The Louisiana Bucket Brigade had a small army of volunteers meeting outside their offices this morning. They have created a nifty website that allows people to email, text, or tweet their observations about the oil spill and these are instantly posted on a map of the area. They are interested in collaborating on air monitoring efforts.
The Louisiana Environmental Action Network has been down in Venice distributing personal protective equipment to fishermen involved in clean-up activities. They have been gathering information from communities along the coastline and tracking the EPA air monitoring.
The Gulf Restoration Network has been out in their boats documenting the extent and effects of the spill. They are interested in doing independent water monitoring for oil, to check on the EPA sampling program.
The Mary Queen of Vietnam Community Development Corporation gathered nearly 200 fishermen from Texas to Mississippi in New Orleans today for a meeting with elected officials, the Coast Guard, EPA and others. They are trying to help out-of-work fisherman receive appropriate compensation, and information.
The Deep South Center for Environmental Justice organized a meeting today for environmental justice leaders with EPA to obtain more information from the EPA about environmental hazards. They are also trying to get worker training in emergency response and clean-up so that fishermen and disadvantaged Gulf Coast residents can find employment.
These are but a few of the amazing and heroic efforts going on down here. I'm inspired and tired after spending the day with all these amazing groups, and I hope people will check out what these groups are doing, and support them so they can do this work without constraints.
]]>I spent a lot of time in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and the Army Corps of Engineers flooded the city. In October and November of 2005, I led three teams of NRDC scientists and staff to New Orleans to sample air quality for mold, endotoxin, and particulate matter. Our results helped inform returning residents and spurred campaigns to provide appropriate protective equipment for workers and residents. Over the ensuing two years, I returned repeatedly to sample drinking water, sediment, and soil. I got to know all the neighborhoods in the city - not by conventional landmarks such as restaurants - but by sampling locations. I also came to love the place, and I understood why the people of New Orleans passionately and determinedly rebuilt their flood-prone city. I also came to know and love many people who live here, and many of the powerful community-based organizations.
But over the past couple of years I have not been back to New Orleans. My travel schedule has centered on Washington DC instead of the Gulf Coast. Sometimes I missed it.
I wanted to come back to NOLA (as the locals call it), but I didn't want to come back for this.
The Gulf Coast has been hit too hard, and too often. The economy of the region has suffered terribly, as has the physical and mental health of the people. Now the spreading oil offshore isn't visible and can't be smelled from here, but everyone knows it's out there.
Tomorrow I will meet with local leaders and find out what we can do to help. The next day I will go down to view the oil spill with my own eyes. I'll bring as much protective equipment as I can. There's no place to buy respirators and impermeable gloves down in Venice near the spill, and from the reports I'm hearing, people need it.
At dinner tonight I ordered the Gulf shrimp on my salad. After all, it might be my last chance to have Gulf shrimp for a long while....
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The town has been suffering for more than ten years from surprisingly high rates of cancer. A local doctor sounded the alarm, and eventually the government did an investigation. The government's press release at the time the cancer study was released made it sound like there was no problem: "A study of the cancer incidence in Fort Chipewyan finds levels of the rare cancer cholangiocarcinoma are not higher than expected."
The results of the cancer study were never presented to the community, and the government claimed there was no problem. That's where I came in. One of my colleagues asked me to peer review the Alberta Health Services cancer investigation. To my surprise, the actual report did not align with the headlines:
I'm not sure who wrote the press release for the government, but it sure weren't the scientists who actually did the investigation.
It wasn't just the elevated cancer rates that got my attention, however. It was also the types of cancers seen. Leukemias and lymphomas have been linked in the scientific literature to petroleum products, including VOCs (volatile components of petroleum), dioxin-like chemicals, and other hydrocarbons. Biliary cancers have been linked to petroleum and to PAHs (chemicals in tar and soot). Soft tissue sarcomas are very rare and lethal cancers that have also been linked to dioxin-like chemicals and hydrocarbons. It's an interesting pattern -- almost all of the cancer types that were elevated have been linked scientifically to chemicals in oil or tar.
It's especially interesting because little Ft. Chip is located downstream from the largest tar sands mining and oil production operation in the world. Other scientists who also presented their findings to the community today revealed significant increases in toxic metals, PAHs, and related chemicals in the water and sediments of the river downstream from the tar sands.
