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EPA inspector general says agency improperly retaliated against scientists
By Douglas Main
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s inspector general concluded in a report released this week that three government scientists who filed disquieting complaints about their work within the agency under the Trump administration were indeed improperly treated.
The report concluded that the EPA scientists experienced retaliation for speaking out and scientifically disagreeing with leadership and others in the agency.
Most of the scientists had spoken out, internally, about disagreements concerning the safety of various chemicals, which was part of their work within the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics.
Among their concerns, the scientists claimed that the EPA was not doing enough to protect the public from health risks of multiple substances, and that industry pressure was affecting the agency’s ability to do its job properly.
The report notes that one scientist sought to classify a certain unidentified chemical as having “reproductive toxicity,” only for a senior advisor to remove this wording.
In response to the scientists’ disagreeing and speaking out, the EPA reassigned them, skipped them over for promotion, and generally harassed them, calling them “piranhas,” “problematic,” or “pot-stirrers,” according to the complaints. A copy of the employees’ complaint that identified them by name was sent around to senior leaders and individuals mentioned in the complaint, including former coworkers, according to the inspector general’s report.
“The Inspector General’s findings point to ongoing scientific integrity problems in EPA that directly endanger public health,” Kyla Bennett, a former EPA attorney and scientist who is now the science policy director for the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which helped file three of the complaints, said in a statement.
Wide variety of pesticides found in baby foods sold at major retailer
By Douglas Main
Samples of puréed apple and pear baby food sold online and at Target stores in San Francisco, Washington, DC and Minneapolis were found to contain a wide variety of pesticides, according to a new report by an environmental group.
All eight samples of the baby food products, which are made by the popular retail store’s house brand, Good & Gather, contained a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids, according to the study published this week, which was conducted by the nonprofit Friends of the Earth and has not been peer-reviewed. These pesticides are widely used in agriculture and considered toxic to insects such as honeybees. Evidence is accumulating that they may also have various negative effects on human health.
The neonicotinoids detected include imidacloprid, present in half of the pear products, and thiacloprid, present in 75% of the apple purée samples. Both are considered “highly hazardous pesticides” by the Pesticide Action Network, and each are banned for outdoor use in the European Union due to their toxicity, including to pollinators like bees.
The European Food Safety authority has stated that thiacloprid “is likely to damage fertility and the unborn child.”
Target did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Nathan Donley, a scientist who studies pesticides with the Center for Biological Diversity but wasn’t involved in the report, said the results show the regulators are failing to keep food safe, especially for infants.
“To see neurotoxins in children’s food, at any level, is unacceptable in my opinion,” he said. “Every child has different susceptibilities and sensitivities – the idea that a certain level of a poison is safe for every individual is outdated thinking.”
Controversial landfill in wine country expected to close
By Shannon Kelleher
A landfill in California’s wine country that has drawn scrutiny for its management of toxic chemicals may be poised to close, Napa County officials confirmed this week.
Waste Connections, the large national waste management company that owns the Napa Valley-area Clover Flat Landfill, is expected to submit a closure plan to the county’s Local Enforcement Agency (LEA) “near the end of this year,” Holly Dawson, the county’s deputy CEO for communications, said in an email.
Based on recent discussions with Waste Connections, the closure process is expected to take about three to four years, and there are no plans for future operations at the site beyond long-term monitoring, said Dawson.
The development comes as a growing coalition of local activists and nonprofit groups call for Clover Flat’s closure, citing concerns about the landfill’s numerous regulatory violations, environmental impact and social justice issues. The landfill has been the site of fires and is suspected of polluting waterways in the famous winemaking region with harmful chemicals, which drain into the river that irrigates local vineyards.
Confirmation from the LEA about the company’s intent to shutter Clover Flat follows a May email exchange between a Waste Connections employee and Napa County staff about the landfill’s future, which was uncovered in a recent public records request.
“There have been some internal developments on our end for the Clover Flat site, including early closure of the landfill – the details are still being worked out,” wrote the company’s California Regional Engineer.
Ronald Mittelstaedt, the president and CEO of Waste Connections, did not respond to a request for comment about plans to close the landfill.
If plans to shut down Clover Flat move forward, the landfill will be “capped,” said Dawson, a process that involves placing a cover over a waste site to keep harmful chemicals contained.
