The BBC is visiting eight areas of the world
to find how people are preparing for climate change. Paul Adams
reports from the American city of Chicago.
The threatened blizzard seems to have slid
off in some other direction, and the snow is melting under grey,
drizzling skies. I know the local, day-to-day weather is completely
beside the point, but it surely makes it hard for many to
contemplate the reality of a planet warming towards dangerous
levels. Just think about it: you're at native Chicagoan,
possibly struggling as a consequence of the global economic downturn
- something that's very tangible. It's snowing. You've just heard
that a friend of a friend lost a brother in Afghanistan. From far away come voices warning of dire global
climatic scenarios, using highly technical terminology to describe
something that, as far as you, here, now can actually see,
isn’t happening.
To make matters worse, there are other voices -
talking of leaked e-mails which suggest that the first voices might
be trying to scare you unnecessarily. That it's all a big hoax. You arrive at a store where it still seems that the
energy saving light bulbs are more expensive and less bright than
the ones you know and have used all your life. They’re supposed to
last a "lifetime" (what does that mean?) and save you a
bunch of money. Yeah, right. It’s a light bulb. It’ll blow by
Christmas.
What do you do?
Ok. You get the point.
At the table
From our temporary headquarters at Chicago Public
Radio, WBEZ, we broadcast a full day of material. As we hook up via
London, Quentin Sommerville's vignettes from Chongqing fill our
ears. LED street lights. A cement factory reducing its emissions. Here in Chicago, we've toured one of the world's
most famous skyscrapers, the Willis Tower - formerly known as the
Sears Tower - and seen what the owners are trying to do to make it
more environmentally friendly.
We’ve been out to the city's Green Technology
Institute, where they run classes in how to build a "green roof" -
photo-voltaic arrays, plants to insulate and reduce the heat given
off - and fill your home with recycled materials. We’ve talked to the city about its Climate Action
Plan, which includes "retrofitting" 400,000 homes to make them more
energy efficient.
Last night, I interviewed Michael Polsky, a local
businessman who started off in gas and coal-fired power generation
but whose company runs wind farms in the US and Poland. Despite the
name, he's actually Russian by origin. He says he's not a green ideologue, merely a
businessman who sees the way the world is turning and wants to make
sensible investments. He's encouraged by what he hears from Quentin
in Qonching, and likens these various global developments it to the
space race of the 1960s, with the US and Russia competing to reach
the moon first. But we've also heard from skeptics, who vehemently
question the scientific evidence of global warming and scoff at
reports that China and India are "at the table" in Copenhagen.
Chicago is known as the windy city, not just
because it is windy, which at this time of year it certainly is, but
also because its politicians often boast about their city's
achievements.
Newshour's Robin Lustig examines their claim that
Chicago is one of the greenest cities in America.
Chicago's
buildings are responsible for some 70% of its carbon emissions.
On Sunday morning, Chicago's glittering
skyline was etched an ice blue winter sky. The sunlight was sharp
and the city looked magnificent.
The billowing steel ribbons of Frank Gehry's
pavilion and bridge were dazzling. On a day like this, the air clean and crisp, I could
believe almost anything about Chicago. America's greenest city? Sure. Why not? Had I already fallen for the Windy City’s green
hype? Over dinner, an old Chicago friend warns me not to be taken
in.
"Why do you think they close the beaches every
summer?" he asked me, referring to the raw sewage that sometimes
spews out of storm drains into Lake Michigan.
Well, I guess these things don’t happen over night.
When it comes to environmentally-friendly living, a city's very
population density can have its advantages. The infrastructure is
close by, single buildings can accommodate many people - one useful
Chicago fact: 70% of its carbon emissions comes from buildings - and
a good mass transit system will get people out of their cars. But it's still a city, generating huge carbon
emissions, vast quantities of waste and plenty of problems.
Since arriving, I've met plenty of people working on
solutions, from experts on sustainable development, volunteers
teaching classes on building green homes, and the "father of carbon
trading," Richard Sandor, who founded America's only voluntary
carbon emissions and trading scheme, the Chicago Climate Exchange. Sandor, a veteran of all manner of markets, is
particularly impressive. He is passionate about the environment, but
equally passionate in arguing that cap and trade is all about
opportunity, less about cost.
For a very long time now, the US has been the
world's worst polluter. So the world is looking to Washington for
leadership. Here is the conundrum. At Copenhagen, the United
States will not sign up to any emission reductions treaty it knows
it cannot ratify. And no other nation will sign a treaty not signed
by the United States. The climate change bill before the US Senate seeks
to reduce emissions by 17% from 2005 levels by 2020 and more than 80
percent by 2050. But it faces fierce opposition, and could be watered
down. It may not pass at all. And many say far greater cuts are needed anyway.
During the Bush years, it was American states and
cities which took the lead. Chicago, with the nation's only climate
exchange, is vying to be one of America's greenest cities. But Chicago is also home to some of the world's
greatest climate change skeptics - who also question the city's
green credentials. Of course, we've come to Chicago looking for people
who are in the business of establishing the city's green
credentials, but chance encounters suggest that while Chicagoans
aren’t exactly tree huggers, some of them do aspire to a greener
life.
A taxi driver of Latvian origin extols the virtues
of his hybrid car and says his heating bills are significantly
lower, now that he's moved into a green building. He takes us to the Science and Technology Museum
(“the largest in the Western hemisphere”), where we tag along with
the Kincaid family during a guided tour of The Smart Home, a
complete, modular house in the grounds where recycled glass features
in bathroom tiles and kitchen counters. A "green roof" cools the house in summer, insulates
in winter and retains rainwater. A tabletop composter is 100%
recyclable - "you can compost the composter."
I ask Kevin if he feels inspired by what he's seen.
"Probably more convicted than inspired," he admits,
with commendable honesty. His wife, Dawn, wonders just how much it
would cost to buy all these clever, recycled products. "Although in the end it's good for the environment,
how much is it going to cost me on the short end to choose the
recycled glass counter-top, versus some other material?"
And that's the problem in a nutshell. More and more
people are wondering if they should "go green", but everyone –
families, cities, nations – is wondering whether the investment is
going to be worth it. After Sunday’s sunshine, Monday brought the first
winter snow to the Windy City. And all this is about global warming,
right?
The Environmental Protection Agency is being accused
of trying to silence two longtime EPA enforcement attorneys who have
publicly criticized a key component of the climate change
legislation being considered by Congress. Last week the EPA directed
Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel to remove or edit a video they
posted to YouTube that warns a cap-and-trade plan will not
effectively combat global warming and is “fatally flawed.” The
couple instead advocate for a solution involving carbon fees with
rebates. Clcik here for the story at
DemocracyNow.org
And please read the Washington Post article
Cap-and-trade mirage (see below)
regarding this matter for further details.
Supporters of the climate bill passed by the House
and the similar bill under consideration in the Senate -- including
President Obama and Democratic congressional leaders -- say that the
cap-and-trade approach would guarantee greenhouse-gas reductions.
But this claim ignores the
flaws inherent in both bills that would undermine even their weak
emissions-reduction targets and would lock in climate degradation.
We are speaking out as parents, citizens and
attorneys, but our analysis is informed by more than 20 years each
at the Environmental Protection Agency's San Francisco Regional
Office, including Allan's extensive experience overseeing
California's cap-and-trade and offsets programs for the EPA.
Cap-and-trade means a declining "cap" on total
emissions, while allowing trading of pollution permits. Confidence
in the certainty of declining caps is based on the mistaken
assumption that cap-and trade was proven in the EPA's acid rain
program. In fact, addressing acid rain required relatively minor
modifications to coal-fired power plants. Reductions were
accomplished primarily by a fuel switch to readily available,
affordable, low-sulfur coal, along with some additional scrubbing.
In contrast, the issues presented by climate change cannot be solved
by tweaks to facilities; it requires an energy revolution through
investments in building clean-energy facilities.
The biggest obstacle to this revolution is that
uncontrolled fossil fuel energy remains much cheaper than clean
energy. Cap-and-trade alone will not create confidence that clean
energy will become profitable within a known time frame and so will
not ignite the huge shift in investment needed to begin the
clean-energy revolution. In recent interviews, even the economists
who thought up cap-and-trade have said they don't believe it's an
appropriate tool for climate change.
What guarantees failure of the proposed climate
bills, however, are their provisions for carbon offsets, a concept
not used in the acid rain program. Both bills allow all required
greenhouse-gas reductions for almost 20 years to be met with carbon
offsets rather than actual reductions in use of the capped sources.
Offsets -- considered indispensable to keeping cap-and-trade
affordable -- are supposed to be "additional" reductions beyond what
is legally required. But experience with offsets in Europe and
California has shown that ensuring real "additionality" is not an
achievable goal.
Suppose, for example, that a landowner is paid not
to cut his forest so that it can continue capturing carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere. Purchasing this offset allows owners of a
coal-fired power plant to burn extra coal, above the cap.
But if the landowner wasn't planning to cut his
forest, he just received a bonus for doing what he would have done
anyway. Even if he was planning to cut his forest and doesn't,
demand for wood isn't reduced. A different forest will be cut.
Either way, there is no net reduction in production of greenhouse
gases. The result of this carbon "offset" is not a decrease but an
increase -- coal burning above the cap at the power plant.
Or consider the refrigerant HCFC-22, the manufacture
of which creates an extremely powerful greenhouse gas as a
byproduct. This byproduct is relatively easy and cheap to destroy,
and governments could require refrigerant manufacturers to do just
that. But offset investors have persuaded regulators to approve
destruction of the byproduct as a carbon offset, making it twice as
profitable to sell byproduct destruction as it was to sell the
refrigerant.
Some have even fought to keep release of this
byproduct legal because, otherwise, destruction of the byproduct
would no longer produce offsets as it would no longer be
"additional." The situation also creates incentive for some to make
unneeded refrigerant to profit from byproduct offsets.
Carbon offsets create the illusion of "additional"
greenhouse-gas reductions, but we are just getting business as
usual. Untrackable shifting of economic activity and perverse
incentives such as these are inherent problems for carbon offsets
and cannot be solved by certification or verification processes.
Since the most flawed offsets will be the cheapest, they will also
be the most popular.
The House and Senate climate bills are not a first
step in the right direction. They would give away valuable rights in
cap-and-trade permits and create a trillion-dollar carbon-offsets
market that will not lead to needed reductions. Together, the
illusion of greenhouse-gas reductions and the creation of powerful
lobbies seeking to protect newly created profits in permits and
offsets would lock in climate degradation for a decade or more. The
near-term opportunity to create an effective international framework
would also be lost.
Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel are lawyers with the
Environmental
Protection Agency. The views expressed here are their own and not
those
of the EPA. Their
discussion paper and
video
on climate change solutions are online at
www.carbonfees.org/home/.
Poor air quality, lack of clean water and a high rate of
environmental hazards make these metros most contaminated.
In Atlanta, Ga., you'll find southern gentility, a world-class music
scene--and 21,000 tons of environmental waste. In spite of its charms,
the city's combination of air pollution and atmospheric chemicals makes
it the most toxic city in the country.
An urban skyline dotted with puffing smokestacks isn't the only measure
of a city's cleanliness (or lack thereof). Most major cities suffer from
a range of unseen hazards. Contaminants can seep into the ground from
bygone chemical spills or shuttered steel mills. Invisible leaks at
industrial complexes discharge harmful substances into the air, or the
normal course of business requires factories to expel toxins that
eventually find their way to the water supply.
While it may be the U.S. metro in the worst environmental shape, Atlanta
isn't the only place whose residents contend with contamination. Top
spots for toxicity are distributed throughout the country, with Detroit,
Houston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Los Angeles right behind
it. Cleaning up these cities is neither easy nor cheap. The
Environmental Protection Agency expects that it will cost $10.5 billion
in federal money in 2010 to improve the U.S. environment's health in
general and to craft clean energy solutions.
Behind the Numbers To determine which cities are most toxic, Forbes looked at the
country's 40 largest metropolitan statistical areas--geographic entities
that the U.S. Office of Management and Budget defines and uses in
collecting statistics--based on data provided by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. We counted the number of facilities that reported
releasing toxins into the environment, the total pounds of certain toxic
chemicals released into the air, water and earth, the days per year that
air pollution was above healthy levels, and the number of times the EPA
has responded to reports of a potentially hazardous environmental
incident or site in each metro area's principal city. The reports vary
in seriousness, and not all require clean-up action from the EPA.
Crowded urban areas are often thought of as the most polluted, but the
latter isn't always caused by the former. While the Atlanta metro area
takes top honors for toxicity, don't blame the city alone. The Atlanta
metro includes the cities of Sandy Springs and Marietta, the sites of
chemical plants, metal coaters and concrete factories. These cities have
toxic-release levels equal to or higher than those of the principal city
of Atlanta, in spite of populations that are 15% and 13% the size of
Atlanta's, respectively.
Environmental advocates say weak regulations are to blame. "We struggle
to have strong environmental leadership," says Jenette Gayer, policy
advocate for Environment Georgia, an environmental advocacy
organization. "For a lot of the chemicals people reported dumping, there
are alternatives we should be helping them switch to."
