begun drilling exploratory test wells.
But introducing drilling rigs and fracking crews to a forested, flood-prone region known for plantations and historic preservation is different than pumping oil in flat and arid West Texas. Oil executives, local politicians and residents hope oil and gas development can walk a fine line of generating economic prosperity without greatly upsetting the area’s natural beauty and tourism industry.
“Well, I wouldn’t say we’re prepared for it,” said Kenny Havard, president of the West Feliciana Parish where EOG and ConocoPhillips have leased land and where Thompson’s property rests. “But the oil and gas industry can be a huge boon to these communities if managed right and done correctly. It’s a delicate balance and a unique place, but we’re going to figure it out.”
Arguably the biggest evangelist for the Austin Chalk’s oil potential in Louisiana is Kirk Barrell, president of New Orleans energy company Amelia Resources, which sells contiguous acreage in “shrink-wrap packages,” connecting the landowners with ConocoPhillips and other developers. Barrell, a former oil company geologist, has studied the Austin Chalk in Louisiana and Texas for nearly 30 years.
“We have a lot of rock that looks like the Texas rock. And these companies are bringing a lot of geologic and operational expertise to this project from Texas,” Barrell said. “Our hope is that we can see the success of South Texas’ Eagle Ford here in Louisiana.”
Nearly a century of chalk
The Austin Chalk stretches from Mexico to Mississippi, a limestone formation that has been drilled, mostly in Texas, with varying degrees of success for nearly 90 years.
Most of that success has come in recent years in South Texas, where the chalk rests above the Eagle Ford shale. EOG, ConocoPhillips and Marathon have all tapped the Eagle Ford and Austin Chalk in Texas, and now they see huge potential in bringing modern drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, techniques to Louisiana.
“We’re fortunate to have productive Austin Chalk in some of our Eagle Ford acreage, and we’re exploiting that,” ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance said in a recent interview. “We’re going after that and learning from it so we can apply those learnings to what we have in Louisiana.”
The Austin Chalk first started producing oil in Texas in the 1930s. Apart from some modest efforts in past decades, the Louisiana chalk never attracted much interest until the shale drilling boom that began about a decade ago. Companies targeted the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale, which lies beneath the chalk but, just as they achieved mild success, oil prices collapsed in late 2014.
“The Austin Chalk has broken many hearts and bank accounts since the 1930s,” Barrell said. “But that was before modern fracking. I call this Austin Chalk 3.0. It potentially could work across the entire state of Louisiana and into Mississippi. This could be a game changer.”
EOG Resources, which pioneered the development of the Eagle Ford, jumpstarted new exploration in the Louisiana chalk by quietly drilling the Eagles Ranch 14H-1 well in Avoyelles Parish more than 18 months ago. That helped to trigger a land rush, said Patrick Courreges, spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources. EOG just permitted in April to next drill farther east in East Feliciana Parish.
EOG has taken positions throughout the Louisiana chalk and even into Mississippi. Marathon is focused just west of the Mississippi River and ConocoPhillips to the east and largely north of Baton Rouge. Other companies have gobbled up acreage as well, including the Norwegian energy company, Equinor.
Marathon is collecting seismic imaging to map out where it aims to target its drilling, said CEO Lee Tillman. The company is proceeding slowly and patiently, Tillman said, but he is admittedly eager to see results.
“We think there are good indications that the potential can be quite broad in the Austin Chalk,” Tillman said. “But we have to prove it.”
Louisiana’s Florida
While oil and gas companies have thrived in the Permian, the Eagle Ford and other Texas shale plays, the energy industry of the state’s poorer and smaller neighbor to the east has been relegated largely to offshore oil fields, which are only beginning to recover from the oil bust that ended about three years ago.
Natural gas in the Haynesville shale, which straddles the Texas-Louisiana border, spurred a rush to northwestern Louisiana a decade ago, but the boomlet was snuffed out after natural gas prices plunged. While the Haynesville has bounced back somewhat, the southern half of the state missed out almost entirely on the shale revolution — until, perhaps, now.
Much of ConocoPhillips’ and EOG’s focus is in Louisiana’s Florida Parishes east of the Mississippi River, including West and East Feliciana parishes. The region was settled in the late 1700s and ruled by Spain as part of Florida.
The area became the focus of a territorial dispute after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. People still wave the single-star flag of the short-lived Republic of West Florida, which declared its independence from Spain in 1810 and subsequently surrendered to the United States. In West Feliciana’s parish seat, St. Francisville, many of the homes have plaques to designate their 19th century historic status.
“We’re the town that fought off a Walmart,” said Helen Williams, museum director at the West Feliciana Historical Society. “We don’t do change well.”
Residents say the oil and gas potential is the talk of the town, already creating haves and have nots — those who have cashed in with oil leases and those who weren’t approached or don’t own much property.
One of the biggest financial windfalls went to Herbert Erwin, who leased out almost 500 acres outside of St. Francisville to ConocoPhillips on land his father acquired in the 1930s. Erwin’s property is home to one of the first three test wells that ConocoPhillips drilled in April. He’s already received $500,000 from the lease and the well, which required cutting dozens of trees. If the well proves a success, his royalties should easily make him a millionaire.
“It’s been a blessing. It was out of the blue,” Erwin said, standing beyond a drilling site just a few hundred feet from his home. “I’m shocked that we even got a well. Hopefully, this is the first of many.”
Seeking next big thing
As companies look for the next big thing, arguably the two top prospects are the Louisiana Austin Chalk and the Powder River Basin in Wyoming, said Sarp Ozkan, director of energy analytics at the Austin research firm Drillinginfo.
While the Powder River Basin could have greater overall potential, Louisiana has the advantage of its Gulf Coast location near refining and export hubs. But, with investors focusing on bigger returns available in established oil fields such as the Permian Basin, it may take take another five years before drilling becomes widespread in the Louisiana chalk — if it ever does.
In much of the region, the chalk and Tuscaloosa Marine Shale are separated by less than 1,000 feet of depth, opening the possibility that companies could tap both formations in what’s known as a stacked play.
Mary Thompson doesn’t claim to be an expert on any of that. She only knows the oil lease money paid for her to replace the heating and air-conditioning units at the plantation. And she just prays EOG keeps its distance from her home and the oak trees.
“It is a balance. I would be upset — as much as I’d love to get an oil well — if they put one in the middle of my oak alley,” Thompson said. “I will just try to reason with them if they ever try to do it too close to me.”
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Houston-oil-companies-seek-next-boom-amid-azaleas-13794524.php

