toxics

Staff Report - Russia Times, November 17, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Four DuPont employees were killed and another injured when a toxic chemical was spilled at its plant in La Porte, Texas, on Saturday morning. Residents of the city complained of a persistent “funny smell” after the incident.

The company would not immediately identify the victims of the spill [they've since been identified as Crystal Rae Wise, brothers Gilbert and Robert Tisnado, and Wade Baker; for details see the link, below]. The emergency started at around 4 a.m. local time. It took repair crews two hours to replace a ruptured valve in the crop protection unit and contain the chemical. The confirmation of fatalities was released 12 hours after the incident.

The chemical spilled was methyl mercaptan, or methanethiol,which is used to make feed stock for insecticides and fungicides. It is more commonly known for being added to naturally odorless propane and natural gas to give them a distinctive rotten egg smell, making leaks detectable. In high concentration it can cause headaches, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, coma, and death.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the employees,” plant manager Randall Clements said in a statement. “There are no words to fully express the loss we feel or the concern and sympathy we extend to the families of the employees and their co-workers.”

“We will continue to cooperate with all the local authorities, and make sure that we investigate this fully and we will find the cause of this, at this point, we don’t know why this happened,” he added.

The workers were exposed to the chemical as they responded to the leak. DuPont insists that at no time were people living in the vicinity of the plant in danger.

Local residents, however, complained of a foul odor on Saturday morning.

“We are used to funny smells around here, especially when the wind is out of the north,” La Porte resident Dudley Crittendon told Click2Houston.com. “We thought something had died in the house. We started burning candles but it didn’t go away.”

La Porte is located in Harris County, about 20 miles east of Houston. DuPont’s chemical plant employs 320 people. Four other companies are also tenants at the same complex, according to AP.

For a more detailed investigation of this incident, please see Victims of DuPont in Texas, Socialist Worker, November 18, 2014

By Anastasia Pantsios - EcoWatch, November 12, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Issues that primarily impact women often end up on the back burner. Maybe that’s why the new study from Women’s Voices for the Earth (WVE) on the health impacts of exposure to salon chemicals on the (mostly) women who work in personal care salons is the first of its kind. The study, Beauty and Its Beast: Unlocking the Impact of Toxic Chemicals on Salon Workers, reveals that long-term exposure to products routinely used in salons leads to an array of negative health conditions frequently suffered by beauticians and other salon workers.

“Studies across the globe have found correlations between chemical exposures in salons and adverse health outcomes in employees,” said the study’s lead author Alexandra Scranton, director of science and research for WVE. “However, until now, there has never been a comprehensive review of existing science that brings all the players onto one stage.”

“Salon workers, a population dominated by women, are exposed to a myriad of chemicals of concern every day in their workplaces,” says the study. “Hair sprays, permanent waves, acrylic nail application and numerous other salon products contain ingredients associated with asthma, dermatitis, neurological symptoms and even cancer. Salon workers absorb these chemicals through their skin and breathe them in as fumes build up in the air of the salon over the course of the workday. Research shows that salon workers are at greater risk for certain health problems compared to other occupations.”

By Alexandra Scranton - Women's Voices for the Earth, November 2014

3salon workers, a population dominated by women, are exposed to a myriad of chemicals of concern everyday in their workplaces. Hair sprays, permanent waves, acrylic nail application, and numerous other salon products contain ingredients associated with asthma, dermatitis, neurological symptoms and even cancer. Salon workers absorb these chemicals through their skin and breathe them in as fumes build up in the air of the salon over the course of the workday. Research shows that salon workers are at greater risk for certain health problems compared to other occupations. This report will highlight the results of decades of research on the beauty care workforce, demonstrating the disproportionate incidence of cancers, neurological diseases, immune diseases, birth defects, reproductive disorders, skin diseases, asthma, and breathing problems in this population. Clearly, action is needed to improve conditions for salon workers and to help create and ensure healthier workplaces in the future. Recommendations for salon workers, salon owners, salon product manufacturers, and researchers, as well as long-term policy solutions, are presented in this report as options for improving the health and safety of salon workers.

Read the report (PDF).

By Alan H Lockwood, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Lisa Evans, Earth Justice - Report, August 2014

Take a deep breath. But if you live near a coal-burning power plant that dumps coal ash into a nearby landfill or lagoon, don’t inhale too deeply because you’re probably breathing fugitive dust made up of airborne coal ash filled with dangerous and toxic pollutants. Whether blown from an uncovered dump site or from the back of an open truck, toxic dust contaminates hundreds of fence line communities across the country. Acrid dust stings residents’ eyes and throats, and asthmatics, young and old, are forced to reach for inhalers. Breathing this toxic dust can be deadly, and yet no federal standards exist to protect affected communities.