“The waste currently onsite will remain, covered with a final closure system designed to protect the environment and meet regulatory requirements,” said Dawson, noting that Waste Connections will “continue to maintain and monitor the landfill following closure” and that the LEA will conduct routine inspections.
Debate grows over whether some PFAS chemicals have a place in clean energy
By Shannon Kelleher
As the planet warms at an alarming rate, culminating in the hottest summer on record, nations worldwide are rapidly scaling up so-called clean energy technologies that can replace the world’s dependence on climate change-inducing fossil fuels.
More than 100 countries last year committed to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 to try to slow climate change and reduce the related devastating human and environmental toll from increasingly frequent and extreme weather events.
In the United States, manufacturers of electric vehicles (EVs) and EV batteries have announced more than $188 billion in investments over the last nine years, with most of the money committed during the last two. And this May, the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced a $71 million investment in projects to expand access to solar power – dubbed the “cheapest form of energy” by the DOE.
But behind the enthusiasm lies a little-discussed but looming concern. Many of these technologies being heralded as tools to turn back climate change rely on fluoropolymers, a family of plastics that are part of a class of chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Many types of PFAS are considered so hazardous that the US and many other countries have targeted them for elimination.
PFAS have been identified as ubiquitous environmental pollutants that don’t break down naturally, with several linked to a range of human health problems. Fluoropolymer safety for humans and the environment is still a matter of debate.
But the paradox of boosting the use of potentially harmful types of PFAS chemicals in order to create technologies that can address harmful climate change is stirring debate among some experts and prompting a deeper look at the pursuit of “clean energy”.
“Obviously, the green energy transition is very important,” said Ian Cousins, a professor at the University of Stockholm in Sweden who studies the environmental impact of PFAS. “I don’t want to hinder that. But at the same time… the green industry should be not just green energy but green in every regard.”
Microbes to the rescue? Companies probe PFAS cleanup solutions
By Lydia Larsen
Tim Repas was tired of hauling dirt to landfills. As an environmental consultant in Canada’s oil fields, where the soil is often laden with health-harming petroleum hydrocarbon chemicals, Repas felt he spent too much time moving contaminated soil around and not enough time trying to eliminate the dangers posed by the compounds.
In 2019, he left the fields and put his degree in biochemistry to work, founding Fixed Earth Innovations, a company aimed at employing biological systems to address environmental challenges. One of the company’s first targets: The persistent and pervasive class of chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
PFAS are widely used, including in firefighting foam, stain and water-resistant coatings and food packaging, and are ubiquitous in the environment, making exposure almost impossible to avoid. Some types of PFAS have been linked to health defects including cancer, reproductive problems and birth defects.
Making PFAS even more problematic is the fact that they are considered virtually impossible to break down, earning the moniker “forever chemicals.”
“We could spend 20 years trying to solve [the problem], but I don’t think we have 20 years to solve PFAS,” said Repas said.
The need to find tools to address PFAS contamination in the United States was made more urgent last spring when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced new limits on two types of common PFAS in drinking water. Utilities required to meet these new standards are left to mostly rely on technologies that can remove PFAS from drinking water, but don’t actually destroy the compounds.
But researchers say hope is on the horizon. Emerging evidence suggests that microbes, small organisms invisible to the naked eye found in soil, air, water and even the human body, may be able to assist in breaking down PFAS.
Scientists urge US officials to reject LNG export expansion
By Dana Drugmand
More than 125 scientists have issued a stern warning to US officials over a rapid expansion of natural gas production, saying the moves threaten to exacerbate the climate crisis and risk further environmental and public health harms.
The scientists delivered their message in a September 12 letter addressed to US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, pushing back against industry claims that expanding natural gas production and consumption is compatible with US and international climate goals.
The concerns from the scientific community come as the US Department of Energy prepares to update an evaluation of liquified natural gas (LNG) export approvals, and as the Treasury Department reviews the climate impacts of various forms of hydrogen production, including production from fossil gas, as it determines tax credit values. The Biden administration paused new LNG export approvals earlier this year to further evaluate their climate impacts.
“The stakes could not be higher,” the scientists wrote. “The choices that you make relating to modeling assumptions for the heat-trapping potential of natural gas will determine if the federal government will make decisions based on climate science or wishful thinking. The science is clear… that the continued use of gas at current global levels will add to global warming and climate damages.”