Similarly, while the Philadelphia metro area is our fourth most toxic
area, the City of Brotherly Love doesn't hold the bulk of the blame for
the pollution. Factories in smaller Wilmington, Del., in the same metro
area, reported releasing 57% more pounds of toxins than Philadelphia in
2007. Wilmington houses a Pepsi ( PEP - news - people ) bottler and
General Motors assembly plant, as well as the headquarters of chemical
company Dupont ( DD - news - people ).
Some cities, like Houston--our third most toxic city--contend with air
that is far filthier than it should be. Facilities in Houston released
88.7 million pounds of toxic chemicals in the environment in 2007, and
the former site of a methanol fire and chemical explosion number among
the city's 50 sites necessitating an EPA response. Factories that serve
the local petrochemical industry emit benzene and 1-3 butabeine, toxins
proven to be particularly harmful, that the area's intense sunlight and
lack of wind keep trapped in the local area's atmosphere.
"Houston has an air problem," says Jim Lester, vice president of the
Houston Advanced Research Center, a Woodlands, Texas-based nonprofit
that studies and promotes sustainable development. "It has had one for a
number of years, and we've been working on it extensively since about
2000."
Los Angeles, a city whose traffic-clogged freeways contribute to its
famously poor air quality, experiences similar weather patterns that add
to its existing air-quality problems. It ties for fourth most toxic
city.
"Los Angeles is in a geographic basin surrounded by mountains," says
Brian Turnbaugh, policy analyst for the Environmental Right to Know
project at OMB Watch, a government watchdog organization. "The pollution
doesn't go away; it kind of just sits there, creating these horrible
smog days."
Big Lights, Clean City
High population density--the contrast to Atlanta's sprawl--can be a good
thing in terms of toxicity. Limiting traffic has helped urban centers
like New York City, which are often associated with grit and grime. A
highly efficient subway system keeps New York outside the worst 20
cities in terms of toxicity.
"New York City has extremely high density, but excellent public
transportation," says Turnbaugh. Still, the area is more toxic than 18
of the large cities we looked at, proving that cracking down on waste
and emissions is a complex, long-term problem. "The public
transportation system can only accomplish so much, given that you've got
people coming and going from outlying areas."
Some cities, like Portland, Ore., have avoided becoming highly toxic by
devoting city resources to environmentally friendly planning.
"Portland is known for its innovative land-use policies," says Turnbaugh.
The city has been working to curb urban sprawl and encourage density
since the 1970s. But Portland has underlying problems that make it more
toxic than half the cities we surveyed. "It was suffering, for years,
from out-of-control growth. Those policies were a reaction to that."
Portland and New York demonstrate the myriad and wide-ranging causes of
toxicity. No one measure is enough to completely address the problem,
nor can one solution apply to all toxic cities. These two cities
themselves couldn't be more different in terms of size or lifestyle, yet
they're next to each other on our list.
"I don't know of any metro area that has really nipped it in the bud,"
says Turnbaugh of the effort to assess and clean urban toxicity. But
some of the most affected cities are attempting to address the problem
with ambitious programs.
"Texas has invested $800 million in trying to replace old dirty diesel
engines with cleaner diesel," says David Hitchcock, director of
sustainable transportation programs at HARC. But a silver lining has
emerged from the negative focus that one of the country's most toxic
city has attracted: Houston, of all places, is now a vanguard for
advancing sustainability.
"We're now one of the favorite places in the world for doing air-quality
science," says Lester. "The more people understand about it, the more
changes are likely that will take us in a positive direction.
Toxic dumps are less
regulated than household garbage landfills
By Michael Hawthorne | Tribune reporter
January 8, 2009
More
than a dozen Illinois power plants store toxic coal ash in sludge ponds
similar to the one that burst and spread contaminated muck over 300 acres of
eastern
Tennessee last month, according to a Tribune review of federal records.
The sludge dumps, all Downstate, are among hundreds of makeshift ponds
across the nation that are regulated far more loosely than household garbage
landfills, despite years of studies documenting how arsenic, lead, mercury
and other heavy metals in the coal ash threaten water supplies and human
health.
Most of the water-soaked ash—the byproduct of burning coal to generate
electricity—is stored close to bodies of water, including Lake Michigan,
Lake Erie, the Mississippi River and the Illinois River. Questions
about whether utilities should face tougher regulations will be an early
test of President-elect
Barack Obama's environmental policies. Under intense pressure from coal
and utility interests, the Clinton and Bush administrations rejected calls
to classify coal ash as hazardous waste. Environmental groups on
Wednesday urged the incoming administration to set tough rules that would
require safer storage or recycling of coal ash. Some power companies already
have found other ways to dispose of their ash, including Midwest Generation,
the firm that owns five coal-fired power plants in the Chicago area.
Like several other U.S. companies, Midwest Generation ships dry coal ash
from its local plants to be added to cement or for other "beneficial uses."
Tons of the waste ended up in concrete poured for the recent expansion of
O'Hare International Airport. Industry representatives have
aggressively promoted the reuse of coal ash as the amount generated grew
during the past two decades. But many companies still add water to the ash
and pump it to ponds similar to the one that ruptured in late December next
to the
Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant.
"The dangers here are two-fold," said Eric Schaeffer, a former
Environmental Protection Agency official who now heads the non-profit
Environmental Integrity Project. "You can have the sudden spill and the
dramatic disaster that Kingston represents, or you can have slow poisoning
as these impoundments leach toxic metals."
In a 2007 report, the U.S. EPA identified 63 sites in 26 states where
groundwater and wells had been contaminated with heavy metals from coal ash
ponds. The list includes eight sites in Illinois, seven in Indiana and nine
in
Wisconsin. A year earlier, the National Research Council, one of
the nation's leading scientific organizations, found that coal ash can
contain high levels of heavy metals that "may pose public health and
environmental concerns if improperly managed."
Nationally, oversight of coal ash ponds has been spotty over the years,
largely because some states do not regulate them. Others, including Illinois
and Indiana, have rules, but they are more lax than regulations applying to
regular landfills. The town of Pines, Ind., about 40 miles southeast of
Chicago, was declared a federal Superfund site after regulators discovered
that wells there were contaminated with heavy metals from coal ash dumped
into a neighboring landfill.
Federal officials have been mulling tougher national regulations for nearly
three decades. In 2000 the Clinton EPA declared that coal ash is hazardous
waste but soon reversed its decision in the face of intense opposition from
industry, which argued that more stringent disposal requirements would cost
$5 billion a year. The Bush administration later said it would impose new
regulations but never did so. Industry produced 131 million tons of
coal combustion waste in 2007, up from less than 90 million tons in 1990.
The amount has swelled in part because of rising demand for electricity, but
also because federal regulations have required power companies to improve
their pollution controls. Most of the waste now pumped into holding ponds—or
surface impoundments, as they are known within the industry—once was belched
out of smokestacks into the air. In Illinois, state regulators said
power companies increasingly are trying to keep their coal ash dry so it can
be marketed to concrete companies, a type of recycling that generally is
considered safe.
Still, 14 of the state's power plants dumped sludge containing a combined
2,826 tons of toxic metals into Downstate sludge ponds during 2006, the last
year for which figures are available from the EPA's Toxics Release
Inventory. Only nine other states dumped more toxic metals in this
way.
Alabama led the nation with 6,680 tons; Indiana was fourth with 4,431
tons. Most of the Illinois plants that dump coal ash are owned by two
companies,
Dynegy and
Ameren. Representatives from both companies said their surface
impoundments meet state regulations and are monitored for leaks.
"We haven't identified any issues similar to what is being faced by the
TVA," said David Byford, a Dynegy spokesman. In a recent financial
filing, Ameren reported that it will need to spend at least $1.5 million to
seal off ash ponds next to its Duck Creek plant in Fulton County and Coffeen
plant in
Montgomery County. Several of the Downstate power plants built new
ash ponds in the early 1990s after the Illinois EPA began requiring the
ponds to be lined, a step that helps reduce leaching. Officials said it's
possible some older ponds are still not lined.
Illinois has the largest number (10) of coal ash dumps in the U.S.,
like the TVA site that spilled toxic water over 300 acres in TN.
Please help stop all new coal power plants & to close ALL existing coal power plants by 2020.
EIP REPORT: OTHER TOXIC COAL POLLUTION DUMPS AROUND THE U.S.
POSE GREATER POTENTIAL DANGER THAN TENNESEE COAL ASH SPILL DISASTER SITE
At Least 13 States Have 3 or More Under-Regulated “Wet
Dumps” on Worst-Of Lists for Toxic Chemicals; One Coal Pollution Dump in
Orlando, FL Holds 10 Times More Arsenic Than TN Disaster Site.
WASHINGTON, D.C.//January 7, 2009//
Nearly
100 largely unregulated “wet dumps” across the United States that are
comparable to the Tennessee Valley Authority’s breached site in Harriman,
Tennessee for the storage of toxic pollution from coal-fired power plants
have a place on one or more of the “worst site” lists for six toxic metals,
including arsenic and lead, according to a new data analysis from the
nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project (EIP).
In fact, many of the toxic coal ash “wet dump” sites around
the U.S. appear to pose a greater potential danger than the Tennessee site
that is now in the headlines. In the case of deadly arsenic, which has been
detected in water polluted by the TVA site disaster in Tennessee, the
Stanton Energy Facility in Orlando, FL., has reported dumping roughly 10
times more of the carcinogen in its site between 2000-2006 than the TVA did
over the same period in its now ruptured Harriman, TN storage pond site.
According to the EIP analysis, at least 20 coal pollution dump sites
reported more arsenic in coal ash impoundments than the Kingston site.
The TVA’s now-notorious pollution storage site in Tennessee
was found by EIP to be on five of the six toxic chemical lists for the 50
worst coal-fired power plant pollution “wet dumps.” A total of five
comparable disposal sites showed up on all six of the six worst-site lists
for the toxic metals: TVA Widows Creek Fossil Plant, Jackson, AL; Duke
Energy Gibson Generating Station, Gibson, IN; Georgia Power Scherer Steam
Electric Generating Plant, Juliette, GA; Kentucky Utilities Co Ghent
Station, Ghent, KY.; and Louisville Gas & Electric Co. – Mill Creek Station,
Louisville, KY.
Using industry-reported data collected by the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) Toxic Reporting Inventory (TRI) data system for
2000-2006 (the latter being the most recent year for which complete data is
available), EIP looked at the presence of arsenic, chromium, lead, nickel,
selenium and thallium in the waste at Tennessee-style pollution dumping
sites across the nation. The EPA has determined that these “surface
impoundment” ponds (also known as “wet dumps”) are the most likely storage
sites to leak pollution into groundwater and surface water, even without a
catastrophic failure such as the one before Christmas at the TVA’s Kingston
Steam Plant coal ash retention pond, which burst and covered the nearby area
with more than a billion gallons of toxic-laden sludge.
The EIP analysis shows that a total of 13 states were found
to have at least three coal-fired power plant “surface impoundment” dumping
sites on the six 50-worst toxic chemical lists: Indiana, 11 dumps; Ohio,
eight dumps; Kentucky, seven dumps; Alabama, seven dumps; Georgia, six
dumps; North Carolina, six dumps; West Virginia, four dumps; Tennessee, four
dumps; Illinois, three dumps; Michigan, three dumps; Pennsylvania, three
dumps; Florida, three dumps; and Wyoming, three dumps.
Eric Schaeffer, director, Environmental Integrity Project,
said:
“The Tennessee
eco-disaster has cast a spotlight on what is a very serious national problem
– the existence of under-regulated toxic pollution coal dump sites near
coal-fired power plants that pose a serious threat to drinking water
supplies, rivers and streams. Our analysis confirms that this problem is
truly national in scope and that Tennessee may end up only being a warning
sign of much more trouble to come. In addition to so-called ‘surface
impoundments’ in ponds, we need to be concerned about inadequate oversight
and monitoring of land-based disposal and other ‘storage’ of these toxic
wastes. We can no longer afford to ignore this problem and we certainly
can’t be content to just sit around and wait for the next Tennessee-style
disaster to happen.”
Lisa Evans, project attorney, EarthJustice, said:
“By highlighting the enormous volume
of toxic chemicals present in coal ash, which is concentrated at single dump
sites throughout the U.S, the EIP report points to the solution— federal
regulations that require containment of the toxic ash produced by every U.S.
coal plant. Nothing less will solve this serious problem and stop the
ongoing damage to our health and environment.”
Christopher Irwin, staff attorney, United Mountain Defense,
located in Knoxville, TN., said:
"In Harriman Tennessee we were shocked when what is one of largest
ecological disasters in American history destroyed an entire watershed and
nearly a community. Now we are doubly shocked to find that
this disaster may be set to repeat itself in communities all
over. "These Ash piles maybe slowly poisoning America’s greatest natural
resource, our watersheds. The TVA disaster hopefully will be a wake-up call
that protecting our precious water resources must be priority number 1.
"Dead fish, sick residents, toxic sludge, dead rivers--the scene from the
TVA disaster in Harriman Tennessee could repeat itself in unsuspecting
communities throughout North America."