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Chemical Security News

Ammonia Leak Sends 31 to Hospitals in Chicago Suburb

Apr 25, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)

Plumes of a toxic gas that leaked in a northern Chicago suburb this morning sent at least 31 people to hospitals and prompted an order for residents to stay locked inside their homes with windows shut tight, officials said.
Three law enforcement officers who responded to the leak in Beach Park were among those injured and they were in good condition, Lake County Sheriff's spokesman Christopher Covelli said. Several other people were in serious but stable condition, Covelli said.
Lake Forest Fire Chief Mike Gallo said a tractor was towing two separate 2-ton containers of anhydrous ammonia when the leak occurred around 4:30 a.m. Initial reports suggested the vehicle was involved in a crash, but Covelli later said that was not the case. The cause of the leak has not been released.
The leak created a toxic cloud that lingered over Beach Park, about 40 miles north of downtown Chicago.
"This is a very dangerous chemical that can cause unconscious[ness] and, worst-case scenario, death," Covelli said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, anhydrous ammonia is a colorless gas that can cause breathing difficulties, burns and blisters and is fatal if breathed in high concentrations. Farmers use it to add nitrogen to soil.
Authorities said that the leak was contained a few hours later and that the leaking tank was empty. Authorities were waiting for the chemical plume to dissipate.
Residents within a 1-mile radius of the leak were initially told to close their windows and remain indoors, but that order was lifted at 10 a.m., Covelli said.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/04/25/stories/1060217273

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Ammonia Spill in Beach Park Sends at Least 32 to Hospitals; Authorities Warn Residents to Stay Indoors

