Inner City Press' Environmental Justice Reporter

         Click here for Inner City Press' weekday news reports, from the United Nations and elsewhere.   Click here to Search This Site

  ICP has published a (double) book about a variety of inner city-relevant topics, including racism, environmental and otherwise - click here for sample chapters, here for an interactive map,  here for fast ordering and delivery, and here for other ordering information.   CBS MarketWatch of April 23, 2004, says the the novel has "some very funny moments," and that the non-fiction mixes "global statistics and first-person accounts."  The Washington Post of March 15, 2004, calls Predatory Bender: America in the Aughts "the first novel about predatory lending;" the London Times of April 15, 2004, "A Novel Approach," said it "has a cast of colorful characters."  See also, "City Lit: Roman a Klepto [Review of ‘Predatory Bender’]," by Matt Pacenza, City Limits, Sept.-Oct. 2004. The Pittsburgh City Paper says the 100-page afterword makes the "indispensable point that predatory lending is now being aggressively exported to the rest of the globe," and opines that that the "novel Predatory Bender: A Story of Subprime Finance may, in fact, be the first great American lending malfeasance novel" including "low-level loan sharks, class-action lawyers, corporate bigwigs, hired muscle, corrupt politicians, Iraq War veterans, Wall Street analysts, reporters and one watchdog with a Web site."  And environmental justice too!  Click here for that review; for or with more information, contact us.

July 29, 2024

On July 25 at the UN, hypocritical SG Antonio Guterres intoned, "Extreme heat is having an extreme impact on people and planet.  The world must rise to the challenge of rising temperatures.  Thank you."

Then he flew off to Paris, and then who knows where else, on undisclosed publicly funded vacation. From those allowed in (Inner City Press is banned), now questions, only "Mr. Secretary-General, thank you very much on behalf of the United Nations Correspondents Association for doing this briefing."

July 22, 2024

Noting the plan to build a fourth power plant in the Ironbound neighborhood of Newark, New Jersey, has been approved by the administration of Governor Phil Murphy, despite opposition from community groups who claim the project would worsen pollution in the area.  Environmentalists and community activists have put pressure on Murphy to halt construction of the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission facility, which will provide backup electricity in the event of a power outage. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s compromise would permit PSVC to construct the Ironbound power plant, but only if it could be used in the event of a power outage

July 15, 2024

Marathon Oil Co., which is in deal to be bought by ConocoPhillips in $22.5 billion all-stock deal, has agreed to a settlement with the U.S. Government regulators and to pay $241.5 million in penalties over climate- and health-harming emissions in North Dakota.

July 8, 2024

South Carolina environmental groups are suing a Columbia manufacturer for allegedly pumping dangerous "forever chemicals" into the Saluda River, threatening drinking water supplies used by West Columbia and Cayce

July 1, 2024

Water pollution levels in Paris’s River Seine remain much higher than allowed for bathing, data showed on Friday, one month before the Olympics in which the capital’s landmark waterway is meant to be one of the swimming venues

June 24, 2024

there’s clear evidence that the East Palestine train disaster spread pollutants as far as Wisconsin and North Carolina.

June 17, 2024

150 activists crowded in front of Citigroup's headquarters on Greenwich Street near North Moore Street in Tribeca. The protest began the "Summer of Heat on Wall Street," described by organizers as "a months-long campaign of relentless and disruptive protests to end Wall Street funding for oil, coal, and gas." 52 climate activists were arrested for blocking the doors to Citibank's global headquarters in New York City, where 12,000 employees work.

June 10, 2024

Three Colorado environmental groups will sue Suncor Energy over an “egregious” pattern of violations of air pollution rules at the company’s oil refinery north of Denver, activists say...

June 3, 2024

The reduction of smog particles in China, while beneficial for public health, has contributed to extreme ocean warming events known as "The Blob." Aerosol emissions, which shield the planet from solar radiation, are declining globally, leading to unexpected climate impacts, including more intense regional heatwaves. The cleanup of air pollution in China has altered atmospheric patterns, intensifying warming in the Pacific and potentially leading to larger climatic disruptions


May 27, 2024

Dalita Maje, a small mining community in Dobi Ward, Gwagwalada, located on the outskirts of Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, is facing a dire environmental and public health crisis. The activities of mining companies have led to water pollution, and the community's health facilities and schools are in deplorable state, thereby compounding the residents' hardships. Dalita (Maje) and some other communities in Dobi Ward have relied on a local river for daily water needs but their source of water is being contaminated by miners

May 20, 2024

Defenders of Congestion Pricing Say Plaintiffs Too Late and Environmental Justice Is Not Law

by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack

SDNY COURTHOUSE, May 17 –  Lawsuits against New York City's congestion pricing plan were heard on May 17 by U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Lewis J. Liman. Inner City Press was there and live tweeted. Thread

May 13, 2024

the lower the index score, the worse the air quality.   The metropolitan area of Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario in California, also known as the ‘Inland Empire’, tops the ranking with an overall index score of just 17.03 – making it the area with the worst air quality. Inland Empire experienced only 54 good air days, where the air quality is satisfactory and air pollutions poses no risk, as well as a staggering 59 unhealthy days for sensitive groups.   Greater Houston, or the metropolitan area of Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land in Texas, comes in second place with an index score of only 28.36. Greater Houston shockingly saw only 38 good days and 21 days that were unhealthy for sensitive groups. 

May 6, 2024

Brooklyn: There weren't many residents out and about on Friday near the site of a massive fire on Bushwick Avenue - but those who were there, were all wearing masks. One lives on the block and says he is worried about the asbestos and chemicals released in the air from the fire. “I can't take the smoke, you know, respiratory things" he explains. He wore a mask Friday

April 29, 2024

Top ten U.S. metro areas with the worst particulate matter pollution in 2024 Fine particulate matter, or PM 2.5, is created when things are burned. It can cause asthma attacks, strokes and a litany of long term health problems. 4 8 Bakersfield, CA 1 7 Visalia, CA 2 5 Fresno-Madera-Hanford, CA 3 3 2 1 Eugene-Springfield, OR 4 6 San Jose-San Francisco, Oakland, CA 5 9 Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA 6 Sacramento-Roseville, CA 7 Medford-Grants Pass, OR 8 10 Phoenix-Mesa, AZ 9 Fairbanks, AK 10 SOURCE American Lung Association

April 22, 2024

In the spotlight: bonds (loans granted by investors and facilitated by banks) issued by TotalEnergies (1).   Bonds are the French oil and gas major’s main source of financing, and as such enable it to pursue its climate-wrecking strategy by developing new oil and gas projects, ignoring scientific recommendations to limit global warming to 1.5°C. The letters come just days after TotalEnergies raised US$4.25 billion on the bond market, with the help of several banks, including BPCE/Natixis, Standard Chartered and Deutsche Bank

April 15, 2024

A New Mexico district judge heard oral arguments to dismiss a civil lawsuit alleging that the state has failed to meet its constitutional duty to protect air, water and environment from oil and gas pollution. First District Judge Matthew Wilson said Friday he will issue a written order at a later date to determine the fate of the lawsuit Mario Atencio, et al v. the State of New Mexico, et al. It’s unclear when Wilson’s judgment will come down.

April 8, 2024

NYS says it will hold Northrop Grumman accountable for the ongoing cleanup of the Bethpage Community Park after the recent discovery of six, 55-gallon drums in a cordoned-off area beneath the former ballfield.

April 1, 2024

Leaders of San Diego-based business advocacy groups this week sent a letter to President Joe Biden asking for more help with the U.S.-Mexico border pollution problem.  The letter, dated Thursday, asked Biden “to mitigate the severe pollution crisis impacting the Tijuana River Valley

March 25, 2024

EJ in Austin (Texas) - A new study published by researchers at the Dell Medical School at UT-Austin has found that poorer air quality in Austin neighborhoods with a higher population of color triggers more asthma-related trips to the emergency room for Black and Brown Austinites than white residents. The link between asthma symptoms and air quality isn’t new, but this study bears out that longer-term trends of more concentrated air pollution in majority-POC neighborhoods make them less safe to live in

 March 18, 2024

Maine regulators are starting to go after violators of a relatively new law that prohibits the sale of used vehicles that have modifications resulting in more air pollution.  An Auburn auto garage could soon be fined $4,000 for selling a used diesel pickup truck with such modifications, marking one of the first cases in which the state law has been enforced.  Passed in 2021, that legislation was meant to help address a relatively pervasive issue in Maine: the dismantling of systems for limiting the air emissions of diesel trucks. Among the pollutants released by those vehicles are nitrous oxide and a particulate matter known as black carbon.  Many truck owners still remove their emission-control systems to improve the performance of their vehicles — for example, by giving them more torque or fuel economy. That’s particularly the case in Maine, where big, modified pickups are a common sight on rural highways.

March 11, 2024

Per a 2021 World Bank report, emissions from Hanoi's 8 million registered vehicles made up 30% of air particulate pollution, and industry emissions another 30%

March 4, 2024

In Illinois distrust of the city of La Salle by a group of citizens has flared up.The group prompted a hearing in front of the Illinois Pollution Control Board

February 26, 2024

With signs with slogans like “East Chicago demands clear air” and “IDEM, let us breathe,” nearly 100 Northwest Indiana residents and environmental advocates gathered to voice anger and frustration at BP Whiting refinery at a Thursday public meeting held by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. Held on the campus of Calumet College of St. Joseph in Whiting, Indiana, the event was an opportunity for members of the public to weigh in on a pending air permit renewal application submitted by BP for its refinery.

February 19, 2024

The Thai capital Bangkok has recorded dangerous levels of PM2.5, a fine air particulate that can enter the bloodstream, according to Swiss air quality tracking website IQAir. The site found that levels of PM2.5 on February 15, 2024, were more than 15 times higher than the recommended safety standard. Authorities urged workers to work from home for at least a couple of days to avoid the noxious haze.

February 12, 2024

In Nigeria there is worry of an outbreak of waterborne disease in the Ukwu-Nzu community in Aniocha North Local Government Area of Delta State following pollution of its two major rivers by the alleged activities of coal miners.

February 5, 2024

the 10 most polluted cities in Africa: Rank    Country    Pollution index    Exp pollution index 1    Cairo, Egypt    90.9    164.0 2    Lagos, Nigeria    89.0    159.0 3    Marrakech, Morocco    83.5    149.3 4    Casablanca, Morocco    82.2    146.6 5    Nairobi, Kenya    79.8    142.3 6    Addis Ababa, Ethiopia    76.1    133.6 7    Alexandria, Egypt    74.3    130.6 8    Tunis, Tunisia    72.5    127.0 9    Johannesburg, South Africa    61.1    106.3 10    Pretoria, South Africa    55.1    94

January 29, 2024

Carbon emissions from Canada’s oil sands are “severely” underreported. Using aircraft-based measures, the study’s authors found that total carbon emissions from Alberta’s Athabasca region exceeded industry-recorded values ​​by 1,900 to 6,300 percent, suggesting that the “traditional” method of calculating pollution “seriously underestimates emissions.

January 22, 2024

Guatemala has approved the alteration of Bluestone Resources‘ (BBSRF) Cerro Blanco gold project near El Salvador's border. What Happened: Bluestone’s stock spiked from C$0.24 to C$0.59, doubling the market cap to C$87.6 million. "After dedicating over two years to obtaining the environmental permit amendment, we are pleased," president, CEO and chairman Peter Hemstead stated in a press release. The goal is to shift the gold project from an underground to an open-pit operation

January 15, 2024

Despite the Nigeria Supreme Court's pro-Shell decision,  Shell still faces challenges in various courts within Nigeria and the United Kingdom. A separate legal battle, involving approximately 1,200 plaintiffs in Nigeria's southwestern city of Akure, revolves around claims of being affected by an oil spill in 2011. Simultaneously, in the U.K., a court ruling permits a group of Nigerian fishermen to proceed with their claims against Shell in another longstanding legal case.

January 8, 2024

Starting in 2026, only cruise ships powered by alternative fuels will be allowed to visit the fjords in Norway. Lawmakers want to protect the unique natural environment and stop marine diesel oil and mass tourism from damaging the ecosystem.

January 1, 2024

According to the 2021 World Air Quality Report, Bangladesh’s air quality remained the worst globally for four consecutive years. Dhaka, the nation’s capital, is the second most polluted capital in the world after New Delhi. The report indicates that particulate matter in Bangladesh is 15 times the limit set by the World Health Organization. Central and South Asia have some of the world’s worst air quality, with 46 of the world’s 50 most polluted cities.

December 25, 2023

China is UNSG Guterres' poster child of environmentali$m now this: "2023 is the first year that China's national average PM2.5 level has increased..."

December 18, 2023

on December 11, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, "It is time to go into overdrive and rise to the challenge set by COP President Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber" - that is, the head of ADNOC.

Guterres took money from the Gulbenkian Foundation, funded by the Partex oil company - then banned the Press that asked about it.

December 11, 2023

As ADNOC Jaber Cashes Out UN Guterres Cover For Him and His Banks, Banning Press

by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack

UN GATE, Dec 5 – The UN's climate change conference has as its president the head of the United Arab Emirates' oil company, ADNOC.

  As UNSG Antonio Guterres defends and covers for him, Sultan Al Jaber has said that there is “no science” to support the need to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius and that phasing out fossil fuels would “take the world back into caves.” From Guterres? Nothing. And his propaganda circle of in-house scribes ask him nothing.

 Now this, on ADNOC's bank funders: HSBC (US$ 2.4 billion), MUFG (US$ 2.3 billion), SMBC (US$ 2.3 billion) and JPMorgan Chase (US$ 2.2 billion). A loan, issued back in January, was supported by banks such as Bank of China, ICBC, and Standard Chartered. For the two more recent loans, a lender list has not yet been disclosed.

December 4, 2023

UN Guterres Lies for COP28 Run by UAE Oil Exec But Frmr Marshall Islands Prez Quits

by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack

UN GATE, Dec 1 – The UN's upcoming climate change conference has as its president the head of the United Arab Emirates' oil company, ADNOC.

 Inner City Press noted this typical UN hypocrisy on X (formerly Twitter) on September 20 while reporting from an event across the street from the UN it is banned from even entering. 

There, on November 27, Antonio Guterres was asked: "Can you react to allegations that the UAE has been negotiating carbon fuel deals on the sidelines of COP, and that's their intention? Are you worried about this undermining it?

Guterres: I can't believe it is true

 Yeah. On December 1, a member of the main advisory board of  COP28 resigned because the UAE presidency planned to use the meeting to secure oil, gas deal -  Hilda Heine, former president of the Marshall Islands, said reports that the UAE planned to discuss possible natural gas and other commercial deals ahead of UN climate talks were "deeply disappointing" and threatened to undermine the credibility of the multilateral negotiation process. But Guterres lies about it.

To Inner City Press from UAE bots, the response was indicative of today's UN system.   Robot-like response, from ostensibly unconnected accounts, came in reply.

Inner City Press had written: "Scam COP28 prez Sultan Al Jaber is at the same time the head of ADNOC, the UAE's oil company. But the UAE throws money around in the UN so who cares, right?."  

An account named @afnan_elfakhory replied, "The claim that the head of the UAE oil company is serving as president of the COP28 conference does not correctly reflect reality. The UAE is working hard to achieve global climate goals and promote sustainability. It is necessary to appreciate the efforts made by the UAE." 

But Sultan Al Jaber *is* the head of the UAE oil company. Two similarly robotic responses came from accounts named @asma__daroza and @gana_elsaieg.

  It's not just the UAE, or COP28 - UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' head of "global communications" Melissa Fleming has bragged about using the UN's name (and public money) to combat and eliminate messages they don't agree with from the Internet. 

  Fleming and Guterres have banned Inner City Press, ignoring its June 19, 2023 application to enter and cover UNGA 2023 and then ignoring a letter from the pro bono law firm of Duane Morris, drunk with their own impunity.   Watch this site.

More on Substack here

Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron.

November 27, 2023

Hot air in Antartica, November 24 "HIGHLIGHTS OF THE U.N. SYSTEM 24 NOVEMBER 2023     SECRETARY-GENERAL IN ANTARCTICA  From Antarctica, the Secretary-General said that Antarctica has been called the sleeping giant, but it is now being awoken by climate chaos. What happens in Antarctica doesn’t stay in Antarctica, he said." But maybe someone should?


November 20, 2023

In the run up to COP28 in the UAE the Adnoc LNG field and a number of others are constantly emitting and burning polluting methane. Adnoc claims it has cut the volume of natural gas flared by more than 90 percent since the early 2000s when the company started its ‘zero routine flaring’ policy – referring to flaring that happens every day as part of normal oil operations.  In October, Al Jaber announced that 20 major oil and gas producers from around the world have pledged to eliminate gas flaring and methane emissions by the end of the decade.  Four fields flared on at least 97 percent of the days, with an average of just 14 days unavailable due to cloud cover.

November 13, 2023

DC Councilmember Zachary Parker, alongside Councilmembers Kenyan McDuffie and Christina Henderson, introduced legislation that would require DC regulators to consider existing pollution levels in a neighborhood before granting permits for new businesses, denying permits in neighborhoods that already bear a disproportionate pollution burden

November 6, 2023

Sri Lanka cancelled their training session in Delhi on Saturday afternoon following advice from team doctors, owing to the severe air pollution in the city

October 30, 2023

A group of poultry producers, including Tyson Foods, are asking a federal judge to dismiss his ruling that they polluted an Oklahoma watershed. They claim in a motion filed Thursday that the case is “constitutionally moot” because the evidence is now more than 13 years old. U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell in Tulsa ruled in January that the companies were responsible for pollution of the Illinois River Watershed by disposing of chicken litter that leached into the river.

October 23, 2023

From New Jersey: The planes flying into Teterboro are not commercial airliners carrying ordinary folks flying for vacation trips, to visit relatives or perhaps on business. The planes flying in and out of Teterboro and annoying the good people of Moonachie and Westwood are private jets in which a tiny percentage of us will ever fly.   The carbon emissions of a person flying in a private jet is responsible for 10 to 20 times the atmosphere warming carbon as someone in a commercial airliner

Yes and not only Epstein but SBF flew in there..

October 26, 2023

Called “the largest truck stop in New Hampshire,” a project under construction off Route 101 in Raymond will be outfitted with plug-in power pedestals to reduce truck idling and air pollution as part of the New Hampshire State Clean Diesel Program - many (agencies) in NYC could learn from that...

October 9, 2023

From Alabama: The city of Mobile and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will host a community meeting in Africatown to discuss an environmental project that has been ongoing for the last two years.  The project began after the EPA awarded Mobile a grant to redevelop properties also known as “brownfields”....

October 2, 2023

From the UK: A judge has given permission for a private prosecution to go ahead against a water company accused over the pollution of one of the UK’s most cherished fishing rivers.  Southern Water will appear in court in February to face allegations linked to diesel pollution in the River Test in Hampshire

September 25, 2023

Oil Exec from UAE Running COP28 Draws Bots on X Like Wider UN of Guterres Censors

by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack

UN GATE, Sept 22 – The UN's upcoming climate change conference has as its president the head of the United Arab Emirates' oil company, ADNOC.

 Inner City Press noted this typical UN hypocrisy on X (formerly Twitter) on September 20 while reporting from an event across the street from the UN it is banned from even entering. 

 The response was indicative of today's UN system.   Robot-like response, from ostensibly unconnected accounts, came in reply.

Inner City Press had written: "Scam COP28 prez Sultan Al Jaber is at the same time the head of ADNOC, the UAE's oil company. But the UAE throws money around in the UN so who cares, right?."  

An account named @afnan_elfakhory replied, "The claim that the head of the UAE oil company is serving as president of the COP28 conference does not correctly reflect reality. The UAE is working hard to achieve global climate goals and promote sustainability. It is necessary to appreciate the efforts made by the UAE." 

But Sultan Al Jaber *is* the head of the UAE oil company. Two similarly robotic responses came from accounts named @asma__daroza and @gana_elsaieg.

  It's not just the UAE, or COP28 - UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' head of "global communications" Melissa Fleming has bragged about using the UN's name (and public money) to combat and eliminate messages they don't agree with from the Internet. 

  Fleming and Guterres have banned Inner City Press, ignoring its June 19, 2023 application to enter and cover UNGA 2023 and then ignoring a letter from the pro bono law firm of Duane Morris, drunk with their own impunity.   Watch this site.

More on Substack here

Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron.

September 18, 2023

Citigroup has been rightly targeted with on the environment for years (see for example Predatory Bender) - but last week the ongoing lending protests turned physical, and a Citigroup staffer showed the bank's attitude, pushing and yelling and it seems splashing coffee, video here. More next week, after UNGA...

September 11, 2023

Amid all the fine talk at the G20, this: "MCD deploys water sprinklers to control pollution during G20 Summit The MCD said that 15 anti-smog guns have also been deployed at high-rise buildings, Civil Lines, Green Park zonal building and Tilak Nagar Colony hospital."

September 4, 2023

Health benefits that have resulted from reductions in fine particulate air pollution aren’t distributed equally among populations in the U.S., a new Yale-led study finds. Racial and ethnic minorities — and Black people in particular — still experience disproportionately high rates of cardiovascular disease-related deaths caused by exposure to fine particulate matter, according to the research.

The findings were published Aug. 31 in Nature Human Behavior.

August 28, 2023

Jakarta may be the most polluted city in the world, but Indonesia is only the 26th most polluted country. The most polluted? Chad...

August 21, 2023

Once a thriving and pristine freshwater expanse, Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela now stands as a haunting testament to the devastating consequences of unchecked pollution and decades of environmental neglect

August 14, 2023

The Indonesian capital of Jakarta was ranked the most polluted city in the world on Wednesday.   Swiss air quality technology company IQAir has consistently ranked it among the top 10 polluted cities around the globe

August 7, 2023

France canceled a training session Thursday for an open water swimming event in the Seine River due to pollution caused by heavy rains.  “Following recent heavy rainfall in Paris, the water quality in the Seine has currently fallen below acceptable standards for safeguarding swimmers’ health. Consequently, the decision has been taken in consultation with public health and event delivery partners to cancel the training session due to take place at 07:30 (0530GMT) on 4 August, ahead of the Open Water Swimming World Cup planned for this weekend,” the French Swimming Federation said in a communique.

July 31, 2023

From the EU: Who hasn’t enjoyed a bit of fresh air in their car by turning on the air conditioning while stationary? The practice is commonplace, and particularly welcome at a time when an intense heatwave is hitting southern Europe and Italy in particular, with temperatures frequently hovering around 40°C. Unfortunately, the practice has been banned by Italian law since 2007 as part of the fight against pollution, and offenders face heavy fines ranging from a minimum of €223 to a maximum of €444. In protest, some motorists have approached the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, none other than the former Interior Minister and President of Lega, Matteo Salvini, to ask him to arbitrate. The minister’s response was swift: sensitive to the complaints of users, he pleaded for moderation in the application of this law, which was recently updated and reinforced under his ministry. The fight against pollution is a laudable objective, but it must not be achieved at the expense of other equally important realities. Can we reasonably ask a motorist stopped in a car with young children or elderly people, for example, to turn off the air conditioning? Matteo Salvini appealed to police officers’ “common sense” and “discernment”—virtues that unfortunately seem to be disappearing when it comes to environmental considerations.

July 24, 2023

 Sadiq Khan in U-turn on ‘eco’ wood-burners amid pollution fears Campaigners’ pressure sees London mayor withdraw approval for stoves billed as better for the environment  Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Skyler King Sat 22 Jul 2023 09.03 EDT The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has withdrawn his endorsement of wood-burning stoves promoted as “environmentally friendly” after a surge in sales of the appliances, which contribute to harmful air pollution.  In 2018, Khan endorsed the Ecodesign stoves,

July 17, 2023

EJ in Iraq: Pollution in Iraq's River Tigris threatens people's health and safety. Chemicals and waste materials from various government institutions and power plants are polluting the River Tigris, causing skin diseases and colon cancer.  Sewage waters are also poured into the River Tigris, which passes through the capital, Baghdad, which has a population of approximately 9 million.

July 10, 2023

Thick clouds of toxic foam covered parts of a river in southeast Brazil, scattering downward and worrying residents on Friday (July 7). Drone images showed clouds of foam floating on the Tiete River in the town of Salto, the largest river in Sao Paulo with more than a thousand kilometers and crossing the state from east to west.  The stinky foamy layer comes from detergent wastes and chemical residues dumped into the river without treatment

July 3, 2023

Dateline London: Just Stop Oil protesters disrupted London’s Pride march in protest over the event accepting sponsorship money from “high-polluting industries”. A number of protesters were arrested after blocking the road in front of a Coca-Cola truck.

June 26, 2023

London's The city's Ultra Low Emission Zone, which imposes a daily charge on the most-polluting vehicles, is expanding despite some resistance...

June 19, 2023

Air pollution in Minnesota's Twin Cities likely hit an all-time high this week, according to preliminary observations from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.   The agency reported a 24-hour air quality index value of 175 on Wednesday, indicating a level of airborne particle exposure equivalent to smoking four cigarettes. A typical AQI value for the Twin Cities in June is around 33, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency.

June 12, 2023

Amid Environmental Claims by Administration Bank Regulators Ignore Pollution on Mergers

by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack

FEDERAL COURT, June 4 – The Biden Administration has ordered all "federal agencies to consider and report on measures to ameliorate and prevent disproportionate negative environmental and health impacts on historically marginalized communities."

  But what does it mean, for the bank regulators?

Take for example the Federal Reserve Board, which has routinely ignored, and official stated it can and will ignore, environmental justice, and even despite its claims, climate change.   For example in approving BMO Harris' application to acquire Bank of the West - protested by Fair Finance Watch and Inner City Press - ruled that

"Some commenters expressed concerns regarding the amount of funding that BNP Paribas and Bank of Montreal have provided to fossil-fuel companies, while one commenter requested that the combined organization publish annual disclosures related to environmental issues. In addition, one commenter expressed concern that BOTW had not disclosed information regarding the diversity of its employees. These comments concern matters that are outside the scope of the limited statutory factors that the Board is authorized to consider when reviewing an application under the BHC Act. See Western Bancshares, Inc. v. Board of Governors, 480 F.2d 749 (10th Cir. 1973)."   

Inner City Press wrote, The Fed sure loves that 1973 case. It's time to amend the BHC Act and CRA to provide a private right of action and of judicial review. 

 But what about the Biden Administration's Executive Order? It doesn't only apply to the FDIC and OCC - it references independent regulatory agencies. Watch this site. 

***

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June 5, 2023

 Ten most Ten most polluted countries  Nepal: 99.73 μg  Niger: 94.05 μg  Qatar: 91.19 μg  India: 90.87 μg  Saudi Arabia: 87.95 μg  Egypt: 87 μg  Cameroon: 75.01 μg  Nigeria: 71.80 μg  Bahrain: 70.82 μg

May 29, 2023

So under the Biden Administration's Environmental Justice EO every agency is supposed to consider EJ - and the bank regulators? We'll have more on this.

May 22, 2023

US Sen. Bill Cassidy is convinced he has the policy that can challenge China’s geopolitical and military might, put a dent in its bountiful greenhouse gas emissions, strengthen the U.S. economy, and, perhaps most importantly, get to 60 votes.   Cassidy said he’s floating a proposal around to his colleagues, which he hopes to introduce later this year, to impose a “foreign pollution fee” on various product imports from fuel, to chemicals, cement, aluminum, steel, and plastics to deal with these various China-related political, environmental, and national security interests at once

May 15, 2023

Scientists have found “alarmingly high” concentrations of potentially toxic particles in the air in New York City subway stations.  New York University researchers surveyed 271 platforms in December 2021 and found levels of airborne iron particles were a staggering 126 times more than the outdoor average, according to a paper published last month in the International Atmospheric Pollution Research journal.

May 8, 2023

Ohio will have until the end of June to finish a plan to aimed at combating toxic algae blooms that have flourished in Lake Erie since the late 1990s. The deadline is part of settlement agreement approved by a federal judge

May 1, 2023

Maine regulators issued a pollution law violation notice to Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC), the rail company whose six train cars derailed in Somerset County two weeks ago

April 24, 2023

The signingof the EJ EO was good - but to position it only in terms of climate change, and not also toxic pollution, is a mistake.

April 17, 2023

Philly mayoral candidate Jeff Brown was asked by a moderator during the Democrats’ mayoral primary debate how he’d address accusations of pollution and environmental racism in Chester. “Chester is Chester. I’m worried about Philadelphians and how their lives are,” said Brown. “And so what will come first for me is what will be best for my Philadelphians.”  “So, you don’t care about Chester?” the moderator asked.  Brown replied: “I do care, but I don’t work for them.”  “The trash has to go somewhere,” he added. “And whoever gets it’s going to be unhappy with it.” (!)

April 10, 2023

EPA has proposed that chemical plants nationwide measure certain hazardous compounds that cross beyond their property lines and reduce them when they are too high.  The proposed rules would reduce cancer risk and other exposure for communities that live close to harmful emitters, the EPA said. The data would be made public and the results would force companies to fix problems that increase emissions. Public? We'll see.

April 3, 2023

The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco rejected all but one claim by the East Oakland Stadium Alliance about the inadequacy of the project’s environmental impact report. The Oakland City Council certified the report in February of last year.  The appeals court ruling means the project can move forward once the city and A’s address what the lower court ruled was an inadequate mitigation measure related to wind

March 27, 2023

Residents of a Louisiana parish located in the heart of a cluster of polluting petrochemical factories filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday, March 21, 2023, raising allegations of civil rights, environmental justice and religious liberty violations.

March 20, 2023

A federal judge is giving Oklahoma and nearly a dozen poultry companies, including the world’s largest poultry producer, Tyson Foods, an additional 90 days to reach an agreement on plans to clean a watershed polluted by chicken litter.  U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell on Friday scheduled a June 16 status conference in Tulsa, saying both sides requested the extension. The state and the poultry companies are to submit a joint status report by June 9.  Frizzell ruled in January that Arkansas-based Tyson, Minnesota-based Cargill Inc. and other companies polluted the Illinois River, caused a public nuisance and trespassed by spreading the litter, or manure, on land in eastern Oklahoma, and that it then leached into the river’s watershed

March 13, 2023

The EPA is accepting public comment on the proposed rule on soot through March 28. They also hosted virtual public hearings on the proposed rulemaking at the end of February. The EPA plans to review the public comments and issue a final rulemaking later this year.

March 6, 2023

In Cancer Alley in Louisiana DOJ is now seeking a federal court order to compel Denka, the Japanese chemical giant operating the facility, to “immediately take all necessary measures” to curb emissions of the compound chloroprene, labeled by the EPA as a likely human carcinogen

February 27, 2023

Since its debut in 1971, an anti-pollution ad showing a man in Native American attire shed a single tear at the sight of smokestacks and litter taking over a once unblemished landscape has become an indelible piece of TV pop culture.  The so-called “Crying Indian” with his buckskins and long braids made the late actor Iron Eyes Cody a recognizable face in households nationwide. But to many Native Americans, the public service announcement has been a painful reminder of the enduring stereotypes they face.    The nonprofit that originally commissioned the advertisement, Keep America Beautiful, had long been considering how to retire the ad and announced this week that it's doing so by transferring ownership of the rights to the National Congress of American Indians. 