OTHER DATA IN REPORT
Other highlights of the new EIP report include the
following:
Overall pollution. Between 2000
and 2006, the power industry reported depositing coal ash containing more
than 124 million pounds of the following six toxic pollutants into surface
impoundments: arsenic, chromium, lead, nickel, selenium, and thallium. These
pollutants are present in coal ash, prone to leaching from ash into the
environment and highly toxic at minute levels (parts per million or billion)
to either humans or aquatic life, or both.
Arsenic. Alabama has the
largest concentration of top 10 arsenic coal pollution dump sites,
accounting for three of the heaviest concentration sites for 2000-2006: #2
Gaston Steam Plan, Wilsonville, Alabama; #3 Alabama Power Co. Gorgas Steam
Plan, Parrish, AL; and #9 Alabama Power Co Greene County Steam Plant,
Forkland, AL. By way of contrast, the TVA Kingston site was #20 on this
list.
Lead.
The Stanton Energy Center
in Orlando, FL., has the dubious distinction of being the worst plant
dumping site in terms of both arsenic (see above) and lead. Another TVA site
– Paradise Fossil Plant, Drakesbore, KY. – is #3 on the list of worst plants
for lead pollution storage. At least 19 plants reported releasing more lead
to surface impoundments than Kingston.
Nickel.
Once again, the Stanton
Energy Center in Orlando, FL., tops the list with the highest level of
reported nickel pollution. The #2 spot on the list goes to Duke Energy Corp
Gibson Generating Station, Owensville, IN., which also ranks as #4 on
arsenic and #2 on lead. At least 15 other plants disposed of nickel in
amounts greater than Kingston between 2000 and 2006.
Chromium.
The #1 spot on the
list goes to the J.M. Stuart Station, Manchester, OH. The Stanton Energy
Center in Orlando (#3) and the Duke Energy Corp Gibson Generating Station
(#4) follow closely behind it. A total of 16 facilities reported disposing
of more chromium in surface impoundments than Kingston.
Selenium.
The top three spots
on this list are as follows: First Energy Bruce Mansfield Power Plant,
Shippingport, PA.; J.M. Stuart Station, Manchester, Ohio; and the Barry
Steam Plant, Bucks, AL. A total of 15 facilities report releases of selenium
between 2006 and 2006 that exceed the Kingston reports.
Thallium.
The top three spots
on this list are as follows: Georgia Power Scherer Steam Electric Generating
Plant, Julliette, GA: Kentucky Utilities Co. Ghent Station, Ghent, KY; and
Duke Energy Corp Gibson Generating Station, Owensville, IN.
The EIP report outlines the following recommended remedial
action steps:
1. Phase-out of all wet storage of toxic coal ash. 2. Immediate inspection and monitoring of all toxic coal ash storage and
disposal units. 3. Federal regulation of all toxic coal ash storage and disposal by year’s
end.
ABOUT EIP
The Environmental Integrity Project (
http://www.environmentalintegrity.org ) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit
organization established in March of 2002 by former EPA enforcement
attorneys to advocate for effective enforcement of environmental laws. EIP
has three goals: 1) to provide objective analyses of how the failure to
enforce or implement environmental laws increases pollution and affects
public health; 2) to hold federal and state agencies, as well as individual
corporations, accountable for failing to enforce or comply with
environmental laws; and 3) to help local communities obtain the protection
of environmental laws.
The coal ash pond that
ruptured and sent a billion gallons of toxic sludge across 300 acres of
East Tennessee last month was only one of more than 1,300 similar dumps
across the United States — most of them unregulated and unmonitored —
that contain billions more gallons of fly ash and other byproducts of
burning coal.
Like the one in
Tennessee, most of these dumps, which reach up to 1,500 acres, contain
heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury and selenium, which are
considered by the Environmental Protection Agency to be a threat to
water supplies and human health. Yet they are not subject to any federal
regulation, which experts say could have prevented the spill, and there
is little monitoring of their effects on the surrounding environment.
In fact, coal ash is
used throughout the country for construction fill, mine reclamation and
other “beneficial uses.” In 2007, according to a coal industry estimate,
50 tons of fly ash even went to agricultural uses, like improving soil’s
ability to hold water, despite a 1999 E.P.A. warning about high levels
of arsenic. The industry has promoted the reuse of coal combustion
products because of the growing amount of them being produced each year
— 131 million tons in 2007, up from less than 90 million tons in 1990.
The amount of coal ash
has ballooned in part because of increased demand for electricity, but
more because air pollution controls have improved. Contaminants and
waste products that once spewed through the coal plants’ smokestacks are
increasingly captured in the form of solid waste, held in huge piles in
46 states, near cities like Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Tampa, Fla., and
on the shores of Lake Erie, Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River.
Numerous studies have
shown that the ash can leach toxic substances that can cause cancer,
birth defects and other health problems in humans, and can decimate
fish, bird and frog populations in and around ash dumps, causing
developmental problems like tadpoles born without teeth, or fish with
severe spinal deformities.
“Your household garbage
is managed much more consistently” than coal combustion waste, said Dr.
Thomas A. Burke, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School
of Public Health, who testified on the health effects of coal ash before
a Congressional subcommittee last year. “It’s such a large volume of
waste, and it’s so essential to the country’s energy supply; it’s
basically been a loophole in the country’s waste management strategy.”
As the E.P.A. has
studied whether to regulate coal ash waste, the cases of drinking wells
and surface water contaminated by leaching from the dumps or the use of
the ash has swelled. In 2007, an E.P.A. report identified 63 sites in 26
states where the water was contaminated by heavy metals from such dumps,
including three other Tennessee Valley Authority dumps. Environmental
advocacy groups have submitted at least 17 additional cases that they
say should be added to that list.
Just last week, a judge
approved a $54 million class-action settlement against Constellation
Power Generation after it had dumped coal ash for more than a decade in
a sand and gravel pit near Gambrills, Md., about 20 miles south of
Baltimore, contaminating wells. And Town of Pines, Ind., a hamlet about
40 miles east of Chicago, was declared a Superfund site after wells
there were found to be contaminated by ash dumped in a landfill and used
to make roads starting in 1983.
Contamination can be
swift. In Chesapeake, Va., high levels of lead, arsenic and other
contaminants were found last year in the groundwater beneath a golf
course sculptured with 1.5 million tons of fly ash, the same type of
coal ash involved in the Tennessee spill. The golf course opened in
2007.
State requirements for
the handling of coal ash vary widely. Some states, like Alabama, do not
regulate it at all, except by means of federally required water
discharge permits. In Texas, the vast majority of coal ash is not
considered a solid waste, according to a review of state regulations by
environmental groups. There are no groundwater monitoring or engineering
requirements for utilities that dump the ash on site, as most utilities
do, the analysis says.
The lack of uniform
regulation stems from the E.P.A.’s inaction on the issue, which it has
been studying for 28 years. In 2000, the agency came close to
designating coal ash a hazardous waste, but backpedaled in the face of
an industry campaign that argued that tighter controls would cost it $5
billion a year. (In 2007, the Department of Energy estimated that it
would cost $11 billion a year.) At the time, the E.P.A. said it would
issue national regulations governing the disposal of coal ash as a
nonhazardous waste, but it has not done so.
“We’re still working on
coming up with those standards,” said Matthew Hale, director of the
office of solid waste at the E.P.A. “We don’t have a schedule at this
point.”
Last year, the agency
invited public comment on new data on coal combustion wastes, including
a finding that the concentrations of arsenic to which people might be
exposed through drinking water contaminated by fly ash could increase
cancer risks several hundredfold.
If such regulations
were issued, the agency could require that utilities dispose of dry ash
in lined landfills, considered the most environmentally sound method of
disposal, but also the most expensive. A 2006 federal report found that
at least 45 percent of relatively new disposal sites did not use
composite liners, the only kind that the E.P.A. says diminishes the
leaching of cancer-causing metals to acceptable risk levels. The vast
majority of older disposal sites are unlined.
Most coal ash is stored
wet in ponds, like the one in Tennessee, almost always located on
waterways because they need to take in and release water. But scientists
say that the key to the safe disposal of coal ash is to keep it away
from water, by putting dry ash into landfills with caps, linings and
collection systems for contaminated water.
Environmentalists,
scientists and other experts say that regulations could have prevented
the Tennessee spill. Andrew Wittner, an economist who was working in the
E.P.A.’s office of solid waste in 2000 when the issue of whether to
designate coal ash as hazardous was being debated, said the agency came
close to prohibiting ash ponds like the one at Kingston. “We were going
to suggest that these materials not be wet-handled, and that existing
surface impoundments should be drained,” Mr. Wittner said.
If storing coal ash
were more expensive, environmental advocates say, utilities might be
pushed to find more ways to recycle it safely. Experts say that some
“beneficial uses” of coal ash can be just that, like substituting ash
for cement in concrete, which binds the heavy metals and prevents them
from leaching, or as a base for roads, where the ash is covered by an
impermeable material. But using the ash as backfill or to level
abandoned mines requires intensive study and monitoring, which
environmentalists say is rarely done right.
The industry takes the
position that states can regulate the disposal of coal ash on their own,
and it has come up with a voluntary plan to close some gaps, like in the
monitoring of older disposal sites.
“There probably isn’t a
need for a comprehensive regulatory approach to coal ash in light of
what the states have and our action plan,” said Jim Roewer, the
executive director of the Utility Solid Wastes Activity Group.
Mr. Roewer said there
was a trend toward dry ash disposal in lined landfills, though that
trend was not identified in the 2006 federal report on disposal methods.
Environmentalists are
skeptical of the industry’s voluntary self-policing plan and the states’
ability to tighten controls.
“The states have proven
that they can’t regulate this waste adequately, and that’s seen in the
damage that is occurring all over the United States,” said Lisa Evans, a
former E.P.A. lawyer who now works on hazardous-waste issues for the
environmental advocacy group Earthjustice. “If the states could regulate
the industry appropriately, they would have done so by now.”
Utility companies are
often aware of problems with their disposal system, Ms. Evans said, but
they put off improvements because of the cost.
The Tennessee Valley
Authority, which owns the Kingston Fossil Plant, where the Tennessee
spill occurred, tried for decades to fix leaks at its ash pond. In 2003,
it considered switching to dry disposal, but balked at the estimated
cost of $25 million, according to a report in The Knoxville News
Sentinel. That is less than the cost of cleaning up an ash spill in
Pennsylvania in 2005 that was a 10th of the size of the one in
Tennessee.
The Fisk Generating Station with the Dan Ryan
Expressway in the background.
(Tribune photo by
Alex Garcia / September 23, 2008)
Risk
scores can change from year to year when emissions from
factories change or facilities open and close. In fact, the
polluter ranked as the worst in Cook County— Chicago
Castings Co. in
Cicero—closed this year.
That could affect Cook's ranking in future studies. Still,
between 2000 and 2005, Cook was worst in the nation four
times and was in the Top 5 the other two years, according to
the Tribune analysis.
One factory behind the county's high risk score is the A.
Finkl and Sons steel mill just west of Lincoln Park.
Company officials actively promote themselves as
environmentally friendly—a sign stretching over Cortland
Street boasts that Finkl has planted 5 million trees, and
for years the company hosted an annual Green Tie Ball to
help fund highway beautification projects. Yet the chromium,
lead, manganese, nickel and zinc it churns into the
neighborhood are responsible for nearly a third of the
city's total health risk from factory emissions.
Finkl plans to close the mill near
Lincoln Park, where the population is 84 percent white, and move to
another site on East 93rd Street on the Southeast Side, a neighborhood
that is 96 percent black. Bruce Liimatainen, the company's chief
executive, said the ranking surprised him, noting that steel mills on
the South Side and in northwest Indiana release much more pollution.
"We are at the forefront of our industry as it relates to cleanliness,"
he said.
But Finkl ranks No. 1 in the city in part because it is so close to
densely populated neighborhoods.
The database also demonstrates how measuring the total amount of
pollution emitted into the air doesn't tell the whole story for people
who live nearby. Some chemicals and metals are far more toxic than
others.
For instance, an Avery Dennison plant in
Niles had the third highest risk score in Cook County, even though
it ranked 141st out of 308 factories based on pounds emitted. One of its
pollutants is diisocyanates, a highly toxic ingredient in specialty
paints, varnishes and foams that can trigger asthma attacks and other
respiratory diseases.
The same chemical is responsible for No-Sag Foam Products in
West Chicago ranking as DuPage County's third-highest risk score.
Repeated calls to Avery Dennison were not returned; the new owner of
No-Sag Foam declined comment.
The EPA created the database to push companies to clean up voluntarily.
But success has been mixed, at best.
The agency used an earlier version of the database during the mid-1990s
to identify about two dozen Chicago-area factories that emit the most
hazardous air pollution. Many are still among the area's worst
polluters.
Meanwhile, top agency officials delayed the public release of the latest
version of the risk database for more than a year. The EPA held a
workshop last year in Chicago to teach federal and state regulators how
to use the database, but it appears that nobody locally has done so.
"I don't know if we got beyond getting the software," said Alan Walts, a
lawyer in the EPA's regional environmental justice program, which is
intended to make sure that minorities and the poor aren't
disproportionately hit by pollution.
Illinois environmental regulators haven't turned to the data to help
focus their efforts, either. In his Sept. 18 reply to a Freedom of
Information Act request from the Tribune, a state lawyer wrote: "The
Illinois EPA has no information about the [database], and has not used
it in any way."