Apr 25, 2019 | Chicago Tribune

By Katherine Rosenberg-Douglas

An ammonia spill in north suburban Beach Park sent at least 32 people to hospitals and prompted school closings and warnings from Lake County sheriff’s officials for residents of the area to stay inside.
The spill began about 4:30 a.m. in the area of Green Bay Road and 29th Street, according to Sgt. Chris Covelli, a spokesman for the Lake County sheriff’s office.
Investigators think a tractor was towing two, 2-ton tanks containing anhydrous ammonia when they began to leak, and Covelli said investigators do not believe the vehicle was involved in a traffic collision.
“Basically it caused the substance to go airborne,” Covelli said, “which released the plume into the air, which is extremely dangerous.”
That substance can cause “unconsciousness, and at worst case even death,” Covelli said.
As of just before 8:30, there had been “31 transports to hospitals due to inhalation issues,” according to the sheriff’s office. “At this point, all transports are non-life-threatening.” Authorities said about 9 a.m. that the total transported had grown to 32, including two sheriff’s deputies and a Zion police officer.
More than a dozen others had been evaluated by paramedics but not transported. Covelli said many of those transported were experiencing “serious difficulties breathing.”
“Do not get close to the area! Residents in a 1-mile radius, stay inside, windows closed,” the agency tweeted.
Covelli said sheriff’s deputies originally were called to the area for a report of a vehicle fire.
“As deputies exited their squads, they noticed a large plume of smoke, it appeared to be. Deputies were immediately overcome by the toxicity of that plume, so they had to retreat,” Covelli said.
During a 9 a.m. news conference, Covelli said the effects hit a deputy and a sergeant when they exited their vehicle, and they had to be treated for exposure to the chemical.
“There were several victims at the scene who were rescued by initial responding fire personnel,” he wrote in a news release. Most of those who were taken to area hospitals for treatment were considered to be in stable-but-serious condition.
Covelli was joined at the news conference by Mike Gallo, a division chief with the Lake Forest Fire Department, which was part of a mutual aid response that included 20 to 25 fire departments helping with the call.
Gallo said farmers often use the chemical to help aerate soil, and as of 9 a.m. both of the tanks had been emptied of the ammonia.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says anhydrous ammonia is a colorless gas that can cause breathing difficulties, burns, blisters and is fatal if breathed in high concentrations.
All Beach Park District 3 schools will be closed Thursday, officials from the district tweeted.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office also tweeted Zion-Benton High School would be closed and Covelli said Prairie Trail School in nearby Wadsworth also is closed.
Officials had been at the location all morning, working to control the spread of the chemical, and anyone within a mile radius of the overturned vehicle had been asked to “shelter in place,” meaning stay inside their homes with windows closed, Covelli said. Officials also suggested that heating and cooling systems remain off in homes near the spill site, to avoid pulling contaminated air into the home.
At 9:30 a.m., Covelli said the order to shelter in place was scheduled to be lifted at 10 a.m., but door-to-door checks, which began about 8:15 a.m. as a means to ensure no one was suffering from a medical emergency inside homes closest to the spill, would continue for the next two to three hours.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-beach-park-hazmat-spill-20190425-story.html

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3 Horses Dead After Train Carrying Ethanol Derails

Apr 25, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)

At least three horses were killed and several Texas homes were evacuated early yesterday when a train carrying the highly flammable liquid ethanol derailed and caught fire.
It wasn't immediately clear what caused the Union Pacific train to derail south of downtown Fort Worth, but the resulting fire ignited tanker cars and burned for hours. Residents were evacuated from about 20 homes as a precaution (Greenwire, April 24).
No injuries to people were reported, but the three animals were killed when flames spread to a nearby stable that housed about 15 horses. People who rushed to the scene pulled the other animals from the stable.
Dario Diaz told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that he and his family heard what sounded like an explosion and felt their house shake but assumed it was thunder.
"The house always shakes like that when it storms," he said. "It felt like something out of a movie."
The derailment occurred as heavy thunderstorms were moving through the area, and aerial footage of the wreckage showed rainwater streaming past the cars. It appeared ethanol leaked into the water, and hazardous material teams were working to contain its spread while monitoring air quality, Fort Worth fire spokesman Mike Drivdahl said.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/04/25/stories/1060217291

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CSB Calls on EPA to Review Current Hydrofluoric Acid Study