February 20, 2023

An environmental engineering lab has been testing the waters from residential wells in East Palestine, Ohio, after the train crash earlier this month. The confidential results can tell residents wh r their water is safe to drink

February 13, 2023

This was filed with the Federal Reserve, and receipt confirmed:

Feb 6, 2023  Timely Comment on "Principles for Climate-Related Financial Risk Management for Large Financial Institutions"  Docket No. OP-1793  Dear Governors:     While the Board increasingly speaks of incorporating climate risks into its supervision and regulation,  I that nner City Press / Fair Finance Watch and other NCRC members have become increasingly concerned that the Governors to date have refused to even consider, much less act on, the issue when raised on the mega-mergers which cause other harms, unless mitigated by CBAs, to our communities.    In a recent approval, involving Bank of Montreal  and BNP Paribas, the Board's order stated: "Some commenters expressed concerns regarding the amount of funding that BNP Paribas and Bank of Montreal have provided to fossil-fuel companies, while one commenter requested that the combined organization publish annual disclosures related to environmental issues...  These comments concern matters that are outside the scope of the limited statutory factors that the Board is authorized to consider when reviewing an application under the BHC Act."     Not only is this at odds with the Board's now stated concern about climate risk - it also disingenuously presents the Board as powerless to consider and act on obviously important issues like climate change due to invested-in fossil fuel infrastructure and production.    Just at the Board recently responded to the collapse of FTX by denying the application to join the FRS of Custodia bank, if the Board is truly concerned about climate change it should be willing to consider, and act on, the issue in connection with mergers, under the managerial and finance factors of the BHC Act and where applicable Bank Merger Act.  Matthew Lee, Esq., Executive Director Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch

February 6, 2023

 Indiana’s air pollution permitting program is low on money, edging toward violation of the federal Clean Air Act — and a potential U.S. Environmental Protection Agency takeover. And it’s because air pollution is decreasing.  Lawmakers hope to head EPA action off with a bill allowing the state agency responsible to raise its fees. But Senate Bill 155 could get pushback from colleagues who want more oversight over agencies, not less, and those who want to lower, not raise, taxes and fees.  “You’re increasing the fees and the cost of it for the people that are in business, and that’s going to be the hard sell here,” said Sen. Rick Niemeyer, R-Lowell, the bill’s author.  “But the other part of it is that members of the committee and other senators don’t want the federal government taking over this program,” Niemeyer said...

January 30, 2023

A hidden loophole in the Administration’s regulations to curb truck pollution could end up greatly weakening the new laws. These were part of a crackdown on heavy truck pollution that’s the first of its kind in decades. But commercial truck makers like Daimler and Navistar pushed for an exemption to the stricter emissions under cold weather conditions, which allegedly hamper their engines’ abilities to curb pollution.

January 23, 2023

From London... to New York? "Beri’s app suggests routes that provide the lowest risk of breathing air with high pollution levels. “It’s like a TfL [Transport for London] or Google app but instead of offering the speediest journey between destinations it provides routes with the lowest air pollution,” she said." How would this look in NYC?

January 16, 2023

Last summer, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it was considering designating the Permian Basin — the nation’s top-producing oil patch and one of the largest single sources of carbon emissions on Earth — in violation of ozone standards, which would have required substantial reforms in local oil and gas operations.  But the proposal was moved to a back burner in the agency’s annual agenda issued last week, reclassified from “active” to “pending."

January 9, 2023

In the Chesapeake Bay, polluted runoff is increasing amid inconsistent enforcement from government agencies...

January 2, 2023

Chicago-land: A plan to develop semi-trailer parking for a massive Target warehouse in Little Village has community members worried it will bring more diesel truck pollution into an area already suffering from poor air quality. Hilco Redevelopment Partners is proposing to turn 20 acres at 3307 S. Lawndale Ave. into a parking and storage yard for trucks hauling loads to and from the retailer’s 1.3 million-square-foot warehouse.December 26, 2022

Shell said on December 23 that it will pay 15 million euros to Nigerian farmers to compensate them for damage from pipeline leaks.  A Dutch appeals court ruled last year, following 13 years of legal battles, that Shell’s Nigerian branch must pay out for a series of leaks and that the parent company must install new pipeline equipment to prevent further devastating spills

December 17, 2022

More than 80 New Jersey companies allegedly polluted sections of the Lower Passaic River to the extent they should pay $150 million to help clean it up, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice announced Friday

December 12, 2022

People dealing with the most socioeconomic disadvantages in greater Los Angeles also face higher levels of toxic air pollution, according to a new UCLA-led study. Researchers collected air samples from 54 locations over two-week periods in September 2019 and February 2020, and then analyzed the samples to determine how much PM 2.5 pollution was present, and how toxic it was. PM 2.5 refers to particles smaller than 2.5 microns, which can penetrate deep into lungs. The paper, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, found that air from census tracts in the 25% of communities facing the most socioeconomic disadvantages not only contained a greater amount of pollution, but that the pollution in these areas was more toxic.

December 5, 2022

From Pittsburgh: U.S. Steel must pay over $458,000 in penalty fines after the company violated air pollution control regulations, according to the Allegheny County Health Department.  The violations occurred at Clairton Coke Works early this year

November 28, 2022

Texas in PA: A plea hearing has been scheduled for next week in the long-running case of a natural gas driller facing felony charges over allegations it polluted the aquifer of a small Pennsylvania community 14 years ago.  Houston-based Coterra Energy Inc. will appear in Susquehanna County Court ...

November 21, 2022

UN Puppet Guterres Reads Wrong Speech They Gave Him at COP 27 But Media Laughed It Off

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell book
BBC - Honduras - CIA Trial book - NY Mag

UN GATE, Nov 11 – Two take-aways from COP 27: Antonio Guterres is a puppet who is handed speeches to read, sometimes the wrong speech, and the corporate media makes excuses for him, presenting his incompetence and corruption as funny, even charming. 

Welcome to Sharm el Sheik. 

  Guterres was giving "his" speech, flanked by Al Gore, when he belatedly realized it was the wrong speech. He flipped through it, then admitted "they" gave him the wrong speech. Video here

   The same "they" who, after convicted UN briber CEFC China Energy bid on the oil company of Gulbenkian, which paid Guterres money he omitted to including on his UN public financial disclosure, told him to go to the Genocide Games in Beijing, and cover up for genocide and UN rapes. "They."

But the media is complicit, with Al Jazeera and others making light of the mistake, very funny.

As funny as Qatar killing migrant workers to host a corrupt World Cup in the desert, air conditioning open air stadia while bloviating like Guterres about green energy.

  Guterres has Inner City Press roughed up and banned from the UN for asking about his omission of CEFC China Energy, and failures on Yemen and Cameroon.

The UN is dying, Guterres is responsible, and corporate and state media are complicit. Watch this site.

***

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November 14, 2022

Lobbying at the UN-affiliated and corrupt #COP27, which Antonio Guterres flew in and out of without impacting human rights in the least: "Vicki Hollub, the CEO of Oxy, a major US oil and gas producer, complained in October this year that oil and gas companies like hers were not allowed into negotiations at COP26, though she did get access to the talks last year.  Hollub claimed at an energy industry event that oil and gas companies were already working to influence this year’s COP27 and next year’s COP28, scheduled to take place in the United Arab Emirates. She predicted that they would be allowed into negotiations with the climate talks taking place in oil producing countries.  Hollub’s prediction seems to have come true with her and eleven of her colleagues from Oxy gaining access to this year’s talks as part of the official United Arab Emirates delegation, which included at least 70 fossil fuel lobbyists according to our analysis.  Oxy is one of the largest US oil and gas producers and a major producer in the prolific Permian oil basin. The company was also the second highest spending oil and gas lobbyist in the United States in 2021, behind only Koch Industries. Hollub has criticised others for pushing the energy transition “too quickly” saying instead that with carbon capture technology, largely used to pump yet more oil, she can see a way to continue producing oil and gas “for the foreseeable future, I’m talking 2060, 2070, 2080, I’m not talking about ending fossil fuel development in ten or twenty years”

November 7, 2022

While bloviating about climate change, not only is UNSG Antonio Guterres jetting off to Egypt after jetting back from Tunisia - after that, he's going to Bali. Hypocrite.

October 22, 2022

...In sub-Saharan Africa, the death rate from air pollution is 155 deaths per 100,000 people, nearly double the global average of 85.6 deaths per 100,000 people

October 24, 2022

...big US banks continue to finance companies that are developing new coal projects worldwide. Since 2019, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs have collectively provided US$40 billion to coal developers

October 17, 2022

A Breton water rights group is suing the French state for not doing enough to lower the amount of nitrate pollution in the Channel, which contributes to the growth of toxic – and sometimes deadly – green algae

October 10, 2022

NORTH SMITHFIELDers concerned about a proposal by a metals processor to build a 23,000-square-foot building on a property featuring acres of wetlands say they discovered more reasons to oppose the project this week, when the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management shared files documenting a history of environmental violations by the applicant.  Files provided by RIDEM following a public information request show that Material Samples Technology’s property at 800 Central St. has been subject to several violations, and in some cases fines for non-compliance.

October 3, 2022

"California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday announced that oil refineries could start selling more polluting winter-blend gasoline ahead of schedule to ease soaring fuel prices, directly contradicting his own goals for reducing climate pollutants."

September 26, 2022

  "The Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights — comprised of more than 200 current staff members in 10 U.S. regions — will merge three existing EPA programs to oversee a portion of Democrats’ $60 billion investment in environmental justice initiatives created by the Inflation Reduction Act" - will it help stop disparately pollution projects? We'll test - and see.


September 19, 2022

After Jurors Hear Trevor Milton Doesn't Give a Sh*t About The Environment, Nikola Questions

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell book
BBC - CIA Trial book - NY Mag Pearl St Video

LITERARY COURTHOUSE, Sept 13 – When the Trevor Milton trial kicked off for real, AUSA Nick Roos called Milton a fraudster. His lawyer Marc Mukasey called the government's case grotesque.

  But the first witness settled the matter, at least for now. Paul Lackey who had worked on the Nikola 1 described Milton as involved in the science or the work, focused on leading other men in suits around and lying about the state of preparation of the vehicles.  

  Mukasey and then Ken Caruso objected, without impact. Overruled, Judge Ramos said.   As it grew near the end of trial day break, there had still been no cross examination.

  The jurors would go home with this image in their heads: Trevor Milton saying, according to Paul Lackey, "I don't give a sh*t about the environment, I just want to make money." 

   It was consistent with other, later developments. Milton lying about having solar panels on the Nikola building's roof, when there were none.

[Question posed to Milton on Pearl Street here]

  It was like the United Nations, though Kurt Wheelock, who before he was throw out of the UN had exposed their fake recycling program when in fact all the waste mixed together.

  The limousine idling for hours outside Secretary General Antonio Guterres' mansion on Sutton Place, and his undisclosed weekend jetting to Lisbon.

  Greenwashing, bluewashing, but all Team Trevor could allege was Milton- or Nikola-bashing. The next day they would get to cross examine Lackey. Kurt would try to come in early for that. More on Patreon here.

***

Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron.

September 12, 2022

Here are the most polluted (no. 50-40) and least polluted (no. 10-1) in U.S. News’ Pollution Rankings.  States with the worst pollution 50. Louisiana  49. Nevada  48. Indiana  47. Delaware  46. Utah  45. Ohio  44. Oregon  43. Tennessee  42. Illinois  41. Alabama  40. Texas  Louisiana ranks dead last, coming in as the most-polluted state in the U.S., according to EPA information.

September 5. 2022

New York State is home to the #1 most polluted lake in America. AZ Animals put out the list of the top 10 for 2022. The reason I believe we actually have three lakes on the list is that Lake Erie is listed for Michigan, but we also share the lake. I'm no scientist, but any pollution from Michigan most likely makes its way to other areas of the lake, including our side.  The most polluted lake in the U.S. according to AZ Animals is: 1. Onondaga Lake, New York  

August 29, 2022

The owners of a pipeline that spilt crude oil into beaches in California have agreed to admit guilt to charges of environmental contamination and pay $13 million, these businesses announced on Friday.   Two of its subsidiaries, Beta Operating Co. and San Pedro Bay Pipeline Co., along with Texas-based Amplify Energy, which runs the pipeline off Huntington Beach, have stated they will formally acknowledge letting oil contaminate the waters off southern California in October of last year.

August 22, 2022

Trial is underway in a Sterigenics lawsuit over ethylene oxide leaks from an Illinois manufacturing plant, which is the first of several hundred complaints that allege the company knowingly released toxic chemicals into the atmosphere, endangering residents living near its facilities. The lawsuit was brought by Sue Kamuda, who claims that the releases of the gas used to sterilize medical equipment caused her to develop breast cancer. The plant in Willowbrook, Illinois, where the leaks occurred, was shut down permanently in 2019, following complaints from residents.  Jury selection began on Thursday in Cook Count Circuit Court

August 15, 2022

A federal judge in Maine has given conditional approval to a consent decree in the case brought by environmental groups against the former owners of a chemical plant in Orrington, bringing a decades-long legal battle over mercury pollution in the Penobscot River closer to an end.

August 8, 2022

 This past week before jetting to Japan UNSG Antonio Guterres intoned that his UN has broken from fossil "fools" companies. False. They are all over his "Global Compact." Guterres is a climate hypocrite.
August 1, 2022

An analysis has listed celebrities causing the maximum private jet pollution and American singer Taylor Swift has topped the list. Boxing legend Floyd Mayweather is second while rapper Jay-Z, former baseball player A-Rod and American singer Blake Shelton are among the top five. Steven Spielberg, Kim Kardashian, Mark Wahlberg, Oprah Winfrey and Travis Scott are also on the list. Looks like the UN and some others are immune from coverage - watch this site.

July 25, 2022

 A stench that has fouled the air in the Carolinas near Charlotte NC sparked a lawsuit Friday that accuses a paper mill of not gettinga pollution permit and of shutting down a key piece of equipment that was vital to controlling odors. Seven South Carolina residents who say they’ve been affected by noxious odors from the New-Indy paper mill say the company never applied for a key air pollution permit as it turned off a device called a steam stripper. The federal suit asks a court to order New-Indy to eliminate the odors and cut pulp production until the company obtains the air pollution permit. Known as a prevention of significant deterioration permit, the air pollution license is needed by major new industries or big industries making major changes to a plant. 

July 18, 2022

Under Clean Water Act Riverkeeper Sues Bronx Scrap Yard in SDNY With Settlement Predicted

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
BBC-Guardian UK - Honduras - NY Mag

SDNY COURTHOUSE, July 16 – Riverkeeper sued Pascap, which owns a scrap metal processing facility by the Hutchinson River in The Bronx.

 On July 14, 2022 U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Denise L. Cote held a proceeding. Inner City Press covered it.

  Counsel for the defendant quickly disclosed he is the judge's neighbor. She recognized the name of his wife, as a former classmate.

It's a small world, and the two counsel resisted setting a trial date, saying they anticipate settling.

The case is Riverkeeper, Inc. v. Pascap Co., Inc., 22-cv-2999 (Cote)

July 11, 2022

More than 8.5 billion gallons a year of pollution is estimated to be discharged off the west coast of Canada by cruise ships on their way to and from Alaska

July 4, 2022

Wright Pled To Carbon Credits Fraud Now Gets 52 Months Jail and $16 Million Restitution

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN

SDNY Courtroom Exclusive, July 1 – Roger Ralston, Christopher Wright and Steven Hooper all faced a joint wire fraud conspiracy trial on May 12, 2022.

     On February 18, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Jed S. Rakoff held a lengthy in-person oral argument. Inner City Press went and covered it.  

 Among the issues raised is whether the trials should be severed. Hooper proffered to the US Attorney's Office for some 18 hours and almost got a cooperator's deal. Now, counsel for Ralston argues, Hooper's information could never be effectively "Bruton-ized" at trial. 

  [See, Bruton v. US, 391 U.S. 123 (1968)]

June 27, 2022

Portuguese Foreign Minister Joao Gomes Cravinho confirmed Russia's participation in the upcoming (June 27) UN Oceans conference. "Russia is a member of the UN and will take part in the conference," he announced. UNSG Antonio Guterres, who assured that Russia would not inviade Ukraine and then ordered to staff to not say it was happened, supports Gomes Cavinho - and the conference being in Lisbon, home of Guterres' Vaz and banks, he will also be there..

June 20, 2022

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has revised the Port of Morrow’s groundwater contamination fine to $2.1 million after finding additional wastewater violations.  On Friday, the agency added $800,000 to the Port’s original $1.3 million fine for over-applying nitrogen-rich wastewater on agricultural fields in the Lower Umatilla Basin

June 13, 2022

EPA says it will distribute $60 million among 12 states that have waterways that flow into the Mississippi River to help them control farm runoff and other pollution that contribute to a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. he money will be distributed over the next five years to Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee and Wisconsin


June 6, 2022

Deutsche Bank Raided for Greenwashing After US Is Told Of Need Crackdown On Banks

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
BBC-Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN NY Mag

SOUTH BRONX / SDNY, May 31 –    With the mega-merger horse largely out of the barn in the US, Citibank too big to question for its business in Russia even as JPMorgan Chase admits gambling a billion dollars they while closing branches in NYC, the smallest of regulators had started a review.  But where is the Community Reinvestment Act in mergers?

  The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, with jurisdiction mostly over small banks not members of the Federal Reserve System with the exception of the ironically named Truist, has a public comment period on mergers. 

  With the FDIC's request for information comment period set until May 31, here, Fair Finance Watch on April 11 submitted a first comment, below.

Now at the deadline on May 31, action - but non US regulators, in Germany: Authorities in Germany raided the offices of Deutsche Bank and its subsidiary DWS on Tuesday following claims that it was exaggerating the sustainable credentials of some of the products it sold.     A former manager in charge of sustainability at DWS has claimed that the asset management firm exaggerated the environmental and climate credentials of certain funds — referred to as greenwashing.  “The measures of the Public Prosecutors are directed against unknown people in connection with greenwashing allegations against DWS,” Deutsche Bank said in a statement.

 Unknown people? We'll have on this.

May 30, 2022

  Coal-fired plants emit, on average, 802 tons of CO2 per GW/hour of electricity generated, against 720 in oil-fired plants and 490 in gas-powered plants. Nuclear ones cause indirect emissions of 3 tons, less than wind and solar (4 or 5), hydro (34) and biomass (78)

May 23, 2022

For Withholding Lead Removal Work Records Ruilova Is Sued By EPA Now Seeking to Settle

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
BBC-Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN NY Mag

SDNY COURTHOUSE, May 16 – The EPA sued Edison Ruilova and others for failing to provide records about lead paint abatement work.     

    On May 16, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Gregory H. Woods held a conference. Inner City Press covered it.   

Ruilova intially wasn't present; only his bookkeeper was. But the bookkeeper contacted him and he appeared.

Thereupon the EPA said they are working on a resolution, at least with this defendant.

Judge Woods gave the parties until July 1 to submit a joint letter regarding the status of any anticipation.

The case is United States of America v. CISNE NY Construction, Inc. et al., 22-cv-338 (Woods)

May 16, 2022

In a study published this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the journal "Science Advances," scientists said they found that a reduction in particulate air pollution over the past 40 years led to an increase in tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic Ocean

May 9, 2022

A U.S. District Court Judge in Delaware has sentenced the owner and operator of a foreign-flag tanker to pay a $3 million criminal fine for obstructing justice and concealing deliberate pollution from the vessel.  U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Andrews for the District of Delaware sentenced Liquimar Tankers Management Services Inc. and Evridiki Navigation Inc. after they were convicted at trial on all charges, including violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships, falsifying ships’ documents, obstructing a U.S. Coast Guard inspection and making false statements to U.S. Coast Guard inspectors

May 2, 2022

A new study finds thousands of older oil and gas wells that contribute just a fraction of the nation’s energy are responsible for a large portion of the country’s climate-warming methane pollution

April 25, 2022

See, ESSENTIAL UTILITIES, INC. et al v. SWISS RE GROUP et al, 22-cv-01559, Pennsylvania Eastern Two water utilities says Swiss Re insurer improperly denied excess insurance coverage for an underlying suit accusing one of the utilities of allowing lead in...

April 18, 2022

Groups have sued the Environmental Protection Agency saying it hasn’t lived up to its obligation to force states to reduce air pollution abd hasn’t enforced Regional Haze rules under the Clean Air Act. Those rules require states to submit plans to curb harmful emissions that create haze. But 34 states including Arizona, California and Nevada haven’t yet done so, despite a deadline last summer.  The coal-fired Coronado and Springerville generating stations in eastern Arizona are among the state’s biggest polluters and emit harmful sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Environmentalists say coal plants are a major source of haze on public lands.

April 11, 2022

Hooper Pleads To Carbon Credits Fraud and Wright to Cyprus Wires So June 16 Sentencings

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN

SDNY Courtroom Exclusive, April 8 – Roger Ralston, Christopher Wright and Steven Hooper all faced a joint wire fraud conspiracy trial on May 12, 2022.

     On February 18, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Jed S. Rakoff held a lengthy in-person oral argument. Inner City Press went and covered it.  

 Among the issues raised is whether the trials should be severed. Hooper proffered to the US Attorney's Office for some 18 hours and almost got a cooperator's deal. Now, counsel for Ralston argues, Hooper's information could never be effectively "Bruton-ized" at trial. 

  [See, Bruton v. US, 391 U.S. 123 (1968)]

   Hooper's counsel countered, why not a bench trial for him, with stipulated facts? Judge Rakoff said it would not be a problem for him, but asked the government. Assistant US Attorney Jessica K. Feinstein said they will "take it under advisement."

 On March 15, severance was granted -- but not on the Brutonization grounds, but due to a serious health problem for Ralston due to a recent accident.

Hooper and Wright would be put on trial on April 25; Ralston to follow on September 12.

 On April 5, a change of plea (to guilty) was set for two of the defendants: "held on 4/5/2022 without transcription or recording. Melissa Kelley of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP for Defendant Wright and Shaelyn Gambino-Morrison of ChaudhryLaw PLLC for Defendant Hooper were present. A change of plea hearing concerning both defendants is set for 4/8/22 at 3:00 p.m."

Inner City Press went and covered the in-person guilty pleas, the only media in the courtroom. Both Wright and Hooper got sentencing ranges of 70 to 87 months, but 60 months is the cap. After Wright pled (allocuting to Cyprus to Saint Vincent wires) and left, it was said Hooper had been offered a cooperator's deal, and that the government at this sentencing on June 16 at noon will say he told the truth.

 His allocuation described fraudulent carbon credit, a scheme he withdrew from on this own.

 But when Hooper's counsel asked that he be allowed to travel back to the UK before sentencing, the AUSA opposed it and Judge Rakoff agreed, keeping the conditions of release including GPS bracelet, the same.

The case is  US v. Ralston, et al., 19-cr-774 (Rakoff)

April 4, 2022

Despite a noticeable drop in air pollution from road transport in 2020 due to COVID-19 lockdown measures, breaches of European air quality standards remain a common occurrence across the European Union (EU), according to the EEA briefing ‘Europe’s air quality status 2022.’

March 28, 2022

 The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday objected to the state’s proposed operating permit renewal for the Suncor oil refinery in Commerce City and expressed concerns about how pollution from the facility impacts its low-income and mostly minority neighbors.  The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which submitted the 373-page permit for Suncor, has 90 days to respond to the EPA’s objections and then resubmit

March 21, 2022

more: "The scientists spent two years analyzing 2010 census demographics (the most recent data available at the time of the study) and air pollution levels for 202 cities across the United States. Per a statement, they looked at two pollutants: nitrogen dioxide and PM2.5, or tiny airborne particles found in smoke, dust and other substances. The team then compared this data with 1930s maps created by the federally backed Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) in the wake of the Great Depression.  The HOLC’s surveyors awarded an “A” grade to neighborhoods they considered the most desirable for mortgage lending—in other words, areas inhabited mostly by white residents. They gave a “D” grade to neighborhoods deemed the riskiest for home loans, denoting these areas (made up primarily by residents of color) by shading them red on maps"

March 14, 2022

. Atlanta neighborhoods that were subject to racist housing policies decades ago have higher levels of air pollution than other neighborhoods, according to a recent study that looked at the legacy of redlining in hundreds of American cities.  Experts say the study, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters, shows that decisions made nearly 90 years ago still affect people’s lives unequally.  In the late-1930s, the federal government’s Home Owners’ Loan Corporation graded American neighborhoods for how risky it considered loans to be in those areas. Areas graded “A” were considered safer investments, and the scale went down to “D” grades, considered “hazardous.” Those “D” neighborhoods were shaded red on maps.

March 7, 2022

Oregon: Precision Castparts Corp. has agreed to pay $22.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit over air pollution coming from its metal parts manufacturing facility in Southeast Portland

February 28, 2022

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in a group of cases that could have an immediate impact on the American government’s ability to respond to the climate emergency.  The consequences could be even more substantial, however, reaching deep into the Biden administration’s authority to govern.  The court will be considering the 2015 Clean Power Plan

February 21, 2022


The administration is calling on residents to use a “beta version” of its Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool over the next 60 days to upload data that will reveal communities with multiple pollution sources and health threats such as tainted water, poor air quality, dirty roadways and nearby Superfund sites.

February 14, 2022

Several conservation and tribal groups plan to sue the Environmental Protection Agency. They say the EPA hasn’t lived up to its obligation to require states to reduce air pollution.  The groups say the EPA hasn’t enforced the latest round of regional haze rules under the Clean Air Act. It requires states to submit a draft plan to reduce air pollution. But the organizations say 39 US states didn’t do so by last summer’s deadline

February 7, 2022

A federal judge has approved a $65 million settlement in a class action lawsuit with three companies over chemical contamination of the water supply in an upstate New York village.  The ruling Friday by U.S. District Senior Judge Lawrence E. Kahn sets off a 30-day period for an appeal to be filed challenging the settlement. Kahn had previously ruled the settlement was “fair, reasonable and adequate.”  Under the settlement, Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, Honeywell International and 3M will compensate plaintiffs who are current or former residents of Hoosick Falls, northwest of Albany, for their exposure to PFOA, a chemical once used in certain industrial processes

January 31, 2022

Louisiana: Denka installed fenceline monitors to identify sources of emissions at its facility in St. John the Baptist Parish following an EPA order. Regan sent them a letter pressing them to continue to cooperate with EPA efforts to monitor and lower pollution in the area.

January 22, 2022

Most of the people who participated in the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District’s virtual public meeting last week approved of its plans to create an after-hours complaint system for air quality.  William Jacques, chief of compliance for the district, said State Assembly Bill 423 requires the district to evaluate and propose enhancements to its current process for receiving and responding to air pollution complaints.

January 17, 2022

A second Permian Basin company is facing an SEC lawsuit for defrauding its investors, Earther reports. Just a week after the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Heartland Group Ventures LLC, a Permian fracking company, for defrauding its investors and running a Ponzi scheme, it filed a suit against Marco “Sully” Perez and his “company” for defrauding more than 265 investors out of more than $9 million. Perez allegedly used the Ponzi scheme to fund his “extravagant lifestyle,” spending cash on “luxury cars, a helicopter, private jet travel, Bahamian real estate, and jewelry” along with his wedding on the Queen Mary.  Federal regulators say the company crossed the line when it allegedly generated less than $500,000 in revenue after raising $122 million from more than 700 investors

January 10, 2022

Iowa is suing Sioux City over what it says was the city’s manipulation of wastewater testing results and dangerous pollution of the Missouri River in a scheme that saw the wastewater plant’s former supervisor sentenced to jail.

January 3, 2022

From Chicago-land:  One year ago, residents of French Island learned they were drinking water contaminated with high levels of PFAS, a man-made chemical that is toxic to the human body.  “It’s one of the scariest things that’s happened to me in my life,” said Jim Walker.  The fear of harming your loved ones, unknowingly.  “My friends, my relatives, my kids, everyone’s been drinking my contaminated water. How would you feel?” said Jim.  Their future unknown.  “Frustration is probably the first word I’d use and the second word is helplessness. That you can’t do anything about it,” said Jim.  Jim and Margie Walker live on French Island and they have been using bottled water to do everyday tasks. Every few weeks, the Walkers get water delivered to their front door.  “Give us four or five big jugs that we put in our cooler,” said Margie.  The Walkers have no choice. Their well is contaminated with PFAS, WISC-TV reported.  “This is probably one of the worst things that’s happened to us in so many ways,” said Jim.  PFAS is what’s called a forever chemical. It does not break down and can’t be removed using traditional water filtration methods.

December 27 2021

From East Oregon (or would that be, soon, Idaho?)   Portland General Electric’s request to increase pollution at its Boardman fracked gas power plant drew fierce opposition from public health and environmental advocates.  PGE’s proposal to significantly increase toxic emissions at Carty Generating Station had its final public hearing Dec. 17.  If the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality grants the request to modify emissions at the 440-megawatt, fracked-gas power facility in Boardman, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compound output will increase significantly

December 20, 2021

A new report says that Amazon generated an estimated 271 million kilograms of plastic packaging waste last year. This is a 29 per cent increase over Oceana’s 2019 estimates, with much of this plastic waste stemming from the billions of packages Amazon delivered during the COVID-19 pandemic.

December 13, 2021

Curb kicked: The port — which is actually two adjacent facilities, the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach — is the largest of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, a complex through which four out of ten shipping containers full of imported goods will pass on their way to U.S. households. It’s the reason that Los Angeles is shaped the way it is, with a narrow ribbon of trucking corridors dangling directly south from L.A.’s downtown to San Pedro Bay. In addition to being at a higher risk of cancer, residents near the port have some of the highest rates of asthma and related emergency-room visits in the state, making them particularly vulnerable when the air turns worse; for Golden, this means experiencing symptoms of persistent allergies and, on the worst days, nosebleeds. But during the pandemic, the public-health impacts of living adjacent to the port have become even more alarming. Golden points to a study by UCLA that broke down the neighborhood death rate for COVID-19, known to be exacerbated by exposure to particulate pollution. “In most communities in and around the port, it was 60 percent higher than the rest of Los Angeles County,” he says. “So who’s bearing the burden?”

December 6, 2021

From Illinois: In Waukegan, old factories, from a closed asbestos manufacturing facility to an active gypsum factory, sit discordantly alongside public beaches and forest preserves. Home to more than 86,000 people, the city contains five active Superfund sites. And on the shores of Lake Michigan sits the Waukegan Generating Station — a facility that has burned coal for decades ― and its coal ash ponds....

