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California passes law ordering review of paraquat weed killer
By Carey Gillam
Efforts by some California lawmakers to ban the controversial weed killing chemical paraquat ended this week with passage of a law that keeps the chemical in use but requires a reevaluation by regulators within the next five years.
Backers of a ban cited scientific evidence linking paraquat to a range of health problems, including the incurable brain disease known as Parkinson’s, as a key reason to outlaw paraquat use in the state.
The California State Assembly earlier this year had approved what was referred to as a “moratorium” on paraquat that would have taken effect in January 2026 and provided for a process that have would have given state regulators an opportunity to reevaluate paraquat and potentially reapprove the chemical with or without new restrictions.
But state Senate amendments killed any moratorium or restriction on use. The bill, as passed, now only requires state pesticide regulators to complete a reevaluation of paraquat by January 2029.
California Assemblymember Laura Friedman said the fact that the legislature passed requirements for a regulatory reevaluation is still a win.
“With the mounting medical evidence indicating that paraquat is simply too toxic to remain in wide use, I am very confident that [state regulators] will not only do a thorough re-evaluation of paraquat, but either ban it outright or place greater restrictions on its use,” Friedman said in a statement.
California lawmakers pass bill banning food dyes in schools
By Shannon Kelleher
California lawmakers this week passed a bill banning schools from serving foods with six artificial dyes linked to neurobehavioral problems in children.
“[The bill] would not ban specific foods or products, but rather encourage companies to make minor modifications to products sold in California and could help prompt a nationwide transition to safer alternative ingredients,” says a press release from the office of California Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, who introduced the California School Food Safety Act (AB 2316) in March.
Governor Gavin Newsom has until the end of September to sign or veto the bill, which passed the state legislature on Thursday with bipartisan support.
The legislation is likely to have sweeping impacts throughout the US, since manufacturers are unlikely to make one version of a food product for California and another for other states, Gabriel noted at a press conference earlier this month.
AB 2316 comes on the heels of the California Food Safety Act (AB 418), the so-called “Skittles bill” signed into law last year that will ban brominated vegetable oil, Red Dye No. 3 and other toxic food additives beginning in 2027. Other states, including Missouri, Washington, New York and Illinois, have already moved to introduce similar bills.
California’s newly passed bill would ban Red Dye No. 40, Yellow Dye No. 5, Yellow Dye No. 6, Blue Dye No. 1, Blue Dye No. 2 and Green Dye No. 3 from California public school foods during regular school hours. Manufacturers use the controversial dyes to give some desserts, beverages and cereals their bright colors, but the additives don’t affect how the foods taste.
Climate change may be driving extreme fires far ahead of schedule, study warns
By Dana Drugmand
Last year’s record-shattering Canadian wildfire season was directly linked to human-caused climate change, according to a new study, which warns that the climate crisis may be fueling extreme fires decades earlier than previously expected.
This is the largest assessment specifically of Canada’s 2023 fire season, which was unprecedented in its scope and intensity, and adds to a wider body of evidence showing that climate change is fueling dangerous fires around the world at a rapidly growing pace.
“What was unusual is the amount of activity across the country,” said Piyush Jain, a research scientist with Natural Resources Canada’s Canadian Forest Service and a lead author of the study, which published this week in the journal Nature Communications. “Already we saw a year which would be as extreme as what we would expect to see in 2050.”
Fires burned across much of Canada from April through October 2023, torching an area roughly the size of Illinois – seven times more land than has historically been burned during the country’s wildfire season, on average. The extent of last year’s fire activity, stretching from British Columbia all the way east to Nova Scotia in a single season, had not been anticipated until later this century under current climate projections, according to researchers.
The wildfires in Canada last June also affected major cities on the East Coast of the US, turning skies a hazy orange and bringing alarming air pollution levels to New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, DC. Toxic particulates carried on the wildfire smoke raised risks of premature death from North Carolina to California and threatened $36 billion in annual US economic losses, one study found.
Climate change more than doubled the chances for the extreme fire weather conditions that led to the 2023 blazes, according to an August 2023 study. Another study examining global wildfire activity in 2023, published last week, reported that climate change both increased the chance of “high fire weather” last year in Canada and increased the burned area by up to 40 percent.
As the world heats up, so does the debate around artificial turf
By Carmela Guaglianone
Artificial turf carpets athletic fields, playgrounds, and residential lawns across the US, offering a low-maintenance alternative to natural grass that always looks lush and doesn’t require heavy watering. But while this popular synthetic material is marketed as eco-friendly, it has also long attracted controversy – for decades, environmental and health advocates have expressed concern about the chemical byproducts of the turf’s plastic fibers.
Now, as climate change drives global temperatures to searing new records and cities scramble for ways to cool down, the old debate around artificial turf has taken on a new intensity. Along with concerns about toxic chemicals, some have begun to sound the alarm that artificial turf simply gets too hot in a world of ever-harsher heatwaves, exacerbating the health risks of the climate crisis.