The letter follows the July release of a study by two groups advocating for natural gas that concluded 2022 global greenhouse gas emissions would have been much higher without US LNG exports. That study did not look at emissions reductions that could have been achieved with a shift to renewable energy or other lower carbon alternatives, however.
In the scientists’ letter to US officials, the group said the fossil fuel industry was falsely asserting that an expansion of natural gas production and consumption is consistent with climate goals. The industry is “advocating for flawed modeling assumptions that would hide the true climate impact of gas,” the scientists wrote, calling it “imperative” for the government to reject the industry.
“Trying to prove whether US gas is better or worse for the climate than other fossil fuels is like debating whether the water in the Titanic’s swimming pool is the right temperature. It misses the bigger point, which is that increasing supplies of fossil fuels from anywhere will undermine global progress toward science based climate goals,” the letter states.
In response to the letter from scientists, Hinson Peters, a spokesperson for the Natural Natural Gas Supply Association and Center for LNG, said US LNG exports “remain a vital tool for countries looking to replace dirtier fuels, increase renewable energy deployments, and strengthen their energy security.”
New study finds potentially harmful pathogens traveling high in the atmosphere
By Douglas Main
A wide variety of fungi and bacteria, including E. coli and other potential human pathogens, have been found high in the atmosphere where they can travel for hundreds to thousands of miles before falling back to Earth, according to new research.
Air samples collected from between roughly a half mile and two miles in altitude (1 kilometer to 3 kilometers) near Tokyo, Japan, carried bacterial species known to be capable of causing health problems such as food poisoning and skin infections, researchers said.
The study, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reported that while most of the microbes detected were likely dead, testing confirmed more than ten species of microbes collected from high in the sky were alive. Those were particularly hardy strains, including several found to be antibiotic resistant. One of these, a type of ubiquitous bacteria not known to normally infect humans, was resistant to five different antibiotic drugs.
The discovery represents a “paradigm shift,” said Xavier Rodó, the study’s lead author and head of the health and climate program at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health. “From the public health standpoint it opens the door to really viewing the air and the atmosphere as an environment we need to pay attention to.”
The scientists used atmospheric measurements and computer models in concluding that most of the material found over Tokyo was coming from an agricultural region in northeast China, where row crops and livestock are raised. The study authors hypothesized that some of the bacteria, including the antibiotic-resistant ones, derived from sewage used to fertilize the land, and from the soil itself.
Widespread use of antibiotics with industrialized livestock production could plausibly introduce antibiotic resistance bacteria into the atmosphere as bits of soil and manure can be aerosolized and blow away on the wind, said David Smith, a NASA microbiologist who wasn’t involved in the study.
Besides microbes, the researchers also found significant quantities of many elements normally found in soil, such as sulfur and sodium, as well as aluminum, potassium, iron, and calcium.
They also detected zinc sulfate nanoparticles, which they hypothesized are coming from fertilizer use, as well as trace quantities of zirconium and hafnium, metals mined in China but not in Japan.
EPA battles environmentalists in court over regulation of CAFOs and water pollution
By Keith Schneider
A coalition of environmental organizations faced off against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in federal appellate court on Thursday in the latest skirmish in a long-running battle over the agency’s regulatory approach to water contamination connected to industrial agricultural operations.
The groups, led by the nonprofit Food & Water Watch, told a three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals that the EPA must strengthen its oversight of what are known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
The agency is unlawfully allowing roughly half of the nation’s more than 20,000 big livestock and poultry feeding facilities around the country to operate without permits required under the 1972 Clean Water Act, the groups argued to the court. And, they said, the agency is violating the law by authorizing CAFOs to store and spread manure so haphazardly that the drinking water for millions of people is at risk as thousands of streams, lakes and other waterways are polluted with harmful bacteria, nitrates, phosphorus and other contaminants.
The agency has “failed” for more than a decade to adequately regulate these operations, Food & Water Watch lawyer Emily Miller told the court.
The hearing Thursday stems from a petition filed by Food & Water Watch and other groups in 2017 that called for the EPA to require CAFOs to obtain water quality permits and strengthen permit standards to protect waterways from the manure generated by the animal operations. The petition also urged the agency to reconsider an exemption that immunizes CAFOs from any water pollution caused by storms washing manure off of saturated fields.
