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Scientists cite disease “epidemic” in launch of new “Center to End Corporate Harm”
By Carey Gillam
Citing an “industrial epidemic of disease,” a group of scientists have launched an organization aimed at tracking and preventing diseases tied to pollution and products pushed by influential companies.
The new “Center to End Corporate Harm” is based at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), and will bring together scientists to develop strategies “to counter the destructive influence of polluters and poisoners,” according to a press release announcing the launch.
“Industries that produce health-harming products, including fossil fuels, plastics, petrochemicals, tobacco, and ultra-processed foods, have waged a decades-long assault on government regulatory agencies and policymaking to rig rules in their favor at the expense of public health. At the same time, these health harming products have contributed to a rise in chronic disease. We are working to change that,” the center states on its website.
Lee Zeldin, Trump’s EPA nominee, pledges independence from industry ties in senate hearing
By Douglas Main
Incoming President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) appeared on track for confirmation after a Senate hearing Thursday in which he pledged independence from industry money and influence.
Senators with the Committee on Environment and Public Works quizzed nominee Lee Zeldin, a former Congressman from eastern Long Island, on a wide range of issues, including his associations with, and financial ties to, the fossil fuel industry, his stance on government inducements for electric vehicle expansion, and environmental justice issues.
In one line of questioning, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, pressed Zeldin on how he would “separate” his work at EPA from the demands of the fossil fuel industry, in particular.
Zeldin has numerous ties to what Whitehouse described as a “climate denial front group,” and has been the recipient of what Whitehouse said was nearly $300,000 from the oil and gas industry back to 2007, and “large campaign support” from the wealthy Koch family, which runs a variety of businesses involved in oil and gas exploration, pipelines, refining, and chemical production, among others.
Zeldin said the connections would have no role in how he leads the EPA.
“There is no dollar, large or small, that can influence the decisions that I make, who has access to me and how I am ruling in my obligations under the law,” he responded.
“Well good luck standing up to these guys cause they’re going to come at you,” Whitehouse said.
Certified “naturally grown” offers alternative to the USDA organic label
By Harshawn Ratanpal, KBIA
Prairie du Rocher, Ill. – On a cold winter day in Illinois, three little pigs are resting in a three-sided shed. They have plenty of space to trot around, as they do when Jennifer Duensing approaches. Those footsteps mean it’s feeding time. They squeal impatiently, waiting for their usual diet of organic feed, which sometimes includes vegetables like squash grown right here on the farm.
The farm, Illinois Country Harvest, had been in Duensing’s family for generations when she took it over in 2015. She was new to farming, so there was a lot to learn about how to best manage the near-12 acres now under her purview. But one thing she definitely knew was that she wanted to manage the land, crops and animals without chemical inputs.
“We use absolutely zero chemicals, which means if we have pests, we don’t spray,” she said.
There are countless certifications she could have chosen and labels she could slap on her products to try and prove her farm has good practices. In the midst of rising consumer demand for organic foods, a nonprofit called “A Greener World” which “promotes practical, sustainable solutions in agriculture by supporting farmers and educating consumers” has a 15-page guide that attempts to clear up consumer confusion around labels that use terms like “natural,” “humane” and “organic.”
Certified Naturally Grown was a perfect fit for how she was already running her farm.
“Our certification process is really pretty simple, because we have zero chemical inputs,” she said. “There’s nothing we had to justify or have reasoning for, because we just do not use anything.”
Millions of Americans exposed to unregulated chemicals in drinking water, study finds
By Shannon Kelleher
Almost 100 million people in the US may be exposed to unregulated industrial chemicals in their drinking water, with communities of color especially at risk, according to a new analysis of federal monitoring data for water systems across the country.
The study, published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, analyzed data gathered by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2013 to 2015 for four types of unregulated chemicals, finding that 27% of those nearly 5,000 public water systems had detectable levels of at least one contaminant.
Overall, more than 97 million US residents were served by a public water system with detectable levels of the contaminants examined in the study.
The colorless, flammable solvent 1,4-dioxane was most pervasive, showing up in 22% of the public water systems, according to the study. The researchers also found the refrigerant HCFC-22, as well as a solvent called dichloroethane used in plastics production, and toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in about 4-6% of the water systems. The EPA data accounted for six types of PFAS, a category including thousands of chemicals: perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), perfluoroheptanoic acid (PFHpA) and perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS).
Hispanic and Black populations are at especially high risk for exposure to unregulated chemicals in their drinking water, the authors reported. Public water systems with detectable levels of the contaminants served counties with higher proportions of Hispanic residents than those with no detections, for example, the authors said.