This report describes the health impacts of the pollution found in coal ash dust. It also points to the imminent need for federal controls to limit exposure and protect the health of millions of Americans who live near coal ash dumps. Coal combustion waste (or coal ash), particularly fly ash, a major component of coal ash waste, poses significant health threats because of the toxic metals present in the ash, such as arsenic, mercury, chromium (including the highly toxic and carcinogenic chromium VI), lead, uranium, selenium, molybdenum, antimony, nickel, boron, cadmium, thallium, cobalt, copper, manganese, strontium, thorium, vanadium and others. Ironically, as coal plant pollution controls like electrostatic precipitators and baghouse filters become more effective at trapping fly ash and decreasing coal plant air pollution, the waste being dumped into coal ash waste streams is becoming more toxic.

Read the report (PDF).

By Kristin Stade - Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), July 17, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Washington, DC — New testing in Malibu school facilities reveals illegal levels of a toxic compound dramatically higher than previously reported--as much as 7400 times higher than legal limits and the highest known results for a classroom in the U.S. -- according to a document submitted today by Malibu Unites and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The groups are calling upon the EPA to reject Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District’s plan to leave polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) found inside the schools in place for up to 15 years.

For months, teachers at Malibu Middle and High Schools and Juan Cabrillo Elementary School have raised concerns to the District about toxic contamination on campus, citing multiple cases of thyroid cancer and a dozen cases of thyroid disease. Others complain of rashes, migraines, hair loss and other health effects they believe stem from their work environment. PCBs are classified as a group 1 carcinogen and are linked with serious health effects even at low levels, such as lower IQ and autism.

Press Release - Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), July 9, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Washington, DC — America’s industrial infrastructure is substantially more susceptible to catastrophic failure than those in other industrialized countries, according to reports posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In certain key sectors, such as petrochemicals, aging U.S. refineries are become more dangerous with each passing month.

The combined losses from the fires, explosions and spills regularly plaguing U.S. chemical plants takes a proportionately greater toll than in the rest of the world. For example, the reinsurance giant, Swiss Re, concludes that the sum of all reinsurance losses (the “loss burden”) in refining, petrochemical processing and gas processing industry in the U.S. is approximately three times that of the comparably sized sector in the European Union (EU), with the rest of the world similar to the EU cluster.

Beyond economic losses, the toll on American workers is also higher. A study entitled “Occupational Fatality Risks in the United States and the United Kingdom” published earlier this year in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine found the fatality rate of U.S. workers approximately three times that of workers in the U.K. American worker deaths from chemical exposure were more than 10 times higher than their U.K. counterparts; death by fire nearly 5 times and by explosion nearly 4 times as likely.

Rather than improving, some key U.S. industrial sectors are declining.

By Alexander Reid Ross - Earth First! Journal, May 26, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s. 

The Stuff of Coups

To the rhythms of drums and chants, concerned people took to the streets across 436 cities in 52 countries yesterday. The message was clear: smash Monsanto. With thousands marching from coast to coast, Canada to Argentina, and around the world, the day of protest has emerged as one of the largest global events—and it has only been around for two years. However, more than small hopes for a mandatory labeling of genetically modified products, smashing Monsanto entails a larger transformation of the modern relationship between people and food.

It is not only GM products, but the continuing economy of globalization, that Monsanto represents. Thanks to major seed companies and agricultural conglomerates like Monsanto and Cargill, the very definition of farmer has changed throughout the world—from a person or group of people in a given community who specialized in producing food to a corporate, land-owning entity comprised more of machines, technological assemblages, and inputs than of people who work the land. Thus, the target of protest is not only GMs, although GMs are a central aspect, but also the supply chain of multinational corporations that transforms food into a commodity that many throughout the world cannot afford.

In the context of today’s historical epoch—the Global Land Grab, in which farmland is being grabbed by multinational corporations from vulnerable populations like small farmers, campesin@s, and Indigenous peoples throughout the world—the March Against Monsanto has taken on a particularly sharp edge. In Ethiopia, where Monsanto has taken up shop through the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, reports have emerged of tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people flooding the streets of the capital city, Addis Ababa, to demonstrate against land grabbing.