November 29, 2021

Private offices and schools will stay closed on Mondays in Pakistan’s second-largest city in a bid to tackle toxic levels of smog.   The measure will be in place until 15 January, after Lahore was this week declared the most polluted city in the world by an air quality monitor – with residents suffering from shortness of breath, stinging eyes and nausea from thick pollution

November 22, 2021

How about this strategy to crack down on China’s carbon pollution: charge imports for their emissions. This is “one way to get China to have its mind concentrated” on cutting emissions ...

November 15, 2021

Kentucky comparisons: PM 2.5 emissions — Louisville ranks No. 9 with a tonnage of 7,672, compared to Bowling Green with a score of 1,524. Poxides of nitrogen — Louisville ranks No. 2 with a tonnage of 37,796, compared to 5,735 for Bowling Green. Oxides of sulfur — Louisville ranks No. 3 with a measure of 39,231, compared to Bowling Green at 61

November 8, 2021

From COP26 More Emissions of UN Hypocricy Now Fore of UNICEF Which Banned Press Q on Afghanistan

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon  Podcast
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN

UN GATE, Nov 1 – The UN system hypocrisy emanating from COP26 in Glasgow is itself like global warming. From UNICEF, which banned the Press on October 27, and its outgoing chieftain Henrietta H. Fore who headed a steel company and then something called Pozacorp, this: "“COP26 must be the COP for children,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore. “Climate change is one of the greatest threats facing this generation, with 1 billion children at extremely high risk. Yet, while the outlook is dire, world leaders at COP26 have a significant, time-sensitive opportunity to redirect the terrible path we are on." Yeah.

   On October 27 Inner City Press received an invite from  UNICEF  to sign into WebEx online briefing to ask questions to Yasmine Sherif, Education Cannot Wait director.

But when it did, with questions about Afghanistan and UNICEF including its use of the public's funds, and about UN staff abandoned by Guterres , it was "removed by the host." Video here.

By contrast, only on October 26 Inner City Press was interviewed by NBC TV in Buffalo here.

Inner City Press more than eight hours ago asked three at UNICEF / ECW including Kent Page and Anouk Desgroseilliers for an explanation:

"Subject: Press question about ECW/Sherif presser from which Inner City Press was "removed by the host" - Inner City Press is waiting for an explanation. On deadline, thanks in advance. To: kpage [at] unicef.org, adesgroseilliers [at] un-ecw.org, info [at] un-ecw.org

Hello. This is in the first instance a formal Press inquiry as to why, when yesterday I clicked the WebEx link to virtually attend and ask questions at Yasmine Sherif's press conference, I was first muted, and then "removed by the host" - presumably you / UNICEF.  

This occurred October 27 at midday and Inner City Press is waiting for an explanation.  On deadline, thanks in advance.  Matthew Russell Lee, Inner City Press

Suprising, perhaps, for an organization asking the public for money - but banning and even ousting the Press that has questions about it - no answer from these three. We will ask more. Where is Gordon Brown?  For now, podcast here.

November 1, 2021

“Chase bank alone has provided $317 billion in financing to the fossil fuel industry since the Paris Accords. Big money doesn’t care about our wellbeing. They will continue to fund climate disaster until we hit their bottom line. It’s time to fight for a fossil free future,” said Adam Neville, 19, with the Future Coalition, a national network of youth climate organizations calling for a fossil free future and national protests at Chase Bank

October 25, 2021

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced Friday a lawsuit against a metal scrapper in Pilsen that allegedly violated air pollution codes.  Sims Metal Management, at 2500 S. Paulina St., is accused of failing an emissions capture test in May 2021, Raoul said in a statement. The report alleges the shredder was capturing less than 50%, which was below mandated emissions control requirements of at least 81%.

October 18, 2021

Studies show the California San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad area with the most number of days with ozone and PM 2.5 (particulate matter 2.5) AQI (Air Quality Index) over 50.  The Los Angeles-Long-Beach-Anaheim area came in second, with 209 days and Riverside-San-Bernardino-Ontario ranked third.  Arizona's Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler area was fourth with 149 days and Colorado's Denver-Aurora-Lakewood was fifth.  Areas in Texas, Ohio and Indiana were also in the top 10

October 11, 2021

.  this year in New Jersey when the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission (PVSC) proposed building a new fracked gas power plant in the Ironbound section of Newark. For city residents already living next door to a massive trash incinerator, multiple fossil fuel plants, heavy truck traffic from the East Coast’s busiest port, and a dizzying array of industrial facilities, adding another source of air pollution is unacceptable.

October 4, 2021

A plastics company accused of contaminating residents’ water in a New York town, has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit for over $23 million. The settlement, which was filed on Friday and is pending court approval, would resolve a lawsuit brought by eight plaintiffs that allege that Petersburgh-based Taconic Plastics polluted residents’ water with perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) from a nearby plant

September 27, 2021

In the UN General Assembly last week, Greece bragged about making a "green island" with... Volkswagen...

September 20, 2021

A federal circuit court has rejected a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency statewide Idaho permit involving pollution into waterways from large dairy farms.  But the ruling appears to have limited immediate ramifications for the state’s $3 billion dairy industry because no Idaho dairies are required to get such a permit.  The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday said the permit issued in May 2020 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lacked sufficient monitoring provisions for underground discharges that can reach waterways.

September 13, 2021

Serbia: Several thousand people protested in Serbia on Saturday demanding a ban on planned lithium mining in the Balkan country as well as a resolution to scores of other environmental issues that made the region one of the most polluted in Europe.

September 6, 2021

Louisiana Shell refinery left spewing chemicals after Hurricane Ida Power outages from the storm have left air quality tracking systems out of commission, making public health concern hard to gauge

August 30, 2021

 Cans, plastic bags and bottles plague the water and beaches of Tripoli’s Mediterranean coast. Because of pollution, the Libyan environment ministry last month ordered the closure of a number of beaches along the18-mile Greater Tripoli coastline.Daily discharges of untreated sewage from the Libyan capital’s two million people make this the most polluted section of the North African country's coastline.

August 23, 2021

Fight back: The Smiths' struggle to live free from chronic sewage pollution is common across their section of Cahokia Heights, a small, predominantly Black suburb located across the Mississippi River from St. Louis and formed earlier this year from the merger of three communities strained by population loss and aging infrastructure.  The environmental challenges have spiraled into what the group Centreville Citizens for Change says is a crisis, prompting the federal government to step in twice this month and more than two dozen residents, including the Smiths, to file a federal lawsuit in July alleging that "decades of government failure to ensure basic sewage and stormwater services ... have created an environmental injustice for this Black community.

August 16, 2021

Off the coast of five Caribbean countries, reports have identified 18 different polymers of plastic -- including, synthetic fibres, paint flakes and acrylics -- in waters across the Caribbean, with the highest concentrations (5.09 particles per m³) located off the San Blas islands in Panama.  Detailed ocean modelling and an assessment of regional policies indicated the abundance of microplastics in the area likely arose from a combination of distant sources carried by ocean currents and run-off from mainland Panama, which has some of the highest estimated levels (around 44%) of mismanaged waste in the region.  By contrast, the waters off Antigua, Bonaire and Colombia had lower quantities of terrestrial and marine plastics

August 9, 2021

Denver was the most polluted on the planet as of early Saturday afternoon. Rounding out the top five list was Salt Lake City, Utah.   A large area of wildfire smoke from the Dixie Fire in California was to blame for the poor air quality across the west

August 2, 2021

In Illinois, USA:   It's been over a week since the EPA and Winnebago County Health Department advised Rockton residents in the Blackhawk neighborhood to not drink their private well water, but neither group would tell WREX the severity of the tests which caused them to make the recommendation

July 26, 2021

The Corfo Lagoon in Patagonia, southern Argentina, has turned pink after waste from fishing companies was dumped in its waters, sparking alarm among local residents and authorities

July 12, 2021

In the UK, Southern Water has been fined a record £90m after pleading guilty to dumping sewage thousands of times in the space of five years.  The company admitted to causing 6,971 unlawful sewage discharges between 2010 and 2015, which lasted a total of 61,704 hours - the equivalent to one pipe leaking continuously for more than seven years.

July 5, 2021

Giz: A senior Exxon lobbyist was caught on tape admitting that the company has been running a behind-the-scenes campaign to combat regulation on plastics and PFAS, a video released Thursday shows. The tape is the second installment of an undercover investigation

June 28, 2021

An Idaho environmental group is suing Idaho Power, claiming it’s illegally polluting the Snake River through Brownlee Dam in violation of the federal Clean Water Act.

June 21, 2021

On Sri Lanka: The main concern has been about 300 tons of bunker oil used as fuel for the ship. But officials have been saying it could have burned off in the fire.  On Thursday, Lahandapura said the salvage experts have informed her that “there could not be any oil left considering the nature of the fire, heat, duration of the fire and position of the fuel tanks.”  Both Lahandapura and X-Press Feeders said so far there was no oil spill.  The government has asked the United Nations and some other countries for help in assessing the damage to the marine environment and coastal areas

but from the UN, no answer to Press questions...

June 14, 2021

 Maryland is suing Pennsylvania for not doing enough to reduce pollution in the Chesapeake Bay...

June 7, 2021

Update:  Sri Lankan authorities are bracing themselves for a new wave of pollution, following the sinking of the container ship X-Press Pearl off the coast of Colombo.  Up to three billion plastic pellets have already been released into the sea from the vessel.  The ship's cargo also included 25 tons of nitric acid and other chemicals, while its fuel tanks contained hundreds of tons of oil

May 31, 2021

Sri Lanka's top environment body said on Saturday the country was facing its worst marine ecological disaster triggered after a Singapore-flagged cargo ship caught fire near the Colombo beach, fueling severe environmental concerns.

May 24, 2021

San Diego — A new county office will focus on areas of San Diego most affected by pollution, health disparities and the effects of climate change, the County Board of Supervisors decided Wednesday. In a unanimous vote, the board agreed to create an office of climate and environmental justice within its land use and environmental group

May 17, 2021

The shipwrecked Golden Ray, which capsized off the Georgia coast near Brunswick in 2019, caught fire Friday afternoon, sending billowing black smoke up over St. Simons Sound.

May 10, 2021

In 2020, China's CO2 emissions rose by 1.5% while those of most other countries fell. Although, in 2020, the world retreated from coal, these retirements were eclipsed by China's new coal plants.  Even before China built those new plants, it was already the world's biggest emitter of fossil fuel carbon dioxide (CO2): In 2019, China was responsible for almost 30% of CO2 emissions -- roughly twice the amount emitted by the US, then the second largest emitter. China, the planet's primary coal consumer, already has the largest concentration of coal plants globally; in 2020, it produced 3.84 billion tons of coal, its highest output since 2015. In addition, China, in 2020, imported 304 million tons of coal, up 4 million tons from 2019.

May 3, 2021

This week the US State Department announced  "This year, the Department certified 35 nations and one economy and granted determinations for twelve fisheries as having adequate measures in place to protect sea turtles while harvesting wild-caught shrimp." And what about name and shame?

April 26, 2021

Air pollution data in China may have been manipulated by local officials, according to a new study conducted by Harvard and Boston University researchers.  The analysis, published on Wednesday, found statistically significant differences between data from monitoring stations run by local Chinese officials in five cities - Beijing, Shenyang, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu

April 19, 2021

River story: "Mercury was ubiquitous in both household and industrial uses in the 1800s and 1900s, said Joel Hoffman, a research biologist and co-author of the study who is chief of the Ecosystems Services Branch of the EPA's Duluth laboratory. Those sources likely included paper mills, lumber mills, steel mills, shipbuilding sites, manufacturing facilities and other sources that once dominated the river and Twin Ports harbor shoreline.

April 12, 2021

Two dead whales have washed up on the same stretch of Bangladesh coastline in two days, officials said Saturday, raising suggestions that they were killed by sea pollution.  Officials said the second, much longer whale washed up on Himchhari Beach, outside the resort city of Cox's Bazar, at around 8:30 am

April 5, 2021

Chron: Los Angeles is the most severely polluted of all US cities.  Vehicles generate the bulk of greenhouse gases, roughly 70 million tons per year.  Greater Houston, a metro area of 7.1 million, presents a stark contrast.  Houston proves that a city need not be circled by a mountain barrier to form dense air pollution.  Look in any direction from a building in Houston and behold level terrain as far as the pollution haze allows the eye to see.  Extraordinarily flat, Houston is nonetheless pollution-plagued.  Just as Houston and Los Angeles differ markedly in topography, they differ also in pollution “source mix”.  Houston’s vehicle fleet accounts for less than 30% of air emissions, appreciably smaller than LA’s.  But greenhouse gases are not negligible – about 24 million tons per year.  Industrial behemoths including ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical, and Lyondell as well as other refining and petrochemical businesses contribute importantly to Houston’s economy.  They also contribute to pollution, accounting for most of the balance of air emissions along with smaller factory operations and electricity generation.

March 29, 2021

GAINESVILLE, Florida - The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has issued a notice of pollution near the Alachua County jail...

March 22, 2021

What will pro-China UNSG Guterres say about this, from the FT? "Despite Xi’s pledge last year to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2060, China’s five-year economic blueprint released this month disappointed those who had hoped for strict curbs on polluting coal power plants.  Even before the dust storm, Beijing was mired in a relapse of poor air quality at levels similar to 2016, caused by soaring production of steel, cement and aluminum.." March 15, 2021

  Researchers at the University of Virginia and Duke University law schools have created a database to track the criminal prosecution of corporations. According to that registry, federal prosecutors have made only 17 such deals out of more than 700 environmental and wildlife cases since the late 1990s. The Times found two more non-prosecution agreements through a Freedom of Information Act request.  Eight of those deals, or roughly 40 percent, came out of the Central District of California, a rate far out of proportion to its share of the country's environmental caseload, according to a summary of environmental prosecution data maintained by Syracuse University's TRAC project

March 8, 2021

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Thursday reversed the conviction of James Philip Lucero for engineering a scheme to dispose of dirt and debris on lands adjoining the Mowry Slough in Newark, near the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge.  Lucero was a "self-described 'dirt-broker' who provided contractors and trucking companies with open space to dump fill material, or dirt, taken from construction sites for a fee," according to the court.  He was indicted in 2016 for "knowingly discharging a pollutant" into "navigable waters" in violation of the federal Clean Water Act.     The heart of the dispute was what the trial judge should have told the jury about the meaning of the word "knowingly."

March 1, 2021

From the UK: THAMES Water has been given a fine worth more than £2 million following a pollution incident in Oxfordshire.  The water company was fined £2.3 million for a raw sewage pollution incident in 2016, which saw 1,200 fish die.

February 22, 2021

Minnesota pollution: On Feb. 19, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency issued a Code Orange Air Quality Alert to be in effect from 6 p.m. today through noon Sunday, Feb. 21 for much of east central and southeast Minnesota, including Wright County.  According to the MPCA, "Air quality is expected to worsen beginning Friday evening, with the Air Quality Index (AQI) forecasted to reach Orange or Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups category."

February 15, 2021

Britain’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a group of Nigerian farmers and fishermen can sue Royal Dutch Shell PLC in English courts over pollution in a region where the Anglo-Dutch energy giant has a subsidiary.  Five justices on the U.K.’s top court said Shell has a “duty of care” to the claimants over the actions of its Nigerian subsidiary. Shell had argued that it was not responsible.  Members of Nigeria’s Ogale and Bille communities took Shell to court in Britain in 2016, alleging that decades of oil spills have fouled the water, contaminated the soil and destroyed the lives of thousands of people in the Niger River Delta, where a Shell subsidiary has operated for decades.

February 8, 2021

Owners of a solar energy farm in Massachusetts have reached a settlement with the state’s attorney general’s office to remediate a large tract of wetlands and riverfront damaged during construction of the site in 2018.  Dynamic Energy Solutions agreed to pay more than $1 million to settle charges that it violated federal stormwater protections, damaged wetlands and polluted a branch of a river...

February 1, 2021

Riverkeeper Lawsuit Against EPA Will Exclude Hearsay Report In SDNY Ruling Due February

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN

SDNY COURTHOUSE, Jan 25 – Riverkeeper sued the EPA for not protecting endangered species in connection with its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

 On January 25, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Jed S. Rakoff held a proceeding. Inner City Press covered it.  

Judge Rakoff grilled Riverkeeper's lawyer about a report being hearsay; he listened to the argument on standing, that it was not based on spending money on litigation but the longstanding "Havens" factors.  

At the end - reference was made another proceeding, not on the PACER Calendar Events - Judge Rakoff said it is interesting case so it will take time to rule.

 He specified the end of February, saying he'll aim to do it sooner but cannot promise.

The case is JSR Riverkeeper, Inc. et al v. US EPA, et al., 20-cv-6572 (Rakoff)

January 25, 2021

A map of Florida brownfields, and communities of color, is here.

January 18, 2021

Tzumi Sues EPA To Stop Hand Wipes Wipe Out Order But EPA Says Claims Are False

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN

SDNY COURTHOUSE, Jan 14 –   Tzumi Innovations says that its "Wipe Out!" hand wipes should not be registered with the EPA as a pesticide under FIFRA. It has sued.    

   On January 14, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Lorna G. Schofield held a proceeding. Inner City Press covered it.  

The EPA says Tzumi is lying - or its claims are false - when it accuses EPA of issuing a Stop Sale, Use or Removal Order to Home Depot regarding Wipe Out products. 

On January 11, Judge Schofield had ordered a briefing schedule and a letter on whether the effectiveness of any SSURO might be delayed pending resolution of the case. Could it be a wipe out?

The case is Tzumi Innovations, LLC v. Wheeler et al., 21-cv-122 (Schofield)

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January 11, 2021

Check it out: Top Twenty Lenders to 40 actors in the Plastic Packaging Value Chain (Jan 2015 - Sept 2020; million USD)

BANK HQ LOANS & UNDERWRITING % OF TOTAL Bank of America United States 171,737 10.31% Citigroup United States 145,816 8.76% JPMorgan Chase United States 143,766 8.63% Barclays United Kingdom 117,923 7.08% Goldman Sachs United States 97,042 5.83% HSBC United Kingdom 96,201 5.78% Deutsche Bank Germany 77,398 4.65% Wells Fargo United States 74,121 4.45% BNP Paribas France 55,852 3.35% Morgan Stanley United States 54,211 3.26% Mizuho Financial Japan 50,602 3.04% Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Japan 43,587 2.62% Credit Suisse Switzerland 40,218 2.42% Société Générale France 35,775 2.15% Santander Spain 33,960 2.04% SMBC Group Japan 33,189 1.99% ING Group Netherlands 31,084 1.87% Toronto-Dominion Bank Canada 23,574 1.42% NatWest United Kingdom 22,207 1.33% Royal Bank of Canada Canada 21,760 1.31% Other 295,191 17.73%

January 4, 2021

Chippewa Sue Enbridge Tar Sands Oil Pipeline But Army Corps Lost in DC Mail Press Tweets

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN

FEDERAL COURT, Dec 31 – A lawsuit seeking to enjoin a tar sands oil pipeline in Minnesota and elsewhere got a initial hearing on December 30 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Inner City Press covered it, and live tweeted it here:

The US Army Corps of Engineers decision to let Enbridge Energy to build a  330-mile pipeline for tar sands oil from Canada is being sued in DC Dist by the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians & White Earth Band of Ojibwe.  

US says it has not been served. The papers are in the mail, but USPS says they won't arrive until January 5.

Judge Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly says she can move fast, because of COVID she is not going anywhere. She asks the parties to agree to a briefing schedule  Assistant US Attorney says the Corps of Engineers people are on vacation, unreachable. They want more time.

Judge: Are they going to be back on Monday? AUSA: That would be the first day. This permit may have a truly massive record, including state litigation.  Judge: I was reversed some years ago for doing a TRO without getting the administrative record in. It's local rule 7(10)(1), it's gotten better. Has there been other litigation?

Plaintiffs' counsel: Yes, at the state level. And under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act.   Plaintiffs' counsel: It's in the Minnesota Court of Appeals. 

Judge: So we'll talk once you reach the Army Corps of Engineers. 

The case is RED LAKE BAND OF CHIPPEWA INDIANS, WHITE EARTH BAND OF OJIBWE, HONOR THE EARTH, and SIERRA CLUB, Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS, Defendant. Case No. 1:20-cv-3817 (D.D.C., Kollar-Kotelly)

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December 28, 2020

EPA Cutting No Spray Pesticide Zone Triggered SDNY Hearing By Dec 26 Only EPA Has Filed

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN

SDNY COURTHOUSE, Dec 23 – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's rule to limit the 100-foot no spray zone down to 23-feet gave rise to an emergency hearing on December 23 at 5 pm. Inner City Press covered it.

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Lewis J. Liman held the hearing, and asked many questions, including about the impact of the change of U.S. Administration on January 20. 

 He did not decide, at the end of an hour and a half, on the request for a temporary restraining order. 

 Instead, Judge Liman said he will rule on it before December 29. He asked the parties if they wanted to submit more on "the 705 issue." Both said yes.

So, letters were said due at 5 pm on Saturday, December 26.

Now as of 5:10 pm on December 26, in the docket there is no letter (yet?) from plaintiffs, but this in the EPA's / DOJ's 3-page filing: "Dear Judge Liman: This Office represents defendants (together, “EPA”) in this matter. I write respectfully in response to the Court’s request at argument on December 23, 2020, for briefing on the application of the stay provision of the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), 5 U.S.C. § 705. As stated in EPA’s brief, a request by plaintiffs for a court order to delay implementation of a rule under 5 U.S.C. § 705 is governed by the same standards as the issuance of a preliminary injunction. Dkt. No. 30 (“EPA Br.”) at 10 (citing New York v. U.S. Dep’t of Educ., — F. Supp. 3d. —, No. 20 Civ. 4260 (JGK), 2020 WL 4581595, at *5 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 9, 2020)). It has long been the law of the Second Circuit that stays of administrative action are governed by these requirements....Plaintiffs have not established that nationwide and rule-wide relief is necessary to remedy the harms they allege. See EPA Br. at 29-30. If the Court concludes that some type of equitable relief is appropriate, that relief should be tailored to affect only (1) the harms that Plaintiffs can establish specifically as to themselves or their members, and (2) the portions of EPA’s 2020 Rule as to which Plaintiffs have shown a likelihood both of success on the merits and of irreparable harm absent equitable relief. See New York, 969 F.3d at 88; Eastern Air Lines, 261 F.2d at 830. Plaintiffs do not challenge several aspects of the rule, see EPA Br. at 9 n.2, which should not be enjoined or stayed, and the Court should also decline to enjoin all discrete portions of the Rule as to which Plaintiffs have failed to carry their burden."

The case is Rural & Migrant Ministry et al v. Andrew Wheeler et al., 20-cv-10645 (Liman)

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December 21, 2020

From Thailand: "the problem in Bangkok is little to do with the traffic, buses and local industry. Of course, it’s a contributor but a tiny fraction of the bigger, deliberately lit, plantation fire issue.  A long term solution is to subsidise proper machinery for Thailand’s farmers to clear the land mechanically, rather than the cheaper burning of the crops. Districts could share the cost of the necessary machinery, with individual farmers and companies hiring the equipment when needed.  Today it’s easy to track all the fires, clearly identified by NASA satellites, in almost real time. It’s a free website that anyone can log onto… even Thai government officials. You can see the active fires in Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar as well, but there is a big concentration in central, northern and north-eastern Thailand.  You can see clear evidence of exactly where the smoke is coming from… matched with the daily weather forecast which provides the direction and strength of the winds.  There’s even a simple site like Air Visual which lists the air quality around the country, and the world for that matter, any time of the day."

December 14, 2020

In Pakistan, the National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH) has demanded that a national-level emergency should be declared to tackle the problem of marine pollution as the recent sighting of coral bleaching near Charna Island shows that serious environmental issue is getting worse every passing day.

December 7, 2020

Arizona District Judge G. Murray Snow ruled that  Chubb's Illinois Union Insurance Co. doesn't have to cover a resort's COVID-19  losses, writing that the carrier's "premises pollution liability" policy only covers environmental pollution but not the coronavirus pandemic. He dismissed London Bridge Resort LLC's lawsuit against the insurer, ruling that COVID-19 does not fall within the policy's "pollution condition" definition. The case is London Bridge Resort LLC v. Illinois Union Insurance Company Incorporated, case number CV-20-08109, in the US District Court for the District of Arizona

November 30, 2020

Utility giant Georgia Power has embarked on a buying spree. In 2016, it bought a veterinarian’s 5-acre lot in the rolling hills of northwest Georgia for roughly double the appraised value. The following year, it acquired 28 acres of flood-prone land in southwest Georgia’s Pecan Belt for nearly four times what the local tax assessor said it was worth. By the year after that, the utility giant had paid millions of dollars above the appraised value for hundreds of acres near a winding gravel road in a central Georgia town with no water lines and spotty cellphone service.  Two things united the properties: They were all near coal-fired power plants that generated toxic waste stored in unlined ponds at those sites. And they were all purchased after the Environmental Protection Agency finalized new regulations in 2014 governing the disposal of such waste, known as coal ash.

November 23, 2020

On November 19, 2020, U.S. EPA published its decision to remove Ohio’s air pollution nuisance rule from Ohio’s SIP in the Federal Register. The removal came at the request of Ohio EPA because the nuisance rule does not have a reasonable connection to the attainment of the NAAQS in Ohio, and U.S. EPA erred in approving it as part of Ohio’s SIP.

November 16, 2020

Smog levels reached hazardous levels on Friday as Faisalabad and Lahore topped the world’s most polluted cities index, followed by New Delhi.  The overall air quality of Lahore was recorded as 321 with a high concentration of PM2.5 of 270 microgrammes per cubic metre, which is the most damaging of the particulate matter in the air and is absorbed directly into the bloodstream and impacts organs. Faisalabad ranked even worse with 440 US air quality index (AQI).

November 9, 2020

To read: Jon Mitchel's “Poisoning the Pacific: The U.S. Military’s Dumping of Plutonium, Chemical Weapons, and Agent Orange,” based on thousands of pages of documents he obtained from the U.S. military through FOIA; they detail the widespread contamination of bases and the areas surrounding them with PFAS and other hazardous substances, including chemical weapons, Agent Orange, jet fuel, and PCBs.

November 2, 2020

Sri Lanka has recorded an abnormal drop in air quality levels from October 27 and the pollution is continuing to rise despite lower vehicle movement in urban areas cities, the National Building Research Organisation (NBRO) said.  According to NBRO's Air Quality Monitoring Center data, apart from the southern parts of the country, the particulate matter level in the atmosphere in Colombo, Kandy, Puttalam, Vavuniya, Jaffna and other places has increased

October 26, 2020

Researchers estimate that, on a given day, if all of China was exposed to a 100 μg/m³ increase in PM2.5 (as often happens in Beijing), 2.5 million more meals would be delivered, potentially using the same additional number of plastic bags or plastic containers.  “Our findings probably apply to other typically polluted developing-nation cities, such as in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Vietnam,” the researchers warn

October 19, 2020

Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board officer's premises raided, The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) have seized huge amount of cash and gold jewellery from the residence of a senior officer of Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) located in Ranipet on Wednesday, sources said.  The raid at the residence was a follow-up action after a joint raid conducted by district inspection cell and DVAC at the officer’s ‘unofficial’ office building at Katpadi in Vellore district resulting in the seizure of Rs. 33.73 lakh from the building and a car.

October 12, 2020

Fracking as political football - discuss...

October 5, 2020

The Environmental Protection Agency will review a complaint that Missouri officials have allowed excessive air pollution in low-income and minority neighborhoods in south St. Louis.  The complaint, filed by the Great Rivers Environmental Law Center, alleges that the Missouri Department of Natural Resources violated Title Six of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the EPA’s own regulations, by renewing air pollution permits for Kinder Morgan Transmix, a gasoline and diesel fuel company, without input from residents.  It claims the operation affects the Dutchtown, Marine Villa, Gravois Park and Mount Pleasant neighborhoods.

September 28, 2020

Much of the coast of Senegal, a poor nation of some 16 million people, is polluted.  The government has made attempts to tackle the problem -- such as banning single-use plastics this year -- but the impact on the ground appears limited.   Bargny's trash problem is particularly severe. The town has a spotty garbage-collection service, but no rubbish bins or sewage system.

September 21, 2020

New Jersey signed into law Friday a measure giving state regulators power to deny development permits to businesses whose operations pollute predominantly minority communities. 

September 14, 2020

 In Minnesota, these incinerators also impact our communities of color—including the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center, or HERC, just blocks from north Minneapolis. Air pollution from HERC threatens the most vulnerable in communities around it, and taxpayers have subsidized HERC with millions of dollars over the years.

September 7, 2020

Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA) launched a campaign on Saturday, September 5, to further raise awareness on air pollution and fuel emission control measures.   The awareness also involves mass testing of vehicle emissions. It is conducted in line with the ‘International    Air Quality Day is held every September 7, to educate the public on air pollution and control measures

August 31, 2020

The federal appeals court called Pennsylvania’s regulations for coal plant emissions too weak and ordered the state to revise them.  The decision was a victory for environmental groups, which sued the Department of Environmental Protection for writing the rules, and the federal EPA for accepting them.  The 2016 rules were put into place by the DEP to comply with federal mandates to curb ozone, or ground-level smog. The agency required coal-fired power plants to use pollution controls to lower their emissions of Nitrogen Oxides (NOx), which help form ozone when exposed to sunlight. But it gave plants the option of not using those controls when the plant’s emissions stream fell below 600 degrees fahrenheit, typically at times of reduced capacity.  The court held this temperature threshold was a “gaping loophole” in the ozone rule and threw the plan out.

August 24, 2020

Air Quality Impacts at an E‐Waste Site in Ghana Using Flexible, Moderate‐Cost and Quality‐Assured Measurements Lawrencia Kwarteng  Emmanuel Acquah Baiden  Julius Fobil  John Arko‐Mensah  Thomas Robins  Stuart Batterman First published: 07 July 2020 https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GH000247 SECTIONSPDFPDFTOOLS SHARE Abstract Air quality information is scarce in low‐ and middle‐income countries. This study describes the application of moderate cost approaches that can provide spatial and temporal information on concentrations of particulate matter (PM) needed to assess community and occupational exposures. We evaluated PM levels at the Agbogbloshie e‐waste and scrap yard site in Accra, Ghana, and at upwind and downwind locations, obtaining both optical and gravimetric measurements, local meteorological data and satellite aerosol optical depth. Due to overload issues, the gravimetric 24‐hr samplers were modified for periodic sampling and some optical data were screened for quality assurance. Exceptionally high concentrations (e.g., 1‐hr average PM10 exceeding 2000 μg/m3) were sometimes encountered near combustion sources, including open fires at the e‐waste site and spoil piles. 24‐hr PM2.5 levels averaged 31, 88 and 57 μg/m3 at upwind, e‐waste and downwind sites, respectively, and PM10 averaged 145, 214 and 190 μg/m3, considerably exceeding air quality standards. Upwind levels likely reflected biomass burning that is prevalent in the surrounding informal settlements; levels at the e‐waste and downwind sites also reflected contributions from biomass combustion and traffic. The highest PM levels occurred in evenings, influenced by diurnal changes in emission rates, atmospheric dispersion and wind direction shifts. We demonstrate that moderate cost instrumentation, with some modifications, appropriate data cleaning protocols, and attention to understanding local sources and background levels, can be used to characterize spatial and temporal variation in PM levels in urban and industrial areas. Here.