Apr 24, 2019 | Fox 21 Local News

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board released a letter Tuesday asking the EPA to review its current study on Hydrofluoric Acid (HF) and the “viability of utilizing inherently safer alkylation technologies in petroleum refineries.”
CSB Interim Executive Kristen Kulinowski said, “In the last 4 years, the CSB has investigated two refinery incidents where an explosion elevated the threat of a release of HF. Refinery workers and surrounding community residents are rightly concerned about the adequacy of the risk management for the use of hazardous chemicals like HF. The EPA should review its 1993 HF study to ensure the health and safety of communities near petroleum refineries utilizing HF.”
HF is a highly toxic chemical that can seriously injure or cause death at a concentration of 30 parts per million (PPM), which is used in about fifty of the U.S.’s approximately 150 refineries, as well as many other industries. In a refinery, the chemical is used as a catalyst in the creation of a blending agent for high octane gasoline.
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board conducted an investigation into the April 26, 2018 explosion and fire at the Husky Refinery in Superior.
Click here for a look at the letter in full.
https://www.fox21online.com/2019/04/24/csb-calls-on-epa-to-review-current-hydrofluoric-acid-study/

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Transportation and Infrastructure News

(ACC Mentioned) Cargo Logistics Bolsters Bulk Liquid Transloading Capacity

Apr 25, 2019 | Bulk Transporter

Cargo Logistics International recently opened an advanced rail transloading facility in Savannah GA.
The facility, developed in association with an industry leader in the handling and storage of bulk liquid products, is directly serviced by Norfolk Southern. It commenced full operations in January, the company said, and is designed for bulk liquid transloading with an emphasis on servicing the Pine Chemical Industry market.
The Pine Chemical Industry contributes to the US economy with more than $1.92 billion in shipments, while covering more than 19 states and employing more than 1,900 workers, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and American Chemistry Council. Pine Chemicals are essential components in paints, coatings, adhesives and sealants, surfactants, printing ink, and other chemical additives. The industry supports $11.2 billion in downstream economic output and more than 18,700 workers in downstream customer industries.
“The growing need in the Southeast to handle the increased volume of Pine Chemical imports and exports is the main reason we chose Savannah for our transloading facility,” said Chad Rundle, CEO of Cargo Logistics. “Our Savannah facility is equipped to handle a vast array of chemicals and bulk liquids with the utmost focus on both service and safety.”
Transloading services include railcar to flexitank, ISO tank and tanker truck, and reverse transloading, with company-owned dedicated bulk liquid chassis and trucks for haulage between transloading and the Savannah port.
The Savannah port continues to set records in growth, according to numbers released by the Ports Authority at the end of 2018. According to local industry officials, they are experiencing an increased demand for more Southeastern facilities to transload bulk liquids, mainly due to the continued expansion of the port.
Cargo Logistics’ transloading facility, located less than a mile from the port, is helping meet this demand, the company said.
“Our strategic location reduces drayage times to and from the port, along with increased efficiency in railcar turnaround time, reduces bottom-line costs for our clients,” said Kerri Kemp, Cargo Logistics’ chief operating officer.
The addition of a specialized bulk liquid rail transloading facility in Georgia is expected to contribute to further maritime growth through the Savannah area, Cargo Logistics said.
“The increased shipping challenges that exporters face today, such as driver shortages nationwide and congestion/capacity issues for liquid transloading in Houston and other Gulf ports, have made the Savannah port an ideal alternative for shippers,” Kemp said. “Due to the competitive pricing of Savannah’s rail and ocean freight services, we now have products being railed in for transloading from as far away as Canada and Texas.
“In addition, we’ve found our prompt transloading service and the varied carrier options out of the Savannah port are granting better options to shippers than previously routed cargo via the Gulf or the North East.”
Cargo Logistics’ Savannah facility features an 18-railcar capacity on site, with a holding capacity of an additional 36 railcars with Norfolk Southern, coupled with a dedicated bulk liquid truck fleet and company-owned bulk liquid chassis.
“Given the top five US Pine Chemical Facility states are Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida and Arkansas, all located in such proximity of the Savannah Port, Cargo Logistics International is proud to have chosen Savannah and the GA Port as it’s home for our chemical transloading facility,” Rundle said. “We feel our facility compliments the ongoing rail expansion efforts by the GA Ports Authority, offering additional rail transloading services for both imports and exports in an area where transloading capacity had previously reached its limits.
“Business in the southeastern states is growing and we are here to help ensure it continues.”
https://www.bulktransporter.com/transloading/cargo-logistics-bolsters-bulk-liquid-transloading-capacity

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