A proposal that would require Illinois utilities to significantly reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired plants in the next three years has drawn more than 7,000 submissions just a few weeks into the public-comment period.
State officials are expecting thousands more during a comment period that continues through at least early September.
"We've had to break the information down into two links on our Web site. One is for public comments, and one is for the initial filings," said Connie Newman with the Illinois Pollution Control Board. Newman said many of the comments have come in on postcards.
The board - a five-member panel with the power to adopt state environmental rules - began hearings in Springfield last week on a proposal by Gov. Rod Blagojevich that would require, on average, 90 percent reduction in mercury emissions by July 2009.
If the governor's proposal is approved, Illinois would have the toughest standards in the nation.
Industry groups, including major electric utilities, say the rules are expensive and unnecessary.
Federal clean-air rules already will require an 80 percent reduction in mercury emissions in two phases between 2010 and 2018.
Hundreds of the public comments have come from environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, who say tougher standards are needed to reduce health hazards from mercury contamination of lakes, streams and rivers. "It's just the political nature of it. You get a lot of individual letters," said Phil Gonet, president of the Illinois Coal Association, which is among industry groups opposed to tougher state standards. Gonet said he planned to file comments in opposition to the proposed standards, but "I wonder if they'll be noticed."
Officials with City Water, Light and Power said after the governor's announcement that two of three coal-fired generators operated by the Springfield utility already meet the tougher mercury standards. Newman said the board could finish its hearings in Springfield this week, but a second round is planned in Chicago beginning Aug. 14. Anyone wishing to testify in Chicago must file testimony with the board by July 17. The public hearings in Chicago could continue to Aug. 25. The board then will accept written comments for at least another 14 days. Newman said the board will submit proposed rules for achieving the mercury reduction standards to the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, a legislative oversight committee. Members of JCAR will decide whether to implement the rules as proposed. Tim Landis can be reached at 788-1536 or tim.landis@sj-r.com.
Want to be heard?
What: The Illinois Pollution Control Board is considering rules that would require, on average, 90 percent reduction in mercury emissions from coal-fired utility plants by July 2009.
How: Submit comments to: Dorothy Gunn, clerk, Illinois Pollution Control Board, James R. Thompson Center, 100 W. Randolph St., Suite 11-500, Chicago, IL 60601. Or go to www.ipcb.state.il.us, click on Clerk's Office On-Line, select File a Document with the IPCB and following directions.
Did you know? There are 57 coal-fired generators in Illinois.
(Washington, D.C.- March 7, 2005) The Department of Justice, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the State of Illinois announced the settlement of their major Clean Air Act case alleging that Illinois Power Company and its successor, Dynegy Midwest Generation, violated the New Source Review provisions of the Clean Air Act at the Baldwin Power Station in Baldwin, Ill. The agreement will reduce emissions of harmful sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) from Illinois coal-fired power plants by 54,000 tons each year through the installation of approximately $500 million worth of new pollution control equipment and other measures.
The five plants involved in the settlement are: Baldwin Generating Station in Baldwin, Ill.; Havana Generating Station in Havana, Ill.; Hennepin Generating Station in Hennepin, Ill.; Vermilion Generating Station in Oakwood, Ill.; and Wood River Generating Station in Alton, Ill. In addition, Dynegy Midwest Generation will pay a $9 million civil penalty and spend $15 million in projects to mitigate the harm caused by unlawful emissions.
The settlement resolves a lawsuit filed in 1999 as part of a federal government initiative to bring operators of coal-fired power plants into full compliance with the New Source Review provisions of the Clean Air Act. In 1999, the Baldwin Station was one of the largest sources of air pollution in the nation, emitting approximately 245,000 tons of SO2 and 55,000 tons of NOx each year. After the suit was filed, the company reduced SO2 emissions at the plant by over 90 percent through conversion to low sulfur coal, and it reduced NOx emissions by 65 percent by installing control equipment.
This settlement will achieve significant additional reductions at Baldwin and other Illinois coal-fired plants in the Dynegy Midwest Generation system by requiring installation of four new flue gas desulfurization devices (commonly called "scrubbers") to control SO2; four new baghouses to control particulate matter (soot); and operation of existing control equipment, including three selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems, year-round to control NOx. The entire five-plant system will be subject to annual emission caps to assure that significant system-wide reductions for both SO2 and NOx are achieved.
"The air pollution reductions from this agreement will result in significantly cleaner air for residents of Illinois and downwind states," said Thomas V. Skinner, Acting Assistant Administrator of EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. "We are committed to strong regulations and aggressive enforcement to protect public health." "The citizens of Illinois could not have asked for a better result concerning our consensual agreement with Illinois Power," said Thomas L. Sansonetti, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division. "The Justice Department is confident that this settlement will provide numerous benefits in protecting and improving the quality of air for the people in and around the region." "Today's settlement is an important step in protecting the rich environmental resources of Southern Illinois for which clean air is an essential foundation," said U.S. Attorney Ronald J. Tenpas. "The emission reductions it will produce will improve the life and health of our citizens."
The settlement is contained in a consent decree lodged for public comment in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois in East St. Louis, Illinois. The $15 million in mitigation projects will finance efforts at enhanced mercury reduction, acquisition and preservation of ecologically valuable lands and habitat in the St. Louis Metro East area and along the Illinois River, municipal building energy conservation, and advanced truck stop electrification to reduce air emissions from diesel exhaust. The federal and state governmental parties were joined in the case by a coalition of citizen groups - the American Bottom Conservancy; Health and Environmental Justice - St. Louis; Illinois Stewardship Alliance; and the Prairie Rivers Network. Additionally, Dynegy Midwest Generation will transfer ownership of an approximately 1,135 acre parcel of land which it owns along the Middle Fork of the Vermillion River in Vermillion County, Illinois, to the State of Illinois, Department of Natural Resources. "This important settlement has the potential to improve air quality in Illinois from the Metro East area to the Chicagoland area," Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said. "Additionally, the innovative projects included in the agreement will improve our state's environment and enhance its natural heritage."
This is the eighth in a series of agreements with power plant operators, all of which are focused on securing major reductions in air pollution from coal-fired power plants, which collectively account for 70 percent of SO2 and 30 percent of NOx emissions from all stationary sources in the nation.
The combined effect of these eight settlements will be to reduce emissions of harmful pollutants by over 714,000 tons each year - 486,000 tons of SO2 and 229,000 tons of NOx through the installation and operation of more than
$4.4 billion worth of pollution controls. For more information about this settlement, visit: http://intranet.epa.gov/oecaftp/compliance/resources/cases/civil/caa/illinoispower.html
As Hispanic residents of Chicago, Gladys and Miguel Martinez understand the effects of power plant pollution firsthand. Highlighted in an article in the Chicago Reader they explained that all three of their children suffer from asthma and occasional pneumonia. For a time, Michael, their four year- old was going to the emergency room twice a week. 85 Their case is not unique for residents living near power plants. Research by the Harvard School of Public Health showed that the Fisk and Crawford power plants, located in predominantly Latino neighborhoods of Chicago, cause 40 premature deaths, 2800 asthma attacks, and 550 emergency room visits every year. 86 In response to these challenges, several communities have been active in trying to draw attention to and reduce the pollution emitted from these power plants.
The Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, located in the Latino neighborhood of Little Village, has been organizing against Chicago’s power plant pollution for years. Several Latino groups have staged demonstrations against the adjacent Crawford plant, which continues to operate with old, out-of-date pollution control equipment. One demonstration took place in front of Mayor Richard Daley’s office. In February of 2002, The Little Village Environmental Justice Organization joined with other community groups to pass a referendum in two predominantly Latino Chicago precincts supporting a proposed city ordinance that calls for reductions in emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury, and carbon dioxide from these Chicago power plants.
While the resolution is currently stalled in the City Council, it has sent a message to all lawmakers that local residents will not tolerate the injustice of power plant pollution. 87 Hispanics now compose 13 percent of the total U.S. population, and this number is growing quickly. As new Latino communities emerge, many of them will be forced to confront the health effects caused by pollution from power plants. The activism in Chicago is not unique. Many communities are beginning to mobilize against the threat toxic emitting power plants have to their livelihood and, in the future, many more are likely to join the fight.
Los Hispanos Luchan contra la
Contaminación
de Plantas de Energía en Illinois Estudio del caso
Como residentes hispanos de Chicago, Gladys y Miguel Martínez comprenden directamente los efectos de la contaminación de las plantas de energía. Resaltado en un artículo en el Chicago Reader explicaron que sus tres hijos sufren de asma y ocasionalmente de pulmonía. Durante cierto tiempo, Michael, su hijo de cuatro años acudía a la sala de emergencia dos veces a lasemana. 84
Su caso no es único para los residentes que viven cerca de las plantas de energía. Un estudio realizado por la Escuela de Salud Pública de Harvard mostró que las plantas de energía Fisk and Crawford, ubicadas en localidades predominantemente latinas de Chicago, causan 40 muertes prematuras, 2800 ataques de asma y 550 visitas a la sala de emergencia anualmente. 85
En respuesta a estos desafíos, varias comunidades han estado activamente tratando de llamar la atención y reducir la contaminación emitida por estas plantas de energía. La Organización de Justicia Ambiental Little Village, ubicada en la localidad latina de Little Village, ha estado organizándose durante años contra la contaminación de las plantas de energía de Chicago. Varios grupos latinos han organizado manifestaciones contra la planta adyacente Crawford, la cual continúa operando con equipo de control de contaminación viejo y obsoleto. Una manifestación se llevó a cabo frente a la oficina del alcalde RichardDaley.
En febrero de 2002, la Organización para la Justicia Ambiental Little Village se unió a otros grupos comunitarios para aprobar un referéndum en dos distritos predominantemente latinos de Chicago respaldando una ordenanza de la ciudad propuesta que ordena la reducción de emisiones de dióxido de azufre, óxidos de nitrógeno, mercurio y dióxido de carbono de estas plantas de energía de Chicago. Aunque la resolución se encuentra actualmente atascada en el Concejo de la Ciudad, ha enviado el mensaje a los legisladores que los residentes locales no tolerarán la injusticia de las plantas de energía. 86
Los hispanos componen ahora el 13 por ciento de la población total de los Estados Unidos, y este número sigue creciendo rápidamente. Al tiempo que las comunidades latinas emergen, muchas de ellas estarán forzadas a confrontar los efectos sobre la salud causados por la contaminación originada en las plantas de energía. El activismo en Chicago no es único. Muchas comunidades comienzan a movilizarse contra la amenaza de las emisiones de sustancias tóxicas de las plantas de energía sobre sus medios de subsistencia y, en el futuro, es posible que muchos más se unan a lalucha.
Environmentalists say they are shocked and angered by an Illinois EPA (IEPA) report concluding it would be "irresponsible" to move forward with state-specific requirements for electric utilities to reduce emissions, particularly because top state officials have long criticized EPA's approach to regulating these emissions as far too weak.
The three-year study, released Sept. 30, was widely expected to recommend stricter power plant rules, positioning Illinois to become the first Midwestern, coal-producing state to set utility emission standards that went beyond the Clean Air Act.
But in the weeks leading up to the due date, industry groups mounted a lobbying blitz (Clean Air Report, Sept. 23, p6) that environmentalists now say successfully convinced Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) to squelch any state-specific recommendation.
Industry and congressional sources say they are happy with the IEPA report's conclusions but deny that their effort changed any minds. Instead, they credit IEPA for reaching the right conclusion.
"Illinois EPA recommends that the governor continue demanding that the federal government act nationally to reduce power plant emissions," the report concludes. Relevant documents are available on InsideEPA.com.
The governor's office referred calls to IEPA, where a source defends the state's conclusions as consistent with its past positions. "IEPA is on record as wanting a stronger national standard, and we still want to see that. What we were doing was looking at state-specific standards on a multi-pollutant approach and whether that made sense," the source says.
At this point, the state will continue to study the issue and attempt to answer outstanding questions the agency was unable to address about a potential state-specific rule's impact on electricity reliability, electricity prices and jobs, the source notes. The state is also reserving the right to move forward with its own standards after EPA finalizes its clean air interstate rule (CAIR) to address nitrogen oxide (NOx) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions from power plants later this year, and its mercury reduction plan in March 2005.
The source declined to respond to questions about industry lobbying efforts, noting that IEPA spoke with environmental groups and industry about the report throughout the project.
But one Illinois environmentalist says IEPA stopped talking to activists in late summer, raising suspicions that it might be backing away from its earlier plans to recommend regulations. "Before that, they gave us a lot of information about what the report would look like. . . . We expected them to recommend at least to match the federal rules and on mercury to make it stronger," the source says. "IEPA stood next to environmentalists and criticized the federal rules, and said we needed a 90 percent [mercury] reduction."
A second environmentalist says the state's decision to do nothing while criticizing EPA's plans defies logic, particularly because the report was sought by the state legislature specifically to provide an opportunity for Illinois to address power plant pollution and to boost use of Illinois coal. "They never said they would do nothing," the source says.