August 17, 2020

European banks are financing the trade of controversial oil from the Amazon Sacred Headwaters region in Ecuador to international destinations in the U.S. such as California. The report also examines how these banks are actively complicit in the impacts of the oil industry on the Amazon rainforest — including oil spills, harm to Indigenous peoples, and climate destruction — despite making previous climate and human rights commitments. BNP Paribas (Suisse) SA and Deutsche Bank did not respond. 

August 10, 2020

From San Diego: At the rate of one trash truck full per minute all day long, every day, plastics mostly only used one time, then thrown away, are making their way into the ocean. They flow there via the Tijuana River, other rivers and estuaries, and storm drains. It happens all over the world, but the problem is worse in developing countries, the same places where we ship our plastic trash.  Developing countries lack the infrastructure to handle the sorting and disposal of these items properly. Surprisingly, despite that recycling symbol that leads us to believe otherwise, only around 9% of all plastics ever made over the past 70 years have been recycled.  Capt. Charles Moore, the discoverer of the North Pacific garbage patch, a researcher, educator, and author of “Plastic Ocean,” tells us there is no “away” with plastics.

August 3, 2020

Last week, a Kenyan Court awarded $1.3 billion Ksh (USD12 million) to residents of Owino Uhuru, a suburb of Mombasa, for damages related to pollution from a nearby lead smelter that recycled lead-acid batteries.

July 27, 2020

California is working on first-of-their-kind rules to limit emissions from ride-hail vehicles, which could force the companies to get about one-third of their drivers into electric vehicles by the end of 2030.
July 20, 2020

A federal judge late [Wednesday] reinstated the Bureau of Land Management’s 2016 methane waste rule, aimed at protecting people and the climate from methane waste and pollution from oil and gas extraction on public lands.

July 13, 2020

Nearly half of South Koreans viewed air pollution as the most pressing environmental concern last year, a government survey showed Sunday, amid a worsening level of fine dust in the country.  According to a survey conducted by the state-run Korea Environment Institute on 3,008 people around the country, 46.5 percent of respondents said "improving air quality" against such pollutants as fine dust and ozone was the most urgent environmental problem that needs to be solved.  Less than  22 percent cited climate change

July 6, 2020

In Portland, Maine, city officials are seeking a tougher federal crackdown on Sprague Resources LP for air pollution from heated petroleum storage tanks at its facilities in South Portland, Searsport and five other New England cities.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency filed a lawsuit against Sprague in May...

June 29, 2020

Monsanto has agreed to pay Washington state $95 million to settle a lawsuit that blamed it for pervasive pollution from PCBs

June 22, 2020

Even in New Zealand: Forest & Bird is calling on the Government to reinstate a freshwater nitrogen limit of 1.0 mg/l into its proposed freshwater reforms, after the organization obtained alarming readings of nitrate-nitrogen in public drinking water supplies...

June 15, 2020

In Tennessee, in the last five years, the Lawrenceburg Sewage Treatment Plant has had 128 violations.

June 8, 2020

NPR: Our analysis revealed that, in the vast majority of places, ozone pollution decreased by 15% or less, a clear indication that improving air quality will take much more than cleaning up tailpipes of passenger cars.  In cities such as Los Angeles, stubbornly poor air quality during the coronavirus lockdown underscored how vast fleets of trucks are a dominant source of pollution. In industrial cities like Houston, refineries and petrochemical plants spew considerable air pollution. And in Pittsburgh and across a swath of the eastern U.S., much of the air pollution still comes from burning coal.

June 1, 2020

As Pennsylvania Sues Exxon and BP Oil Companies Say No One In PA Hurt By MTBE

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - The Source

SDNY COURTHOUSE, May 28 – The state or Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is suing Exxon, BP, Chevron, Citgo (Venezuela), Conoco, Duke, Getty, Gulf, Lukoil, Phillips 66, Shell, Texaco, and Cumberland Farms.

On May 28 Inner City Press covered a conference before U.S. District Court for the Southern District Of York Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman. 

   Judge Freeman said, It's a long docket.  (She starts reading from 2016 motions.

White shoe law firms representing the oil companies in the case include King & Spalding, which in full disclosure Inner City Press has covered in connection with Turkey's Halkbank, Stroock, and Ballard Spahr, along others. 

 The companies' lawyers soon were mocking the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for wanting to test all water wells for MTBE, saying Pennsylvania doesn't point to anyone actually injured.

Judge Freeman said she will not agree to strike any pleadings - that would be up to District Judge Broderick - and that while she could impose discovery sanctions, she won't, this should be addressed on the merits. She notes discovery is delayed by Covid-19 in many cases. 

 Judge Freman told the parties if they want her to review disputed discovery documents "in camera," don't fax them - they'll just sit in unused chambers. She arranged other ways to get them.

The case is Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Exxon Mobil Corporation, et al., 14-cv-6228 (Broderick / Freeman).

May 25, 2020

Westmoreland Mining Holdings sued the EPA in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Friday over its Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule, which regulates the emission of mercury and other toxins emitted from power plants... The firm BakerHostetler, which is representing Westmoreland, has previously argued against what they view as “one-size-fits-all” standards in comments to the EPA...

May 18, 2020

... The agency was sued in the same court on April 16 by environmental groups seeking to require the EPA to determine when a company had stopped complying with environmental laws, and to immediately notify the public.  The states said in their lawsuit that the EPA is no longer requiring companies to monitor emissions of air and water pollution or to test storage tanks and other facilities that contain hazardous wastes. The new policy also suspends federal time limits for storage of hazardous wastes if the owner cites the coronavirus as a reason, the suit said.  The changes will lead to more chemical spills and “likely will result in increased air and water pollution,” endangering residents who live nearby, downwind or downstream, the suit said.  New York’s attorney general took the lead in the suit, which was joined by California, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Vermont and Virginia. 

May 11, 2020

As US EPA Coronavirus Deregulation Is Sued SDNY Litigants Leave It To The Papers

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - The Source

SDNY COURTHOUSE, May 6 – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on March 26, citing the Coronavirus pandemic, allowed companies to move to only internal monitoring of noncompliance with regulations and tell EPA about it later, only if asked.

  Environmental groups on April 1 filed an emergency petition for rulemaking with EPA, opposing this.

After EPA inaction, they have sued in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, whose Chief Judge Colleen McMahon held a conference on the case on May 6. Inner City Press covered it.

   Judge McMahon invited plaintiffs to use the opportunity to describe their case; they said they preferred to stand on their papers. Perhaps journalists in the environmental field prefer to simply read.

In the docket now are Catskill Mountainkeeper, Center for Coalfield Justice, Clean Water Action, Coming Clean, Environmental Justice Health Alliance, Flint Rising, Indigenous Environmental Network, Just Transition Alliance, Los Jardines Institute, Natural Resources Defense Council, Public Citizen, Southeast Environmental Task Force, Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc., Water You Fighting For.   Judge McMahon said while she was not scheduling oral argument, she may pose questions to the side by filing them in the docket. Inner City Press will be monitoring it.

The case is NRDC et al. v. Assistant Administrator Susan Parker Bodine, et al., 20-cv-3058 (McMahon).

May 4, 2020

Residents of Birshin Fulani village in Bauchi Local Government Area of Bauchi State have accused a construction company, Triacta Nigeria Limited of polluting their environment while blasting a rock located in the area for gravels and cracking their buildings.  Speaking with journalists, some of the residents lamented that the activities of the construction company make life unbearable for them as it causes both noise and air pollution which they alleged also pose threat to their health

April 27, 2020

UNintended consequences: "With many businesses closed, Alabamians are getting outdoors more, and that is leading more people to notice new things in their environment. And that is leading to an increase in complaints about water pollution to both state regulators and environmental watchdogs. "

April 20, 2020

Prince William has hailed the reductions in air pollution since the coronavirus lockdown began, adding that he hopes attitudes towards working from home will change once restrictions are lifted.  Speaking alongside the Duchess of Cambridge on BBC Breakfast this morning (April 17), the Prince was asked about the large drops in air pollution reported in the UK and abroad since the lockdown began almost a month ago.  ‘Absolutely, I’ve noticed that,’ he said. ‘That is a positive isn’t it?’  ‘The environmental impact of no one travelling around the place has made a huge difference all around the world....

April 13, 2020

  As with another Federal agency, but deeper in the process so more understandable, the EPA churns on, here

April 6, 2020

A group of Senators led by Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) on Friday called on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to halt any rulemakings or guidance documents that could cause in increase in toxic chemicals or air or water pollution, and therefore increase the risk of illness or death from the coronavirus.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the coronavirus may pose a higher risk of serious illness to people who have chronic lung disease, asthma, heart conditions, diabetes, or other chronic illnesses or who are immuno-compromised.

March 30, 2020

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reviewed a request from the American Petroleum Institute (API) — to soften enforcement of air and water pollution during the Covid-19 pandemic.  A few days later, the EPA invoked a temporary policy that does just that — easing enforcement of environmental laws during the outbreak.  EPA’s “temporary enforcement discretion” applies to civil violations during the outbreak — and frames the policy as more of a reporting and “routine monitoring” matter — as does the petroleum group.

March 23, 2020

Computer scientists from Loughborough University in the UK have developed a new AI system that predicts air pollution levels days in advance.  The system developed analyzes air data through sensors installed in cities to predict the pollution levels.

March 16, 2020

Luxembourg is introducing free public transport and Manchester is building a walking and cycle network, but declining town centers, dividing cities into separate zones for home, business and retail, and allowing out-of-town development can tie people to journeys for everyday tasks.  

March 9, 2020

The Break Free From Plastic Act of 2020 aims to curb plastics pollution by shifting the responsibility from consumers to the companies that produce plastic.  The bill, introduced by Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.), would hold major plastic polluters, such as Nestlé, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, accountable for their pollution by requiring them to finance waste and recycling programs.

March 2, 2020

Twelve of the US' top 100 polluting plants are in Louisiana. The study also says in 2018, these 100 plants, which all have at least 250 people living within a mile of them, were responsible for 39% of the country’s toxic air emissions.

February 24, 2020

Cleaning up air pollution has made winters milder Research reveals that cleaner skies allow more of the sun’s energy to reach the earth’s surface and have altered high altitude wind patterns

February 17, 2020

South Sudan: "The oil rich area around Paloch, a city in Upper Nile state, is dotted with exposed pools of toxic water. A chemical junkyard in Gumry town, about 45 minutes from Paloch, was strewn with overflowing containers of black sludge that seeped into the ground and were surrounded by toxic waste" - AP

February 10, 2020

...Coal provides more than a third of the world’s electricity  ....

February 3, 2020

from Colorado: Denver among top 10 worst US cities for hazardous air pollution, 2 new studies say Denver residents have been inhaling hazardous air pollution at elevated levels on more than 260 days a year for the past two years, federal records show, as two new studies released this week ranked metro Denver among the top 10 worst U.S. cities for air quality.

January 27, 2020

This week, Malta: “The NAPCP on page 44, table 2 says that in the scenario ‘with measures’ Malta will emit a total of 4.9 kilotons of NOx when the limits are only 2kt. With so called ‘additional measures’ proposed in the draft action plan emissions go down marginally to 4.5kt...

January 20, 2020

US 9th Circuit Dismisses Climate Change Lawsuit While UNSG Guterres Flies to Lisbon Again

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon, Thread Video
Honduras - The Source - The Root - etc

SDNY COURTHOUSE, Jan 17 – A major climate change lawsuit has been shot down by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. From their summary in JULIANA V. UNITED STATES: "The panel reluctantly concluded that the plaintiffs’ case must be made to the political branches or to the electorate at large. District Judge Staton dissented, and would affirm the district court.  Judge Staton wrote that plaintiffs brought suit to enforce the most basic structural principal embedded in  our system of liberty: that the Constitution does not condone the Nation’s willful destruction.  She would hold that plaintiffs have standing to challenge the government’s conduct, have articulated claims under the Constitution, and have presented sufficient evidence to press those claims at trial."

During the trial that convicted Tony Hernandez, the brother of Honduras' president Juan Orlando Hernandez (JOH), on all four counts of guns and narcotics trafficking and false statements, the drug ledgers of one Nery Orlando López Sanabria a/k/a Magdaleno were used by the SDNY prosecutors.

  Here is an Inner City Press tweeted photo of notebook mentioning "JOH," in Spanish. Inner City Press repeated asked the United Nations, in New York and Geneva, for  comment. Now since November 2 the UN's "human rights" office in Honduras has refused to even confirm receipt.  Funding should be cut off to Guterres' UN - now he's getting Chapo's money. And, relatedly, refusing to answer Press questions about the release of Chapo's son, here.

  While UNSG Antonio Guterres has refused to answer any of banned Inner City Press' questions about Honduras after he praised JOH after meeting with him in September 2019, saying the two had met not about corruption but climate change, now on December 2 both will be in Madrid for United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP25).

The event was moved due to protests in Santiago, Chile of which Guterres took note while ignoring those in Honduras. Guterres spent days in Lisbon on the public dime, after flying there on Air Chapo (with money from thence) - while on Novmeber 29 his spokesmen did not answer even one of Inner City Press' written questions. Guterres is corrupt. We'll have more on this.

January 13, 2020

There is unlikely to be much respite of the air pollution shrouding Greater Bangkok this weekend. And the PM is urging people to inform a hotline of any vehicles belching smoke and fumes into the Bangkok sky.  The Pollution Control Department says the smog, which saw just about all of the 50 air quality stations hitting levels of PM2.5 over ’50’ yesterday (the upper limit for safe pollution levels as determined as ’25’ by the World Health Organisation), will continue over the weekendJanuary 6, 2020

A Washington University study shows that St. Louis residents in poor, segregated neighborhoods are at a greater risk of cancer from air contaminants. Christine Ekenga, an assistant professor at the school and the study’s lead author, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the pollutants that conferred the greatest dangers were traffic-related. The findings support the university’s other recent research that details how St. Louis is plagued by inequalities. The city’s stark racial divide makes it one of the most segregated in the U.S. and contributes to differing outcomes that include asthma rates, exposure to lead and inadequate access to healthy food.

December 30, 2019:

On environmental in the US federal courts, we note Massachusetts v. Exxon Mobil Corp., D. Mass., No. 1:19-cv-12430, and the motion filed 12/26/19.

December 23, 2019

 Honeywell International filed a $4 million  settlement with the state Department of Natural Resources in federal court in Atlanta.  The money will cover cleanup costs related to the former LCP Chemicals plant.  It will also pay the state for lost fishing opportunities from chemicals polluting nearby marsh and waterways.  The site is currently under the federal Superfund law. Honeywell and Georgia Power Co. in 2016 agreed to pay the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency $29 million to clean up marshland.

December 16, 2019

The Tennessee Air Pollution Control Board issued a Technical Secretary’s Order and Assessment of Civil Penalty (“Order”) to Nissan North America, Inc., (“Nissan”) for alleged violations of an air permit. See Division of Air Pollution – Case No. APC19-0119.  The Order states that Nissan operates an engine machining process at a facility (“Facility”) in Decherd, Tennessee.

December 9, 2019

How are area of London affected and which are the worst boroughs when it comes to poor air quality.  The new data compares how many cigarettes breathing a location's air is equivalent to.  Newham - 159 -  Westminster - 157  Kensington and Chelsea - 156  Islington - 156  Waltham Forest - 156  Many of the worst areas outside London are, incidentally, also very close to the capital.   Slough - 145  Dartford - 144  Portsmouth - 142   Medway - 142  Luton - 140

December 2, 2019

According to Air Quality Index, Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, is ranked worst as the most polluted city in the world.

November 25, 2019

At some stages in recent days, the state capital of Sydney reached as high as No. 8 on the Air Visual global rankings of cities with the worst air pollution in the world, ahead of Jakarta and Shenzhen and only just behind Mumbai. 

November 18, 2019

HR 5120, authored by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), is the “Safe, Accountable, Fair and Environmentally Responsible (SAFER) Pipelines Act of 2019.” The bill will give the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) (part of the Department of Transportation) strong direction to act in the safety interests of citizens living in both urban and rural areas, including by requiring new rules to prevent, detect, stop and report methane emissions.
November 11, 2019

  "Thousands of companies around the world are now reporting climate-related financial exposures to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) under the guidelines of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures." That's Lael Brainart; in other news, no follow through on ensuring that FOIA requests related to mergers are ruled on before the Fed closes comment periods. Also, problems with HMDA availability from CFPB: isn't this as much in the Fed's wheelhouse and area of responsibility?

November 4, 2019

 One thing we can say is that Antonio Guterres' brand of "climate action" is a fraud that when questions, is not or cannot be defended, see here.

October 28, 2019

A group of scientists selected by the EPA to advise it on air pollution standards couldn’t reach consensus on whether the standards should be tightened or stay  the same, a development that may complicate ongoing effort to update them.  The Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee was examining the current environmental rules for fine particulate matter, akaPM2.5, during a two-day meeting that ended Oct. 25. Four of the committee’s six members said the current rules are acceptable, while two others said they should be lowered to better protect public health.

October 21, 2019
 
  So why isn't The Bronx, or even NYC, at least as of October 19, 2019 on https://insights.sustainability.google/?

October 14, 2019

MN: Twin Cities residents interested in the air quality of their neighborhoods can now find out with the click of a mouse on a state website.  The new mapping tool is part of an urban air-quality monitoring project at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) aimed at understanding the relationship between common air contaminants and public health effects, such as asthma and early deaths, broadening the state’s effort to tackle the issue known as health equity. 

October 7, 2019

The shipping industry is yet another industry where the burden put on the environment is not being reduced as much as it’s being shifted and concealed. Experts warn this could have a terrible, devastating effect on wildlife in British waters — and, remember, water goes everywhere.  Global shipping companies are rigging vessels with “cheat devices,” even to the tune of billions of dollars, to create a false impression. By circumventing new environmental legislation, they are simply dumping pollution into the sea to protect the air. Seems a case of cutting off one’s foot instead of one’s hand, metaphorically

September 30, 2019

Environment and the courts: A settlement in the Hawaii linchpin case that was to anchor a U.S. Supreme Court review of whether the federal Clean Water Act mandates cleanup of pollution carried via groundwater to regulated water bodies now could leave the dispute out of what justices will consider....

September 23, 2019

UN Guterres Leers At Youth Climate Summit While Covers Up Child Rapes and Flies to Lisbon Censoring Press

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR PFT Video

UN GATE, September 21 -- Who gets to decide which media can enter the United Nations to cover this week's United Nations General Assembly meeting, for example the September 21 "Youth Climate Summit"? It's Antonio Guterres, who as Secretary General has covered up child rapes by UN peacekeepers and his many jet flights to his real home in Lisbon, and has banned Inner City Press which asks about both for 445 days now.

 On September 21Guterres sat leering in the UN Trusteeship Council Chamber, trying to co-opt the youth energy against corporate polluters.  His Climate Envoy Luis Alfonso de Alba was lurking around the UN at midnight smoking a cigarette and joining in Guterres' censorship of Press. His Youth Envoy is not young, and partners with Saudi Prince MBS who had journalist Jamal Khashoggi killed. Guterres is killing the UN.

September 16, 2019

UN Guterres Flies To Bahamas Noting Haitians Whom He Cheats After UN Cholera Killed 10000

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR PFT Video

UN GATE, Sept 14 -- Who gets to decide which media can enter the United Nations to cover this month's United Nations General Assembly high level week?

  The answer in today's UN, not unlike in any dictatorship whether China or Cameroon, is one man and his small circle of yes-men and a yes-women, with no due process, no right to appeal, no judicial oversight.   

  In this case the man is Antonio Guterres, and the new yes-woman is Melissa Fleming. She previously served as his spokesperson during his tenure at the UN refugee agency UNHCR. Guterres parlayed that into the top UN job by showing great deference to China on its refoulement to North Korea for torture.

 And what does Guterres do as Secretary General, beyond seeking a second term include by censoring the Press? He flew down to the Bahamas and said this: "it's important to say I just visited a reception center in which the overwhelming majority of the population is not Bahamian it’s Haitian."

  So he flew all those miles at cost to the public and the environment and noted people from Haiti whom he has ensured receive not a penny after the UN killed 10,000 of them with cholera, citing the same immunity / impunity he uses to have the Press roughed up and banned. His empty statements are issued by Stephane "French Whine" Dujarric lamenting summer wines while Haitians like the Anglophones in Cameroon are ignored, abused and used by the UN.  Dujarric too in a censor. And Lowcock for some reason hasn't made even the cursory financial disclosure the system of which Guterres is destroying for his own (Gulbenkian) reasons.

September 9, 2019

Hurricane Dorian Garners UNSG Guterres Empty Statement While He Bans Press From UNGA

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR PFT Video

UN GATE, September 2 -- Who gets to decide which media can enter the United Nations to cover this month's United Nations General Assembly high level week?

  The answer in today's UN, not unlike in any dictatorship whether China or Cameroon, is one man and his small circle of yes-men and a yes-women, with no due process, no right to appeal, no judicial oversight.   

  In this case the man is Antonio Guterres, and the new yes-woman is Melissa Fleming. She previously served as his spokesperson during his tenure at the UN refugee agency UNHCR. Guterres parlayed that into the top UN job by showing great deference to China on its refoulement to North Korea for torture.

 And what does Guterres do as Secretary General, beyond seeking a second term include by censoring the Press? He issues empty statements about storms, like this one: "Statement attributable to the Spokesman for the Secretary-General – on Hurricane Dorian     The Secretary-General is deeply saddened by the terrible devastation caused by Hurricane Dorian, which is still impacting the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.      The Secretary-General expresses solidarity with the people and the Government of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.     The United Nations will continue supporting the Government-led ongoing rescue and relief efforts.   Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General  New York, 2 September 2019." Dujarric too in a censor.

  Guterres took money from Lisbon-based Gulbenkian Foundation during the year after he left UNHCR. Then once despite his feminist rhetoric Guterres shouldered out women candidates to take over the UN with China's support, Guterres omitted these Gulbenkian payments from the UN public financial disclosure he filed covering 2016.  

  When Inner City Press which while reporting daily from inside the UN also covered the UN bribery trial of CEFC China Energy's Patrick Ho in the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan asked Guterres about that case, Guterres refused to answer.    

   Worse, Guterres pretended through his spokesman Stephane Dujarric to not have even heard Inner City Press' question when called on at the UN Security Council stakeout about Cameroon and his closeness with 37 year president Paul Biya.   

September 2, 2019

Siemens Refuses To Pay To Ship 177 Wind Turbine Blades From China To Texas And Gets Sued

By Matthew Russell Lee

SDNY COURTHOUSE, August 29 – To ship 513 wind turbine generator blades from Shanghai to Corpus Christi, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy said it would pay BBC Chartering Carriers $2.7 million. Then after having paid for only 336 blades, Siemens stopped paying. BBC Chartering Carriers sued and appeared on August 29 before U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Gregory H. Woods.

   Judge Woods asked each side what law should apply. The two lawyers said they had both worked in maritime law for some time; Siemens said it wants to file a motion to dismiss. Judge Woods set a schedule and said he was looking forward to construing the contract.

August 26, 2019

Children living in a central Zambian mining town are still exposed to high levels of toxic lead 25 years after the mine closed... Decades of lead mining have left Kabwe, around 150km  north of Lusaka, severely polluted, with serious health implications for residents..

August 19, 2019

UN Climate Corruption Includes Antonio Guterres And UNDP Global Environment Facility Felony

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR Letter PFTracker  Q&A

UNITED NATIONS GATE, July 29 – The corruption in the UN system under UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres ranges from impunity for sexual abuse and harassment to lack of financial disclosures and audits to outright double-dipping of benefits, whistleblower UN staff have repeatedly complained to Inner City Press.

A fish rots from the head, and it is Guterres (now missing without explanation for two weeks) who is responsible. But why then is Guterres given a pass in an increasingly rare selective take-down of part of the UN climate scam by Foreign Policy, a publication whose UN embed UNchecked by headquarters never wrote a word as investigative Inner City Press would evicted from its UN office, then roughed up and banned now 408 days? In terms of their recent piece, the scam of the Global Environmental Fund goes further back than they say, reported exclusively by Inner City Press for example here, regarding Tatiata Gorlatch and others.

  And now consider this, from March: Rastislav Vrbensky just left UNDP having allowed his wife to earn over a million dollars in contracts from UNDP offices that report to him in the Istanbul Regional Office of UNDP in breach of UNDP's Ethics Rules. And it looks like there is more. All staff have been too scared to report for past 2 1/2 years.   He is a senior UNDP official and Deputy Director of UNDP in Europe in CIS region. He left the organization with no official announcement from the Adminstrator (Achim Steiner), no official announcement from the Europe & CIS Bureau Bureau Director (Mirjana Spoljaric Egger) and no official announcement from anybody in UNDP.  Vrbesnky reported to Spoljaric who reports to Steiner.  Out through the back door ...

Back door Tony. We'll have more on this.

August 12, 2019

  The elitism of the environmentalism, so called, of UN Sec-Gen Antonio Guterres is exemplified by his robo-celebrating while flying to parts unknown of the luxury yacht trip: Greta Thunberg · Jul 29 Good news! I’ll be joining the UN Climate Action Summit in New York, COP25 in Santiago and other events along the way. I’ve been offered a ride on the 60ft racing boat Malizia II." Who else can afford this? Guterres is a fraud...

August 5, 2019

An environmental study graded conditions at over 204 beaches that touch the Long Island Sound, including North Shore beaches. Beaches in both NY & Connecticut  received high marks for water quality, welcome news to beachgoers.     Save the Sound, a bi-state organization dedicated to protecting the waters and shorelines of the Long Island Sound, released the report on Friday. They have offices in Mamaroneck, NY and New Haven, CT.     Among the top ten beaches in New York State on the Long Island Sound were Northport’s Hobart Beach, Port Jefferson’s East and West Beach and nearby Belle Terre Beach, and Iron Pier Beach and Mattituck Breakwater Beach, both in Riverhead.

July 29, 2019

There are no fewer that four big oil cases pending against the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The cases involve arbitration awards and various oil fields; a backdrop includes longstanding human rights abuses by and allegations of corruption in Nigeria's oil sector.   

Back on July 16 Inner City Press sought to attend and cover a status confernce in one of the cases, Statoil and Texaco v. NNPC, 18-cv-02392 before SDNY Judge Richard M. Berman. But the matter was put over until July 23 at noon.    When Inner City Press arrived at noon, both the plaintiffs and defendants tables were full; the courtroom was otherwise empty.   

The law firm for Texaco and Statoil, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer US LLP quickly told Judge Berman that the proceeding should be off the record and "in camera."   

Judge Berman said "we have a member of the press in the courtroom, a blogger," and asked the parties to say what they could in open court. The request, in essence, was for a stay of the proceedings, such as similar cases before SDNY Judges Stanton and Kaplan have been stayed. (SDNY Judge William Pauley has pushed one of the four cases forward, on which we intend to report more.)   

  The Freshfields counsel told Judge Berman that a six months stay would avoid for the court "the burden of heavy discovery and motion practice."  

 Judge Berman replied, "That's why we're here, it's not really a burden for us."   

The law firm for the Nigerian state oil company, Chaffetz Lindsey LLP, repeated the argument for secrecy. In a July 18 letter to Judge Berman marked "MEMO ENDORSED" the firm wrote "on behalf of all parties to respectfully request that the status conference scheduled for next Tuesday, July 23, take place in camera and that any transcript of the proceedings be placed under seal."   

Judge Berman to his credit declined to taken things off the record. He told the parties that he was granting their request for a stay, until January 14, 2020 at 11 AM but that it is "very likely there will be no further stay."    

Will the same apply to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation cases before SDNY Judges Stanton and Kaplan? Watch this site. The full case name is Statoil (Nigeria) Limited and Texaco Nigeria Outer Shelf Limited v. Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, 18-cv-02392 (RMB).
July 22, 2019

Officials in the Kurdistan Region's province of Duhok warned on Thursday that electric generators, industrial facilities, and the increasing number of vehicles pose a serious threat to both the environment and residents' health.  "In comparison to the previous four years, Duhok's environment this year has seen increasing amounts of pollution," Mohammed Taher, the director of Duhok's Environment Protection Department said...

July 15, 2019

DC's big rains have led to high bacteria levels in the Potomac River, Anacostia River and Rock Creek...

July 8, 2019

In China, large demonstrations against construction of a polluting waste incinerator plant have rocked Wuhan, central China.  A week of large street protests began in Yangluo, an outer sub-district of Wuhan, on June 28, when around 10,000 local residents marched against construction of the Chenjiachong waste-to-energy plant (incinerator) which has sparked widespread safety concerns. Yangluo has a population of over 300,000.  Marchers chanted “give us back the green mountains and clear waters” and “garbage burning plant get lost from Yangluo.”

July 1, 2019

In the UK, Drivers who leave their engines running while stationary will face £100 fines.  The penalties could be even higher for parents who leave their motors ticking over while parked outside schools.   Transport Secretary Chris Grayling is launching a consultation this summer as figures show vehicle idling causes the equivalent of 150 balloons filling with harmful chemicals including cyanide each minute.

But at the UN, Antonio Guterres leaves 7 limousines idling outside his mansion for hours. Disgusting hypocrisy.

June 24, 2019

Barbados stands to suffer severe consequences if there is no improvement soon in the declining coral reef stock in the region.  In addition, local authorities have expressed grave concern about overfishing, littering and indiscriminate dumping, which they say could cause further damage to an already fragile ecosystem.  The issue of protecting the underwater ecosystem and the general environs came up for discussion on Friday as officials gathered at the UN House in Christ Church for the Barbados Ridge to Reef Assembly 2019 under the theme Challenges, Interactions and Opportunities for the Green and Blue Economies.

June 17, 2019

Goa Environment Minister Nilesh Cabral Friday ruled out shutting down offshore casinos mounted on vessels, but assured to conduct a study to find out if there is any water contamination by these ships which are parked in the Mandovi river.

June 10, 2019

Egypt, Turkey, and Italy are the biggest sources of plastic in the Mediterranean, while the coastline of Cilicia in south-east Turkey has the highest plastic pollution in the Mediterranean..

June 3, 2019

Askaoun is  a small village in southwestern Morocco.  In 2014, a Canadian mining company called Maya Gold and Silver began work on the nearby Zgounder mine, creating jobs for some locals and bringing hope that the area would be developed.  But residents, fed up with constant noise and pollution from the mining operations, are now asserting their claims to the land and demanding that the company cease site activities. They say the company has appropriated a water source, leading to water shortages, and has been operating without their consent...

May 27, 2019

Hong Kong air pollution and the deadly impact of shipping and cruise industries A single cruise liner berthed at a passenger terminal emits as much sulphur dioxide as 25,000 diesel buses As the waters of the Greater Bay Area get ever busier, is enough being done to clean the emissions of ocean-going vessels? No...

