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chemical industry
EPA Promoting Fertilizer Full of PFAS Despite Knowing Risks
New reporting shows the EPA was warned over 20 years ago that sewage sludge contained high levels of so-called "forever chemicals."
Dec 27, 2024
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency continues to promote a commonly used commercial fertilizer despite being informed over 20 years ago that its key component contained high levels of so-called "forever chemicals," a New York Times investigation revealed Friday.
The
Times' Hiroko Tabuchi reviewed thousands of pages of decades-old documents and found that scientists at chemical giant 3M discovered high levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in U.S. sewage during the early 2000s. Sewage sludge is in widespread use as farm fertilizer. PFAS are called forever chemicals because they do not biodegrade and accumulate in the environment and the human body. They have myriad uses, from nonstick cookware and waterproof clothing to firefighting foam and pesticides.
Officials at 3M—whose researchers had already linked PFAS to cancer, birth defects, and other ailments—informed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of its findings in 2003.
"The EPA continues to promote sewage sludge as fertilizer and doesn't require testing for PFAS."
However, as Tabuchi noted, "the EPA continues to promote sewage sludge as fertilizer and doesn't require testing for PFAS, despite the fact that whistleblowers, academics, state officials, and the agency's internal studies over the years have also raised contamination concerns."
According to the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, PFAS are linked to cancers of the kidneys and testicles, low infant weight, suppressed immune function, and other adverse health effects. They are found in the blood of around 99% of people around the world. EPA data show there's PFAS in the drinking water of tens of millions of Americans.
According to Tabuchi, EPA experts raised concerns about PFAS as far back as the 1990s, but their warnings went unheeded.
The
Times investigation follows reporting earlier this month led by Prism's Rebecca Barglowski showing that EPA and state officials in New Jersey have known about PFAS-contaminated water for nearly two decades.
Tabuchi noted that "the country is starting to wake up to the consequences" of PFAS' ubiquity. However, only one state—Maine—has begun systematically testing farms for PFAS. It has also banned the use of sewage sludge to fertilize fields.
At the federal level, the Biden administration in 2021 published its first "PFAS Strategic Roadmap" and designated forever chemicals "an urgent public health and environmental issue." Earlier this year, the EPA finalized a new Superfund rule meant to "help ensure that polluters pay to clean up their contamination" across the nation.
However, the chemical industry is fighting efforts to tackle PFAS, including through the use of research experts have called biased. Experts have also warned that the incoming administration of Republican President-elect Donald Trump will roll back Biden-era regulations, disempower agency specialists, and let political appointees make crucial regulatory decisions.
Even under Biden, the EPA is arguing that it cannot be sued for taking inadequate action to protect the public from PFAS contamination.
In June, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)
sued the EPA on behalf of a group of farmers, ranchers, and green groups "for failing to perform its nondiscretionary duty to identify and regulate toxic pollutants in sewage sludge" used as fertilizer. In September, the EPA moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that it has complete discretion regarding the identification and listing of pollutants.
"EPA seems to have lost any sense of its legal and moral obligation to protect public health," attorney and former EPA scientist Kyla Bennett said at the time. "Under the plain language of the Clean Water Act, EPA has a mandatory duty to identify and regulate substances that are a threat to human health and the environment—not just to issue a report about it."
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EPA Bans Known Carcinogens Used in Dry Cleaning, Other Industries
"Both of these chemicals have caused too much harm for too long, despite the existence of safer alternatives," said one environmental campaigner.
Dec 09, 2024
The Biden administration's Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced a permanent ban on a pair of carcinogenic chemicals widely used in U.S. industries, including dry cleaning services and automative work.
According to the Washington Post:
The announcement includes the complete ban of trichloroethylene—also known as TCE—a substance found in common consumer and manufacturing products including degreasing agents, furniture care and auto repair products. In addition, the agency banned all consumer uses and many commercial uses of Perc—also known as tetrachloroethylene and PCE — an industrial solvent long used in applications such as dry cleaning and auto repair.
Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, applauded the move but suggested to the Post that it should have come sooner.
"Both of these chemicals have caused too much harm for too long, despite the existence of safer alternatives," Kalmuss-Katz.
The EPA's decision, reports the New York Times, was "long sought by environmental and health advocates, even as they braced for what could be a wave of deregulation by the incoming Trump administration."
The Timesreports:
TCE is known to cause liver cancer, kidney cancer and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and to damage the nervous and immune systems. It has been found in drinking water nationwide and was the subject of a 1995 book that became a movie, “A Civil Action,” starring John Travolta. The E.P.A. is banning all uses of the chemical under the Toxic Substances Control Act, which was overhauled in 2016 to give the agency greater authority to regulate harmful chemicals.
Though deemed "less harmful" than TCE, the Times notes how Perc has been shown to "cause liver, kidney, brain and testicular cancer," and can also damage the functioning of kidneys, the liver, and people's immune systems.
Environmentalists celebrated last year when Biden's EPA proposed the ban on TCE, as Common Dreamsreported.
Responding to the news at the time, Scott Faber, senior vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), said the EPA, by putting the ban on the table, was "once again putting the health of workers and consumers first."