Medical experts, like those at the Mount Sinai Children’s Environmental Health Center, have begun to recommend against artificial turf installations, often citing several health concerns — including “a very real risk of burns, dehydration, heat stress, or heat stroke.”
And the safety risks of hot turf go beyond the immediate, said Genoa Warner, an environmental toxicologist at the New Jersey Institute of Technology who has researched artificial turf and other plastics.
“You might have heard like not to microwave your plastics, not to leave your plastic water bottle in the car to heat up and be exposed to the sun because it’s more likely to leach chemicals into it,” she said. “It’s basically the same principle as applying with artificial turf.”
In part due to concerns that artificial turf is only adding to Los Angeles’ heat struggles, city councilmembers this spring proposed that the city begin to transition away from artificial installations, joining a growing list of cities around the country that have taken steps to ban the material.
In late June, the council’s Energy and Environment Committee approved the motion, which seeks to gather information on the impacts of turf and could ultimately lead to a ban.
“It’s scary”- Scientists finding mounting evidence of plastic pollution in human organs
By Douglas Main
A growing body of scientific evidence shows that microplastics are accumulating in critical human organs, including the brain, alarming findings that highlight a need for more urgent actions to rein in plastic pollution, researchers say.
Different studies have detected tiny shards and specks of plastics in human lungs, placentas, reproductive organs, livers, kidneys, knee and elbow joints, blood vessels, and bone marrow.
Given the research findings, “it is now imperative to declare a global emergency” to deal with plastic pollution, said Sedat Gündoğdu, who studies microplastics at Cukurova University in Turkey.
Humans are exposed to microplastics – defined as fragments smaller than five millimeters in length – and the chemicals used to make plastics from widespread plastic pollution in air, water, and even food.
The health hazards of microplastics within the human body are not yet well-known. Recent studies are just beginning to suggest these particles could increase the risk of various conditions such as oxidative stress, which can lead to cell damage and inflammation, as well as cardiovascular disease.
Animal studies have also linked microplastics to fertility issues, various cancers, a disrupted endocrine and immune system, and impaired learning and memory.
There are currently no governmental standards for plastic particles in food or water in the United States. The Environmental Protection Agency is working on crafting guidelines for measuring them, and has been giving out grants since 2018 to develop new ways to quickly detect and quantify them.
Finding microplastics in more and more human organs “raises a lot of concerns,” given what we know about health effects in animals, studies of human cells in the lab, and emerging epidemiological studies, said Bethanie Carney Almroth, an ecotoxicologist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. “It’s scary, I’d say.”
Early exposure to toxic TCDF messes with gut bacteria later in life, finds study in mice
By Shannon Kelleher
Early-in-life exposure to a common toxic chemical found in some foods and in breastmilk may disrupt healthy bacteria in the gut and increase a person’s risk for developing various diseases later in life, according to a new animal study.
The findings, published Aug. 14 in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, may shed light on the link between childhood exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and widespread obesity and diabetes in adults, according to the authors.
More than 460 million people worldwide have diabetes, while global obesity levels have tripled since 1975. One in three US adults and one in six children are considered obese, according to a 2023 report.
“This study emphasizes the importance of the microbiome as a key target of early life environmental pollutant exposure,” the paper states. Exposure to the children can occur before birth when pregnant women are exposed to the chemicals as well as after birth through breastfeeding.
Although previous research has identified correlations between exposure to POPs and obesity and type 2 diabetes, the microbiome’s role has not been clear, according to the study.
The researchers fed infant mice pills containing the chemical 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzofuran (TCDF) for five days, collecting data on their gut microbiomes right after the mice were fed the last dose and again three months later, when they had reached young adulthood. Compared to a control group that was not fed TCDF, the mice had higher body weight and glucose intolerance – a hallmark of diabetes – long after they ingested the chemical.
The researchers also measured lower levels of two bacteria species important for gut health in the mice fed TCDF when they were four months old, as well as markers of immune problems and inflammation in the intestines.
Pressure grows to close controversial Napa Valley landfill
By Shannon Kelleher
A coalition of environmental groups are pushing California officials to close a Napa Valley-area landfill that has been the site of repeated regulatory violations and is suspected of sending toxic chemicals into local waterways, which drain into the river that irrigates the valley’s famous vineyards.
In a letter finalized Aug. 14, seven local nonprofit organizations called on officials overseeing waste management and water quality to shut down the Clover Flat Landfill and the related garbage collection recycling and composting operation called Upper Valley Disposal Services (UVDS).
The landfill is “long overdue to move its waste operations to a safer, less environmentally sensitive location,” the groups wrote.
The letter was signed by Sierra Club Redwood Chapter, Non-Toxic Neighborhoods, Napa Vision 2050, Institute for Conservation Advocacy Research & Education, Preserve Rural Sonoma County, the Save Napa Valley Foundation and the Suscol Intertribal Council, a group that works to preserve Native American culture in the Napa Valley area. The letter was also signed by Geoff Ellsworth, the former mayor of the St. Helena community, and local activist Anne Wheaton.