The source adds that Blagojevich included plans to reduce in-state utility pollution as far back as his 2002 campaign and accuses the governor of breaking a campaign promise.
In February of this year, IEPA told U.S. EPA that the agency's plans for SO2 needed to include additional reductions of 10 million tons per year (tpy) in the near term, while NOx emissions needed to be reduced by an extra 9 million tpy from its proposed rule. IEPA says even more reductions are needed for phase II of the federal plan, which would ultimately reduce SO2 and NOx emissions by 70 percent in 2018. On mercury, IEPA Director Renee Cipriano testified, "The U.S. EPA proposal would require an approximate 69 percent reduction of mercury by 2018. However, a 90 percent reduction is both necessary and feasible."
The second environmentalist also points to the fact that IEPA's report relegates a significant health study, specific to Illinois power plants, to the appendix. The study by a noted Harvard University researcher finds nine power plants in Northern Illinois cause about 320 deaths a year.
The report does acknowledge that public health is affected by utility emissions, and that "significant public health and welfare benefits can be derived by reducing power plant emissions."
But the IEPA source says it is unclear what kind of benefits Illinois-only rules would bring.
A source with Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) says IEPA's decision "keeps Illinois competitive. We are pretty happy." The congressman has been at the forefront of industry efforts to convince EPA to back away from a part of its mercury rule he thinks unfairly penalizes Eastern coal.
A source with an Illinois utility company denies that it launched a successful lobbying effort. "The industry was cooperating with IEPA, providing factual information to allow it to complete the study," the source notes.
An Illinois Coal Association source calls the report "balanced" and says it "recommends the right thing to do. . . . The federal EPA is about to promulgate standards for mercury, SO2 and NOx. Why would the state come out with something else? That is a wonderful attitude to take," the source says, admitting that the association was "a little surprised" IEPA recommended no action.
However, the source adds the surprise is outweighed by the fact that Blagojevich is not being totally inconsistent.
"His position that the [federal] mercury plan is too weak is superseded by the point that you don't set standards before the federal government acts," the source explains. "They say they reserve the right to do their own after the final rule is out."
The IEPA source adds, "The decision made as of Sept. 30, 2004, does not mean the door is closed. We will make an attempt to answer [outstanding questions] and revisit the issue after we have certainty on the federal level."
Meanwhile, the second environmentalist says the governor could still redeem himself by reacting to the report and issuing firm direction to IEPA about future action. Blagojevich has yet to issue a statement about the report.
Greenpeace - Press Release - October 20, 2004
Video and photos available EMBARGOED UNTIL October 20, 2004
TWENTY-ONE PERCENT OF WOMEN TESTED NATIONWIDE HAVE MERCURY LEVELS HIGHER THAN EPA LIMIT
Interim Results of Mercury Hair Sampling Project Highlight Negative Impact of Dirty Power
Washington - Interim results of Greenpeace's Mercury Hair Sampling Project were released today by the Environmental Quality Institute (EQI) at the University of North Carolina- Asheville. The survey found mercury levels exceeding the EPA's recommended limit of 1 microgram of mercury per gram of hair in 21 percent (126 out of 597) of women of childbearing age tested.
So far, hair tests have been analyzed for 1,449 people of all ages around the country. Mercury contamination is a particular concern for women of childbearing years (16 to 49 years old) because mercury exposure in the womb can cause neurological damage and other health problems in children. The EPA has not established mercury exposure health standards for older children, men, or women older than 49.
" I have an obligation to protect the health of my children as well as my own health," said Leila Varella, a 29-year-old mother from Philadelphia who got herself and her 6-year-old son tested. "Knowledge is power and getting tested is a first step toward protecting my family and community from mercury pollution. "
Coal burning power plants are the nation's biggest mercury polluter, releasing 41 percent of the country's industrial mercury pollution. Mercury from these dirty power plants and other sources falls into lakes, streams and oceans, concentrating in fish and shellfish, which are then consumed by people.
" In the samples we analyzed, the greatest single factor influencing mercury exposure was the frequency of fish consumption," said Dr. Richard Maas, Co-director of EQI and author of the report. "We saw a direct relationship between people's mercury levels and the amount of store-bought fish, canned tuna fish or locally caught fish people consumed."
" People should not have to stop eating fish because they're afraid they'll get poisoned by mercury," said Greenpeace Energy Campaigner Casey Harrell. "We need a President who will cut mercury pollution and move us away from dirty fossil fuels by investing in clean, renewable energy."
Greenpeace started the Mercury Hair Sampling Project as a response to President Bush's failure to clean up power plant mercury pollution. Switching from coal and oil to wind and solar energy would reduce pollution and its negative health impacts, help solve global warming and create jobs.
Home hair sampling kits are available at cost via Greenpeace's web site www.greenpeaceusa.org/mercury.
The EQI report and supporting documents will be available on the Greenpeace web site on October 20. EQI will continue testing into 2005 and issue the final report in the spring.
CHICAGO--The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency declined to recommend stringent new air quality requirements for coal-fired power plants in a report that environmentalists had hoped would launch the electric power industry on a compliance trajectory more rigorous than current federal standards.
The report, obtained by BNA Sept. 30, acknowledges that Illinois' coal-fired power plants are a major source of air pollution and that emission reductions would provide health benefits. At the same time, the report contends that a regulatory initiative more stringent than current federal standards would affect the economic climate in the state and the reliability of the state's electric power system. In this light, the agency said additional restrictions on such facilities would be imprudent.
"It is clear that power plants are a considerable source of air pollution and that reducing emissions will benefit public health," the IEPA noted. "However, moving forward with a state-specific regulatory or legislation strategy without fully understanding all of the critical impacts on jobs and Illinois' economy overall as well as consumer utility rates and reliability of the power grid would be irresponsible."
The report goes on to recommend that Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-Ill.) demand federal action aimed at cutting power plant emissions. In this regard, the report notes that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency intends to issue final sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emission rules in December. In addition, final mercury emission reduction rules are scheduled for release in March 2005.
Environmentalists said they were dumbstruck by the agency's action in light of previous comments on the issue by Blagojevich and IEPA Director Renee Cipriano. Blagojevich campaigned on a platform that called for significant new controls on power plants. In addition, Illinois is one of 15 states challenging EPA's rule under the new source review program expanding the exemption for power plants and industrial facilities from pollution control requirements.
Lung Association Director 'Disappointed.'
" We're obviously disappointed with this report," said Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health at the American Lung Association of Metropolitan Chicago. "It is simply inconsistent with everything the IEPA and the governor have said at this point about emissions from these plants. The governor said during the campaign that he wanted to set new long-term emission standards for power plants. Now it looks like the administration is refusing to follow through."
IEPA was required to complete a report on air quality standards pertaining to coal-powered electric power generation facilities under a law signed by former governor George Ryan (R) in August 2001. The law, Public Act 92-279, required IEPA to evaluate the need for cutting emissions of Sox, NOx and mercury no later than Sept. 30, 2004.
In considering such air quality issues, the law required the agency to consider the public health benefits, costs, and potential impact on Illinois' coal industry. In addition, the law required the IEPA to consider what impact potential regulations would have on the integrity of the state's overall power generation system. The law also created a process by which IEPA could recommend new regulations for these facilities. The Illinois Pollution Control Board, which is responsible for promulgating state environmental rules in Illinois, would have been obligated to act on any proposals forwarded by IEPA within one year.
But Anne Rowan, a spokeswoman for IEPA, said the agency has chosen not to recommend any changes in the state's current regulatory posture. She noted that the report points to a vast number of unanswered questions about the benefits of emission controls in the context of an Illinois-only program.
Unanswered Questions
" There were so many unanswered questions that we didn't feel we could recommend a state-specific program to the governor and the legislature," Rowan told BNA. "But we are not shutting the door on something like that. This just isn't the time."
The report was light on scientific conclusions and recommendations and outlined numerous open questions. Among other things, IEPA noted it had not been able to determine:
the health benefits of an Illinois-only approach given the impact of interstate pollution transport;
the extent to which an Illinois program would achieve air quality improvements and public health benefits in the absence of a new national emission control strategy;
the impact of state-specific emissions reductions on power plant closures and electric reliability;
the effect of a multi-pollutant pollution control strategy on competition and consumer rates as Illinois enters full deregulation; and
the impact of a new pollution control strategy on jobs in the coal industry and the electric power generation industry.
Urbaszewski questioned the agency's resolve and integrity during its research on such issues.
" Let's be honest, this agency had three years to work on this report," he said. "This is just garbage."
Rowan rejected criticisms from the environmental community and stressed that the last chapter has not been written in terms of emission controls.
"The director believes these criticisms are unfair," she said. "We weren't asked to look at this issue only from a pollution technology and public health standpoint. We had to look at energy reliability, job losses, impact on consumers and other issues. When we looked at some of the unintended consequences, we had to ask: 'What are we really gaining?' "
By Michael Bologna
ACROSS THE NATION
Acid rain pollution up 4 percent in '03 Items compiled from Tribune news services - Published September 23, 2004
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Emissions of sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain, rose 4 percent in 2003, but probably won't compromise long-term air quality goals, the government reported Wednesday.
Coal-fired power plants were the main source of the 10.6 million tons of sulfur dioxide. That total compared with 10.2 million tons in 2002 and reverted to the level from 2001.
Nonetheless, pollution from sulfur dioxide has dropped significantly over the past two decades, to 11.2 million tons in 2000 from 17.3 million tons in 1980.
Asthma is the nation's fastest-growing chronic disease and afflicts more than 20 million Americans. Asthma rates among children under age four have skyrocketed over the past two decades (160% between 1980 and 1996). Particularly hard-hit are communities of color - a recent study revealed that a shocking one-quarter of children in a Harlem, New York, neighborhood had asthma. For those with the disease and their loved ones, asthma creates a tremendous physical, emotional and financial burden. To help combat this growing health scourge and protect our nation's children, we must attack one of the prime contributors to asthma: air pollution.
The Impacts of Air Pollution
About 160 million tons of pollution are emitted into the air each year, and more than 150 million people live in areas where monitored air is unhealthy because of pollution. Air pollution causes or aggravates a range of health problems, from cancer to strokes and premature death. But the most visible health impact of air pollution is asthma. Nearly two-thirds of those suffering from the disease live in an area where at least one federal air-quality limit is broken. Certain air pollutants, particularly ozone (a main component of smog), particulate matter (or soot) and sulfur dioxide (a main ingredient of acid rain), are known to worsen the health of asthmatics and trigger asthma attacks.
Asthma attacks sent people to emergency rooms more than 1.8 million times in 2000, including 728,000 visits for children under 17. More than 4,000 people lose their lives each year from this disease (with African American children five times more likely to die than Caucasians). The economic burden of asthma has been estimated at $14 billion in 2002, and an estimated 14 million children miss school each year due to the disease.
Who is Likely to Develop Asthma?
Genetic makeup plays an important role in determining who is prone to developing asthma, but children of asthmatics will not necessarily develop the disease. There are many theories for what causes asthma, but the truth is that medical experts are still not sure. Most peoplewho develop asthma likely have a genetic tendency toward asthma and experience critical environmental exposures during their first years of life. There is some evidence that diesel exhaust particles may account for a fraction of the increase in asthma over the past two decades. Ozone has been implicated in one study as causing asthma in children who exercise heavily outdoors, but this finding remains inconclusive.
What Causes an Asthma Attack?
For asthma, genetics "loads the gun," but environment "pulls the trigger." This is true both for the initial development of asthma and for attacks. Once an individual has developed asthma, environmental factors that can trigger an attack include outdoor air pollutants, like fine particles and ozone, and indoor air pollutants including nitrogen oxides, formaldehyde and environmental tobacco smoke. Biological agents, such as respiratory infections and allergens, play a dominant role. Other toxic air contaminants like pesticides have also been fingered as culprits but have not been conclusively proven to cause asthma attacks. Children (because of their body size and developing lungs) and the elderly are the most vulnerable to the debilitating and life-threatening effects of air pollution. Effective clinical management and treatment of asthma is very important for avoiding asthma attacks.
Atlanta 1996: A "Real World" Testing Ground
A strong case for the importance of ozone in triggering summertime asthma attacks comes from a study of Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics. To reduce traffic congestion downtown during the 17 days the games were on, the city enhanced public transit, closed downtown to private cars and encouraged businesses to promote telecommuting and alternative work hours. The study found that daily peak ozone levels dropped 28% and hospitalizations for asthma fell by almost 20% during that time.
What Environmental Defense is Doing
Although there are many triggers of asthma, one of the few we can do something about is air pollution. Our team of health and air pollution experts is leading the fight to clean up the sources of dirty, unhealthy air from tailpipes and smokestacks. Nationally our team is working to get tight national emission standards for all diesel engines, including nonroad vehicles like tractors and locomotives. We recently helped win new tighter emission standards for diesel-powered backup generators in California and are pushing for nationwide controls. We are ensuring that Clean Air standards are implemented and enforced, from our national parks to congested cities. We are also pushing for cleaner transportation choices and better stewardship of highway projects. We are taking the fight to the local and state level, too. We worked with New York Governor George Pataki to require emission controls on highly polluting machinery used at the World Trade Center reconstruction site, which led to a new citywide law to curb diesel emissions from construction equipment. And we forged a ground-breaking partnership with FedEx Express to develop a super-clean hybrid-electric delivery truck that is already on the road. The new truck achieves a 90% reduction in soot, a 75% cut in smog-causing nitrogen oxides (NOx) and a 50% increase in fuel efficiency.