While President-elect Donald Trump ran on a having an environmental agenda that would foster the "cleanest air" and the "cleanest water," the late approval of EPA's ban on TCE and Perc in Biden's term means the rule will be subject to the Congressional Review Act (CRA), meaning the Republican-control Senate could reverse the measure.
In his remarks to the Times, Kalmuss-Katz of Earthjustice said that if Trump and Senate Republicans try to roll back the ban, they will be certain to "encounter serious opposition from communities across the country that have been devastated by TCE, in both blue and red states."
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40 Years of Suffering and Injustice Since Bhopal Disaster
We should never forget that Dow Chemical was behind the infamous 1984 chemical leak in India. Neither should we forget the courage of those who have never stopped fighting for justice on behalf of the victims.
Dec 02, 2024
Shortly before midnight on December 2, 1984, a terrible cloud, consisting of tons of the deadly gas methyl isocyanate (MIC), along with other chemicals, began to leak into the atmosphere from the storage tank of the U.S. multinational corporation Union Carbide Corporation (UCC)’s pesticide plant on the outskirts of Bhopal in central India.
The immediate consequences of the mass poisoning were catastrophic. As many as 10,000 people are believed to have died within three days of the leak.
As the world marks the 40th anniversary of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, what lessons should we take from what happened on that awful night? I think perhaps there are at least three important ones. Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, is that a single tragic event can have consequences that last generations.
As well as those who succumbed to the gas in the first few hours, many thousands more people were exposed to it, and they continue to suffer from a range of chronic and debilitating illnesses. It is now estimated that more than 22,000 people have died as a direct result of exposure to the leak, while more than half a million people continue to suffer some degree of permanent injury.
Shockingly, it is not only people exposed to the gas directly who have been affected. Over the years that followed, a large number of children born to gas-exposed parents have been affected by growth retardation, birth defects and other medical conditions.
As well as those who succumbed to the gas in the first few hours, many thousands more people were exposed to it, and they continue to suffer from a range of chronic and debilitating illnesses.
Meanwhile, to this day, thousands of tons of toxic waste remain buried in and around the abandoned plant. This has contaminated residents’ water supplies and harmed their health, adding to the already dismal health status of gas-exposed residents.
As well as the health impacts, the tragedy has pushed already impoverished communities into further destitution. In many families, the main wage earner died or became too ill to work. Women and children suffered disproportionately.
An unfortunate second lesson of the Bhopal tragedy is how easy it has been for UCC to escape accountability. Pitted against the largely poor victims of the gas disaster was the hugely powerful and enormously rich multinational corporation, which escaped providing the survivors, their children and grandchildren with adequate compensation and medical care.
The catastrophic gas leak was the foreseeable result of innumerable operational failures at the plant, but from the start, UCC’s response to the disaster was inadequate and callous. For example, although thousands of people were dying from gas exposure, or suffering agonizing injuries, UCC withheld critical information regarding MIC’s toxicological properties, undermining the effectiveness of the medical response. To this day, UCC has failed to name any of the chemicals and reaction products that leaked along with MIC on that fateful night.
In 1989, without consulting Bhopal Gas Tragedy survivors, the Indian government and UCC reached an out-of-court compensation settlement for $470 million. This amount was less than 15 percent of the initial amount sought by the government, and far less than most estimates of the damage at the time. Thousands of claims were not registered at all, including those of gas-exposed children under the age of 18, and children born to gas-affected parents who, time later showed, were also severely affected.
There have been numerous attempts to hold UCC and individuals to account, either through criminal or civil claim proceedings launched in India and the U.S. But these have had no or very limited results.
One challenge has been created by the restructuring of the business entities involved in the tragedy. UCC sold off the India-registered subsidiary that operated the plant. It was then, in turn, bought by another giant U.S. corporation, the Dow Chemical Company (Dow). To this day, Dow shamefully claims it bears no responsibility since it “never owned or operated the plant” and that UCC only became a subsidiary of Dow 16 years after the accident.
In 2010, the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s Court in Bhopal found seven Indian nationals, as well as UCC’s India-based subsidiary guilty of causing death by negligence. By contrast, U.S. individuals and companies have escaped punishment, and there is significant evidence that the U.S. authorities have helped protect them.
Companies have a responsibility to respect human rights wherever they operate. Dow may not have caused the gas leak, but it became directly linked to the tragedy after it bought UCC. The company boasts of following the highest human rights standards, but its continued failure to respond to the urgent needs of the survivors is utterly disgraceful.
But there is a third lesson to draw from the Bhopal Gas Tragedy and its aftermath. It can be found in the inspiring story of the survivor groups and their supporters, who over 40 years have refused to give up their fight for justice. They have initiated or intervened in many legal actions; conducted scientific research into the contamination and health impacts; and they have launched practical initiatives in the absence of sufficient state and corporate support. For example, in 1994, survivor groups fundraised for the Sambhavna Trust Clinic and they later opened the Chingari Rehabilitation Centre. Thousands of gas- and contamination-affected adults and children have benefitted from the highly specialized and professional medical care and rehabilitation provided by these institutions – unparalleled by any of the government-run facilities.
Their campaigning has also meant that Dow has never been able to disassociate itself from the Bhopal disaster. Until it finally addresses the needs of the survivors, their campaign will continue.
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