Last year, a group of more than 20 former and then-current employees of Clover Flat and UVDS filed a formal complaint to federal and state agencies, including the US Department of Justice, alleging “clearly negligent practices” in management of “toxic and hazardous materials at UVDS/CFL over decades”.
The employees cited “inadequate and compromised infrastructure and equipment” that they said was “affecting employees as well as the surrounding environment and community.”
Clover Flat Landfill and UVDS are owned by Waste Connections, a large national waste management company.
The Napa Valley wine industry has not publicly expressed concern about pollution from the landfill.
Movement to limit CAFO pollution seen strengthened by Michigan court ruling
By Keith Schneider
A recent state court decision could transform how animal agriculture is regulated in Michigan, and potentially influence how other state and federal regulators oversee the industry’s mammoth waste stream, according to environmental lawyers and activists.
The optimism from environmental advocates comes after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled on July 31 that the state’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) has full authority to require industrial animal agriculture to take much stronger actions to manage the torrent of manure waste polluting waterways. The closely watched case pit the administration of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer against the powerful agricultural industry, led by the Michigan Farm Bureau.
“The decision is extremely powerful language for EGLE to act,” said Carrie La Seur, the legal director of For Love of Water, an environmental law and policy group that intervened on behalf of the state. “It’s clear that EGLE gained a lot of authority through this ruling.”
Michigan is one of many US states contending with rampant ground and surface water pollution caused by agricultural production. A key source of the pollution are the nation’s more than 21,000 large dairy, cattle, hog, and poultry operations, known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs.
The nationwide problem extends across the ocean. On Aug 9, the Center for Food Safety environmental group gave legal notification to a Hawaii “megadairy” of their intention to file a lawsuit in federal court. The allege the dairy has been illegally “discharging animal waste, solid manure, liquid manure, milk waste, and chemical pollutants” into the state’s waterways and into the Pacific Ocean.
Deadline looms for California airports to stop using PFAS firefighting foams
By Benjamin Purper
A majority of California airports known to be contaminated with toxic PFAS chemicals are continuing to rely on PFAS-laden foams for firefighting, despite a looming state deadline to phase out the foams due to the risks they pose to human and environmental health.
Only four out of 30 contaminated airports in the state have confirmed that they have stopped using foams containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – also known as “forever chemicals” – and moved to a PFAS-free alternative. The majority are still struggling to transition, The New Lede has learned.
Though there is some indecision by state officials over the deadline for compliance, the airports could potentially face civil action against continued use of the PFAS-containing foams after September.
On Thursday, state Senator Ben Allen sent a letter to the California’s Office of the State Fire Marshal (OSFM) stating that the airports should halt all use of the foams by Sept. 13 at the latest to be in compliance with state law.
“We can no longer delay our transition away from these dangerous forever chemicals,” Allen told The New Lede. “I look forward to working closely with the State Fire Marshal over the next month to ensure a smooth transition to a cleaner future.”
The OSFM has indicated, however, that an additional grace period may be allowed. The agency said in an emailed statement that it will provide airports with “expected” final compliance dates after it receives updated information from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) about new foam alternatives.
Exposure to PFAS has been linked to numerous health issues, including cancer, liver damage, developmental damage to infants, and other health problems. The federal government has said that “tackling PFAS” pollution is a “top priority.”
Peel those apples: New study confirms washing doesn’t remove pesticide residues
By Carey Gillam
A new scientific report lends weight to consumer concerns about pesticide residues on food, presenting fresh evidence that washing fruits before eating them does not remove various toxic chemicals commonly used in agriculture.
The paper, authored by Chinese researchers and published Wednesday in the American Chemical Society’s journal Nano Letters, comes amid ongoing debate over the extent of pesticide contamination of food, and the potential health risks associated with a steady diet that includes residues of weed killing chemicals, insecticides and other farm chemicals.
In May, Consumer Reports said it had determined that 20% of 59 different fruit and vegetable categories carried pesticide residues at levels that posed “significant risks” to consumers, based on an analysis of data gathered by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The central point of the new paper is primarily to share the technical details of a process the authors developed allowing for enhanced trace detection of pesticides in foods. But the underlying finding about the ineffectiveness of washing fruit is important for consumers who may be relying on food safety practices that are insufficient, the authors said.
Traditional “fruit-cleaning operations cannot wholly remove pesticides,” the paper states.
When using the technique to examine an apple, for instance, the researchers said the “imaging results prove that the pesticides penetrate the peel layer into the pulp layer.”
Using the technology they developed, the authors said they found the pesticide contamination diminished when the apple peel was removed along with some of the pulp layer.
“This study, situated within the expansive realm of food safety, endeavors to furnish health guidance to consumers,” said Dongdong Ye, a professor with the School of Materials and Chemistry at Anhui Agricultural University and an author of the paper. “Rather than fostering undue apprehension, the research posits that peeling can effectively eliminate nearly all pesticide residues, contrasted with the frequently recommended practice of washing.”