Coal-fired power plants in Illinois, which provide about half of the state's electricity, are facing tougher pollution controls than the federal government is proposing, igniting a fresh debate over public health, jobs and the Blagojevich administration's impact on the cost of doing business in the state.
A report due Sept. 30 from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, assessing potential cost and reliability issues, is expected to clear the way for stricter caps on mercury and other toxic emissions in Illinois - beyond what the federal government proposed last year.
"We think we can achieve some very beneficial emission reductions and still maintain" reliability and reasonable cost, says David Kolaz, chief of the bureau of air at the Illinois EPA. "The governor can do this if we do it carefully."
Gov. Rod Blagojevich and state regulators have blasted the Bush administration's proposal to restrict mercury and other pollutants, saying it does not go far enough to reduce pollution.
Another complaint: The proposed federal rules give an edge to producers of Western coal, which already has a natural advantage over Illinois coal because its sulfur content is lower. The Blagojevich administration argues that the Bush administration's more lenient mercury standards favor Western coal, which contains a form of mercury that is difficult to remove.
"The result will be to push more power plants to burn Western coal or other fossil fuels" and "cannot be supported," Illinois EPA Director Renee Cipriano said at a hearing last February on the proposed federal mercury rule.
The report due Sept. 30 covers mercury, which hasn't been regulated before, as well as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, the main culprits in creating smog, ozone and acid rain. But the biggest concern is the prospect of tighter mercury control than in the proposed federal rules, because the mercury-removal technology is new and its costs are largely unknown.
"Pending federal rules recognize that the technology is still evolving," says a spokesman for Midwest Generation EME LLC, a unit of California-based Edison Mission Energy with five coal-burning plants in the Chicago area.
What's unknown is how the state report will deal with the most difficult issue: marginally higher costs for Illinois electricity producers, which could make them less competitive in an era when electricity is traded across state boundaries.
"We'll still buy our power," says Mark Zimmerman, manager of energy affairs for New Jersey-based BOC Gases Inc., which has two large gas production plants Downstate. "It won't be from people generating in Illinois."
Costs of pollution control equipment can vary widely, ranging from a few million dollars to $50 million or more for a 500-megawatt power plant, plus operating costs that start at about $1 million a year.
Power producers argue it will be uneconomical to retrofit smaller, older plants with coal scrubbers or other pollution-control equipment if they can't recoup those costs, forcing some to shut down. "You run the risk of fairly serious reliability implications for Chicago," says James Monk, president of the Illinois Energy Assn., a power producer trade group.
Environmentalists have been pressuring the governor for tougher rules. "I can't think of a higher priority," says Rebecca Stanfield, environmental attorney for the Illinois Public Interest Research Group. "Few states rival Illinois for how much pollution is being put out by these power plants."
Children in polluted inner cities are five times more likely than those outside to develop weak and damaged lungs - greatly increasing their risk of premature death, researchers have found.
Air pollution experts said that the study had unearthed powerful new evidence that existing controls on air pollution from traffic and factories will need to be greatly strengthened.
The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, follow a nine-year study of the link between child health and air pollution, involving more than 1,700 children and teenagers living around Los Angeles.
Scientists at the University of Southern California discovered that regular exposure to heavy levels of air pollution - chiefly from traffic - meant it was extremely likely that city children would grow up with permanent lung damage.
Scientists now believe that "critically low lung function" is second only to smoking as a cause of death.
Weak lungs are now believed to increase the risk of lung cancers or breathing disorders, because particles from air pollution, particularly from diesel exhausts, pass into the blood stream through the lungs. They also put the heart under much greater stress in later life, increasing the risks of coronaries.
Experts say that air pollutants produce chronic inflammation of lung tissues, or stop the lungs' smallest air sacs from growing properly.
Tim Brown, deputy director of the National Society for Clean Air, said these findings suggested there might be no safe level of air pollution: "Any reduction in pollution will be beneficial. We need to do a lot more to clean up city air."
OTTAWA--A coalition of U.S. and Canadian environmental groups Sept. 16 filed notice with the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) of their intent to lodge a complaint alleging that the Bush administration is failing to enforce the U.S. Clean Water Act against mercury emissions from coal-fired electricity generating plants.
The complaint to the CEC, which administers the environmental side agreement to the North American Free Trade Agreement, will allege that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is failing to effectively enforce the statute against coal-fired plants, whose emissions are polluting water bodies in both the United States and Canada, Albert Koehl, a staff lawyer with the Sierra Legal Defense Fund's Toronto office, told BNA Sept. 16.
"In general, our long-term objective is to make sure that coal-fired plants get closed," Koehl said. "Eventually, with enough attacks against coal-fired plants, there will be action to shut them down."
Koehl conceded that the NAFTA environmental agency has limited powers and can only investigate complaints and bring its findings to the attention of the environment ministers of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. But the complaint is intended to do more than raise awareness of Americans and Canadians about the environmental impacts of coal-fired generation, he said.
"They can't force anyone to do anything, but if the CEC agrees with us that the EPA is failing to enforce the Clean Water Act, it's going to be big news for a lot of Americans," he said. "This is an opportunity for us to bring this issue to the public attention and to government attention."
Request for Record of U.S. Enforcement
A draft copy of the coalition's complaint asks the CEC's secretariat to prepare a factual record on the alleged U.S. failure to effectively enforce the Clean Water Act against mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants that are degrading thousands of rivers, lakes, and other waters. The draft complaint, which is to be filed under Article 14 of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, was provided Sept. 16 to BNA.
"Water bodies in the United States and Canada are being used as toxic waste dumps for mercury emitted by coal-fired power plants, precisely the impact the Clean Water Act is designed to prevent. Coincidental to this failure of effective enforcement is the EPA refusal to impose mercury reduction requirements under the Clean Air Act on power plants, despite affordable and available technologies that can dramatically reduce such emissions," the draft said.
The draft complaint further alleges that the U.S. government's failure to effectively enforce the Clean Water Act is thwarting the main intent of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, which is to prevent the NAFTA parties from gaining trade advantages at the expense of the environment. "The obvious result of this failure to enforce environmental laws against coal-fired power plants is the very trade advantage, namely cheap power produced at the expense of the environment, which the NAAEC seeks to prevent," it said.
'Only' Major Unregulated Source
The draft complaint stresses that U.S. coal-fired electricity generating plants account for about a third of total human-generated mercury in the United States, and are the largest source of mercury air emissions in North America, yet remain the only major source of mercury emissions that are unregulated under the U.S. Clean Air Act. It cites the Toxic Release Inventory as indicating that the 1,100 coal-fired units at about 480 U.S. power plants emitted 45.2 tons of mercury to the air in 2002, and notes that the EPA puts the current figure at somewhat higher than 48 tons annually.
It cites as evidence of the environmental and human health dangers of mercury pollution the fact that methyl mercury warnings currently account for more than 75 percent of all fish consumption advisories in the United States and fully 98 percent of fish consumption advisories in the Canadian province of Ontario. In addition, the EPA has indicated that 35 percent of total lake acres and 24 percent of all river miles in the United States are now the subject of mercury advisories, it said.
The draft complaint notes that there are no realistic private remedies available to deal with the issue of mercury pollution from coal-fired generating plants. Private tort actions or other common law property rights lawsuits against the polluters face obstacles in proving causation and standing, while public nuisance suits would also be problematic since under U.S. law only government officials are well placed to prosecute such suits, it said.
Private Remedies 'Impractical.'
"It is impractical and unrealistic for individuals and nongovernmental entities with limited resources to seek redress through private remedies for a trans-national problem of such scope and complexity," it said. "The EPA administrator, as a representative of the U.S. government, is vested with the authority and responsibility to deal with the cumulative impact of American pollution from coal-fired power plants upon Americans and Canadians. The EPA's failure to do so makes this the very type of problem that the Commission for Environmental Cooperation was created to address."
The Sierra Legal Defense Fund is spearheading the coalition, which also includes the Tarrytown, N.Y.-based Waterkeeper Alliance, Ottawa-based Friends of the Earth Canada, Washington-based Friends of the Earth-U.S., Toronto-based Earthroots, the Ottawa-based Centre for Environmentally Sustainable Development, the Buffalo, N.Y.-based Great Lakes United, and the U.S. and Canadian branches of the Sierra Club.
Under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, the CEC's secretariat is tasked with determining whether complaints filed with it are valid under Article 14 of the agreement and to recommend to the three national environment ministers whether further investigation, through the development of a factual record, is warranted.
If the environment ministers approve development of a factual record, the secretariat conducts a more detailed investigation, in which accused parties are required to answer the charges made against them, and presents its findings to the ministers. The ministers are not legally obligated under the trinational agreement to accept the findings or to act on them.
The text of the coalition's complaint will be available at http://www.cec.org on the World Wide Web once it has been formally filed with the NAFTA agency.
Power plant's haze has neighbors fuming
Efforts to reduce pollution from a coal-fired generating station in Indiana are sending acid clouds across the Wabash River to Downstate Mt. Carmel
By Michael Hawthorne - Tribune staff reporter -August 29, 2004
MT. CARMEL, Il. -- On the worst day last month, the bluish haze hit Bill Maples as he rounded a corner on his way to City Hall.
"All of a sudden I started to gag and it felt like my eyes were bugging out," said Maples, this town's economic development director. Pointing toward the source of the haze, a coal-fired power plant across the Wabash River in Indiana, he added: "You don't want to be outside when it comes our way."
What started as an attempt to curb one form of air pollution at the Gibson Generating Station ended up creating another: clouds of concentrated sulfuric acid that have plagued this town of 8,000 over the summer.
The problem first drew national attention in 2002, when an Ohio utility silenced complaints about caustic mist from one of its power plants by spending $20 million to buy out the town next door. Despite industry assurances that early engineering glitches had been worked out, it is still occurring two years later at coal-burning plants from Pennsylvania to Alabama. "We've heard this too many times before," said William Auberle, acting dean of engineering at Northern Arizona University and a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's advisory committee on the Clean Air Act. "People in these towns are tired of being treated like guinea pigs as the utility industry tries to solve this problem."
Faced with a May 31 deadline from federal regulators, Cinergy Corp., the plant's owner, spent $600 million on new equipment at Gibson to help make the air cleaner in faraway places like Chicago and New York by reducing nitrogen oxide emissions.
But some of those pollution controls created the sulfurous clouds that descended on neighboring Mt. Carmel in June and July, prompting complaints from angry residents and a lawsuit from the Illinois attorney general's office. At one point, the eerie blue mist blowing into town became so intense that Illinois officials pressured the plant to shut down the system. Cinergy engineers still are trying to figure out what went wrong. "Nobody wants this problem taken care of more than us," said Bob Batdorf, the Gibson plant manager. "We're part of the community. I go to church over there. I told my folks, `If you goof, I'm dead.'"
Their attempts are being watched closely by other utilities that are relying on the same technology to reduce nitrogen oxides, chemical byproducts of coal combustion that cook with other pollutants in the atmosphere to create ground-level ozone, commonly known as smog.
Sulfuric acid, an oily, corrosive liquid that can burn skin and trigger asthma attacks, is another ingredient in the mix of chemicals spewed by coal-fired power plants. Gibson releases about 1.5 million pounds of the acid every year, but it typically dissipates in the air and isn't considered a problem.
Although the new pollution controls are reducing nitrogen oxide emissions, Batdorf said, they apparently combined with other equipment to boost the amount of sulfuric acid coming out of one of Gibson's smokestacks.
Industry analysts and federal regulators say most coal plants appear to have avoided the problem. But at least five others have installed more equipment to control the type of mist that hit Mt Carmel, a picturesque county seat 290 miles south of Chicago on the Illinois-Indiana border.
Locating culprits
The blue clouds of concentrated sulfuric acid are coming mostly from power plants in the Ohio River Valley that burn high-sulfur coal, said Chad Whiteman, deputy director of the Institute of Clean Air Companies, a trade group of firms that install pollution controls.
One of the companies Cinergy has hired to fix Gibson has installed equipment to control the mist at two other coal plants in Indiana, two in Pennsylvania and one in Alabama. In Illinois, blue clouds have sputtered out of power plants near Springfield and Marion but did not hit the ground, according to regulators.
"These blue plumes have turned into a public relations disaster for the industry," said Rob Moser, a partner at Codan Development, a Santa Cruz, Calif.-based company that specializes in removing sulfurous mist from smokestacks. "They can deal with it, but these companies aren't going to deal with it unless somebody makes them."
Rising high above trees lining the Wabash River, Gibson is one of the nation's largest power plants; only two others generated more electricity last year. Fed each day with 25,000 tons of high-sulfur coal dug from deep under Indiana and Illinois and brought to the plant by train and truck, Gibson also is one of the nation's top sources of pollution.
The first of Gibson's five 668-megawatt generators started providing electricity in 1975, five years after Congress passed the Clean Air Act. Like many of the other massive coal plants built during the period, Gibson ended up belching more pollution than the energy dinosaurs it was designed to replace.