About 200 community members filled the hall where the scientists and physicians presented their findings. Then the community members spoke. Elders from the Mikisew Cree Nation and the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation decried the lack of action by the government and industry. Other community members talked about their own cancer diagnoses, or about the problems they were seeing in the fish, ducks, and wildlife they hunt for food. One man brought a deformed fish to the researchers, asking that it be tested for contaminants. The meeting was long, intense, and important. These people are concerned about their livelihood, and their lives. They are also concerned about the state of their rivers, the lake, and the wildlife.
Afterward, as I flew back to Edmonton on the tiny plane, I looked down on miles of pristine boreal forest dotted with lakes and entwined by rivers. Then the tar sands operations came into view - vast scars on the land, massive sulfur piles, smokestacks creating huge plumes into the sky, and enormous tailings ponds next to the river glimmering with an oily sheen; tailings ponds that are almost certainly leaching contaminants into the Athabasca River, which carries them down toward Ft. Chip.
As I prepare to head down to the Gulf Coast, I wonder what will happen here in Canada. Will the newfound distaste for offshore oil drilling be a boon to the tar sands, thereby worsening the ecological and health situation up here? Or will the public realize that petroleum comes with a price that is too high to pay, and move toward a safer energy future?
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It started with a colleague asking me to investigate the high rates of cancer in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta -- a Canadian First Nations community living downstream from the largest tar sands mining operation in the world. Later today I'll be flying up to Fort Chipewyan for a meeting of the community and scientists to discuss the high rates of cancer and the potential links to the tar sands. More on that soon.
But then the oil bubbling up under the Gulf of Mexico moved toward shore, and people started complaining of health problems. My plans changed fast. Now I'll be traveling from Canada to the Gulf Coast to see the two faces of petroleum's toxicity in one week.
As I pack my suitcase today with fleece and long underwear for the cold of Canada, and lightweight shirts for the heat and humidity of the Gulf, I marvel about the long reach of petroleum into people's lives. It's not usually something we think about at the gas pump.
The tar sands mining has been causing a slow-motion ecological disaster in Canada for years, with discharges of petroleum pollution into the rivers, and evidence of contamination in the fish and waterfowl that people in the North depend upon for their livelihood. Long-term exposure to various petroleum hydrocarbons has been linked to cancer. The community of Fort Chipewyan is suffering from high rates of cancer.
The oil spill is causing a rapidly-unfolding ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, with massive releases of petroleum pollution into the estuaries and contamination of the oysters, shrimp, and fish that people on the Gulf Coast depend on for their livelihood. As I wrote yesterday, acute exposure to various petroleum hydrocarbons can cause headaches, dizziness, nausea, cough, and difficulty breathing. People in Louisiana's Gulf Coast are complaining of all these symptoms.
Does it have to be this way?
Maybe these twin disasters are a signal to all of us that it's time to break our addiction to oil and move to clean energy choices. After all, energy conservation, wind, and solar won't kill you.
For more on why tar sands are a terrible idea, check out my colleague Liz Barratt-Brown's blog. Also read here about how the European Union is rejecting tar sands.
]]>So the government didn't clean the arsenic up, and the residents returned.
The problem gnawed at me. I worried about the health risks, and I wondered where all that arsenic came from. I searched the scientific literature and State data, finding no useful information on historic levels of arsenic in New Orleans. Until one day in late-2006 when I talked with Dr. Howard Mielke, a soils expert at Xavier University, who told me about his soil archive. Dr. Mielke and his team of graduate students had spent two years from 1998-2000, collecting soil samples from throughout New Orleans for studies of lead contamination (lead was a KNOWN preexisting problem in New Orleans). Their samples were carefully geo-coded, sealed in polyethylene, and stored at 20-24 degrees Centigrade for the past six years, undisturbed and unaffected by the flooding of New Orleans. What a gold mine! The results of our research were published this month in the journal Environmental Research.
Our team of researchers identified 70 residential locations in the City of New Orleans where post-Katrina samples showed levels of arsenic above Louisiana soil screening levels, and where location-matched samples were available from the soil archive. When the laboratory results came back, the findings were stunningly clear: the arsenic was new!