May 20, 2019

Authorities ordered Mexico City schools closed Thursday and Friday and urged people to stay indoors, as the photochemical miasma enveloping the metropolitan area, home to more than 20 million, failed to disperse

May 13, 2019

  In Nigeria they are blaming International Oil Companies (IOCs) for degrading the predominantly swampy Niger Delta environment through oil and gas exploration and production - but that's not what UN DSG Amina J Mohammed says, or does....

May 6, 2019

   On April 29, after covering the SDNY court all day, Inner City Press went to an event at Pace nearly about plastics, video here (mentioning JPMorgan Chase, too).

April 29, 2019

The American Lung Association listed Birmingham as No. 14 on its list of U.S. cities with the highest levels of year-round particulate air pollution.  The Lung Association’s “State of the Air" report was released this week, compiling air quality data from 2015-2017 from state, federal and local environmental agencies tasked with regulating air pollution.

April 22, 2019

In Jacksonville, Florida, a developer behind a string of downtown Jacksonville building projects is spearheading a plan to open a classics-based charter school on land at the center of a decades-long environmental cleanup.  Vestcor Companies Chairman John Rood is asking the Duval County School Board to approve startup of the Jacksonville Classical Academy on property facing McCoys Creek adjacent to downtown’s Brooklyn area...
April 15, 2019

In India, clashes broke out between locals in Delhi's Mayapuri and police officials during a drive to seal illegal scrap factories following an NGT order. In a video shared by ANI, security forces can be seen chasing down protesters and throwing stones and bricks at the men running on a road in the area.  Ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) retweeted the video to slam the action against protesters to say, "Horrifying!!! General Dyer Modi's police brutally pelting stones on the citizens in Mayapuri, Delhi."  The tweet is in reference to General Dyer famous for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in which the British general ordered firing on unarmed Indians gathered at a public park in Amritsar in 1919. Hundreds of peaceful protesters were killed in the firing.   According to ANI, MCD officials started to seal the polluting scrap factories on Saturday morning following the National Green Tribunal's order to seal nearly 850 such factories.

April 8, 2019

The entire populations of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China, Nigeria, Indonesia and Mexico are exposed to levels of PM2.5 pollution that exceed World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines and about 75% of people in the EU live in areas with above WHO PM2.5 levels.  The findings come from a new report ranking PM2.5 and ozone pollution across the world, published by the Health Effects Institute, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and scientists from the University of British Columbia.  PM2.5 means particles smaller than 2.5 micrometres and it can be produced by burning liquid and solid fuels, including coal.

April 1, 2019

In SDNY Liver Cancer Concealment Defended By Bronx Junk Car Depot After Shackled Defendant Cites Present Pain

By Matthew Russell Lee, Video

SDNY COURTHOUSE, March 26 -- Whether an insured should have disclosed his cancer was the issue before Judge John G. Koeltl in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on March 26. Laywers for an insurance company trashed the deceased for material representation; a junior lawyer for the policy's beneficiary, Bronx Junk Car Depot, said all facts would be contested. The whole thing was put off for months, with an eye toward a trial in May... 2020. The case is NATIONAL LIFE INSUR COMPANY, v BRONX JUNK CAR DEPOT, LLC and GET JUNKED.COM, LLC. Moments before when defendant Calvin Burnett was led into the same courtroom, he was limping on a cane. After registering a change of plea and setting a new hearing, his lawyer Anthony Ricco told Judge Koeltl that Burnett's right leg is inflamed, as is his groin area which he examined in the cell just outside the courtroom. Judge Koetlt asked if Burnett had been in the MDC during the power outage - he had not - and ordered the Bureau of Prisons to response in 24 hours. The underlying indictment, as it happens, involved conspiracy to distribute oxycodon. Two women were in the courtroom, along with three unrelated men in suits who were waiting for a subsequent insurance case. Inner City Press was the only media there, on the back bench, taking notes. March 25, 2019

33 global banks have provided $1.9 trillion to fossil fuel companies since the adoption of the Paris climate accord at the end of 2015. The amount of financing has risen in each of the past two years.

March 18, 2019

UN Guterres Uses Two 4x4s and 5 Guards Arriving At Publicly Funded Mansion Hypocrisy of Sustainability Like His Censorship

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive, CJR Letter PFTracker

UNITED NATIONS GATE, March 16 – Before Inner City Press was roughed up by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' Security on June 22 and July 3, 2018 and banned since then, it insistently asked for disclosure of how many of Guterres' publicly funded trips took him through his real home, Lisbon. The questions are not been answered by Spokesman Stephane Dujarric, who on 2 November 2019 simply bicycled away as Inner City Press asked about Guterres' failure in Cameroon and attempt to get even Park East Synagogue to oust Inner City Press from covering his October 31 speech about tolerance.  Now on Saturday 16 March 2019, the supposedly environmentalist UNSG Antonio Guterres arrived at the $15 million publicly funded mansion in which he lives alone in not one but two large four by four vehicles, with six guards. Video here. What a waste, what hypocrisy. This was two days after Guterres guards physically pushed Inner City Press out of the line for a press freedom event in the UN it was invited to and had a ticket for, then refused to provide the banned-by-Guterres list they said was the basis of their action. Totally corrupt.

March 11, 2019

Erie Coke is situated in what the DEP has labeled an environmental justice area because of the number of low-income and minority residents living nearby. Erie Coke must perform additional public outreach in order to get a new permit. The number of employees at the plant has been unavailable.... Erie Coke’s sister plant outside Buffalo, Tonawanda Coke, shut down in October less than a week after filing for bankruptcy protection. Twenty lawsuits have been filed against Tonawanda Coke.

March 4, 2019:

  Online: takeover of an #HSBC branch in Cambridge last week. Groups from Reclaim the Power, Extinction Rebellion and FOE calling out the banks investments in #fracking, tar sands and arms companies.

February 25, 2019

One of the US' biggest seafood companies has agreed to spend up to $23 million to fix serious air pollution issues with its vessels and land-based facilities. Trident Seafoods will also pay a $900,000 fine for Clean Air Act violations under a settlement agreement filed Tuesday in federal court in Alaska...

February 18, 2019

In the NYC subways, "the diesel fumes come from MTA work trains, which spew so much soot that subway platforms contain about twice as much carbon diesel pollution as the air above ground" (DN)

February 11, 2019

Around 90 percent of Dhaka city residents are affected by severe air pollution, speakers at a human chain program said last week. They said that dust pollution tended to increase alarmingly in the dry season. At this time of the year, brickfields run their operation in full swing and the civic bodies and the utility service providers are engaged in repair works.

February 4, 2019
 In Colombo in Sri Lanka,  the real Real-time Air Quality Index (AQI) is 153, ranked Unhealthy.  A spike in the number of vehicles in the city and industrial pollutants are some of the bigger contributors to the increase of Air Pollution in Colombo...

January 28, 2019

South Korea last week sent aircraft over the Yellow Sea to carry out cloud-seeding experiments in an effort to tackle air pollution many South Koreans blame on China. Air quality in South Korea is generally better than in its giant neighbour, the world’s biggest polluter, which is periodically affected by choking bouts of filthy air and according to the International Energy Agency uses coal to generate around three quarters of its energy.

January 21, 2019

Something we'll be looking into:  the festival on 27 April 2019 timed to coincide with the annual ‘Sailing Week’, in Antigua and Barbuda. "The initiative is meant to raise awareness, celebrate successes, and push forward progress to address plastic pollution."

January 14, 2019

Mining Project in French Guiana Called Out for Hypocrisy and No Consent from Indigenous

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR PFT

UNITED NATIONS GATE, January 10 – You know France has gone too far when even a committee of the UN, which France games including to gain support for its still colonial projects in Cameroon and beyond, criticizes the country. But consider this: "A gold mining project envisaged on the territory of indigenous peoples in French Guiana is sparking substantial criticism. In a rare move, a UN committee is now requesting France to secure the consent of affected indigenous communities or suspend the project.  The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has just adopted an 'early warning' asking France to secure the consent of the indigenous communities affected by the 'Montagne d'Or' mining project or suspend it. In a confidential decision adopted on 14 December and released today, the Committee calls on France to 'ensure the right to consultation and free, prior and informed consent to all indigenous peoples affected by the Montagne d’Or project' and 'to consider the suspension' of the project until such consent is obtained.  The move was prompted by a complaint lodged by the Organization of the Native Nations of Guiana (ONAG) with support from the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR). According to ONAG’s representative Alexandre Sommer-Schaechtele, the Committee's decision constitutes a major step forward. 'UN mechanisms and UN member States have taken note of France’s attitude on this matter. France has pledged to "make the planet great again", yet it is prepared to proceed with projects of that sort. We indigenous peoples have expressed our opposition to this project as it directly affects our environment. Without our consent, the Montagne d'Or project must be withdrawn.'  This early warning is the first ever adopted by the Committee concerning a situation in France. Traditional and customary indigenous authorities in French Guiana have voiced their opposition and concerns with the direct and indirect impacts of the project on their environment. The mine would cover an area of ​​more than 800 hectares in the heart of pre-Columbian remains considered sacred by indigenous peoples." January 7, 2019

And now, the censorship: "A day after a US based journalist was questioned by police for interviewing people at Tuticorin over the Sterlite plant issue, authorities are exploring legal options, including filing a case and deporting him for alleged violation of visa rules."

December 31, 2018

More from Tamil Nadu: A petrochemicals firm was instructed by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to shut down one of its plants in Manali on Tuesday. The company was served a notice on December 17 for abnormal levels in the treated effluent water discharged by the plant.

According to a report in The Times of India, Manali Petrochemicals Limited, in a letter, told the Bombay Stock Exchange that that it received a notice from CPCB under section 5 of the Environmental Protection Act, 1985, that asked the firm to stop operations at its Ponneri High Road plant.

December 24, 2018

Not over? Vedanta Ltd. said it will move the Supreme Court to implement the National Green Tribunal’s order to restart its copper smelter in Tamil Nadu, which accounts for nearly half of India’s output, after the Madras High Court restrained the company from taking any steps to reopen the unit.

December 17, 2018

What's in a name? In India the so-called National Green Tribunal has ordered the Sterlite plan to be re-opened in Tamil Nadu...

December 10, 2018

Since January 2016, 235 commercial banks provided over US$ 101 billion in direct loans to the 120 top coal plant developers. The largest lenders to coal plant developers are the Japanese banks Mizuho Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial with US$ 12.8 billion and US$ 9.9 billion respectively.

December 3, 2018

The UN praised the "Blue Economy" conference in Nairobi- which was full of single-use plastic including water bottles...
November 26, 2018

UN Guterres Told Solheim to Pull Himself For Travel Spending No Worse Than His Own Per Aftenposten

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR PFT

UNITED NATIONS GATE, November 24 – Even on the environment, the UN's last refuge as it fails under Antonio Guterres on conflict prevention and anti-corruption, the UN is in decay. After Erik Solheim of UNEP's travel spending reported by Inner City Press and others earlier this year, Solheim on November 20 resigned, effective November 22. Inner City Press which asked repeated about UNEP, Solheim's MoBike and China trip favoritism for his son, Guterres own travel waste and UNdisclosed business of son Pedro Guimarăes e Melo De Oliveira Guterres and continues to ask and film (here and here) amid its now 143 day retaliatory ban from the UN by Guterres, linked Solheim's departure to Guterres' own sins. And now Aftenposten nails it, or at least part of it: "Monday, 19 November is far from a normal day for the former Minister for the Environment and Development. This day, in fact, a letter from António Guterres, the UN's own Secretary-General, is written. The wording of the letter is referred to as "powerful" and "very clear" by people who have seen it and as Aftenposten has talked to. The message is this: You have to pull yourself. Now." Some ask, and what did Guterres mean -- better you than me? Guterres has spent public funds on fully 16 trips to his home in Lisbon, refusing to disclose how much it costs and roughing up and banning Inner City Press which asks? Now Guterres is gone yet again, without disclosing where. Guterres apparently thinks that firing a person doing what he does gives him additional immunity, and that no one can hand him a letter saying, You have to pull yourself, now. Aftenpost's three authors bylined on story, Kristoffer Rønneberg, Helene Skjeggestad and Inger Lise Hammerstrøm report Guterres lined up Norway against Solheim before dropping the hammer. Why are Guterres' sleazy firing reported so differently than Trump's? And what of the China angle, and Guterres' actual role? We'll have more on this. In the briefing room, Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric gave the first question - of only four - to Al Jazeera which conveniently asked only about Solheim's travel, not Guterres. This is a pattern. Even banned, Inner City Press has asked in writing: "November 20-2: Confirm or deny that UNEP's Erik Solheim is resigning and either way, state when the OIOS report into his travel will be made public, and state how much the SG has spend on his 16 trips to Lisbon, including 2 UN Security each time." And here is all that Guterres' spokesmen sent back: "On your second question, we have the following note: The Secretary-General has accepted the resignation of Erik Solheim, the Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
Mr. Solheim’s resignation is effective Thursday, 22 November.
The Secretary-General is grateful for Mr. Solheim’s service and recognizes that he has been a leading voice in drawing the world’s attention to critical environmental challenges, including plastics pollution and circularity; climate action; the rights of environmental defenders; biodiversity; and environmental security.
He has led advocacy at the highest levels of government, business and civil society to drive the transformational change needed to make a real difference in the lives of people and promote the cause of the environment.
The Deputy Executive Director of UNEP, Ms. Joyce Msuya of Tanzania, will be appointed as the Acting Executive Director while the Secretary-General launches a recruitment process, in consultation with Member States, to find a successor to Mr. Solheim. Ms. Msuya will be granted all the necessary support to ensure a smooth transition. New York, 20 November 2018." Nothing on Guterres' spending. We'll have more on this. Here was the fourth in Inner City Press' exclusive series on corruption in UN Environment, the re-branded UNEP, under Erik Solheim of Norway. After publishing three, Guterres had Inner City Press roughed up on June 22 and July 3, 2018 and banned since. It is pure censorship. But still our reporting, and that of our sources outraged at what Guterres is doing and others scrutinizing the UN if only their home country officials, see below, continues. On September 17, Inner City Press exclusively published the first in a series on travel waste in UNDP, starting with the bribery-used Office of South South Cooperation, here. This while Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric refuses to answer questions about the public costs of travel, of Guterres or Solheim, preferring to dissemble about why and on what basis Guterres and Alison Smale have banned Inner City Press. On August 27 Dujarric said it was for creating a "hostile environment for diplomats." Vine video here. On September 17 he said, to the contrary, it was all Guterres' Secretariat and there were not "any inputs from any member states." Video here. Which is it? November 17, 2018

For the first time, Australia’s pollution has been mapped by postcode in a report titled The Dirty Truth by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF).

Some of the areas identified as being the most polluted in Australia’s capital cities include:

Botany Bay in Sydney
Altona in Melbourne
Port of Brisbane
Parmelia near Perth

November 12, 2018

From India: "'There are no non-smokers in India,' says doctor who installed artificial lungs in Delhi to create awareness on air pollution.

In New York City, small three or two seat bus stops are no place for smoking...

November 5, 2018

On UK bonfire night: "Be it power stations, steel works, or waste incineration – they all have to invest a lot to clean these metals and other pollutants. But yet on fireworks night we just throw a load of it into our urban air without controls."

October 29, 2018

For more than two decades, residents of Melbourne's inner west have been fighting a losing battle to get trucks off their streets. So the thought that Melbourne's freight load could triple by 2050 is, quite simply, horrifying to them. "I can't imagine what the streets would be like around here if we had a massive increase in the truck numbers," said Martin Wurt from the Maribyrnong Transport Action Group. "We have got some of the worst health statistics in Australia because of the diesel pollution we are experiencing now."

October 22, 2018

UNlike the UN, Pearl Jam is investing in a carbon offset project in Alaska managed by ClimeCo, The American Land Conservancy, and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation to be ‘accountable’ for pollution they created on their 2018 tour. It is the first of its kind in the region. The project will help to protect the coastal temperate rainforest area of Afognak Island and to preserve the habitat for many important animal species.

“As a band, it’s important for us to be accountable for the pollution we create. Since 2004 we’ve invested in projects around the world to mitigate the CO2 emissions caused by our tours” said Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard, who manages the band’s carbon mitigation program.

October 15, 2018

Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nestle are among the companies that contribute most to ocean pollution with single-use plastics, according to a study presented on Tuesday by the "Break Free from Plastic" initiative.
The environmental movement, launched in 2016, has helped clear the coasts of 42 countries around the world of discarded plastics.

October 8, 2018

THE ASEAN Specialised Meteorological Centre’s (ASMC’s) review and outlook of the weather and smoke haze situation for the entire region has stated that major climate centres forecast a 70 per cent chance of weak El Nino conditions developing toward the end of the year, while current conditions remained neutral (neither El Nino nor La Nina).October 1, 2018

Headline: "Norway announces $200 million boost to anti-ocean plastic efforts" - while Norway's Eric Solheim wastes UN Environment funds flying for personal reasons...
September 24 , 2019

At UN Environment Solheim Blames His Travel Abuse On His Staff In Email Leaked to Banned Inner City Press

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive, CJR PFT

UNITED NATIONS GATE, September 18 – Even on the environment, the UN's last refuge as it fails under Antonio Guterres on conflict prevention and anti-corruption, the UN is in decay. This article is the fourth in Inner City Press' exclusive series on corruption in UN Environment, the re-branded UNEP, under Erik Solheim of Norway. After publishing three, Guterres had Inner City Press roughed up on June 22 and July 3, 2018 and banned since. It is pure censorship. But still our reporting, and that of our sources outraged at what Guterres is doing and others scrutinizing the UN if only their home country officials, see below, continues. On September 17, Inner City Press exclusively published the first in a series on travel waste in UNDP, starting with the bribery-used Office of South South Cooperation, here. This while Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric refuses to answer questions about the public costs of travel, of Guterres or Solheim, preferring to dissemble about why and on what basis Guterres and Alison Smale have banned Inner City Press. On August 27 Dujarric said it was for creating a "hostile environment for diplomats." Vine video here. On September 17 he said, to the contrary, it was all Guterres' Secretariat and there were not "any inputs from any member states." Video here. Which is it? This is today's UN pattern of decision, replicated from Guterres' 38th floor to UNEP, see Solheim's September 17 internal mem, below. First, from the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services draft audit of Solheim: "Some of the trips to Oslo and Paris were called 'bilateral meetings,' even though they took place during weekends or the Christmas holidays... On one occasion he made an eight hour flight from Washington DC for a weekend in Paris, before he boarded another flight for New York." This is what Guterres has been doing -- 15 times -- including this coming weekend in Lisbon. And Guterres spokesmen refuse to answer Inner City Press repeated questions about the costs, choosing instead to work for Inner City Press' roughing up and banning from the UN, then to intimidate remaining correspondents who attempt to ask about it. But who will audit Guterres? Inner City Press has provided extensive information to OIOS whose Ben Swanson has to his credit confirmed receipt. Now what? The draft OIOS audit of Solheim continues: "The UNEP and UN’s Nairobi office should reclaim from these employees (1) all travel expenses and the related working hours which have not been accounted for; and (2) all additional costs incurred by the UNEP as a consequence of uneconomic and inefficient decisions by the management." So who will Guterres be returning money to? And who will hold him accountable for the retaliatory roughing up of the only journalist who asked about his use of funds to travel to Lisbon, and dared to document by Periscope broadcast on Sutton Place the many times Guterres has been out of New York without disclosure? The use of UN Security to threat Inner City Press against filming on a New York City sidewalk - across the street from Guterres' publicly funded mansion - and subsequent 3 July 2018 assault outside the UN Budget Committee meeting including tearing of shirt, damaging of laptop computer and twisting of arm? Aftenpost runs this quote too: The two other senior staffers were allegedly given permission by Erik Solheim to work out of Paris, in spite of being formally assigned to Nairobi. One of them allegedly received more than 165 000 NOK (20 000 dollars) in a special security allowance for Nairobi, in spite of being relocated to Paris. Permitting these leaders to work in Paris is a direct violation of UN’s regulations, according to the draft report. 'Such arrangements will set the presedent [sic] for other employees who wish to work out of a place of their own choice, and probably lead to speculations about unfair treatment or claims when such request are being rejected.'"  Inner City Press' September 13 question to Guterres' spokesmen has gone entirely unanswered, despite the written promises of Alison Smale. But here's from Erik Solheim, leaked nearly immediately to Inner City Press: "From: Erik Solheim
Date: 17 September 2018 at 16:42:10 CEST
To: unon.org
Subject: Update: ongoing audit of UN Environment’s travel
Dear Colleagues,
I hope this email finds you well. As many of you are aware, in recent days, several media articles have referred to preliminary findings of an ongoing audit of mission-related travel within UN Environment.
I am writing to personally address these reports and update you all on the current standing of this audit.
First, I welcome a transparent and fact-seeking audit of any part of our activities. When this audit by the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services has come to term, I am certain the findings will help us in our endeavor to continuously improve our work.
If the audit shows that we have made any mistakes, we are committed to take immediate action and rectify every one of them, with no exception. We will admit to any mistakes that may have occurred. Where administrative shortcomings have been clearly identified, we are already starting to take steps to improve processes and procedural controls, particularly as it relates to travel costs.
On this point allow me to state it clearly and to avoid confusion. The Office of Internal Oversight Services earlier this year investigated all my travels in great detail and found three instances of oversight out of all of them. The money was refunded immediately. Better administrative control systems would have helped avoid these mistakes in the first place.
I believe this audit – which is not an investigation but an audit of UN Environment travel processes - will provide us with an opportunity to revise and improve our systems. Rest assured that this will be done in a transparent and efficient manner.
In my two years, as Executive Director of UN Environment, I have been proud to lead teams of dedicated professionals working on the most urgent environmental challenges of our time. This requires global commitment to unprecedented action, driven by new levels of personal action and political will. During my tenure, I have worked tirelessly to deliver such action and mobilize that will for the success of our work together.
Making good on this type of global agenda demands engagement with the world and indeed an expanded approach to our work. I am therefore determined to continue to focus on our mandate – to create real results for real people with real impact on the ground. These necessary results can only be obtained in close dialogue with Member States, businesses and civil society. This is in line with the Secretary-General’s vision for a more impactful United Nations in the 21th century.
At the same time, I want to reassure you that all travel decisions are made with a focus on maximizing the effectiveness of this organization and meeting the urgent environmental challenges we are facing together, everywhere. If in pursuit of that goal, administrative rules are found to have been overlooked, I accept personal responsibility and offer my strong commitment to immediately refine this process going forward.
The leaked preliminary findings, on which these media reports are based, were draft notes as a starting point for consultations between the Office of Internal Oversight Services and UN Environment. As such it may, by its very nature, contain misunderstandings or inaccuracies. As a part of this process, we have provided extensive follow-up information to the Office of Internal Oversight Services. I ask that you keep in mind that many of the findings are in the process of validation.  We are now awaiting a first draft of the report for our comments prior to the report being finalized.
Once the Office of Internal Oversight Services completes its final report, it will be public on its website, as is standard practice. We will then work diligently to implement the auditor’s recommendations.
I look forward to discussing this with you tomorrow at the Townhall.\
Warm wishes,
Erik Solheim
Head of UN Environment

UN Environment." So Solheim blames his administrative staff, while imposing on UNEP staff more bureaucratic restrictions than UN rules require. As with Guterres - and others at the top of the UN, more on UNDP coming - it's a case of "Do as I say, not as I do." Here's just one of Inner City Press' questions to Guterres spokesmen, entirely unanswered after five days: "September 13-2: Regarding the UN system's rules for use of UN funds for personal travel, and in light of the OIOS criticism of Erik Solheim at UNEP (below), what is the SG's comment and action, will be ensure that the OIOS audit be released to the public in its entirety and that his own travel be subject to an independent audit? See, “"Some of the trips to Oslo and Paris were called 'bilateral meetings,' even though they took place during weekends or the Christmas holidays... On one occasion he made an eight hour flight from Washington DC for a weekend in Paris, before he boarded another flight for New York." Has the SG done anything similar since Jan 1, 2017?

"The UNEP and UN’s Nairobi office should reclaim from these employees (1) all travel expenses and the related working hours which have not been accounted for; and (2) all additional costs incurred by the UNEP as a consequence of uneconomic and inefficient decisions by the management." Should the money be returned, does the SG think?

Finally, confirm that the two others at UNEP subject to OIOS criticism are Anne Lemore and Lisa Svensson, or state why you will not do so, given the allegations of waste of public funds, and when you would release the names." We'll have more on this. Guterres' USG Alison Smale twice promised that questions will be answered, but like so much else she has said and written, this is false. To continue reporting we ask questions at the UN Delegates Entrance, or seemingly in the "High Level" Week on Second Avenue and 46th Street - and Smale says this creates a "hostile environment for diplomats." These people are censors and it must all be reversed. They are further killing the UN, and have assaulted press freedom. We will have more on all this. September 17, 2018

"A strange mist blew into one town, residents said. There and elsewhere, people noticed that metal items like children’s swings were rusting, and they felt a shortness of breath. Fields turned black. Ecologists and doctors say the culprit was a significant release of industrial pollution, but the ecological disaster, which began in August, has an added complication. The pollution has been blowing across the de facto border between Russian-controlled Crimea and mainland Ukraine..."

September 10, 2018

In Tamil Nadu in India, "the State government has rejected the study report of the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) on the groundwater contamination in Thoothukudi, which appears to support Sterlite Copper. The law and order situation in and around Thoothukudi has returned to normality (after the police firing in which 13 people died) and an unscientific report would aggravate the situation, Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan said, in a letter to the Secretary, Union Ministry of Water Resources."

September 3, 2018

Cairo ranked as the most polluted city on earth, according to a recent study by Eco Experts. The study classified world cities based on various types of obstruction, including air, light, and noise pollution, followed by Delhi, Beijing, Moscow, Istanbul, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Buenos Aires, Paris, and Los Angeles.  As on press freedom, good job, Sisi - not.

August 27, 2018

In Australia, Sydney Water is investigating ways to clean up sewage pollution on Coogee Beach, and will release its findings...

August 20, 2018

CANZ in action: Newcastle couple buy New Zealand navy ship to fight ocean pollution Newcastle couple Paul and Wilma Adams wanted a boat for their conservation work preserving World War II shipwrecks in the Pacific. Now they're the owners of an ex-New Zealand Navy warship. Step onboard, in part one of your tour of the 44-metre Manawanui. audio h/t

August 13, 2018

Arrest in Bangalore After Testimony to UNHRC To Be Raised to UN But Will Zeid or Bachelet Speak?

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR, Petition, Filing

UNITED NATIONS GATE, August 9 – How does today's UN under Secretary General Antonio Guterres protect those who testify to it? Or does his UN, as with whistleblowers and the investigative Press, leave them to be attacked, even by UN Security? The question is raised by the case of Thirumurugan Gandhi, a May 17 Movement activist who after testifying about the the security forces' Sterlite slaughter, has been arrested in Bangalore. The May 17 Movement has messaged Inner City Press, which has been banned from the UN by Guterres for 37 days and counting, that "Thirumurugan Gandhi has been arrested at the Bangalore airport early morning today. Thirumurugan Gandhi was traveling back from a recent visit to Europe, where he addressed the UNHRC [UN Human Rights Council] meeting in Geneva where he spoke about the recent protest against the sterlite plant in Tuticorin in which 13 people lost their lives in police firing. He was en route to Chennai city, where he hails from. This snooping upon him at the Bangalore Airport, is a gross violation of his fundamental rights. Though the police have just mentioned two old cases in Tamil Nadu to arrest Thirumurugan Gandhi, one wonders why this kind of a operation in Bangalore at the early morning hours as he was arriving here to reach Chennai. Given the total disregard for law and constitution by the State in general, especially in the background of the tumultuous political situation in Tamil Nadu, where the awakened youth of the state are up against the proxy government there, this arrest stinks. Chennai police have even detained Thirumurugan Gandhi even on flimsiest reasons in the recent times. Treating him like a common criminal, is Political Vendetta and nothing else. Thirumurugan Gandhi and the May 17th movement have been in the forefront of many pro-people mass movements. #ReleaseThirumurugan." This is something on which the UN should have to answer, particularly given his testimony to the UNHRC. Outgoing High Commissioner Zeid, and incoming Bachelet, should speak on this and other recent failures to protect (and worse) by the UN. (Inner City Press' August 8 UN GATE video here.) As to the UN Secretariat itself, when Inner City Press e-mails in this question since it remains banned by Guterres from the UN noon briefing, will it remain unanswered like so many others, as on Patton Boggs and Cameroon? Watch this site. August 6, 2018

Wind blowing in from the Arabian Peninsula has increased dust pollution in India...

July 30, 2018

Parts of France are taking measures to combat a rise in pollution seen in several areas of the country as a result of the scorching summer temperatures.Several areas in the south and south west have been placed on alert for pollution while other regions such as the greater Paris region of Ile-de-France are also taking measures to deal with the spike in dirty air. The rise in pollution is a result of the rising heat  seen across the country in recent days which had led to 18 departments being placed on heatwave alert on Wednesday and low wind levels.

July 23, 2018

In India, the State government of Punjab’s Pollution Control Board (PPCB) conducted a stringent check on vehicle pollution monitoring centers across the state recently. This drive has revealed shocking results. More than half of these centers were blatantly issuing clean certificates to vehicles without even undertaking any pollution checks.July 16, 2018

Now, the Uttar Pradesh government implements a sweeping ban on plastic products, primarily focusing on the food industry. The state government of Maharashtra announced a similar ban three weeks ago on June 23.

July 9, 2018

Guam Environmental Protection agency said all 43 beaches on Guam are polluted because of heavy rainfall Typhoon Maria brought.

July 2, 2018

On Libya Fighting in Oil Crescent Inner City Press Asked UN Which Speaks After UK, US, Italy and France

By Matthew Russell Lee, Vine, Periscope

UNITED NATIONS, June 27 – A week after Inner City Press on Libya asked the UN about General Haftar's moves on Derna, it was reported there that "UN" envoy Ghassan Salame refused to meet with people in Derna because Egypt, the UAE and France did not want him too. Salame was largely selected / placed in the position by France; Egypt backs Haftar. The UAE bought the UN's previous envoy Bernardino Leon. This is today's UN. On June 18, Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, UN transcript here: Inner City Press: In Libya, there's a lot of fighting in the Oil Crescent, and it seems that some large oil facilities are on fire in Ra's Lanuf.  So, I'm wondering, given Mr. [Ghassan] Salamé… seems like it's both an environmental as well as a political… pretty much of a crisis.  What's the UN system doing about these burning oil tanks…?