It took more than two decades of court battles and congressional hearings for the Clean Air Act to reach Gibson and the other coal giants. The plant is cleaner today, but it still ranks among the top contributors to acid rain that kills lakes and forests, smog that makes breathing difficult and greenhouse gases linked to global climate change.
During the last four years, Cinergy, like many other utilities, installed equipment at Gibson that breaks down smog-producing nitrogen oxides into less-harmful nitrogen and water.
All five units at Gibson are equipped with the technology, known as selective catalytic reduction. Two also send the coal exhaust through scrubbers that strip out sulfur dioxide, another pollutant that causes acid rain.
In early June, soon after the controls for one of the units were turned on for the first time, the amount of sulfuric acid coming out of the smokestack became more concentrated.
Prevailing winds normally carry the plumes away from town. But during the next two months, the winds shifted and blew the mist toward Mt. Carmel. Humid weather just made the problem worse.
State EPA intervenes
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency got involved after city officials and the local health department were flooded with complaints.
"I thought I had my asthma under control, but I had trouble on the days when those clouds hit us," said Bob Bethards, 74, a retired department-store manager. "I'm usually not one to complain, but if I'm having trouble, I'm sure others are, too."
After weeks of negotiations with city officials and state environmental regulators, plant officials promised to make sure the acid doesn't sock Mt. Carmel again. Illinois officials helped draft the agreement, and the state filed suit to ensure company officials follow through with their promises, said Ann Alexander, environmental counsel for Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan.
Last week, a Wabash County judge issued an order requiring the company to comply with the agreement. To fix the problem, Cinergy is burning low-sulfur coal and tinkering with various chemical injections to prevent the formation of sulfuric acid. Testing likely will continue past the end of the summer smog season, Batdorf said. Only one of the units with both sets of pollution controls is causing trouble, he said. But nobody is sure why.
Gibson employees now are posted continually on the roof of the hulking electricity generator, their only guide a pair of makeshift sights aligned with two landmarks near the town, a cell-phone antenna and electric tower. If the smokestack plumes creep close to these imaginary lines, the pollution controls are to be immediately turned off. Cinergy also has installed a sulfuric acid monitor next to City Hall.
Norm Brunson, a city commissioner who owns a barbershop in downtown Mt. Carmel, said that no matter what happens, people will be talking for years about the blue clouds that rolled into town.
"Most of us got C's or D's in chemistry, but even I know there's a problem when they spend megabucks out there and we don't see any of the benefits," said Brunson, provoking laughter from a group of men waiting for a haircut recently.
"I'm sure they are trying to be a good neighbor," Brunson said. "But it gets to a point where you can poison people too much."
Coal gasification held back by cost
Technology significantly reduces pollution from power plants
By Robert Manor - Tribune staff reporter - August 24, 2004
Everyone speaks well of a technology that could turn Illinois coal into energy, but hardly anyone wants to spend money to use it.
A once-vibrant industry, coal mining in Illinois has lost thousands of jobs in recent years, brought down by clean-air legislation of the early 1990s. The state's coal is loaded with sulfur, forcing the coal-fired generating plants that supply nearly half the state's electricity to buy cleaner fuel from western states.
But a technology known as coal gasification radically reduces the pollutants expelled from the exhaust stacks of power plants. It is those substances--mercury and compounds of sulfur and nitrogen--that are among the nation's principal sources of air pollution and acid rain.
Environmentalists and lobbyists for the Illinois coal industry, at odds on many issues, both say coal gasification could sharply improve air quality and make Illinois coal usable again.
But there is no reason to expect it to be used in the state anytime soon. Several power plant developers are toying with the idea, which is being used at plants in Indiana and Florida.
But the two big electric-generating plants expected to open in Illinois in coming years--one Downstate and one on the former Joliet Arsenal site in Will County--have rejected it, saying conventional technology is cheaper.
"We believe that long term it represents excellent potential," said Vic Svec, a spokesman for Peabody Energy, which is building the plant near East St. Louis. "It's just not quite ready for prime time yet."
The technology of coal gasification is simple: heat coal to about 2,500 degrees under pressure. The coal's molecular bonds loosen, creating a flammable gas, known as synthesis gas, or syngas, that contains a great deal of energy and burns much cleaner. Coal gasification plants don't need the expensive scrubbers used to partly clean the emissions of traditional power plants.
"It has about 20 percent of the emissions of a regular coal-fired plant," said John Thompson, an activist with the Clean Air Task Force. "That is a huge difference."
"Those are the plants that will be able to meet existing and proposed air regulations," said Phillip Gonet, president of the Illinois Coal Association. "This is the thing I am excited about."
Converting coal into a gas is not a new idea.
In the 1800s, an industry sprang up to supply homes and businesses with gas from coal. The technology was basic: Heat coal in a closed vessel in the presence of steam and a small amount of air and draw off the gas that results. During World War I, German scientists further refined the process.
The chemistry needed to neutralize or draw off sulfur, nitrogen and mercury from syngas is uncomplicated. After the contaminants are removed, the syngas is sent to fuel combustion in a turbine that drives a generator. Waste heat from the process boils water to power a second, steam-powered generator.
Gasification yields more energy from a ton of coal than traditional burning and produces less greenhouse gases.
"You can get dramatically lower levels of emissions from it," said David Denton, business development director for Eastman Gasification Services Co. of Kingsport, Tenn.
For two decades, Eastman has built coal gasifiers for the chemical industry, which uses syngas as a component of many products. Eastman repeatedly has offered to help a utility build a coal-gasifier electrical plant but has found no takers.
"There are some perceived risks, which we believe are not real," Denton said. "Utilities are not rewarded for taking risks."
Companies that generate or deliver electricity are understandably not interested in an unproven way to produce power.
But coal gasification is not totally unproven.
A utility in Florida uses Illinois coal to feed a gasifier there. And in Indiana, a company operates a gasifier built to use coal, though it is now fed with petroleum waste. Both are small facilities, barely large enough to be considered commercial generators of electricity.
Steven Vick is general manager of Wabash Energy Ltd., which operates the gasifier in Terre Haute, Ind. It sells power to Cinergy Corp. and other utilities. "We look at it as environmental technology," Vick said. "It's 50 times cleaner." Coal gasification allows for the separation and disposal, or sequestration, as it is called, of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, both greenhouse gases. Although that process is not required, some in the utility industry think regulators will require it in the future.
The chairman of Cinergy, an electric utility serving Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, said he expects his company to seek state permission this year to build a coal-gasification plant in Indiana, in part because he expects the federal government to crack down on the emission of greenhouse gases. "If you live in a carbon-constrained world, this is your only alternative that offers the potential of carbon capture and sequestration," said Jim Rogers, who also serves as chief executive of Cinergy. But clean and efficient as it is, coal gasification has one big drawback: It costs more to build and run a coal-gasification plant than it does a traditional coal-fired plant.
Illinois has as many as 10 coal-fueled power plants in the proposal stage, though it is certain that many never will be built. But two that are likely to come on line eventually won't use coal gasification. Peabody Energy Corp. wants to build a 1,500-megawatt electric-generating plant in Washington County, about 30 miles southeast of East St. Louis. Indeck Energy Services Inc. wants to build a 660-megawatt plant on the Joliet Arsenal property in Will County. The plants will feature state-of-the-art pollution controls that will make them far cleaner than the state's existing coal-fired plants. But each could emit fewer pollutants if powered by coal gasification.
"We asked both of those companies to consider coal gasification," said Don Sutton, manager of the permit section at the state's Bureau of Air. "They said it financially could not be done."
Indeck says it found lenders would not finance its $1 billion project. "Gasification will be commercial some day," said Jim Thompson, senior vice president of Indeck. "We are not there today." Estimates vary, but industry observers say a coal-gasification plant would cost 15 percent to 50 percent more than a conventional, coal-fired generating plant. That translates to hundreds of millions of dollars in extra cost. "We have worked extremely hard to bring in [coal gasification] projects," said Bill Hoback, bureau chief of the state's Office of Coal Development. He said nearly everyone concludes it is not financially possible.
Still, some in the electric industry see Illinois, with its cheap coal and growing demand for power, as a logical site for the first large coal-gasification plant in the country. "We are currently taking a very hard look to see whether we can make it work," said David Schwartz, a partner with Erora Group, a Kentucky company that develops electricity-generating plants.
Erora would like to build a 644-megawatt power plant near the mouth of a coal mine in Christian County, just southeast of Springfield. "We think [coal gasification] has a lot of promise," Schwartz said. "But there has never been a plant this big in the U.S."
Record 600,000 Protest Bush Plan to Weaken Mercury Emission Controls June 28, 2004
Tomorrow marks the last day for the public to comment on the highest-profile battle in years between the Bush administration
and advocates of public health. The administration is under court order to finalize the first-ever federal regulations to reduce poisonous emissions of mercury from power plants--the largest uncontrolled source of mercury pollution in the U.S.
The battle is marked by an unprecedented public protest against a Bush administration Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal that would allow power plants to emit six to seven times more mercury into America's air--and for at least a decade longer--than would be the case if the current Clean Air Act were simply implemented in good faith.
An EPA analysis earlier this year stated that 630,000 American newborns are at risk each year of having unsafe levels of mercury in their blood. Mercury can cause serious developmental and neurological problems in children. It is a highly toxic chemical whose effects on the central nervous system are comparable to those of lead. Many people are exposed to mercury by eating tainted fish. Currently, more than 40 states have issued advisories against eating mercury-contaminated fish from their rivers, lakes and streams.
Properly implemented, the Clean Air Act would bring about a 90 percent reduction of mercury emissions over three years. But the Bush administration has stubbornly defended its plan to reduce mercury emissions by only 70 percent--and over a period of 13 years. As a result, over 600,000 citizens have submitted comments opposing the Bush plan. This is more than twice the highest number of comments EPA has ever received on a rulemaking--greater even than the outcry when the administration tried (unsuccessfully) to fend off stronger controls over arsenic in drinking water.
Two months ago 45 Senators and 10 attorneys general called on EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt to abandon the EPA proposal and instead finalize a rule that complies with the Clean Air Act. And this week 184 members of the House did the same.
"It seems the only people applauding the administration's mercury rule are the people who wrote it: power companies and the Bush administration," Angela Ledford, director of Clear the Air, an environmental health advocacy group, told BushGreenwatch. "Today's Washington Post reports that mercury releases are up 10 percent. This underlines the need to require power plants to reduce emissions as much and as fast as technology allows."
Critics of the Bush plan note that a combination of 25 mercury-emitting utilities have donated nearly $6 million to President Bush's campaign, and that they would share a savings of $2.7 billion under the administration proposal.
Blackout benefit? Cleaner U.S. skies FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS
COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Last summer's great Northeast blackout had a silver lining - cleaner skies downwind from the Midwestern power plants that were idled, researchers say.
Aircraft sampling in the 24 hours following the blackout found a 90 per cent drop in sulfur dioxide and a 50 per cent cut in ozone levels, while visibility increased by more than 40 kilometres, University of Maryland researchers report.
Maryland's top environmental official said the results prove what state officials have long argued - the region suffers from air pollution created elsewhere.
"It's not a model, not a meteorologist's dream. The pollution cuts actually happened," said Kendl P. Philbrick, Maryland's secretary of the environment.
While the administration of Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich generally supports President Bush's efforts to allow utilities to increase capacity without costly emissions improvements, Philbrick said Maryland is a special case.
"We're saying, 'Hey look, we need help here. You've got to do more ... because we are in a special area,'" Philbrick said.
The measurements were taken as part of a 13-year effort to track air pollution in the Baltimore-Washington area.
From May to September, University of Maryland researchers take measurements twice a day aboard a specially equipped airplane.
On Aug. 15, the researchers realized the blackout the night before provided a rare opportunity - to compare pollution in an area downwind of idled power plants with pollution downwind of unaffected plants.
They took air samples over central Pennsylvania - in the path of air blowing in from the blacked-out region - and compared them with air samples they had taken that day over Virginia and western Maryland.
They found sulfur dioxide levels measured over Pennsylvania were 90 per cent lower and ozone levels were 50 per cent lower.
"We had ideas of what the power plants were contributing to regional air quality," said Brett F. Taubman, a graduate student in chemistry who was aboard the plane that day. "This was the first opportunity to directly measure a large scale-back like this. And the results were far greater than we ever imagined."
While pollutants most closely linked to power plants were lower, soot and carbon monoxide - which are more closely associated with automobile pollution - remained steady.
A power industry spokesperson said tougher emissions rules could decrease reliability and increase costs. Scott H. Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, said that stiffening those rules "has a direct implication for the ability to maintain power plants."
The University of Maryland study is to be published in the next issue of Geophysical Research Letters.
Electric power plants #1 source of toxic air pollution in North America
2 June 2004 (Montreal)-Electric power plants are the number one toxic air polluter in North America, accounting for almost half of all industrial air emissions in 2001, says a new report by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC).
The findings are part of Taking Stock 2001, the trinational organization's annual report on chemical pollution from industrial facilities. The report compares data submitted to the Canadian and United States federal governments by 21,254 facilities, which monitor their releases of toxic chemicals, including carcinogens and neurotoxicants to the air, land and water.