Every single one of the samples had higher levels after the flooding compared with pre-flood. The average level of arsenic in the soil samples post-flood was over 23 milligrams per cubic meter (mg/m3); pre-flood, the average was below 4 mg/m3. The Louisiana soil screening level is 12 mg/m3, and EPA suggests a cancer concern at even lower levels, so this dramatic increase was highly significant - both statistically and from a health perspective.
When the arsenic results came in, we decided to go back to all these residential locations one more time, to see whether the arsenic was lingering during the recovery period. During that trip, we also sampled at 15 schoolyards and 15 playgrounds that had reopened to children. We were reassured to see that the arsenic contamination in the residential neighborhoods had dropped significantly - Probably some had washed down storm drains, some had been cleaned by street sweeping, and some had been ground deeper into the soil. But in some areas, such as the Lower 9th Ward, 75% of the samples were still higher than they were pre-Katrina.
The more worrisome story was at the schools and playgrounds. One-third of the samples taken in schoolyards, and 13 percent of samples at playgrounds still exceeded the Louisiana soil screening level that could (and should) trigger clean-up. Yet as far as I know, these sites have still not been cleaned up.
We still don't know where the arsenic came from. There are numerous theories, but the most likely source was arsenic-treated wood used in the past to build decks, fences, playground equipment, and even houses. The wood can leach arsenic into the soil below the wooden structures, and when the wood is soaked in water it can also release arsenic. A group of researchers found arsenic contamination in 23 percent of the wood waste from destroyed structures after Katrina. This arsenic was mobilized by the flood waters and deposited as a layer of grayish sediment all over people's land and homes after the flooding.
Some community groups have undertaken volunteer efforts to clean up their own neighborhoods, such as the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice's Safe Way Back Home campaign. But the money to clean up these remaining contaminated sites has been tied up at the state level for years. Now the professional staff in city government with the expertise to oversee proper spending of the clean-up funds will no longer be employed after this month.
The Federal EPA had walked away years ago. Fortunately, this week, the new EPA Administrator , Lisa Jackson, and other senior EPA officials are in New Orleans to talk about the problem of contaminated soil, and to listen to the community's concerns.
I hope that this new research convinces the Agencies to re-engage. It's definitely not too late to learn from the mistakes of the past, and to move forward and rebuild a safer New Orleans.
]]>Although scientists can't say that Katrina was caused by climate change, there's agreement that climate change will increase the frequency and severity of major storms and hurricanes over time. Communities along the Gulf Coast will remain in the crosshairs for flooding disasters. That means that we are likely to see more Katrinas in the future.
The experience of Katrina made me aware of the human toll of climate change, and has given me a sense of urgency about the need to reduce greenhouse gases in order to prevent some of these future diseasters. But there are also things that need to happen to be better prepared for future public health disasters.
Four years after Katrina, it seems appropriate to list four central principles for preparing for climate change:
I. Identify Local Vulnerabilities - Maps of local vulnerabilities, including flood-prone areas, and where at-risk populations live are important to help guide preparedness and response efforts.
II. Enhance Global, National, and State Tracking Systems - Disease surveillance, improved weather and flood forecasting, and tracking of environmental conditions is vital to understand normal patterns, as early warning systems, and to know when public health intervention is successful.
III. Create Climate-Resilient Communities - Establish limits on residential and commercial expansion within flood plains and estuaries; restore and protect coastal wetlands as buffer zones.
IV. Educate People to Protect Themselves - Educate populations at risk of flooding about where to go in case of evacuation, and how to negotiate flooded transportation systems.
For more information about the health impacts of climate change and steps we can take to prepare, check out this link. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has created a new focus on preparing for climate change, yet the effort remains small and under-funded. More information about the CDC effort is here.
In honor of the people killed or displaced by Katrina, the Federal government should do more to help communities prevent and prepare for climate-related disasters and respond effectively to disasters when they do occur.
]]>What they didn't know is that cement kilns also release significant quantities of dangerous heavy metals, such as mercury and chromium. In fact, we found contamination near this facility, and at other sites as well.
A new analysis by USA Today specifically mentions Oro Grande as a school at risk. But it's certainly not unique. The analysis identified over 400 schools in 170 cities that have potentially dangerous air quality due to nearby toxic emissions.
This is awful news for parents and children in all of those places, but it also reveals several deeper problems:
First, why isn't the EPA doing analyses like this, instead of leaving it to NGOs and reporters?
Second, why are the government regulators quoted in the USA Today story so reluctant to take action? These are children who need protection, after all!
