toxics

By Gabe Christenson and Steve Zeltser - Work Week Radio, February 6, 2023

By Lauren Bianchi - Labor Notes, January 31, 2023

For two years, teachers and staff in my workplace, George Washington High School, helped lead a community campaign to stop a hazardous industrial metal shredder, General Iron, from moving a few blocks from our school.

Repeating a historic pattern, city officials facilitated General Iron’s planned move from the wealthy and white Lincoln Park neighborhood where it had operated for decades to the working-class, majority Latino Southeast Side.

Our campaign won a major victory when we pressured Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Chicago Department of Public Health into denying the final operating permit for General Iron. It took years of mobilizing, street protest, and a month-long hunger strike to force the mayor to do the right thing.

The experience of Chicago Teachers Union members in the #StopGeneralIron campaign highlights the power of union members when we stand shoulder to shoulder with environmental justice activists to demand safe living and working conditions.

By staff - US Chemical Safety Board, October 27, 2022

By Mariah Castañeda - L.A. Taco, October 26, 2022

When workers tasked with cleaning up toxic lead dust spilled by the Exide battery recycling plant from Guadalupe Valdovinos’ yard started packing up, she noticed they hadn’t finished. She saw a large patch of soil on her property that they hadn’t touched. 

When she insisted they missed a spot, she remembers the clean-up workers rudely said that cleaning up the untouched corner of her property “wasn’t part of the plan.” 

Valdovinos says that the apparent disregard for her home started early in the clean-up process “They would hit and break things. We expected them to repair it. They were hostile. They were they would grunt or be very like, well, we didn’t do that,” said Valdovinos, “Like, we didn’t come at them attacking them. We were just pointing out, hey. You broke something. And they took it very offensive, like, No, we didn’t do that. No, that’s not our problem. So that was another issue. Yeah, it wasn’t a friendly environment.”

She complained about the clean-up at an Environmental Board Meeting in July and addressed California’s Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC), the state agency responsible for cleaning up the mess made by Exide Technologies’ battery recycling plant. For decades, Exide belched out thousands of tons of poisonous lead dust across the predominantly Latino communities surrounding the industrial city of Vernon. 

“I’m here to urge the Council and DTSC not to contract the cleaning crew National Engineering Consulting Company Group, also known as NEC because they are not professional,” said Valdovinos at the Environmental Board Meeting.

She was hardly the first to complain of sloppy standards affecting the cleanup of more than 7 million pounds of lead dust spewed out by Exide. Residents have long complained about issues with the cleanup, and now employees of the contractors responsible for the cleanup are speaking out too. Reporting by L.A. TACO found two incidents of severe injuries to subcontractor workers due to possibly unsafe working conditions and questionable treatment of poisonous lead dust. 

One cleanup worker died after suffering injuries inflicted by a Bobcat digger at one site in 2020. At another, in the spring of 2022, an employee of a state contractor was severely injured by a pickax blow to their chest and shoulder area after a site was not appropriately cleared for overhead hazards. 

By Cristen Hemingway Jaynes - EcoWatch, September 13, 2022

While the chemical industry provides society with useful materials, it is also a heavy contributor to plastic waste being released into the planet’s oceans, greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, biodiversity loss and divergence from natural biogeochemical cycles, a press release from The University of Tokyo’s Center for Global Commons (CGC) said.

According to a new report from CGC and system change company Systemiq, 29 million new jobs could be created by the chemical industry embracing technology that is low-carbon and more efficient, The Guardian reported.

Around four percent of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the global chemical industry, reported The University of Tokyo.

The Planet Positive Chemicals report from Systemiq emphasized that the chemical industry must switch to a low emissions model that is more circular and end its reliance on fossil fuels in order to become a beneficial force for the planet.

By Joshua Frank - CounterPunch, September 9, 2022

A version of the following was presented at Socialism 2022, sponsored by Haymarket Books, which just published Joshua Frank’s Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America.

Thanks everyone for showing up for this talk. I think it’s a vitally important topic, but I’ll admit, it’s a bit disheartening that it’s now a subject of debate on the Left.

I’ve long believed that we ought to build on the successes that came before us, not tear them down. Sadly, with the wrath of climate change impacting every corner of the earth, that is exactly what some are attempting to do. Last week a friend sent me an NPR story, “When Even Environmentalists Support Nuclear Power.” I read it, it’s awful propaganda that distorts the reality of how many of us view nuclear power and will continue to fight against it.

By Olivia N. Guarna - Vermont Law & Graduate School Center for Agriculture & Food Systems and Farmworker Justice , September 2022

THE USE OF PESTICIDES IS UBIQUITOUS IN OUR FOOD SYSTEM. In the United States, approximately 1 billion pounds of pesticides are applied annually across sectors. Nearly 90 percent of conventional pesticides are applied in the agricultural sector. As a result, farmworkers are routinely exposed at unusually high rates to chemicals that pose substantial risk to human health and safety. These risks are exacerbated by insufficient worker training and frequent improper handling and application.