Spokesman:  "I did not get an update from Libya today." Oh - is that all the UN spokesman's job is, beyond evicting and restricting the Press that asks? The next days, nothing from Dujarric except more cutting off of questions by calling on favored scribes, and from the UN an ouster of Inner City Press, video here, story here. Now this on June 27 - not from the UN which has an envoy, but from the US, UK, Italy and France: "The governments of France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States are deeply concerned about the announcement that the Ras Lanuf and Sidra oil fields and facilities will be transferred to the control of an entity other than the legitimate National Oil Corporation.  Libya’s oil facilities, production, and revenues belong to the Libyan people.  These vital Libyan resources must remain under the exclusive control of the legitimate National Oil Corporation and the sole oversight of the Government of National Accord (GNA), as outlined in UN Security Council Resolutions 2259 (2015), 2278 (2016), and 2362 (2017).  UN Security Council Resolution 2362 (2017) condemns attempts to illicitly export petroleum, including crude oil and refined petroleum products, from Libya by parallel institutions which are not acting under the authority of the GNA. Any attempts to circumvent the UN Security Council’s Libya sanctions regime will cause deep harm to Libya’s economy, exacerbate its humanitarian crisis, and undermine its broader stability.  The international community will hold those who undermine Libya’s peace, security, and stability to account.  We call for all armed actors to cease hostilities and withdraw immediately from oil installations without conditions before further damage occurs.  In September 2016, the LNA supported the legitimate National Oil Corporation’s work to rebuild Libya’s oil sector for the benefit of the Libyan people.  This action served Libya’s national interest.  The legitimate National Oil Corporation must be allowed again to take up unhindered work on behalf of the Libyan people, to repair infrastructure damaged after the attack by forces under the direction of Ibrahim Jadhran, and to restore the oil exports and production disrupted by that attack." Only after the above did UNSG Guterres belatedly speak, through his (censoring) spokesman DujarricJune 25, 2018

Here is a scam on which we aim to report: the claim that burning wood as coal is good for the environment. Bio-mass indeed. Contact us, and watch this site.

June 18, 2018

In Canada, Ontario's opposition parties are against PC Premier-Designate Doug Ford's plan to scrap the province's cap-and-trade system. Green party official Mike Schreiner says cancelling pollution pricing without a backup plan sends a signal to clean companies that the province is not open for business. NDP rep Peter Tabuns questioned how Ford will replace the $1.9 billion per year that the cap-and-trade auction brings in for the province. Environmental groups also criticized the move, calling it a bad idea for the environment and Ontario's economy."

June 11, 2018

In India, South Delhi is set to lose a chunk of its greens at the altar of 'development'. The city's forest department has cleared the NBCC's proposal to fell 3,748 fully-grown and healthy mango, neem, banyan, pilkhan, guava, etc. species of trees at Netaji Nagar and Nauroji Nagar.....

June 4, 2018

...Thousands had gone to the Thoothukudi collector’s office on May 22, the 100th day of the people’s protest against the pollution caused by the copper smelter plant of Sterlite Copper, a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources. As he, along with the other protesters, barged into the office premises, the Tamil Nadu police gunned him down, without a warning.

May 28, 2018

The crackdown on the environmental protest by Tamils in Tamil Nadu in India is an outrage...

May 21, 2018

So there's the European Commission’s’ final warnings to the UK and other nations to control emissions and reduce air pollution. The UK’s latest plan to control emissions, especially fumes from diesel cars which have been recorded at illegal levels since 2010, was ruled “inadequate”. In Europe, 40,000 early deaths have been attributed to air pollution. Now, the United Kingdom has until the end of 2018 to implement tighter restrictions.

May 14, 2018

India's struggles with air pollution-- last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a report showing that two of the world's most polluted megacities—Delhi and Mumbai—are in India. But a company there, Chakr Innovation, now sells a device that captures 90 percent of the soot particles from diesel generators and sells them to manufacturers to make ink...

May 7, 2018

Indonesia's Citarum River is now known as the most polluted river in the world...

April 30, 2018

More than 95% of the world’s population in 2016 (+7 billion) lived in areas with dangerously high levels of air pollution — that is, in areas where WHO organization guidelines for air quality (themselves likely an underestimate) were exceeded. This is according to a new annual report from the Health Effects Institute (HEI).

April 23, 2018

From Kenya: In 2016, after Omido and a team of lawyers filed a class action lawsuit alleging the government and the lead factory owners of violating Kenyan law and several international treaties, the threats intensified. Police in Mombasa began investigating the alleged threats in April, local media reported. Police chief for Mombasa County, Peter Omwana, told CNN “the matter had been dealt with,” while declining to provide specifics. Public prosecutors contacted local police three times to ask for any findings, said Mary Wanjiru, a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. They received no response, Wanjiru said...

April 16, 2018

Duke Energy Corp. will pay a $156,000 penalty for polluting ground and surface waters with potentially toxic coal-ash waste around three power plants, an amount one critic compared Friday to a couple of days salary for the utility’s top executive. The penalty is less than a slap on the wrist for the country’s No. 2 electricity company, which generated $23 billion in revenue and reported paying its chief executive, Lynn Good, $21.4 million last year...

April 9, 2018

South Korea's rapidly worsening air pollution has forced the country's professional baseball league to postpone three games. The Korea Baseball Organization on Friday postponed the games in capital Seoul and the nearby cities of Suwon and Incheon after the government issued alerts over high fine dust levels in the metropolitan area.

April 1, 2018

Censorship and pollution: The governor of Thailand’s Chiang Mai province has sued a local magazine for posting a “blasphemous” painting on Facebook of ancient kings wearing pollution masks as part of a campaign to protest the city’s hazardous smog.March 26, 2018

At UN As Inner City Press Covers Guterres on Water, UN Requires Minder, Cage, Lake Chad Dying, Pitbull Cancels

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 22 – The UN Department of Public Information, acting against Press coverage of UN corruption cases, without hearing or appeal had Inner City Press physically ousted from the UN.  Audio here.

 Since then DPI's requirement that Inner City Press unlike other media have minders to stake-out public events in the UN has continued.  On March 22 Inner City Press sought to cover the General Assembly event on water, with for example Lake Chad having shrunk by 90%. But to get to the GA, unlike other state and sycophant journalists, Inner City Press had to get a DPI minder, and then had to build its own cage, admitted of blue rope. There were already journalists there, with no cage, including one from a country under multiple sanction. But today's UN trusts their state media, not the investigative Press. UNTV didn't even have Antonio Guterres' speech on, initially. But outside, even behind the rope, Inner City Press was approached by the Permanent Representative of out of the Lake Chad countries, who said if nothing is done in ten years the Lake is gone. The decade of water - will today's UN fail again? The rapper Pitbull cancelled on the UN, for an 11:15 am press conference.March 19, 2018

India, Tamil Nadu: CHENNAI: The state pollution control board is yet to give its nod for the India-based Neutrino project that is proposed to come up at Pottipuram village in Uthamapalayam taluk in Theni district. A senior official from the TN pollution control board (PCB) said that considering this as a special case, the Union ministry of environment, forests and climate change had issued the environmental clearance for the project a couple of days ago....

March 12, 2018

When UN Guterres Did Q&A With Bloomberg, Questions Pre-Picked, CEFC UN Bribery Ignored

By Matthew Russell Lee, Photos, Periscope

UNITED NATIONS, March 5 – When UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres re-appointed Michael Bloomberg as UN climate change envoy on March 5, nearly two dozen media went up to the UN's 38th floor for the press encounter. But Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric had clearly chosen the questions in advance, calling on Agence France Presse and then another media whom he was heard calling by cell phone just before the press encounter. The questions and Bloomberg's remarks were directed at Trump, clearly the elephant in the room. At the end, since this should not be pre-scripted theater, Inner City Press asked if oil companies like CEFC China Energy should be in the UN Global Compact and UN ECOSOC, in which CEFC remains in consultative status months after the indictment of its UN representative Patrick Ho, while buying stakes in oil companies. This was not answered. Periscope here. Back on February 28 when Guterres met Egypt's new Ambassador Mohamed Fathi Ahmed Edrees, Inner City Press went through the UN's tourist entrance and then UN Security on the 37th floor to cover it. Still, before Guterres expressed his warm regards for Sisi, who is arresting all opponents, the UN Security officer who has already checked Inner City Press' microphone told it it could not record audio. This is censorship, and it is ongoing - they have not answered a petition with thousands of signatures. Meanwhile Guterres and his Global Communicator Alison Smale have purported to assign Inner City Press' long time UN work space to Sisi's no show state media, Sanaa Youssef of Akhbar al Yom. We'll have more on this.March 5, 2018

UN Environment Pays EUR 500,000 To Be in Volvo Ocean Race, For Dee Caffari, ICP Asks

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive, Patreon doc

UNITED NATIONS, March 2 – Even on the environment, the UN's last refuge as it fails under Antonio Guterres on conflict prevention and anti-corruption, the UN is in decay. UN Environment, the re-branded UNEP, is paying over EUR 500,000 in a (reverse) corporate partnership with Volvo Ocean Races, see below. Guterres' deputy Amina J. Mohammed has refused Press questions since November on her role in signing 4000 certificates to export from Nigeria and Cameroon endangered rosewood already in China. Guterres, Mohammed and Alison Smale's only response has been to censor and continue to restrict the Press which asks, despite 5000 signature petition, UNanswered. Now whistleblowers in UNEP have written to Guterres, and exclusively sent a copy and documents to Inner City Press on UNEP mis management, harassment and misuse of government resources. Who authorized UNEP to spend EUR 500,000 in a mis-named corporate partnership with Volvo Ocean Races? Before today publishing the documents, Innr City Press on March 1 asked Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric about it, video here, UN transcript here: and below. Dujarric did not explain, then or for the rest of the day; he said he hadn't spoken with Guterres about it. Oh. Inner City Press is today publishing in full, on Scribd and Patreon, the agreement with Volvo Ocean Races signed by Erik Solheim, here, and the EUR 500,000 agreement signed by UNEP's Lisa Emilia Svensson, here and here. This UN agency is paying for "public appearances by Dee Caffari and the crew" -- Ms. Caffari is a British sailor -- and for "hospitality activities." It's a new low. On March 2, Inner City Press again asked Guterres' spokesman Dujarric about it, from the UN transcript: Inner City Press: I had asked you yesterday about UNEP [United Nations Environment Programme], and I've seen… seen it published its agreement with Volvo Ocean Races, and it seems as… as I asked you yesterday, it's actually not dollars; it's euros.  From some 518,000 € paid by UNEP for this corporate partnership, so many people that I've spoken to think it's weird.  They thought a corporate partnership is the corporation is helping the UN, not the UN helping the corporations. Spokesman:  There are… there are different kinds of partnerships.  I think the point is that the leadership at UNEP has followed all the rules and regulations.  If people… if people feel there is… there's anything untoward, there are all sorts of mechanisms for people to… to express… to express those sentiments, but I think the question… the detailed questions as to the partnership are questions you need to raise to UNEP. Inner City Press:  Because one of the budget lines is “personal appearance by Dee Caffari”, who I had not heard of, but it turns out she's a big British sailor or yachtswoman.  Since the public sees celebrities or various extraordinary individuals sometimes speaking in favor of the UN, if you're being paid, is there some way to know who's being paid, who's not being paid? Spokesman:  "I don't… I don't know… you're jumping a couple of steps ahead.  I don't know the details of the partnership.  I think you need to ask UNEP." From the March 1 UN transcript: Inner City Press: I also wanted to ask you about UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme).   Whistleblowers there have alleged a number of irregularities, but the one that caught my eye and I've published has to do with the allegation is that UNEP, which claims under Mr. [Erik] Solheim to have a number of corporate partnerships is, in fact, in some cases paying the corporation for the partnership.  I.e., it's not a partnership like, you know, Barcelona Football Club with UNICEF, where they pay.  In this case, they're alleged that, under Mr. Solheim, the UN Environment, as it's now called, is paying $500,000 to Volvo Ocean Races.  And I wanted to know is it… one, I don't know if it's true, but they work there and they have a lot of names and a lot of information. Spokesman:  I think you can ask those questions directly of UNEP.  I have no doubt that Mr. Solheim is operating and running the agency in accordance to all relevant rules and regulations. Inner City Press: Did the Secretary-General receive this e-mail?  Because it was sent out as a cri de coeur of the people who work there, saying… Spokesman:  I have not spoken to him about it." Why not? Here's from what Solheim as written: "Dear colleagues, You may have received or heard about an anonymous email sent to me this week and copied to many. It consists of slander, rumors and false allegations. Worse, the message contains unfounded attacks on many good colleagues working hard for UN Environment. This is unacceptable. We must strive for openness."

February 26, 2018

"Minnesota initially sued 3M for $5 billion in damages for contaminating the groundwater of tens of thousands of east metro residents. On Tuesday, the state settled for $850 million.

While state officials cheered the size settlement and benefits to residents in east metro, Oliaei believes it may be too small. "It's a bit disappointing," Olia esaid"

February 19, 2018

“We are considering public transport free of charge in order to reduce the number of private cars,” three ministers including the environment minister, Barbara Hendricks, wrote to the EU environment commissioner Karmenu Vella. “Effectively fighting air pollution without any further unnecessary delays is of the highest priority for Germany,”

February 12, 2018

From Ghana: The Headmistress of Osudoku Senior High Technical School in the Greater Accra Region,  Sylvia Baaba Yankey, has confirmed to Citi News that the school has been shutdown temporarily because they can no longer endure harmful smoke emitted by a toiletries and plastics manufacturing Chinese company close to the school. According to her, the pollution from the company has worsened such that they had no option than to send the students home for health and safety reasons."

February 5, 2018

On Climate Risk, ICP Asks of CEFC, DSG Rosewood Signings, Panel Cites Transparency, UNseen

By Matthew Russell Lee, Periscope

UNITED NATIONS, January 31 – A Climate Risk event was held at the UN on January 31, complete with a delayed press conference with four speakers. Inner City Press asked them about the role of the UN, not just as a venue but as an actor, with a Deputy Secretary General Amina J. Mohammed who in 2017 signed 4000 certificates for already-exported endangered rosewood in China. The UN Global Compact accepted CEFC China Energy until Inner City Press repeated asking about its role as beneficiary of a UN bribery scheme to get oil in Uganda and Chad; China Energy Fund Committee is *still* in Special Consultative status with ECOSOC. Periscope video here, since the UN has withheld its, under UNTV boss Alison Smale.  Among the panelists, Betty Yee, California's Controller, repeatedly cited transparency. Fred Samama of Amundi to his credit acknowledged there is a danger of green-washing. Peter Damgaard Jensen of PKA said the UN could / should help emerging markets. (This is true, but today in Cameroon for example, the UN only supports colonialism and exploitation.) Iconic Jack Ehnes of CalSTRS appeared sympathetic. But will they continue to blithely provide a platform for the greenwashing not only of oil companies like CEFC China Energy, but of censoring UN officials like Amina J. Mohammed, who helped export endangered rosewood then refused all Press questions on it, and continues to censor and restrict the Press which asks? We'll have more on this - and on “The Investor Agenda.”
January 29, 2018

Bangkok's air pollution which exceeds health safety levels has improved but it could worsen at the end of next month, according to the Department of Pollution Control (DPC).

"Emergency measures have been introduced in the South Korean capital of Seoul to combat a thick layer of smog that is covering the city. Public transport was free during rush-hour as of Monday 15 January, in the hopes that car use will be reduced. The measures were introduced after the average daily density of ultra-fine dust hit more than 50 micrograms per cubic meter"...

January 15, 2018

In Kazakhstan's Temirtau, the snow is black. Temirtau has numerous industrial processing facilities, including the country's biggest steel-production plant, which is owned by ArcelorMittal Temirtau. Multiple locals pointed a finger at the company, and in a statement to the BBC, ArcelorMittal admitted that its facility may have played a decisive role in the black snow phenomenon...

January 8, 2018

In Nepal, A rally was organized in the capital against the rising level of air pollution in Kathmandu on January 5. A campaign against the air pollution named Swachchha Hawa was organized to create awareness of the air pollution and its consequences in public health....

January 1, 2017

Delhi is the most polluted city in India and also the 2nd most polluted city in the world. It is indeed a matter of concern as the pollution is making millions of people vulnerable to physical ailments. This is a huge matter of concern because this city has one of the maximum populations in the country. The levels of harmful particles in the air that are less than 2.5 micrometres (PM2.5) are about 153µg/m3....

December 25, 2017

AP: In Hoboken, across the Hudson River from New York City, the site of a former manufacturing plant for mercury vapor lamps sits within a mile of almost 100,000 residents, including 7,000 children under 5.

December 18, 2017

In Nigeria, "Onitsha, the commercial hub of the South-East, was the most polluted city in the world. Then this report that says three of our rivers are among the 20 most polluted globally. The affected rivers are: Imo, Kwa Ibo and Cross River."

December 11, 2017

Rosewood Scandal of UN Deputy Amina J. Mohammed Reported by France24 With Amina Omitted

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 5 – The UN has dodged Press questions for a month about UN Deputy Secretary General Amina J. Mohammed signing thousands of certificates for rosewood already exported from Nigeria and it seems Cameroon to China, just before she took up her UN position. Most recently, after UN correspondents who tried to help her evade the questions declared she is being "vilified," now France 24 runs a piece, here, about the sell-out of rosewood by Nigeria including that "Chinese businessmen paid bribes to officials in Nigeria's Environment Ministry" - without mentioning that the Minister at the time was Amina J. Mohammed. Instead an Ibrahim Jibril is shown saying it was before his time. The UN through its Department of Public Information under Alison Smale gives state media France 24 two separate offices in its headquarters, while evicting and restricting the investigative Press which has insisted that Mohammed should answer these questions, even more so now that the CITES meeting in Geneva declined China's open and Nigeria's more stealth lobbying to close the case, and issued a decision that "With regard to trade in specimens of Pterocarpus erinaceus: b) Parties should not accept any CITES permit or certificate for Pterocarpus erinaceus issued by Nigeria unless its authenticity has been confirmed by the Secretariat, noting that China and Nigeria
have existing CITES document exchanging mechanism to verify the authenticity of all CITES permits and certificates for Pterocarpus erinaceus issued by Nigeria. c) Range States and importing countries should pay particular attention to trade in Pterocarpus erinaceus to ensure that trade in this species only takes place when Parties are satisfied that it is in line with the requirements of the Convention. d) The Standing Committee welcomed the invitation by the Government of Nigeria to conduct a
technical mission to Nigeria and invited the Secretariat to provide any relevant information on compliance with the Convention related to trade in Pterocarpus erinaceus to the Standing
Committee." So on December 4 Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric about this CITES decision. He insisted that all questions have been answered, and ended up by running out of the UN briefing room as Inner City Press asked another question. From the UN transcriptDecember 4, 2017

Entergy on its idled Vernon nuclear plant says "invasive" environmental sampling could cause radiological and nonradiological contamination to spread. The documents also say such sampling might damage buildings and important underground cables or pipes.

November 27, 2017

In 10 most polluted cities

Bamenda, Cameroon
Source: World Health Organization's Urban Ambient Air Pollution Database

#BlameBiya
November 20, 2017

More on Detroit: in the metro area, African-American children suffered 2,402 asthma attacks and missed 1,751 school days due to asthma per year

November 13, 2017

    In Detroit, protesters gathered Thursday at the Marathon Petroleum refinery to voice concerns about the company's lack of action. The demonstration came weeks after a federal appeals court ruled against a district court's decision that residents' claims of injury due to harmful air pollution from the oil giant fell past the statute of limitations, the Detroit News reported...

November 6, 2017

"Exxon Mobil will pay $2.5 million in fines for flaring gases at eight plants along the Gulf Coast" - is that enough?

October 30, 2017

"The most air polluted country in the world is Saudi Arabia, closely followed by Qatar."

October 23, 2017

As Mugabe's A Goodwill Ambassador of WHO, Guterres Silent, Echo of Biya & North Korea Cyanide

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 21 – Amid the outrage at Robert Mugabe being named a Goodwill Ambassador of the World Health Organization, the head of the UN system Antonio Guterres has been notably silent. He heads the system, but is not providing leadership, at the very least not publicly. The UN often blames similar absurdities on "member states" - but this was a decision by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. (He's "listening" - at least he hears, see below.) On a different issue, when Inner City Press asked Guterres spokespeople repeatedly this year why the UN World Intellectual Property Organization provides help to North Korea for patents on cyanide, the UN refused to comment, just as it did on retaliation by Francis Gurry against whistleblowers at WIPO and other UN system agencies. Several Inner City Press readers have recently mused that perhaps Guterres will give some goodwill position to Cameroon's Paul Biya, like Mugabe a "long time President," in Biya's case for 34 years. This as the UN delivered a threat to Inner City Press to “review” it accreditation on Friday afternoon at 5 pm. The UN official who signed the letter, when Inner City Press went to ask about the undefined violation of live-streaming Periscope video at a photo op by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, had already left, minutes after sending the threat. What to make of the letter's vague statement, "filming and recording on the 38th floor are limited to official photo opportunities, and recording conversations of others in the room is not permitted. It has been brought to our attention that you breached that rule recently"? It's not only vague as to when, but absurd: once a Periscope is authorized to start streaming, it is impossible to not record someone who speaks loudly at the photo op. This comes two days after Inner City Press asked Guterres about the UN inaction on threatened genocide in Cameroon, and the UN claimedGuterres hadn't heard the 15-second long question. 

October 16, 2017

South Sudan’s undersecretary in the Ministry of Petroleum on Saturday denied reports of deaths due to environmental pollution caused by oil exploration. Residents of the former Upper Nile, who live near the oil fields in Palouch (North), complained of environmental pollution as a result of oil production. They reported outbreaks of unidentified diseases which they said were not there before oil production started in the area. These include giving birth to deformed babies and miscarriages by pregnant women. “We found that most of the companies working on the Oil fields are not actually doing the right thing especially to our people,” Josephine Napon, the Minister of Environment, said...

“Most of our people are dying, most of the children are born blind and most of them are dying just because of the pollution the oil companies have caused in those areas,” she stressed.
October 9, 2017

For UN Guterres Trip to Caribbean, 4 Qs All on Climate, No Pool UNlike Sisi Scam, Cameroon Ignored

By Matthew Russell Lee, Video

UNITED NATIONS, October 7 – UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is on a trip to the Caribbean, to Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica in the wake of recent storms. But despite the UN having dozens of communications staff, as of 2 pm on the first of his only two day trip there had been no information much less analysis from the trip so far. Past two pm, Guterres' own - if he writes them - tweet: "People of Barbuda face months of recovery after devastating #Irma. They urgently need help to rebuild their lives & a more resilient future." And the replies to that were largely about Southern Cameroons, and Biafra, and the Rohingya, decrying UN inaction. A sample: "Meanwhile people including children are being killed in Southern Cameroons by Biya's brutal regime you remained quiet with no action." Now past 6 PM the UN has provided a transcript of Guterres' press conference in Antigua - except they only summarized the questions, all four "on topic," on climate change. Guterres as he did has his similarly one-topic stakeout at the UN cited the World Bank's loans to Lebanon and Jordan, on which Inner City Press questioned him before he was Secretary General, here. Now he is supposed to speak to pressing issues, including whatever he may think Cameroon and the UN's controversial role in the Kenyan elections. Even as to Barbuda, some independent coverage is needed. Guterres' UN does not have “pool” reporting of such trips -- in fact, they refused to tell Inner City Press for two weeks this summer even where Guterres was. During the recent General Assembly high level week, the UN denied Inner City Press the ability to cover Guterres' meeting with Egypt's Sisi, claiming that Sisi's state media Akhbar al Yom would be “pooling.” But when Inner City Press asked if their rarely present correspondent Sanaa Youssef who was allowed in the meeting ostensibly as pooler would say who was in the meeting, for example UN human rights staff, no information was provided. It wasn't a pool - it was a cover-up. This has been raised to the UN's new head of Global Communications and the Department of Public Information Alison Smale, still without any response. The team, we learn from gushing tweets, is in Vienna, while questions about killings in such places as Cameroon go unanswered. Ah, communications, UNcommunicative.October 2, 2017

Hurricanes I: "When the St. Johns River broke its banks during Hurricane Irma, it wasn’t just homeowners caught unprepared.  The historic flooding also inundated industrial operations, like factories and power plants. The impact on sewage systems is well documented – and frankly hard to ignore. But Irma’s rains also flooded industrial wastewater ponds, causing tons of accidental pollution. It’s not clear if those polluters will be held to account."

 September 25, 2017

UNEP's Erik Solheim said, “The profit of destroying nature or polluting the planet is nearly always privatised, while the costs of polluting the planet or the cost of destroying ecosystems is nearly always socialised."

September 18, 2017

On Hurricane Irma, UN Spox Cuts Off Press Q on Debt Moratorium, Gives 3 Minute Notice

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 16 – While the UN system's International Monetary Fund has yet to announce any debt moratorium for countries impacted by Hurricane Irma, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric gave the press a mere three minutes to sign up to attend the UN's September 18 meeting about Irma, see below. When the IMF re-started its biweekly embargoed press briefings on September 14, Inner City Press submitted a question about Hurricane Irma and moratoria: "On Antigua and Barbuda, and Hurricane Irma impacted countries more generally... will there be no moratoria? What is the IMF doing?" IMF spokesperson Gerry Rice said, "There's a question from Matthew Lee on moratorium... on that, I would refer to what Mme Lagarde said a few days ago, of course the IMF has tremendous sympathy. She also said we stand ready to help. There are a number of options we can look at in that context. At the moment we are still trying to make an assessment. As a factual member, none of our members including Antigua and Barbuda have formally requested assistance from the Fund." Oh. On September 15, when Inner City Press at the UN asked Patti Smith about it, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric cut off the question saying he would answer it at his forthcoming briefing. He did not. Instead, with a mere three minutes' notice, at 3:57 pm on September 15 he told the Press it had until 4 pm to request a seat to cover the UN's meeting on Irma. He also excluded Inner City Press from information about his "background" briefing on UN General Assembly week. Here's Dujarric's Irma e-mail, with invitees: "From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply
Date: Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 3:57 PM
Subject: Media Advisory: Meeting on Hurricane Irma
To: MEDIA ADVISORY
Meeting on Hurricane Irma United Nations, 15 September 2017 — On 18 September 2017, the President of the seventy-second session of the United Nations General Assembly, H.E. Mr. Miroslav Lajèák, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, H.E. Mr. António Guterres, will co-host a High-Level Meeting on Hurricane Irma at United Nations Headquarters. The meeting will be an opportunity to draw political attention to the devastation caused by Hurricane Irma. It will aim to increase solidarity with those affected and highlight the need for building communities that are more resilient to natural disasters and climate change. Information will also be shared on what is being done at the national, regional and global levels to respond to the disaster. The event will bring together United Nations Member States, United Nations agencies and other relevant stakeholders. WHAT High-Level Meeting on Hurricane Irma WHO expected speakers to include:
·        H.E. Mr. Miroslav Lajèák, President of the General Assembly
·        H.E. Mr. António Guterres, Secretary-General
·        H.E. Mr. Gaston Browne, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda
·        H.E. Mr. Darren Henfield, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Bahamas
·        H.E. Mr. Bert Koenders, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands
·        The Rt Hon Alistair Burt MP, Minister of State for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, United Kingdom
·        Mr. Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator
·        Mr. Mark Lowcock, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs
·        Ms. Kristalina Georgieva, Chief Executive Officer of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and International Development Association, World Bank  WHEN Monday, 18 September; 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EDT WHERE: Trusteeship Council Chamber HOW: There is limited seating at the event. UN journalists wishing to cover it can request special passes from the UN Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit.  External print journalists must register here by 4pm EDT on Friday, 15 September" - this is, in three minutes...September 11, 2017

Sign o' the times: "The public is being urged Saturday by Heal the Bay to avoid the waters of the Los Angeles River this weekend due to “alarmingly” high levels of bacterial pollution."

September 4, 2017

Post Harvey, "Fourteen plants, operated by firms including Shell and Dow Chemical, have also reported wastewater overflows following the hurricane."

August 28, 2017

Dutch environmentalists went to court last week to demand that the Dutch government take urgent action to improve air quality, arguing that authorities haven’t done enough to meet European Union-mandated targets. The summary hearing in The Hague was part of a crowd-funded legal battle by the Dutch arm of Friends of the Earth, which says that the government must do more to reduce harmful airborne pollution.

August 21, 2017

Charm city: "Baltimore officials agreed this week to pay $3.9 million to help clean up hazardous pollution from a dump site in East Baltimore. The Board of Estimates, which is controlled by Mayor Catherine Pugh, voted Wednesday to enter into a consent decree with the federal government and state of Maryland to deal with pollution at the 68th Street Dump site."

August 14, 2017

Air Pollution Ranking of 32 Cities

City / Annual PM2.5 Level / Number of unhealthy particle pollution days

Delhi / 122
Beijing / 85
Cairo / 76
Shanghai / 52
Yaoudé / 49
Johannesburg / 41
Antananarivo / 37
Hong Kong / 29
Bangkok / 24
Seoul / 24
Moscow / 20
Mexico City / 20
Sao Paulo / 19
Brussels / 18
Paris / 18
Rio de Janeiro / 18
Singapore / 18
Manila / 17
Nairobi / 17
Berlin / 16
Barcelona / 15
London / 15
Munich / 15
Los Angeles / 11 / 77
Madrid / 10
Washington DC / 10
San Francisco / 9 / 5
New York / 9 / 0
Toronto / 8
Melbourne / 8
Boston / 7
Sydney / 6August 7, 2017

In New Delhi, India, By October, the city's average air quality readings are likely to change as the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) will start monitoring pollution levels in 20 new locations. These include two industrial areas, Najafgarh and Okhla, and far-flung locations such as Mundka, Narela, Bawana and Dwarka

July 31, 2017

  Another Cameroon abuse: "Plastic waste has become a major problem in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé clogging up drains and rivers and causing flooding in the city whenever it rains. Cameroon’s government has been trying to tackle the country’s plastic pollution troubles for years, but with little success. Yaounde’s streets are littered with piles of plastic bags and bottles and residents are worried. Cheaper than other alternatives, plastic bags and bottles are popular in a place where the average income is less than 500 Central African francs (cfa) ($5) a day, and laws aimed at curbing the use and sale of disposable plastics remain ineffective."

July 24, 2017

Denmark voted against an EU decision to endorse an amendment to the Gothenburg Protocol on transboundary air pollution, saying it is being unfairly penalised for having taken early action to reduce ammonia emissions from its agriculture sector.

July 17, 2017

In India United Bengaluru, an NGO, has lodged a police complaint against encroachment and discharge of effluents into Vibhuthipura lake. The NGO members visited Kaggadasapura, Doddanekkundi and Vibhutipura lakes on Saturday and found all three lakes encroached upon and froth in Kaggadasapura lake. They also found untreated sewage from slum directly entering Vibhutipura lake.

July 10, 2017

In Malaysia, six solid waste landfills are found to have serious and recurring leachate contaminant issues, per Minister  Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar. The six solid waste landfills are the former ones at  Taman Beringin Kuala Lumpur; and Pajam Negeri Sembilan as well as at Sungai Udang Melaka; Pulau Burung in Penang; Tanah Merah Estate in Negeri Sembilan and CEP Simpang Renggam Estate in Johor.