Third, what will we do when the data disappear?
Yes, disappear.
The modeling software that USA Today used for their analysis relies on data from the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). Last year, the Bush Administration made sweeping changes to the TRI which will dramatically decrease the amount of information that polluters need to report. So if someone repeats the analysis next year, the picture may look a lot rosier - even though it's not.
Last week, we released a report called "Deepest Cuts: Repairing Health Monitoring Programs Slashed by the Bush Administration". Check out the report here. The report shows a pervasive and systematic unraveling of the tracking and monitoring programs that keep tabs on the safety of our air, water, food, and health. This is really a priority job for the new administration.
Children and parents that I met in Oro Grande, and across the country want their communities to be swept clean, not swept under the rug.
]]>Joe told me about Exide Technologies, a nasty smelter that needs to clean up. According to the LA Times, this facility melts down about 40 truckloads of old car batteries each day, five days per week. People nearby were complaining about smoke and ash from the facility. Just a few months ago, an investigation by the local air district found high levels of lead, and the facility was required to cut back on production by 50% until it cleans up its act. Go get 'em Joe!
But due to last-minute White House meddling with the lead standard, the EPA would not require air monitoring downwind from the Exide smelter. You see, Exide only releases 0.6 tons of lead per year (that's 1200 pounds of this toxic metal) and that doesn't meet the threshold for monitoring under the new EPA rule.
Although I support the new EPA lead standard, I complained a lot last week when I saw how few air monitors the Agency is planning to deploy. Now documents have emerged that show that EPA was planning to require monitors downwind of all polluters that emit more than 1/2 ton of lead per year, but the White House insisted on a higher threshold of one ton per year. Doubling the threshold means that more than 200 polluters nationwide that should have lead monitors, won't. Could it be a coincidence that the organization that represents Exide and other lead smelters was meeting with White House officials right before the 11th hour change was announced?
Folks living in Cass County, IN; Charlevoix County, MI; Lawrence County, PA; Cuyahoga County, OH; Oswego County, NY; Harris County, TX; and Dakota County, MN; to name just a few, won't have the benefit of lead monitors downwind of the cement plants, refineries or smelters in their communities, thanks to this last-minute change in the monitoring threshold.
To find out if your community has a facility that should have an air monitor (but won't), check out our map of lead polluters.
Those of us who are sick of the White House meddling in EPA rules are calling on the Agency to reconsider their monitoring network. The monitors need to be downwind of all the major lead polluters. Children in these 200 communities deserve protection from lead poisoning.
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The devil remains in the some of the details. For example, the standard will be averaged over a 3-month period (rolling average). The EPA science advisors and the public health community advocated for a 1-month averaging period or even shorter. That's because short spurts of lead from polluting factories or smelters might not cause a violation if they're averaged over a 3-month period of lower emissions, but they can still cause a health hazard. That's because the lead doesn't go away, but instead it falls to earth - on playgrounds and in backyards - where children get it on their hands and into their mouths. The battery industry was meeting with the White House as recently as the beginning of October to advocate precisely for this longer averaging period because they knew it would allow these bursts of pollution.
The standard won't come fully into effect until 2017, which is too long. The babies living near these lead polluters shouldn't have to wait until they're 9 years old to be protected from toxic lead. That's too late! We've already waited 30 years for this new lead standard, and it's crazy to wait almost 10 more years for it to come into effect.
Then there's the little problem of the lead monitoring network. I've complained about this before, but bear with me. As a scientist it burns me up when scientific information vanishes. Yet half the lead air monitors in the U.S. have vanished over the last ten years, and with them the data on what's going on in most communities across the country. EPA must rebuild the air monitoring network, or all of the good standards in the world won't help us, because nobody will be able to enforce them. Their proposal is not sufficient. For example, they propose only one lead monitor in cities with more than 500,000 people, and they don't commit to keeping monitors downwind of the big polluters. Also there are thousands of major lead polluters in the U.S., and EPA is talking about only 236 "new or relocated" monitors. Get with the program guys! How will anyone know if the standard is being met if nobody's monitoring?
So today, I'm congratulating EPA on a job well-done. But I also want them to know that we're watching. If those lead monitors don't start appearing in our communities and at the fencelines downwind of the big polluters, then EPA will be failing our children. Not only is the devil in the details, the proof is also in the pudding.
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