The Trump administration ignored the petition. Last summer, the EPA formally denied the petition, but announced it would form a committee to recommend any changes in how the agency regulated CAFOs. Food & Water Watch, joined by four other national organizations and eight environmental groups from five states, then sued the EPA, demanding it reconsider its decision.
In the court hearing, EPA attorney Paul Cirino told the judges that the agency had initiated a detailed study of CAFO operations and pollution in January and established a study group last summer that is scheduled to issue recommendations on CAFO oversight next year. The new information, he said, would guide the agency’s actions about how to respond to the environmental groups’ concerns.
But Miller pushed back. “EPA has already spent seven years when it could have been taking its statutory mandate seriously,” she said. “Now they want some undefined amount of time thinking rather than acting.”
A court ruling on the matter could take months.
EPA denies duty to regulate PFAS in sewage sludge spread on farmland
By Shannon Kelleher
US regulators claim they are not legally required to regulate toxic PFAS chemicals in sewage sludge spread on farmland across the country, according to a court filing the government made this week in response to a lawsuit from an environmental watchdog group.
In its Sept. 9 filing, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asked the US District Court in Washington, DC to dismiss the lawsuit, which was filed in June by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) on behalf of a group of Texas farmers and ranchers. The lawsuit claims contamination with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from sewage sludge has sickened and killed the farmers’ livestock, “injured their health, threatened their livelihoods, and devalued their property.”
The agency denied PEER’s claims that it is violating the Clean Water Act by failing to identify and regulate several types of PFAS that have been found in treated sewage sludge used as fertilizer. While the law requires the agency to conduct reviews, there is no requirement for the agency to actually identify “additional toxic pollutants,” the EPA said in its filing.
When it comes to sewage sludge, “both the identification and regulation of any additional toxic pollutants(s) are left to the discretion of EPA,” the agency stated in the court filing.
“The relief they seek— an order directing EPA to identify PFAS in its next biennial report, and to regulate PFAS thereafter—is simply not available,” the EPA stated.
PEER attorney Laura Dumais said in a press release that the agency’s position “flies in the face” of the language of the Clean Water Act, and harms people across the country who can be exposed to “PFAS-laden sewage sludge on millions of acres of land…”
Postcard from California: Rising death toll from extreme heat demands action
By Bill Walker
On July 7, six German motorcyclists were touring California’s Death Valley National Park as the thermometer hit 129 degrees Fahrenheit – one degree shy of the hottest temperature ever reliably measured on Earth.
As they neared what is known as “Badwater Basin”, the cyclists were overcome by heat and couldn’t go on. Park rangers declared one man dead at the scene. Another was unconscious but recovered after an ambulance rushed him to a Nevada hospital.
Because of the extreme heat, the tragically ironic location and the victim’s nationality, the death received global news coverage. But It was far from the only heat-related death in California or the US that month as dozens of cities from coast to coast set all-time record high temperatures.
New research finds that heat-related deaths in the US have more than doubled in the last 25 years – a deadly toll that researchers say is a significant undercount, as many fatalities tied to high temperatures are not recorded as such.
More than 21,518 Americans have died from heat-related causes since 1999, according to a study published Aug. 26 in JAMA, the journal of the American Medical Association. That’s an increase of 117%, with a sharp spike in the last seven years. The study found that last year, Earth’s warmest on record, more than 2,325 Americans died of heat-related causes.
Researchers analyzed local authorities’ death certificates filed with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) listing “exposure to excessive natural heat,” “effects of heat and light,” or “environmental hyperthermia of a newborn” as either the cause or contributing cause of death. But they noted that death certificates may fail to list heat as an underlying cause of heart attacks, strokes, and other fatal conditions.
The study’s lead author was Jeffrey T. Howard, associate professor of public health at the University of Texas at San Antonio. In an email to The New Lede, he said almost half of heat deaths in the study period were in just four states: Arizona (4,242), Texas (2,484), California (1,905), and Nevada (1,606).
“Given that climate change will continue the current warming trend, it is imperative that our society, including local, state and federal agencies, as well as clinicians and individuals, take actions to mitigate the risk and reduce these deaths,” Howard said.