July 3, 2017

In Tunisia, 100s demonstrated in the Tunisian city of Gabes against the environmental pollution generated by the phosphogypsum discharged into the sea by phosphate processing plants. Civil society and political parties gathered in front of the Tunisian Chemical Group (GCT), a public company operating phosphate mines in Ghannouch..

June 26, 2017

  Haiti's environmental catastrophe is made all the more outrageous by the billions of dollars the UN has spent while NOT solving or even addressing it. We'll have more on this.

June 19, 2017

So Dell is using "litter picked up from Haiti’s beaches and worked into recycled packaging." What else should they be doing?

June 12, 2017

UN Ocean Conference Ends on River Balcony, Guterres On Junket, New Envoy in the Works?

By Matthew Russell Lee, Photos here

UNITED NATIONS, June 9 – As the UN's week-long Ocean Conference finally ended on the evening of June 9 with a reception on the Delegates Lounge balcony over the river, complete with a Fiji band, the Colonel and Ambassadors galore, including Dominica's Italian Deputy Ambassador Paolo Zampolli, the question arose where this is all going. In terms of the Ocean, perhaps Secretary General Antonio Guterres will create a new Special Representative position on Ocean, and perhaps Fiji will fill it. Periscope video here and here. Guterres himself wasn't present, on a week-long junket to Central America. Numerous attendees marvels, Where are the promised reforms? Or is it just more of the same? During the week-long conference there were few answers on fisheries subsidies and the substance of Marine Protected Areas. Throughout the week Inner City Press, often as the only media in the UN Press Briefing Room or the only one asking questions, pursued the issue with ministers from Indonesia, Palau and the Maldives, and UN agencies which claimed not to know of widely reported scams right in their host countries. At the end, Inner City Press asked the accessible President of the General Assembly Peter Thomson of the push for the creation of a new job, Special Representative of the Secretary General for Ocean, and he seemed to acknowledge it. Photos here. Inner City Press and the Free UN Coalition for Access complained how money was spent on exhibits in the UN lobby and then the public banned for the whole week. This is today's UN. On June 7 when Monaco's Prince Albert II held a press conference at the UN, Marine Protected Areas were mentioned and Inner City Press went to ask him about the MPAs which offer little to no protection, see below. But as it turned out at the press conference, the questions were given to a group which the Prince gives money to - this was not disclosed - and the questions not surprisingly were softballs, repeated requests to defend the Paris Accord and sing the praises of the Prince's relatives and diving. To this has the UN descended: faux press conferences by royals, with the fact that those called on for questions are fundees not disclosed. To those the Prince - or his subjects - funds, an embargoed copy of his self-promotion was provided (a disgusted member of the group provided it to Inner City Press). The group, as the Prince should know, operates to get thrown out of the UN investigative Press. There was giggling, and some embarrassing wire service pick-ups, when the Prince "got naughty" and ostensibly stood up to power. At the end no question about Marine Protected Areas was permitted. There was applause, and the question, We'll see you tonight, won't we? There will be more faux prizes. To this has the UN descended. June 5, 2017

LAT: "Consider the American Great Lakes, where 80% of the litter along the shorelines is plastic. That trash doesn’t stay put — it flows through the canals and river systems through the St. Lawrence Seaway and into the Atlantic Ocean. A takeout container that blows off a Chicago landfill can wind up off the coast of Africa."

May 29, 2017

A report published earlier this month from Environment America Research & Policy Center and the Frontier Group detailed just how bad air pollution is in the city. It shows that the tristate area had 92 days of "elevated smog pollution" in 2015, which is just seven days shy of the Washington metropolitan area for the most in the northeastMay 22, 2017

Guardian: "People in the UK are 64 times as likely to die of air pollution as those in Sweden and twice as likely as those in the US, figures from the World Health Organisation reveal.

Britain, which has a mortality rate for air pollution of 25.7 for every 100,000 people, was also beaten by Brazil and Mexico – and it trailed far behind Sweden, the cleanest nation in the EU, with a rate of 0.4.

The US rate was 12.1 for every 100,000, Brazil’s was 15.8 and Mexico’s was 23.5, while Argentina was at 24.6."
May 15, 2017

BBC: The historic site of Buddha's birthplace in Nepal faces a serious threat from air pollution, scientists and officials have warned.
Recent data collected from air quality monitoring stations in five places across the country show Lumbini is highly polluted.
The warnings have come amid expanding industrialisation near the sacred site.
It is already located in a pollution hotspot on the Gangetic plains.
For the month of January, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in Lumbini, in southwest Nepal, was measured at 173.035 micrograms per cubic metre.
The reading for the neighbouring town of Chitwan was 113.32 and the capital, Kathmandu, which is known for its high pollution levels, was at 109.82.

May 8, 2017

From the UK Guardian: "Environment lawyers are expected to take the government back to court over its controversial plans to tackle the UK’s air pollution crisis. They say the proposals are so weak they flout ministers’ obligation to protect public health."

May 1, 2017

At UN, Indigenous Tells ICP Guterres Hasn't Met Them, Of Norway & Dakota Access Pipeline

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 27 – As Citigroup's annual general meeting of shareholders began in Cooper Union in Manhattan on April 25, outside a protest formed. Casey Camp-Horinek spoke, movingly; the Reverend Billy Talen began a song. Periscope here. Inner City Press has covered earlier Citigroup AGMs as well, about CitiFinancial's predatory lending that robbed consumers and ultimately helped trigger the financial meltdown. What has changed since? And what has changed at the UN? On April 27 at an Indigenous Forum press conference, Inner City Press asked Rune Fjellheim of the Saami Parliament in Norway if that country's sovereign wealth fund is still invested in the Dakota Access Pipeline. It sounds like it is: see Periscope video here. Inner City Press asked the other panel members if "new" (112 day) Secretary General Antonio Guterres has met with the Indigenous Forum. They both said that he has not, that maybe he is "too busy." Inner City Press told them Guterres spokesman has said Guterres will be back in New York on April 27 (although as of 5:30, his scheduled had not been posted, nor had the UN's transcript of its noon briefing gone online. The day before this protest of Citibank for among other things funding the Dakota Access Pipeline, Inner City Press at the UN on April 24 asked a panel of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues about the protest and more generally about corporations which the UN blue-washes through its Global Compact and otherwise. Video here, from Minute 39. 
Willie Littlechild a First Nations Cree chief from Canada said he wasn't (yet) aware of the protest, but that he supported it, that is it hard to protest at the UN. That's putting it mildly: the US First Amendment does not apply to and is not accepted by the UN, which bans protests and evicts the Press which covers there, without hearing or appeal. But Inner City Press, even confined to minders within the UN has it has been for 14 months and counting, interviewed other attendees of the Permanent Forum, and will continue to. Watch this site.

April 24, 2017

AMA on light pollution: “In addition to its impact on drivers, blue-rich LED streetlights operate at a wavelength that most adversely suppresses melatonin during night. It is estimated that white LED lamps have five times greater impact on circadian sleep rhythms than conventional street lamps. Recent large surveys found that brighter residential nighttime lighting is associated with reduced sleep times, dissatisfaction with sleep quality, excessive sleepiness, impaired daytime functioning and obesity. The detrimental effects of high-intensity LED lighting are not limited to humans.”

April 17, 2017

  In South Korea, there's been "a 380 per cent jump in nasal sanitizer product sales, a 213 per cent rise in nose masks and a 383 per cent increase in canned air also signalled growing concern over the pollution issue among consumers."

April 10, 2017

 In Glasgow, Scotland, "Toxic fumes from vehicle exhausts have polluted 17 of Glasgow’s busiest streets in breach of a legal safety limit that should have been met seven years ago."

April 3, 2017

 Smog has engulfed Seoul for weeks, pushing South Korea into the top ranks of the world's most polluted countries. The government has issued 85 ultra-fine dust warnings, more than twice the 41 advisories issued in the same period last year. Can you say, Ban Ki-moon?

March 27, 2017

   The UN was quieter about "Earth Hour" this year - perhaps because UNSG Antonio Guterres was out of town but his spokesman refused Press questions to say where...

March 20, 2017

Police suspect Renault of having put in place the fraudulent strategies “with the objective of creating false results for antipollution tests,” in order to be seen to be complying with regulatory norms Renault has used “fraudulent strategies” for over 25 years to cheat on pollution tests for diesel and petrol engines with the knowledge of top management, according to a report by French fraud investigators...

March 13, 2017

  You've been served: on Honduras, World Bank get sued, here....

March 6, 2017

In South Carolina, "Gus Speth, who grew up in Orangeburg County, is the co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Al George, South Carolina Aquarium conservation director, was born in Estill and grew up in Savannah, Ga. " They spoke last week.

February 27, 2017

The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, John H. Knox, is urging the Government of Kenya to take all necessary measures immediately to protect four environmental human rights defenders who have been assaulted, subjected to death threats, and forced into hiding since they filed a law suit against a lead smelter earlier this month.  “Phyllis Omido and the other members of the Center for Justice Governance and Environmental Action (CJGEA) are facing a life-or-death situation,” said Mr Knox. We'll have more on this.

February 20, 2017

Indian conglomerate Adani's plans to build Australia's biggest coal mine may imperil the Galilee Basin and Great Barrier Reef...

On Green Group Holdings, “No one should have to fear a multi-million dollar lawsuit just for speaking up about their community — but our clients did,” said Lee Rowland, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “Fortunately, as they do in the face of all injustice, our clients fought back. This settlement reaffirms our clients’ — and everyone’s — constitutional right to speak out and fight for health and justice in their community. In addition to advocating for community health and justice, our clients also became heroes of the First Amendment.”

February 6, 2017

In Nigeria Fidelis Aden has linked the crises in the oil rich Niger Delta region to the absence of environmental justice for communities in the region in a paper called, “Peace and Stability in Nigeria” at the11th General Assembly of West Africa Network Peace Building in Port Harcourt.

January 30, 2017

 Inner City Press asked about @JustinTrudeau backsliding on indigenous rights. Video from 41:10 http://webtv.un.org/watch/un-declaration-of-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples-%E2%80%93-achievements-and-challenges-over-the-past-10-years-press-conference-26-january-2017/5298862108001

January 23, 2017
From New Orleans: "The groups that are opposed to building a new power plant at the site of the an old power plant will meet at a church in New Orleans East to discuss their position. Meanwhile Entergy says building a new plant is the only way to save customers money."

January 16, 2017

The call in the Philippines is “Makiisa para sa #1MBatangMalaya” (One with children to end child labor) which featured the launch of three major initiatives to combat child labor in the country. BAN Toxics in particular called for an end to child labor in small-scale mining.

January 9, 2017

Mother Nature Cambodia, a NGO that is "fighting to put an end to the systematic destruction of Cambodia's precious natural resources" has engaged a Singaporean law firm to provide advice in relation to the alleged complicity of Singaporean Entities in the 'Sand Mining Scam'...

January 2, 2017

The EPA’s Office of Civil Rights has never made a formal finding of discrimination and has never denied or withdrawn financial assistance from a recipient in its entire history, and has no mandate to demand accountability within the EPA....

December 26, 2016

Eight more Ecuadorian villagers have terminated their relationship with Ecuadorian attorney Pablo Fajardo after he secretly cooperated with Ecuador’s government in agreeing to lift a court order freezing Chevron's assets...CSR indeed...

December 19, 2016

We support the coal ash protests in Puerto Rico....

December 12, 2016

Washington, DC – The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights offers the following statement regarding the Dakota Access Pipeline.

As we commemorate Native American Heritage Month, the recent protests against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline have highlighted the intersection of numerous issues the Commission has investigated recently, including the excessive use of force by police, the civil and sovereign rights of Native Americans, and environmental justice.

December 5, 2016

Princess Cruise Lines has pleaded guilty to seven counts of “deliberate pollution” and now must pay $40 million The ships were regularly dumping thousands of gallons of oil and contaminated waste into the water. Alarms were also tampered with so crews would not be notified when too much oil was discharged.

November 28, 2016

AKWESASNE -- St. Regis Mohawk Tribal chiefs say they are dissatisfied with remediation of the former General Motors site, and took the opportunity to address their grievances with the federal government. The tribe also gave $10,000 to help the Standing Rock Sioux with legal costs associated with their opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline...

November 21, 2016

Ban Passed Buck After Morocco Rejected COP22-Accredited Beiruk's Document

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 16 --  Morocco banned Suelma Beirouk from the COP 22, to which she is accredited, because she listed her nationality as Western Sahara, and used an African Union passport, the UNFCCC told Inner City Press on November 11.

But Ban Ki-moon's UN Secretariat continued to dissemble and delay for five days, while Ban was in Marrakesh and get the King.  From the November 17 UN transcript:

Inner City Press: On COP22, the final question.  This NGO issue that went around and around, it seems like the person didn’t get there.  Mr. [Nick] Nuttall said his last communication was the last one.  What, if anything, did the Secretariat do since more than a week ago the person was blocked to request to Morocco that an accredited NGO attend the conference?

Deputy Spokesman:  I believe the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was dealing with the local authorities trying to see what could be done about this.  Beyond that, I’d refer you again to Mr. Nuttall.  Have a good afternoon.

And Nuttal wrote, "I answered your first question ie we sought clarification from the Government of Morocco and were advised she was traveling on an invalid travel document. Let me try again to get an answer to your other two points."

November 14, 2016

UNFCCC Tells ICP Morocco Rejected COP22-Accredited Suelma's Travel Document

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 11 --  Morocco has banned Suelma Beirouk from the COP 22, to which she is accredited, because she listed her nationality as Western Sahara, and used an African Union passport, the UNFCCC has told Inner City Press.

What will UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, slated to attend, do?

Ban gave in to Morocco's demand to pull out 83 members of its MINURSO mission in Western Sahara and has yet to get most of the returned.

Now Ban's UN is proposing to give in further, sources have exclusively told Inner City Press, even as it has been restricted to minders in the UN since being ousted without due process in February by Spain's highest UN official, Cristina Gallach.

And Morocco's Ambassador Omar Hilale on November 7 approached Inner City Press and said he understands and agrees with those who "have a problem" with Inner City Press, and that the parliamentarian banned from attending COP 22 in Morocco was not accredited by the UN. Audio here.

But a document Inner City Press has obtained and published on Scribd, here, shows the individual has been accredited by the UNFCCC. While Ban's spokespeople have told Inner City Press to “ask UNFCCC” and that Ban's Secretariat has been speaking with UNFCCC about Ms Beirouk's situation because Ban believes all accreditees should be able to attend, the UNFCC's timely response to Inner City Press leaves unclear if she will continue to be Banned. Inner City Press asked:

“Please state UNFCCC's understanding of the status of Ms. Beirouk, and position on Morocco blocking her attendance. Separately, since UNFCCC's logo is used on COP22.ma, please state UNFCCC's position and action on the statements on that website about Morocco having a border with Mauritania and a land mass that includes Western Sahara.”

  UNFCCC's spokesperson Nick Nuttal responded:

“Dear Mathew, This is our understanding of the situation. When we (UNFCCC) heard about this situation, we sought clarification from the Moroccan Government. We were advised that the Ms Beirouk was travelling on an African Union passport and specified her nationality as Western Sahara and for Morocco this is not considered a valid travel document.
 We were also advised that Ms Beirouk has a Spanish passport and has traveled freely in and out of Morocco on that many times. Mathew as for your second questions—I don’t know the answer right now and need to ask one of our experts. I’ll get back as quickly as I can.”

   It's appreciated. First, the claim that Ms.Beirouk is not accredited appears to be false. Second, if the only Ban is Morocco's position on her passport, then Ban should act on what his spokespeople say his position is. We'll have more on this.

Morocco PR Denied Existence Of This UNFCCC Accreditation to Inner City Press by Matthew Russell Lee on Scribd

November 7, 2016

We'll be covering COP 22 - including the use of the UNFCCC's logo along with a scam map, here.

October 31, 2016

ICP on Dakota Access Pipeline Asks UN Expert, Then Ban Ki-moon's Spox, “No Communication,” Like Haiti

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 28  -- After the UN under Ban Ki-moon killed more than 10,000 people in Haiti by bringing cholera, Ban spent years dodging court papers and the issue.

Now the UN is dodging on the assault on protesters to the Dakota Access Pipeline, again under Ban Ki-moon reflexively and slavishly defending its host country and main funder the US. Inner City Press got a credible answer on #NoDAPL from the UN's independent expert on cultural heritage on October 27, video here, but from outgoing UN spokesman Dujarric on October 28, only lip service.

Ban backed down to the US on Haiti cholera - the US Mission won't answer -- just as it did to Saudi led, US support coalition killing children in Yemen. From the UN's October 28 transcriptOctober 24, 2016

The Great Lakes Environmental Law Center has filed a letter serving notice that it intends to sue Detroit Renewable Power, the operator of the incinerator.

October 17, 2016

In response to a lawsuit from community groups in Texas and Louisiana, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today agreed to re-examine the accuracy of its estimates of air pollution from the flares at oil and gas drilling sites.

The agreement is in a consent decree that EPA lodged with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The decision is a victory for Air Alliance Houston, Community In-Power and Development Association, Inc., Louisiana Bucket Brigade, and Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, which were represented in their lawsuit by the Environmental Integrity Project.

October 10, 2016

EJ trend was acknowledged by a 2014 report by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which stated that “people who are socially, economically, culturally, politically, institutionally, or otherwise marginalized are especially vulnerable to climate change.”
October 3, 2016

For all the work by many to shed light on environmental justice issues in the past 40 years, the federal agency specifically tasked with that job “never made a formal finding of discrimination in its entire history,” according to a new U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report.

September 26, 2016

California lawmakers failed to approve Democratic legislation seeking to make the state's largest air quality agency more sympathetic to the poor and minority communities disproportionately affected by air pollution. The vote last month avoids a power shake-up at the powerful South Coast Air Quality Management District.

September 19, 2016

This, we like: http://oehha.ca.gov/calenviroscreen

September 12, 2016

Florida: "climate leaders from across the Southeast region gathered in Orlando to take part in Power Shift Southeast—an event that aims to mobilize young people to “demand that decision-makers and future leaders of our country take bold action on climate change - including fracking....

September 5, 2016

Rest in Peace: "A long-time Baton Rouge-based environmental activist and winner of the Heinz Award for her work in Louisiana’s industrial corridor, died Wednesday, according to her friends and environmental co-workers. Florence Robinson, 77, was born in Monroe in 1938, and attended Southern University as an undergraduate, received a master’s degree in zoology from the University of California and then attended Cornell University....“Within a short period of time you noticed changes in the swamp,” she said in a video done for the siteSoLa2050.org"

August 29, 2016

Big: "research shows that nearly two-thirds of anthropogenic carbon emissions originated in just 90 companies and government-run industries"

August 22, 2016

In and around Baton Rouge, Louisiana, "tens of thousands have been evacuated, at least 11 are dead, and property destruction is sure to be in the many billions of dollars. The Red Cross is calling it the worst natural disaster in the United States since Hurricane Sandy. Against the backdrop of the flood and the suffering, communities across the Gulf region are organizing to protest an auction for rights to drill in the Gulf."

August 15, 2016

From California: "Pushing a wheelbarrow filled with 350,000 petition signatures, concerned Californians gathered outside the capitol Tuesday to urge Gov. Brown and the California Water Resources Control Board to stop the potentially dangerous practice of using wastewater from oil drilling to irrigate California's crops.

The wastewater, sold by Chevron and California Resources Corporation, is now being used to irrigate more than 90,000 acres in the Cawelo Irrigation District and the North Kern Water Management District and is slated to expand in the near future to other districts." And what did Ban Ki-moon have to say about this?

August 8, 2016

 Will Theresa May's "shale wealth fund" in UK be replicated in the US?

August 1, 2016

From Nigeria: After promising to implement the UNEP Report, President Buhari has approved the Governing Council and Board of Trustees for UNEP Report on Ogoniland -This means that Ken Saro Wiwa and other sons of Ogoniland who fought hard for environment justice did not fight in Vain Following the historic Presidential launch of the Implementation of the UNEP Report on June 2, 2016, in Bodo, Rivers State, President Buhari has approved the composition of the Governing Council and Board of Trustees, key elements of the governance structure required for the Clean up of Ogoniland. This is in line with Mr. President’s promise to implement the UNEP Report. The Hon. Minister of Environment, Amina Mohammed said in a statement that President Buhari has approved the inauguration of a 13-person Governing Council and a 10-person Board of Trustees (BOT).

July 25, 2016

From NJ, 100 Ramapough Lunaape will make the journey from Mahwah to Philadelphia on the eve of the Democratic National Convention. They don't expect to make it to the sports arena filled with delegates and big money donors...  It's the March for a Clean Energy Revolution, which calls for a ban on fracking

July 18, 2016

So Newark, NJ will from now on require developers requesting environmental permits to inform the municipality of any environmental impacts. Good.

July 11, 2016

Bloomberg on EJ: "Stewart, now counsel in Vinson & Elkins LLP’s environmental and natural resources group, said supplemental environmental project increases could reflect an effort by the EPA to promote awareness of these projects and to encourage larger ones, particularly in environmental justice areas.

Trend Up on Penalties, Complying Action Costs

The average penalty reached a high of $463,576 in 2009-2012 after increasing in each of the previous four-year periods since 1997. The average is $311,677 in the 2013-to-date period."

July 4, 2016

Gulf Coast letter to "Big Green" http://rahc504.com/blog/2016/6/27/an-open-letter-demanding-respect-and-solidarity

June 27, 2016

In NC the "Department of Environmental Quality performed a review on a new lined storage space for coal ash in Wilmington near the Sutton Steam Station... Similar reviews will take place everywhere that Duke Energy proposes to store the material in landfills."


June 20, 2016

In River Rouge, Michigan, the local utility says it will retire coal plants in the community that operate without modern pollution controls and are a major contributor to the area’s high rates of asthma. We'll see.

June 13, 2016

In Los Angeles, "City Attorney Mike Feuer said Thursday a South Los Angeles oil field must remain closed until the operator, AllenCo Energy Co., shows it has adhered to all regulations, with even the smallest leak potentially triggering another closure, under a court order issued this month. Allen Co voluntarily closed its oil field, at 814 W. 23rd St., in 2013, amid complaints by neighboring residents they were getting sick due to fumes coming from the facility."

June 6, 2016

Here it is: EPA's EJ 2020 Action Agenda: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-05/documents/052216_ej_2020_strategic_plan_final_0.pdf

May 30, 2016

In Vermont State Police is investigating an incident at the home of Vermont Public Service Commissioner Christopher Recchia.Environmental protesters were at Recchia’s house just after 6 a.m. Wednesday. Police say the group blocked Recchia’s driveway with cones, and built a fake oil derrick, which they placed on his lawn. The group said it wanted to discuss its concerns over the state's natural gas pipeline, per Henry Harris, a spokesman for a group that calls itself the People’s Department of Environmental Justice.

May 23, 2016

Minneapolis: The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is pushing to revoke the air quality permit of Northern Metal Recycling, saying the firm has misled the agency and is sending "high levels" of metals into the north Minneapolis air.

Northern Metal runs a metal shredder at 2800 Pacific St. believed to be the main source of "particulate emissions that have repeatedly violated state air quality standards near the site since 2014," the MPCA said in a statement Thursday.

May 16, 2016

Can you say, SLAPP?   In Uniontown, Alabama, the owner of a 1,200-acre landfill has filed a $15 million lawsuit against three local activists...

May 9, 2016

Environmental justice activist Jacqueline Patterson will discuss the impacts of polluting industries and climate change on communities of color and low-income communities at UC Riverside on Wednesday, May 11.

May 2, 2016

"Among Flint’s 100,000 residents, 57 percent are African-American, another 8 percent are Latino or of mixed race, and 42 percent live below the poverty line."

April 25, 2016

Amid Climate Hoopla, ICP Asks NRDC & Oxfam of ICAO and REDD Offset Scams

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 22 -- On the day of signing of the Paris Accord at the UN, Inner City Press asked three civil society groups about the exclusion of aviation and shipping from the Paris Accord, about the IMO, ICAO and the Montreal Protocol and specifically about scam offsets like REDD.

Natural Resources Defense Council president Rhea Suh told Inner City Press the Paris Accord is directed at nations and aviation is global; she said there is a strategy for both IMO and ICAO.

   CAN International director Wael Hmaidan said there is political movement at the IMO, though put off until October, and at the IMO.  Oxfam America's Heather Coleman said at IMO, there probably will be “market based” offsets; she acknowledged that there are a range of views of this, but said her focus is whether the revenues are directed to climate finance needs.

   Another correspondent brought up the UN eliminated bike racks; Inner City Press previously exposed the UN's faux recycling - that on the very day the UN Correspondents Association and Ban Ki-moon's spokespeople ordered Inner City Press out of the UN Press briefing room.

Half an hour earlier, Inner City Press asked US official Jonathan Pershing about the exclusion of aviation and shipping from the Accord, if the Coalition(s) will target IMO and ICAO and if offsets like the REDD+ scam will be considered.

  Pershing said yes, there is work for the Coalition to do at IMO and ICAO and on the Montreal Protocol. Afterward, when Inner City Press asked him specifically about REDD, he acknowledged there are issues but said that's different from the question of aviation and shipping being covered.

   Inner City Press notes for example the Air France REDD scam in Madagascar. There are more. Watch this site.

April 18, 2016

From Grist: "The inability to really acknowledge the people who are most affected by environmental racism and climate change was evident this past weekend when Clinton made a campaign stop at Industry City, a contentious symbol of gentrification in Brooklyn, N.Y.’s Sunset Park neighborhood. The chic warehouse complex stands a few blocks away from UPROSE‘s Climate Justice Community Resiliency Center, which was created in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Elizabeth Yeampierre, who runs UPROSE, helped organize a protest against the venue while Clinton was there. One of the key points in Clinton’s plan is to “[p]rotect communities from the impacts of climate change by investing in resilient infrastructure” — precisely the kind of work UPROSE is already taking on. “I don’t think [Clinton’s plan] goes far enough or has an understanding of how these core, densely populated urban areas can actually use these spaces to build for a climate adaptable future,” says Yeampierre."
April 11, 2016

 So at the Apollo Theater on April 11, Bernie Sanders said, we don't need to see 1 in 4 kids in the South Bronx have asthma... No, we don't.

April 4, 2016

The new New York state budget has $300 million for the Environmental Protection Fund, a $123 million increase....

March 28, 2016

Minnesota regulators said Thursday that they’re concerned about airborne lead particles in violation of state standards in an industrial area of north Minneapolis that is near a residential area.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency found lead levels at two of its monitors that were substantially higher than those detected by its monitoring equipment at other locations in the state. It also found levels of chromium, cobalt and nickel above health-based guidelines used by state and federal agencies, although actual standards for those metals haven’t been set.

March 21, 2016

Australian Securities and Investments Commission has been alerted about  a number of Australian creditors who would be at risk should Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private sector coal company, file for bankruptcy...

March 14, 2016

 When the White House held a call about its agreements with Canada, it held a conference call - then it got asked about at the UN including to Segolene Royal, to whom ICP asked about not only the Global compact and the environment but also the rapes in CAR by the French Sangaris force, we'll have more on this....

March 7, 2016

At least 3,300 kids in St. Louis have toxic levels of lead in their blood, which can lead to decreased intelligence, learning disabilities, stunted growth and other health problems. The problem isn’t in the tap water; it’s in old houses with lead-contaminated paint....

February 29, 2016

"The construction of a new gas-fired electric plant will mean $2 million for a community environmental fund in Bridgeport. PSEG Power Connecticut and Mayor Joseph P. Ganim on Thursday signed an agreement in conjunction with the construction the plant to establish a fund to pay for health, environmental and renewable projects." But is it enough?

February 22, 2016

The Feb 17 settlement with the EPA, approved by the federal district court for the Southern District of New York, requires EPA to begin a rulemaking process immediately and to finalize spill prevention rules within three and a half years.  The forthcoming protections will cover over 350 hazardous chemicals, and will apply broadly to tens of thousands of industrial facilities across the country.

February 15, 2016

Hats off, including on environmental justice grounds, to the Moral March on downtown Raleigh NC...

February 1, 2016

On Coal, ICP Asks UNFCCC's Figueres Of Funding by Banks in Global Compact

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 28 -- When Christiana Figueres of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change came with three others to take questions on green investment on January 27, Inner City Press asked her about banks continuing to fund coal -- including banks who are members of the UN Global Compact -- and about murky supply chains. Video here.

  Figueres responded on coal, saying it is on the way out in the US due in part to shale gas (or hydro-fracking); she said unabated coal has no place in the energy system. So, again, what are these banks funding it? We'll have more on this - especially the UN Global Compact members.

 Appearing with Figueres on January 27 were Thomas DiNapoli, New York State Comptroller; ; Michael Liebreich of the Advisory Board, Bloomberg New Energy Finance and Philippe Defosses, CEO, public pension fund for French civil servants (ERAFP).

January 25, 2016

At UN, Fake Recycling Can Mixes Glass, Paper & Waste, Ban & Press Say Nothing

By Matthew Russell Lee, Expose

UNITED NATIONS, January 22 -- While the UN purported to be recycling, its garbage cans with separately holes for glass, paper and waste in fact have a single bag behind them: nothing is separated. Video here.

 On January 22, Inner City Press tweeted a phototweeted a photograph of the faux-recycling garbage can on the UN's third floor.

Photo: At the #UN right now, garbage cans pretend to separate for recycling - but it is all one bag pic.twitter.com/1Vp8mIlFTM

— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) January 23, 2016

Then after interaction, Inner City Press broadcast the garbage can live on Periscope, preserved on YouTube here.


Isn't this hypocrisy? Why didn't the media using this scam garbage can -- CBS, Voice of America, Foreign Policy, Reuters and AFP from down the hall, the UN Correspondents Association right next door -- say anything about this?

  Inner City Press, aware of UNCA's and these media's attempts to censor and even through the investigative Press out of the UN, filmed it and puts it online here.

Amid self-congratulations about the Paris Agreement on climate change, several environmental groups even inside the conference site on December 12 were critical. But when UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon took three softball questions from correspondents at the UN on December 14, it was another stage in Ban and his enablers' use of the UN to campaign for a Nobel Prize. The first question was, by CBS, to ask Ban about his legacy.

The next, by the outgoing vice president of the UN Correspondents Association -- selling seats with Ban for $6000 on Wall Street -- was, There is criticism, what is your response? But not a single criticism was listed: the easiest question possible. The last was, from UNCA's earlier in the day question, was What should be do?

  Inner City Press asked loudly about corpses dumped in the streets over the weekend in Burundi, where several UN member states are warning of a new genocide, and on which Ban and his office have yet to comment. Ban had no response - he returned to say he will brief the General Assembly; his spokesman said he will take more questions on December 16: also pre-selected?

  Later in the day, Ban and his UN Censorship Alliance which sells access with him will be reviving and re-establishing UN corruption in the wake of the indictments of former President of the General Assembly John Ash, Sheri Yan, the founder of South South News and Ng Lap Seng. Watch this site.