According to the data, 46 of the top 50 air polluters in North America were power plants. The sector generated 45 percent of the 755,502 tonnes of toxic air releases in 2001, with hydrochloric and sulfuric acids being the chemicals most commonly released from the burning of coal and oil. Power plants also accounted for 64 percent (43,384 kg) of all mercury air emissions, mainly from coal combustion.
Overall in North America, air releases decreased by 18 percent from 1998 to 2001. However, air releases, including smokestack emissions, continued to account for almost two-thirds of the chemicals released by companies on-site. For electric power plants, the decrease in toxic air releases was half the rate of other sectors over the same time period.
"We're still pumping more chemicals into the air than all other methods of release combined. We've shown that it's possible to reduce pollution, but cleaner air requires industry, government and the public to work together for cleaner fuels, conservation and more renewable energy," says William Kennedy, executive director of the CEC.
Taking Stock's analysis of the 204 chemicals common to both the Canadian and US reporting systems revealed that 1.4 million tonnes of chemicals were released into the environment in North America in 2001. Another 1.5 million tonnes were transferred to recycling, energy recovery and treatment facilities.
In the United States, three coal-fired power plants reported the largest toxic air releases in 2001: CP&L Roxboro Steam Electric Plant in Semora, North Carolina, Reliant Energy's Keystone Power Plant in Shelocta, Pennsylvania, and Georgia Power Bowen Steam Electric Generating Plant in Cartersville, Georgia. These three plants each reported more than 7,400 tonnes of toxic air releases and were responsible for over seven percent of the total toxic air releases in the US. Reliant also recorded the largest on-site air emissions of mercury (819 kg) of any power plant in Taking Stock.
In Canada, a single facility is responsible for eight percent of all toxic air emissions: Ontario Power Generation's Nanticoke Generation Station. The coal power plant was also responsible for the second largest on-site air releases of mercury (226 kg) by a Canadian electrical facility, following Alberta's TransAlta Corporation's Sundance Thermal Generating Plant at 270 kg.
Taking Stock 2001 is the eighth report of the series to compare industrial pollution sources in North America. The report is intended to help identify opportunities for pollution reduction, and is based upon the pollution inventories of the United States and Canada. Mexico does not yet require reporting, but is expected to announce a mandatory and publicly accessible pollutant release and transfer registry (PRTR) in the near future.
Do you have a question about a particular facility, industrial sector, province or state? The Taking Stock Online web site <www.cec.org/takingstock> allows users to customize reports by chemical, facility, sector or geographic region.
It's odorless, tasteless and colorless. Before we knew better, we used to put it in our gasoline (to boost engine performance) and paint (as a pigment). But now elevated levels of lead in water are prompting plenty of Washington-area households to regard the stuff pouring out of their taps with suspicion, anger and fear. What is it about this molecule of metal that makes it so dangerous? The problem is that while lead is toxic to humans, the body doesn't recognize it as a poison. " The body does not distinguish well between lead and calcium," said Mary Jean Brown, head of the lead prevention program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. Because the chemical structures are similar, the body treats lead as it does the essential nutrient. And everywhere that calcium goes, lead follows. " Every enzyme system that has lead thrown at it is poisoned, and essentially doesn't work as well as it would have without the lead there," Brown said. After lead enters the digestive tract, it moves into the bloodstream; some of it ends up in the bones, where it can remain for decades. Lead disrupts production of hemoglobin -- a component of red blood cells that carries oxygen to body tissues -- which leads to anemia; interferes with neuron development and neural function, which can cause cognitive problems; affects kidneys, which can lead to hypertension and even renal failure. Lead is especially harmful to children 6 and under. At high levels -- well above those found in even the District's worst water and 10 to 20 times higher than the blood lead levels D.C. officials have found in children recently -- lead can cause coma, convulsions and even death in children.
During times of bone density loss, such as pregnancy and menopause, lead already stored in the bones leaks back into the bloodstream. In pregnant women, lead crosses into the placenta and is absorbed by the fetus. Lead in the womb can increase the risk of miscarriage, stunt the fetus's growth and cause hearing problems and learning disabilities. Lead absorption may also increase during pregnancy -- possibly because pregnant women are absorbing higher levels of calcium and other minerals.
Over the past three decades, the removal of lead from gasoline, paint, solders and food cans has dramatically reduced children's lead exposure. In a national sampling taken in 1976, nearly 88 percent of children age 6 and under tested at or above the CDC's current safety threshold of 10 micrograms per deciliter of blood for youngsters of that age. In 2000, the figure was about 2 percent. (In the District, about 8 percent of young children have elevated lead levels.)
Despite the progress in recent years, lead is still considered by public health officials to be one of the top environmental health dangers for children. "Lead is one of the most important environmental exposures in childhood, and it's certainly the best documented, and perhaps the most pervasive," Brown said.
In Old Paint
While public anger has centered on the high levels of lead in the District's tap water -- along with the failure of officials to warn residents promptly -- some experts regard water as ordinarily a minor player when it comes to environmental lead risk.
Drinking water, estimates the Environmental Protection Agency, is the source of up to 20 percent of Americans' lead exposure. (Officials note one important exception here: Formula-fed infants may get as much as 40 to 60 percent of their lead exposure from water.) On the whole, though, many health experts argue that other environmental sources of lead are more dangerous in size and effect. One such source is paint in older housing, the main source of human exposure to lead. Other sources are certain contaminated soils, imported pottery with lead glaze, some old mini-blinds, folk remedies (such as greta, a Mexican folk remedy taken commonly for stomachache or intestinal illness) and imported candies.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that 40 percent of U.S. homes have lead-based paint, and about 25 percent of American children age 6 and under live in lead-hazard housing. Because more than half the District's housing stock was built before 1950, it contains much more lead-based paint than most communities' housing, according to the Alliance for Healthy Homes, a nonprofit group that works to protect children from lead hazards. According to national statistics, adjusted to reflect the age of D.C.'s housing stock, 118,000 homes in the District are estimated to pose lead-based paint and dust hazards. Muriel Wolf, a pediatrician at Children's National Medical Center, says that of the 30 to 50 children who are typically being treated by the hospital for elevated lead levels at a given time, 95 percent have been exposed to lead through paint.
" I suspect that this business in the water may not turn out to be a major thing in terms of the kids. However, I think what's it's doing is alerting us to the fact that lead is not a benign thing," Wolf said. "It's important to make sure what the story is with the water, but the real issue is the lead in the paint and the dust."
Some recent developments offer support for that view. Last week, D.C. officials found that 12 of the 14 children younger than 6 who had elevated blood lead levels live in homes with unacceptable levels of lead in soil or dust, most likely from lead-based paint.
Disadvantage, All Health experts worry especially about lead exposure involving children 6 and under not only because their brains and organs are still developing, but also because they absorb a much higher percentage of the lead that they swallow or inhale. That's because the element masquerades as good minerals like calcium and iron, which their growing bodies are taking in at prodigious rates. While a child 7 or older may absorb only 10 percent of the lead he inhales, eats or drinks, the CDC's Brown estimates, a child 6 and under may absorb 50 percent.
Children who don't have enough calcium or iron in their diet will absorb lead at a still greater rate, as their bodies try to make up for the nutrients they lack. Low-income children are at highest risk for lead poisoning. Not only are they the most likely to have poor nutrition, but they also tend to live in housing with old, chipping lead paint and paint dust. Because African American and Hispanic children have been proven more likely than other children to have elevated lead levels, some researchers speculate that genetic differences may be accountable. Brown suspects the discrepancy is attributable instead to the high percentage of minorities living in older, deteriorating housing in large cities. Most experts agree with her.
" People who are in high-poverty families are at greater risk of exposure, and the main reason is that their housing is often substandard," said Pierre Erville, senior program manager at the National Safety Council.
" D.C. has more than twice the national average of pre-1950 housing," Erville said. "And when you combine that with the high poverty rate and other demographic factors, it points to a potentially serious lead poisoning." When lead paint cracks or flakes, chips and dust can cover furniture, children's toys and other household items. The smallest children, the ones at highest risk, are also the ones who spend the most time on the floor and tend to put everything in their mouths. But Barbara Sattler, director of the environmental health education center at the University of Maryland, warns against assuming only poor children have elevated lead levels. " The issue around lead poisoning is not whether you are rich or poor. The issue around lead poisoning is whether or not you are exposed to lead," Sattler said. Not just substandard housing but home renovations or even sanding and repainting can expose children to high levels of lead, she said. Because a child's body doesn't excrete lead easily, Sattler and other health experts worry about a cumulative effect with the lead in the District's water.
Tee L. Guidotti, acting director for the Center for Risk Science and Public Health at George Washington University's School of Public Health and Health Services, said because lead safety thresholds are lower for children than adults, children get to levels that cause toxic effects much more quickly. " It's not the average child that we're worrying about with the lead levels in D.C. tap water," Guidotti said. "The child that we're really concerned about is the one who already has elevated lead levels." The fear, he said, is that "the lead in D.C. tap water might push them over that line."
Is Any Level Kid-Safe?
When lead passes the brain barrier in a child, it can cause problems with learning and language skill development and possibly contribute to behavioral problems. " I've seen children who have had significant intellectual impairment as a result of lead," said Wolf. "It can cause learning disabilities with kids, so it can have long-term effects." Research has suggested a connection between lead and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and several studies have found a correlation between high levels of lead and juvenile delinquency. The effects of lead on intelligence and cognition are well documented, but the relationship between lead and behavior has proven more difficult to measure. Doctors aren't exactly sure why elevated levels of lead in children cause lower IQ, but they speculate that when lead replaces calcium in the brain, it somehow interferes with brain development.
Once the cognitive damage has been done, it appears to be irreversible. Children with high levels of lead in their blood are treated with drugs that bind with the lead (in a process called chelation) and help the body excrete it. But although medication can lower blood lead levels, a study by Walter Rogan, an epidemiologist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, found that children who had received such treatment did not improve on psychological, behavioral or IQ tests. " You can't reverse the effects by treating them, at least not when their blood levels are 20 to 45 [micrograms]," Rogan said -- two to five times the current CDC safety threshold for young children.
The search is on for medications that may help. Researchers who published an article in last week's Annals of Neurology may have found the genetic pathway that high lead levels trigger to cause brain edema, a potentially fatal swelling of the brain. The researchers also found that drugs that interfere with the pathway could prevent edema. Lead author John Laterra of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine said he's hopeful that further research will lead to the development of medications that could reverse cognitive deficits caused by smaller amounts of lead in children. " There is a reasonable expectation that we could develop the means to minimize the disease in lead-exposed children," Laterra said. However, any such solution is years away.
In the past year, the CDC's lead safety thresholds have been called into question. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that children with blood-lead concentrations of 10 micrograms -- at the top of the officially presumed safe level -- had IQ scores 7.4 points lower than children with levels of one microgram or less. Ironically, children in the study had the steepest loss in IQ at lead levels below 10 micrograms. At levels above 10, IQ continued to drop, but not as sharply.
Lead author Richard Canfield and his fellow researchers called their findings consistent with previous research showing "that the effects of lead on IQ are proportionally greater at lower lead concentrations," and cited three other studies that they said support their findings. Nearly one in 10 children 6 and under have a lead level above five micrograms, according to CDC figures. But Wolf warned that more studies are needed before it could be confirmed that even low lead levels can affect children's IQ.
One problem in doing such research: Until recently, it's been hard to find children with levels lower than 10 micrograms to study. Because lead contamination has been so pervasive, in the 1970s and well into the '80s, the average blood lead level in children was 17 micrograms. " Reducing blood lead levels in the United States in the last 40 years is a true public success story, but our success is tempered by the fact that as average blood lead levels come down, we begin to find adverse effects at even lower levels," Brown said.
Lead and the Rest of Us
Because adults absorb less lead than children and what is absorbed has less toxic effect, adults can tolerate higher levels of lead than kids. Guidotti said that the lead in the paint in older homes or even the elevated levels of lead in D.C. water shouldn't pose a danger to adults. But at high levels, lead will harm adults as well. Guidotti said the metal can affect fertility and sexual function, interfere with kidney function, cause muscle aches and possibly act as a carcinogen. At extreme levels, lead can cause paralysis and even death. Recent research has found that even mildly elevated lead levels may increase blood pressure. Brown said because fetuses are "exquisitely sensitive to lead," pregnant women should have lead levels as low as possible and certainly below 10 micrograms. Lead will also pass into breast milk, so nursing mothers need to be conscious of lead exposure as well. For the rest of us, he said: " Officially, the line has been drawn at 25 micrograms per deciliter, but there are those that argue that adults should not have blood levels higher than what we see in children." Most adults with elevated lead levels have been exposed in the workplace. Painters, structural iron workers and workers in battery plants are at risk. Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations say a worker cannot have blood-lead levels of more than 50 micrograms, but some lead experts say OSHA needs to lower the standard. " Lead is a much less common health hazard at a critical level in adults, but we still see it often enough that it's one of the more common chemical hazards in the workplace," Guidotti said. "We like to think of it as an old hazard, but the truth is that we see it all the time."* Elizabeth Agnvall last wrote for the Health section about sickle cell disease