Vermont Law and Graduate School’s Center for Agriculture and Food Systems released a report in 2021 entitled Essentially Unprotected, which contains a detailed overview of the landscape of pesticide laws at the federal and state level. As demonstrated in the report, there are still key gaps in existing law to sufficiently protect farmworkers. Given these significant gaps, it is particularly alarming that compliance with current protections appears woefully low. The failure to adequately enforce pesticide laws leaves farmworkers unprotected and at continued risk of injury and illness.

The system of pesticide law enforcement is complex and varies widely between states. This report seeks to explain some of the nuance reflected in the regulatory structure of enforcement while highlighting recommendations for consistency and improved health and safety outcomes. However, it is essential to note that poor compliance and enforcement are symptomatic of other issues, many of which plague farmworkers beyond pesticide exposure. For example, enforcement is considerably affected by workers underreporting exposure incidents and suspected violations due to fear of retaliation by their employers.

Many farmworkers are undocumented or on an H-2A guestworker visa and thus face fears of deportation or blacklisting if they speak out against employer abuse. Additionally, farmworkers often do not have access or resources to seek out medical attention after exposure. If they do, doctors may not be aware that their symptoms indicate pesticide poisoning or may not know how and to whom to report the incident. Even when doctors can draw the connection, not all states require that doctors notify health authorities or the state agency responsible for enforcement.e, enforcement is considerably affected by workers underreporting exposure incidents and suspected violations due to fear of retaliation by their employers.

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By Ian Lindsley and Tony Musu - European Trade Union Institute, May 2022

(Including cytotoxics and based on the EU CLP classification system of Carcinogenic, Mutagenic and Reprotoxic (CMR) substances)

Workers exposed to hazardous medicinal products (HMPs), or hazardous drugs, which are carcinogenic, mutagenic or reprotoxic substances (CMRs), within the meaning of the recently adopted Carcinogens, Mutagens and Reprotoxic Substances Directive (CMRD – Directive (EU) 2022/431), must be given specific training by their employers to prevent risks of adverse effects on their health.

In order to help employers meet their obligations, the European Commission has to publish European guidelines for the safe management of HMPs at work, including cytotoxics, by the end of 2022, and must draw up a definition and establish an indicative list of HMPs that are CMRs, no later than 5 April 2025.

The objective of this ETUI report and the list included is to identify which HMPs fall under the legislative scope of the CMRD in Europe, so that users of the European 2022 guidelines know which specific HMPs the guidelines now apply to, well ahead of the Commission’s indicative list, to be published by 2025.

Read the report (Link).

By staff - Union of Concerned Scientists, February 17, 2022

What happened: Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) directed agency staff to alter certain chemical safety studies in a way that downplayed the chemical’s health risks. EPA officials have pressured staff to alter hazard information, undermine research, and remove scientific information on potentially toxic chemicals.

Why it matters: By interfering with chemical safety studies, EPA officials undermined one of the major ways by which the federal government protects people from exposure to toxic chemicals. Not only does this action violate the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), but it also endangers the health and safety of communities across the US, especially underserved communities.

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are pressuring agency employees to tamper with the risk assessments of dozens of hazardous chemicals by excluding evidence of adverse health impacts. Reports of deleted language and major revisions in chemical risk assessments against the consent of agency scientists in response to higher management violates the rules and regulations as outlined by the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976 which states the EPA is required to uphold the “reporting, record-keeping, and testing requirements and restrictions relating to chemical substances and/or mixtures.”

Four EPA scientists who worked at the agency's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention stated that they had experienced numerous incidents in which management and staff pressured them or their colleagues to alter risk assessments in a way that fell out of line with the best available scientific evidence. In a complaint submitted to the EPA inspector on behalf of the four scientists, these unauthorized interferences include deleted language identifying potential adverse effects of toxic chemicals, major revisions that alter the conclusions of a toxic chemical’s toxicity, and risk assessments being assigned to inexperienced employees to avoid pushback.

By Josh Saul - Bloomberg, September 30, 2021

After part of the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery exploded into flames one night in 2019, its owners filed for bankruptcy and put the 1,300-acre site up for sale. Hilco Global, a company with a track record of transforming fossil-fuel infrastructure like coal-fired power plants, bought the South Philadelphia facility out of bankruptcy with a grand new vision that includes logistics facilities and research labs.

But first the company has a daunting task: safely dismantling over 100 buildings, 3,000 tanks and 950 miles of dirty pipeline.

The Problem

Oil refining has taken place on the banks of the Schuylkill River since just after the Civil War. By the time the explosion scattered debris across the site and even over the river, the PES Oil Refinery was turning 330,000 barrels of crude day into gasoline, diesel and other petroleum products such as heating oil and jet fuel.

Right now, some parts of the PES Oil Refinery have the feel of a ghost town. Weeds sprout head-high among the pipelines, Canada geese strut down empty roads and small herds of deer bound past a silent railyard. But other parts are bustling with workers and big, yellow excavators as Hilco enters the second year of taking apart equipment and preparing the site for construction. The first tenants are supposed to move into the site in 2023.