By Angene Johnson After a recent dinner at my uncleâs house in Virginia, I finally had a chance to look at the March edition of National Geographic on my train ride back to Foggy Bottom (Washington, DC). Â As I flipped through the front of the magazine towards this monthâs cover article, on saving energy in […]
University of Maryland Law Professor Rena Steinzor called for fundamental changes to the role of OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in federal regulatory review, at a House Committee hearing held on April 30. The Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the Committee on Science and Technology has been examining OIRA’s functions and responsibilities, with the chairman stating: “…Though […]
Weâve written before about the problem of contaminated water at the Camp Lejeune military base in North Carolina. Between 1957 and 1987, the baseâs water was contaminated with the industrial chemicals TCE and PCE, which are linked to a long list of health problems, including leukemia and neural tube defects in children exposed in the […]
The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970, and it heralded a new era in the US. The New Yorkerâs Elizabeth Kolbert explains: Among those who seemed unmoved was President Richard Nixon. He avoided the festivities and made no public comment on them. (One of his aides, John Whitaker, later acknowledged that the […]
by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure When a small body of water, say a slow flowing creek or water in a drainage ditch, “goes septic” it starts to stink, often giving off a rotten egg odor (hydrogen sulfide, H2S). This isn’t a sign that the water is polluted in the chemical sense of toxic materials. […]
by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure If you have any of your clothes dry cleaned it’s more than likely you are being exposed to a chlorinated solvent called PCE (for perchloroethylene aka perc aka tetrachloroethylene/tetrachloroethene). You may be lucky enough to also get some in your drinking water, too (which means you are also breathing […]
by Ken Ward, Jr., cross-posted from Sustained Outrage: A Gazette Watchdog blog Last August, Kanawha Valley residents lived through the spectacle of their public safety officials practically begging the folks who run the Bayer CropScience chemical plant to tell them what was on fire, and what toxic chemicals residents nearby were being exposed to. Remember […]
Bill 167’s purpose is quite simple: “to prevent pollution and protect human health and the environment by reducing the use and creation of toxic substances, and to inform Ontarians about toxic substances” The bill, introduced on April 7 in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, is compared favorably to the 1989 Massachusetts’ Toxics Reduction Act (TURA). Under the Massachusetts’ program, hundreds of […]
The Associated Press is reporting that last month MSHA inspectors found tremolite asbestos at a quarry owned by the Ash Grove Cement Company, part of its Kaiser plant in Jefferson County, Montana. The article quotes MSHA spokeswoman Amy Louviere saying that asbestos is present in the pit as âisolated occurrencesâ due to geologic intrusions in certain zones of the quarry. Isolated occurrences?….of […]
by Madison Hardee Studying public health over the last two years, drinking water in the US and in the developing world is a regular topic of conversation. In my studies, I was surprised to learn that only 1% of the worldâs fresh water is available for human use (drinking, sanitation crops, etc.) The rest of the […]