January 18, 2016

The draft USDA Environmental Justice Strategic Plan is available here: USDA Environmental Strategic Plan.

Comments on the Plan may be submitted via email to EJStrategy@usda.gov beginning January 15, 2016. Comments are due by February 14, 2016.

January 11, 2016

 Look at how Michigan declared an emergency about Flint's poisonous water - after have a role in it: http://www.michigan.gov/snyder/0,4668,7-277-57577_57657-372653--,00.html
January 4, 2016

EJ hotspot in Denver: Globeville, Swansea and Elyria neighborhoods, and the Mousetrap...

December 28, 2015

Per the City of New York Department of Sanitation, there are 20 waste transfer stations in Brooklyn, handling 10,551 tons of waste daily. Williamsburg and Greenpoint host 15 transfer stations, and handle between 30 and 40 percent of the waste of the five boroughs. ...

December 21, 2015

Headline of the week, from IndyBay: "Jerry Brown grandstands in Paris but fails to protect Latino children from fracking."

December 14, 2015

On Paris Agreement on Climate, Grumbles Even at COP 21, of TPP and Ban's Travel

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 12 -- Amid self-congratulations about the Paris Agreement on climate change, several environmental groups even inside the conference site were critical. An NGO from the United States pointed out that President Barack Obama is pushing the Trans Pacific Partnership, which will undercut climate change efforts; Obama's “climate change hiatus” after the failure of the Waxman Markey bill failed in 2009.

  An NGO from the Philippines called the agreement less concrete than in the past; another called it a “huge disappointment” on human rights. But there was Ban Ki-moon, talking about all his travel in the past nine years (and, one surmised, campaigning of a Nobel Peace Prize, with an eye on the Korean peninsula). A stream of press releases ensued; we'll have more on this.

  Back on November 20 in the run-up to the talks, Inner City Press asked UN official Janos Pasztor if commitments on adaptation funding will be increased, about corporations making sometimes dubious pledges in connection with CoP21 and specifically about requests that the Green Climate Fund not accredit HSBC or Credit Agricole, given their track records.

December 7, 2015

Anything for a hotel, EJ be damned: "The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) has determined that the cleanup requirements to address contamination related to the 2477 Third Avenue Property site (“site”) located at 2477 Third Avenue, Bronx, NY under New York State's Brownfield Cleanup Program (BCP) have been or will be met."November 30, 2015

Baltimore Sun: "Baltimore, where 63.1 percent of the population is black. Baltimore currently has three times the national rate of lead poisoning among children. The effects of lead exposure can be severe, leading many times to behavioral problems such as aggressive tendencies, lack of impulse control and ADHD, among other learning disabilities. Exposure to high doses, while uncommon, can even lead to death. Lead poisoning is highly preventable; however, Baltimore's neglect of its deteriorating housing stock makes it difficult to address the issue. While rates of poisoning have steadily declined overall, black families are still suffering the burden of this legacy."

 We'll be covering Paris...

November 23, 2015

On Climate Change, ICP Asks UN's Pasztor of Adaptation, GCF & HSBC

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 20 -- In the run-up the the climate change talks in Paris, Inner City Press asked UN official Janos Pasztor on November 20 if commitments on adaptation funding will be increased, about corporations making sometimes dubious pledges in connection with CoP21 and specifically about requests that the Green Climate Fund not accredit HSBC or Credit Agricole, given their track records.

  Pasztor earnestly answered the questions, though he said he was unaware of the request to the GCF about the two banks (see here); he also said that while the march planned in Paris for November 29 has been canceled by the government, marches can be held elsewhere - in other countries.

   Agence France Presse, before other journalists got even one question, cut in with repeated “follow-ups.” France is branding CoP21, while now limited civil society participation - except for corporations.

  Relatedly, when the UNFCCC held a press conference in Bonn earlier in the week, the corporate media in the room had no questions, then few questions. But the selection of questions submitted by social media trended toward Thomson Reuters Foundation and the Climate Group; press questions submitted by Twitter and email were never answered. We'll have more on this.

November 16, 2015

New York City Councilman Ben Kallow is pushing legislation to require tests to make sure New Yorkers aren't ingesting toxins near the city's marine waste transfer stations, not only the one proposed as Asphalt Green but alsoMidtown, Greenwich Village, Gowanus and Gravesend, Brooklyn, and College Point, Queens...

November 9, 2015

Staying with Pennsylvia: The regulatory process surrounding Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s expansion plan illustrates how Pennsylvania’s 1980s-era waste-management laws need an overhaul, a member of Friends of Lackawanna told the state Environmental Justice Advisory Board on Thursday. The state Department of Environmental Protection designated a low-income part of Dunmore near the Dunham Drive landfill as an environmental justice community, which triggered a process designed to give people who live there more education about the proposal and a voice in the review.

November 2, 2015

So Pennsylvania's EJ director is... Carl E. Jones Jr., an attorney in the Tucker Law Group LLC, in Philadelphia for the last two years, has been appointed to head the state Department of Environmental Protection’s Office of Environmental Justice. DEP Secretary John Quigley announced the appointment of Mr. Jones, 33, last week to head the office, which has not been staffed by a director or any employees for more than two months.

According to Neil Shader, a DEP spokesman, Mr. Jones was offered the job just before a state government hiring freeze necessitated by the budget impasse took effect.
October 26, 2015

The Pennsylvania Office of Environmental Justice is belatedly getting a new director, and fracking for natural gas will be on the agenda. The Department of Environmental Protection says gas-drilling permit applications once again will trigger extra notification and community involvement - but can fracking be denied?

October 19, 2015

On Climate Change, ICP Asks UN's Pasztor of Carbon Tax, Critiques of OECD

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 13 -- In the run-up the the climate change talks in Paris in December, Inner City Press on October 13 asked the UN's Janos Pasztor about criticism of the OECD's claims about developed countries' progress toward $100 billion in 2020, and about the IMF's or Christine Lagarde's call for a carbon tax. Video here.

  Pasztor replied that at the meeting in Peru, finance ministers had raised questions about the OECD's methodology, which he said the OECD Secretary General had responded to. He called Lagarde's proposals “an important way that countries can address this issue.”

  Back on September 21 the 2015 Equator Prize winners were announced at a UN press conference featuring Alec Baldwin and Hilaria Baldwin, UNDP's Helen Clark and UNFCCC's Christiana Figueres, about whose 3 degree Celsius prediction Inner City Press asked last week.

October 12, 2015

In Sri Lanka, a court directed the Attorney General that the documents pertaining to the Colombo Port City including the government's stance on the project be submitted in Court on November 17...

October 5, 2015

After Rousseff Lays Out Brazil's INDC, ICP Asks of Deforestation, Livestock

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 27 -- After President Dilma Rousseff announced Brazil's Intended Nationally Determined Contribution on September 27, Inner City Press -- having fought from being excluded -- asked her how the INDC proposes to offset for continued deforestation and subsidies to the livestock industry. Video here.

September 28, 2015

ICP Asked Peru's Humala If TPP Investors' Rights Provision Undercut  Environment

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 27 -- When Peru's President Ollanta Humala Tasso held a UN stakeout to present his country's climate change Intended Nationally Determined Contribution document to UNFCCC chief Figueres, Inner City Press asked Humala about the impact on the INDC of the pending Trans Pacific Partnership, particularly corporate suing of government provision. Video here.

  Humala said TPP is 90% finished, and that Peru is committed to the environment. But what about corporations suing regulations that “hinder” them? This wasn't answered.


 And the next day, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon when on a podium with Humala and French President Hollande told the Press that Humala regretted not being there. But he WAS there. Respect.

September 21, 2015

On Climate Change, ICP Asks Pasztor of 3 Degrees C, Murky Climate Finance

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 18, more here -- In the run up the climate change events during UN General Assembly week, Inner City Press on September 17 asked UN's Assistant Secretary-General on Climate Change Janos Pasztor whether INDCs to date would raised temperatures by 3 degrees Celsuis, as Christiana Figueres has said, or 2.5 degree as the Guardian has an unnamed UK official saying. Video here.

  Pasztor's answer to Inner City Press included "3.5 degrees;" Figueres' spokesperson chimes in this is the difference between frying and cooking. But who was the Guardian's anonymous "merely warming" source?

  Amina Mohammed, Special Advisor to the Secretary-General on Post-2015 Development Planning, spoke about financing issues, on which Inner City Press asked about how to count if the $100 billion goal is reached by 2020.

Back on August 11 after the climate change announcement of Australia, Inner City Press on August 11 asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Stephane Dujarric about it, video here

September 14, 2015

In Madison, Wisc., residents are concerned about health and environmental impacts and want to delay the coming demolition of the state’s sprawling, century-old Central Services Facility on the Near East Side....

September 7, 2015

Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of the Inspector General has that continued delays in issuing or finalizing environmental justice guidance limits the EPA’s ability to consider the principles during the rule-making process and puts affected communities at risk. According to a report issued by the OIG, the EPA was three years behind schedule in issuing the final "Environmental Justice in Rulemaking Guide," which was finalized in May. Also, the draft "EJ Technical Guidance" — planned to be a technical complement to the rule-making guide — is not projected to be final until 2016...

August 31, 2015

Good review: the Climate Justice Convergence at Dillard University marking the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, part of the #GulfSouthRising commemorative events...

August 24, 2015

Here's a devastating series on EPA and environmental justice

on which EPA offered... no comment. August 17, 2015

A California firm has filed a lawsuit alleging that the U.S. government has deprived “future generations” of their constitutional rights by allowing climate change to occur, having known since 1965 about the health dangers of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels...

August 10, 2015

  Here's the lack of seriousness in enforcement of environmental justice: "Deborah Reade got a certified letter from the Environmental Protection Agency that was nearly a decade in the making. 'During the course of the EPA’s investigation, it was determined that additional information is needed to clarify this allegation.' Her original complaint to the EPA’s Office of Civil Rights, in 2002...

August 3, 2015

We've been following: FERC's environmental scoping on Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co.’s proposed Northeast Energy Direct project...
July 27, 2015

We're following the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that aims to require the EPA to better regulate facilities over hazardous-substance spills. It cites the need to protect low-income communities and areas with a high percentage of people of color: environmental justice.
July 20, 2015

 The US government reports that, in recent years, more and more crude oil is being transported across the country on railways. This past year, 493,140 carloads of crude oil traveled over railways in this country, according to Ed Greenberg, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Association of American Railroads. The year before, in 2013, crude oil was transported in 407,761 train freight cars. Even though those carloads represent about 1.6 percent of the total rail traffic for those years, crude-oil transport by rail has experienced a 4,000 percent increase, according to industry watchers..

July 13, 2015

Thirty years ago, the Greenpeace ship "Rainbow Warrior" was sunk by a French secret agent...

July 6, 2015

ICP Asks UN of Climate Finance Shortfall & the Pope, No TPP to Redford

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 29, more here -- Alongside the UN's “high level meeting on climate change” on June 29, Inner City Press asked Janos Pasztor and Amina Mohammed of the UN about the critique by Brazil, South Africa, India and China (BASIC) that the developed world is not moving toward $100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020. Also, Inner City Press asked the Cardinal on the panel, what does the Pope think of it?

  Pasztor said the key is credible measuring of financing, and that Ban Ki-moon has spoken to the G-7. The Cardinal said the Pope's two principles are solidarity and subsidiarity. The SDG connection will become clear when the UN uploads the briefing video.

  But -- this press conference at least was substantive. Two hours later, the UN presented Robert Redford, solo, taking questions ranging from his movies to Obama and called it climate change. The UN Correspondents Assocation, which didn't even have a question for Ban on climate change earlier in the day, was given the first question to Redford; it was sloppily asked and is almost sure not to be written up. No one asked, or was permitted to ask, about fracking or the Trans Pacific Partnership. And so it goes at the UN.

  Back on June 18 when the UN gave a climate change briefing by UNDP's Cassie Flynn, and Jo Scheuer, on June 18 Inner City Press asked about the under-funding of the Least Development Countries Fund, and if South Korea is backsliding in its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions. Video here.

  The answers, on film, were to promote other funding vehicles, and to say that South Korea has still yet to file its INDC.

June 29, 2015

 Last week's decision by the Supreme Court upholding disparate impact theory for fair housing may have implications for environmental justice. For now, here's the final paragraph of the majority decision:

"Much progress remains to be made in our Nation’s continuing struggle against racial isolation. In striving to achieve our “historic commitment to creating an integrated society,” Parents Involved, supra, at 797 (KENNEDY, J.,concurring in part and concurring in judgment), we must remain wary of policies that reduce homeowners to nothing more than their race. But since the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968 and against the backdrop of disparate-impact liability in nearly every jurisdiction, many cities have become more diverse. The FHA must play an important part in avoiding the Kerner Commission’s grim prophecy that “[o]ur Nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” Kerner Commission Report 1. The Court acknowledges the Fair Housing Act’s continuing role in moving the Nation toward a more integrated society. "

June 22, 2015

On Climate, ICP Asks UN of LDC Fund Under-Funded, S. Korea Backsliding

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 18, more here -- When the UN gave a climate change briefing by UNDP's Cassie Flynn, and Jo Scheuer, on June 18 Inner City Press asked about the under-funding of the Least Development Countries Fund, and if South Korea is backsliding in its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions. Video here.

  The answers, on film, were to promote other funding vehicles, and to say that South Korea has still yet to file its INDC.

June 15, 2015

So EPA has released a new mapping and screening tool called EJSCREEN. EPA says allowing users “high resolution access to environmental and demographic information”

June 8, 2015

ICP Asks UN Why Of CDM's UNspent Funds, South Korea Backsliding

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 5, more here -- When the UN's Assistant Secretary-General on Climate Change Janos Pasztor held a press conference on June 4, Inner City Press asked him about unspent funds at the Clean Development Mechanism in Bonn, and about reported backsliding by South Korea on its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions on greenhouse gas reduction.

  Pasztor said that the CDM is still needed; he said country have committed not to backslide. Video here. (South Korea has yet to submit its INDCs, it seems). Inner City Press asked Pasztor to provide a comment, if he has one, once South Korea's filing is made.

  The Pope's encyclical, he said, is due on June 18...

Back on May 5, Inner City Press asked him about criticism of the Green Climate Fund, including at the recent Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Video here

June 1, 2015

In South Africa, ArcelorMittal SA has been asked why it has resisted releasing the company’s internal study into environmental issues Vanderbijlpark despite an application under the Promotion of Access to Information Act....

May 25, 2015

Ok, we'll do a PSA: http://www2.epa.gov/communities

May 18, 2015

 President of the Philippines Benigno Aquino 3rd claims his government is seriously pursuing charges against the importer and customs agents who allowed the entry of hazardous wastes from Canada. Philippine-based importer Chronic Plastics for smuggling in the garbage, which was misdeclared as “plastic scraps” intended for recycling. Although he admitted that the waste shipment poses a risk to public health, Aquino said the trash will not be returned to Canada but will be incinerated or buried in a landfill. The illegal shipment is an international crime under the Basel Convention, to which Canada and the Philippines are parties.

May 11, 2015

ICP Asks UN Why Green Climate Fund Will Finance Coal, Of Pension Fund

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 5, more here -- When the UN's Assistant Secretary-General on Climate Change Janos Pasztor held a press conference on May 5, Inner City Press asked him about criticism of the Green Climate Fund, including at the recent Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Video here and embedded below.

  Specifically, why will the "Green" Climate Fund provide financial for coal-powered plants? Pasztor replied that some felt that an exclusion for coal would have been divisive. On statements at the PFII that the UN is helping to "monetize" nature, Pasztor replied that most states feel differently. But what about the indigenous?
  
  Pasztor in his opening statement had praised the UN Pension Fund for now investing in "green equities" and "green bonds." Since the UN has responded to Press questions about irregularities alleged at the Pension Fund by emphasizing how separate and independent it is, Inner City Press asked Pazstor if the UN Secretariat had brought about this Pension Fund decision.

 Pazstor replied that the Pension Fund answers to the Secretary General and that "she" - Carolyn Boykin, presumably - had made this decision. We'll have more on this, after noting Pasztor by no means the least responsive UN official...

May 4, 2015

This, we like: Bushwick Campus’ four high schools celebrated Earth Week with EcoStation:NY with tours of the Bushwick Campus Farm and Greenhouse, cooking demonstrations, food tastings, compost workshops, hydroponic and aquaponic workshops in the greenhouse as well as musical, dance and spoken word performances. “We wanted to see better food in the neighborhood,” said EcoStation:NY.

 So do we.

April 27, 2015

On Chevron: "Faced with endless legal costs, one of the plaintiffs’ funders, a lobbying firm and a technical consulting firm have jumped ship.

The government of Ecuador has not, despite the fact that Chevron reportedly lobbied successfully to terminate valuable trade preferences the country had in U.S. markets. Donzinger, who has devoted 20 years to this case, has been demonized in the media by Chevron’s unrelenting and lavishly financed public relations campaign. But he’s not giving up, nor are Amazon Watch, the Amazon Defense Coalition and other environmental groups that know that Chevron is guilty of a major environmental crime."

April 20, 2015

The Environmental Protection Agency is asking for public comment on the draft EJ 2020 Action Agenda (EJ 2020) framework, the EPA’s next overarching strategic plan for environmental justice.
EJ 2020 is a strategy to advance environmental justice through EPA’s programs, policies and activities, and will support the cross-agency strategy on making a visible difference in environmentally overburdened, underserved, and economically-distressed communities. Stakeholders and the general public can review the framework and submit comments, starting today through June 15, 2015, by visiting www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/ej2020/.

April 13, 2015

Seems Pope Francis is writing an encyclical in the run-up to the UN Climate Summit in September, and the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) to be held in Paris in December...

April 6, 2015

Including on EJ grounds, Sunset Park groups are raising concerns about Jamestown Properties' $1 billion dollar redevelopment and rezoning proposal for Industry City...

March 30, 2015

In Houston, 66 some to 200 Bakken oil train cars go through every week, per the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Chron. The rail lines that carry them run from northwest Houston right through downtown and then split into multiple tracks in the East End before reaching the Houston Ship Channel and refinery district. “Living in Houston is like sitting on top of an oil-train time-bomb, and all it takes is a drive along the freight-train tracks to see that.”

March 23, 2015

This, we like: the Environmental Justice atlas: https://ejatlas.org/

March 16, 2015

So today the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, which advises the EPA, will hold a public meeting to discuss—among other rulemaking and policy issues—the Clean Power Plan rule...

March 9, 2015

The law: On December 29, 2014, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina held that the plaintiffs in a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act ("RCRA")/Clean Water Act (CWA) Citizens Suit against the owners and operator of a swine farm had the right to have the case tried before a jury. The case is North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, et al., v. Taylor, et al., 2014 WL 7384970. It is alleged that the defendants illegally dumped swine waste into the waters and onto the lands surrounding the swine farm. The defendants challenged the demand for a jury trial, and both sides argued that a 1987 Supreme Court decision, Tull v. U.S., 481 U. S. 412, supported their positions. After reviewing the Tull case and other precedents, the court held that the Tull decision, which discussed the right to a jury trial when the federal government was seeking civil penalties, was a Seventh Amendment right available to either side in a Citizen Suit case.

March 2, 2015

NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio's administration is promising to expand community outreach and agency participation in its April update to PlaNYC, a sprawling assessment of the city's infrastructure and detailed game plan for how New York will address climate change.The de Blasio administration will roll out the plan on April 22, Earth Day. We'll have more on this.

February 23, 2015

News from the border: Alamar Creek on Tijuana’s eastern side, "under a federal flood control project launched in 2011, the entire creek was to be turned into a concrete channel.Now, after a four-year campaign to preserve this small riparian corridor, local residents and environmental activists are celebrating partial success. Mexico’s National Water Commission, or Conagua, has agreed to work with them on an alternative channeling plan for a two-mile stretch of the creek."
February 16, 2015

Hey - the 20th Annual Summit on Environmental Law and Policy to be held on February 27-28th, 2015 at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans will have Grégor Trumel, Consul General of France -- “Appointed by decree of the President of the French Republic, Mr. Grégor Trumel (1975) assumed his duties of Consul General of France in New Orleans in August 2014. He previously was First Counsellor, Press Counsellor and Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of France in Denmark. Joining the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Le Quai d’Orsay) in 2000, Grégor Trumel focused his career on European diplomacy, especially during the Danish Presidency of the EU in 2012. He also specialized in Human Resources Management and was in charge in Paris of the Executives Management”...

February 9, 2015

We support the anti-fracking march through Oakland, this is needed elsewhere...

February 2, 2015

We note the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s August 2014 decision in Center for Community Action & Environmental Justice v. BNSF Railway holding that air emissions do not constitute a “disposal” under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)[3] because, as the definition is written, it does not specifically include “emitting,” and instead “includes only conduct that results in the placement of solid waste ‘into or on any land or water.’ That placement, in turn, must be ‘so that such solid waste . . . may enter the environment or be emitted into the air, or discharged into any waters.’ . . . [T]herefore ‘disposal’ occurs where the solid waste is first placed ‘into or on any land or water’ and is thereafter ‘emitted into the air....

January 26, 2015

VOCs in the Bronx: “The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) has determined that the cleanup requirements to address contamination related to the Former Nessen Lamps (aka PS 51X) site (“site”) located at 3200 Jerome Avenue in the Bronx under New York State's Brownfield Cleanup Program have been or will be met. The cleanup activities were performed by The Rinzler Family Limited Partnership ("Volunteer") with oversight provided by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC). NYSDEC has approved a Final Engineering Report and issued a Certificate of Completion for the site.... Injection of chemical oxidant into the groundwater table to treat volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in groundwater (known as in-situ chemical oxidation); Construction and maintenance of a cover system consisting of the existing building slab and the restored building slab in all excavated areas...

January 19, 2015

In San Francisco, h/t Bay View: “We have sought and received input from the community and our partner, the city,” acknowledged Lennar San Francisco President Kofi Bonner in a statement cited by columnists Matier & Ross in the Chronicle. As a result, Bonner added, “Lennar intends to withdraw its request to implode the stadium.”

January 12, 2015

From the always excellent Grist:

For Brent Newell, legal director of the Oakland, Calif.-based Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, progress has as much to do with historic civil rights as it does with present-day policies around regulating greenhouse gases:

“During 2014, the intersection between climate change and environmental justice came to the forefront as Gina McCarthy advanced her most important rule and the centerpiece of President Obama’s climate policy: the Clean Power Plan. National progress on environmental justice in 2015 will ultimately be measured by what happens with the Clean Power Plan. Though EPA touted public health benefits in its media strategy, the proposed rule seeks to allow states to use pollution trading schemes like “cap and trade,” which allows power plants to avoid on-site pollution reductions by purchasing “offsets,” or pollution reductions from somewhere else (e.g. a tree planting operation in Brazil). EJ communities already suffer disproportionately from the effects of climate change, they should not also suffer from the impacts of climate policy. Whether environmental justice will progress at the national level in 2015 will depend on whether McCarthy will use her existing authority under the Clean Air Act and Civil Rights Act to protect communities. And also, whether the big green groups will change their positions by opposing cap and trade.”

January 5, 2015

In Pennsylvania, the Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living sued the DEP under the Civil Rights Act. The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the case in 1998. But the DEP created an Office of Environmental Advocate and developed policies on how to handle environmental justice areas. And now?

December 29, 2014

In Bayview Hunters Point in San Francisco, they're talking about blowing up Candlestick Park. But what about the particulate matter?

December 22, 2014

RIP to EJ hero Daymon Morgan, who served as chairperson of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth in 1990-91 and received the Berea College Service Award in 2010, was a plainspoken farmer and forester, who counted what he called "the true cost of coal" in lost drinking water, timber, wildlife habitat and plant species....

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/12/17/3599211/daymon-morgan-defender-of-kentuckys.html#storylink=cpy

December 15, 2014

 From Peru, this report: "The U.N. insists that all NGOs accredited to attend the talks clear any public actions ahead of time; if they don’t, the groups can be banned from the conference site and lose access to future U.N. summits. There are regulations governing what the groups can and can’t do, but the U.N. hasn’t been very forthcoming about them."  UN and censorship? We've seen it before, and will have more.

December 8, 2014

From Philly [.com] a profile of Betty Reid who still remembers the excitement from the late 1970s as she and her husband were moving into a newly built brick-and-siding rowhouse on a leafy, almost suburban street at the edge of Eastwick - the city's southwestern fringe, in the shadow of jumbo jets landing at nearby Philadelphia International Airport. The now-81-year-old retiree recalls a brochure for the new Eastwick community from the developer Korman Homes that showed kids playing and sliding down the steep hill in back of the development, pushing "how much fun it would be for the children." But it wasn't long after moving in that the Reids weren't able to open their window on a warm night because of the noxious odor of burning garbage - and they realized the fumes were coming from that hillside in the cheerful brochure, a disposal site that the locals called Heller's Dump but was officially known as the Clearview Landfill. (Today the southwest section of Eastwick encompassing the landfill is called simply Clearview.)

  That is environmental (in)justice...

December 1, 2014

In South Africa, “ArcelorMittal lost a court appeal to keep secret its environmental plans for an area polluted by the company’s biggest steel-producing plant. The Supreme Court of Appeal upheld a ruling that Amsa, as the unit of the world’s largest steelmaker is known, must hand over documents detailing its environmental-protection plan for the Vanderbijlpark plant in Gauteng.”

Secret environmental plans?

November 24, 2014

It's worth noting, from an environmental justice perspective, that US EPA had a representative at the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) meeting in Geneva, and an October 7, 2014 meeting in Berkeley about environmental issues that will come up in the 2015 UPR...

November 17, 2014

In LA the Board of Supervisors has voted to have county attorneys evaluate options to force a shutdown of the Exide battery recycling plant in Vernon and the clean-up of contamination in nearby neighborhoods. In September, Brown signed a bill requiring the Department of Toxic Substances Control to either issue a permanent permit or shut the plant down by the end of 2015. The Exide plant has been closed since mid-March while management works to upgrade pollution controls and meet other regulatory requirements. State regulators announced an enforcement order last week that requires Exide to spend $9 million to clean up contamination in Boyle Heights and Maywood and set aside more than $38 million to cover the cost of potentially closing the plant. Regulators said today the $9 million will be enough to pay to clean up 215 homes and that the order is binding, even if Exide is liquidated...

November 10, 2014

In Ecuador, activists are urging Roberta Jacobson from the U.S. State Department to demand Chevron “abide by the rule of law and pay its $9.5 billion Ecuador pollution liability when she makes a surprise visit to the Andean nation’s capital this week. The villagers are also demanding that the official,, reject the State Department’s longstanding practice of lobbying top Ecuadorian government officials on Chevron’s behalf, said Pablo Fajardo, the lead lawyer for dozens of rainforest communities who won the judgment against the oil company. Jacobsen is the Assistant Secretary of State overseeing U.S. foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere.”

November 3, 2014

Look - a group in Williamsburg, Brooklyn is seeking “unpaid interns to assist their Environmental Community Organizer with implementing a NYSDEC Environmental Justice grant.” Who does this exclude?

October 27, 2014

Looking south: "According to a new ranking published by the Environmental Justice Atlas, Peru is the tenth most environmentally conflicted country in the world.India, with 112 conflicts, far outpaces even the second-place country, Colombia, where there are 72 environmental conflicts. Rounding out the top ten are Brazil and Nigeria with 58, Ecuador with 48, Turkey with 45, the United States with 34, Spain with 33, Argentina with 32, and Peru with 31. Chile is close behind in 11th place, with 30 conflicts recorded by the Environmental Justice Atlas." We'll have more on this.

October 20, 2014

 This week: illegal fishing: "EU to ban fish from Sri Lanka, saying lax on illegal fishing

The European Commission proposed a ban on imports of fish from Sri Lanka for not tackling illegal fishing properly.. 'Our policy of resolute cooperation is yielding results,' EU Maritime Affairs Commissioner Maria Damanaki said in a statement. 'Five countries receive today our appreciation for getting serious on illegal fishing. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for Sri Lanka.' Since 2010 the EU has taken action against countries that do not follow international standards to prevent over-fishing, such as policing their waters for unlicensed fishing vessels and imposing sanctions to ensure adherence to rules against illegal fishing. Damanaki said Sri Lanka did not even have proper legislation in place to prevent and fight illegal fishing, which led the Commission to put forward the import ban."

 But what about the EU's fishing off of Western Sahara? We'll have more on this.


October 13, 2014

In Connecticut last week in a 17-1 vote with the presence of Mayor Bill Finch, the Bridgeport City Council overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for the "retirement" of the Bridgeport Harbor Station coal plant...

October 6, 2014

“So far, the Obama administration continues to allow the fossil fuel industry to undermine efforts to address climate change by mining and drilling for coal, oil, and gas from our public lands and waters, unlocking huge quantities of carbon pollution,” says Greenpeace USA...

September 29, 2014

At People's Climate March, Bronx Floats & BofA Ban Ki-moon, UN's 2bl Game

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 21, more here -- When the People's Climate March assembled at Manhattan's Columbus Circle on September 21, there were anti-corporate puppets in front of the Trump International Hotel and Tower, speeches by coal miners and from the Marshall Islands.

   Many called on the UN to do better. But UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon joined the march mid-way, at Radio City Musical Hall with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. Senator Chuck Schumer was on hand, walking by a Bronx contingent chanting how Fresh Direct has broken its promises.

  Inner City Press' 90 second video of the march is here.

  The UN's or "BKM" (Ban Ki-moon) Climate Summit will feature Cargill and Walmart, Credit Agricole and Bank of America. The last of these is the first, in terms of funding mountain top coal removal. These are the contradiction. Inner City Press tweeted photos on @InnerCityPress. More to follow.

  The night before the People's Climate March, the UN buildings on First Avenue lit up with photos and footage of trees and fish and written messages. It is called "illUmiNations." Inner City Press video here.

September 22, 2014

For People's Climate March, UN a Backdrop for Corporations, illUmiNations

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 20 -- The night before the People's Climate March, the UN buildings on First Avenue will be lit up with photos and footage of trees and fish and, it seems, written messages. It is called "illUmiNations."

Photo: Closer-up of #ClimateMarch message pre-screened on #UN: the currency is not money, it's life pic.twitter.com/Nhn1m1gfgK

— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) September 20, 2014

Photo: at #UN, late night preview / trial of #ClimateMarch messages in advance of illumiNATIONS pic.twitter.com/Owxcrt1iEB

— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) September 20, 2014

   Inner City Press late on September 19, after covering the Ukraine, Iraq, Ebola and Iran nuclear meetings inside the UN, went out and found a sort of trial run for the screening taking place on First Avenue, already lined with NYPD cement blocks. Photo here.

Photo: also at #UN, along with #ClimateMarch messages: huge #NYPD cement blocks. #UNlearningFear pic.twitter.com/C67dfiRv7I

— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) September 20, 2014

   Looking back at the UN's press release for the upcoming "VIP Press Screening" -- hard to know how they could exclude non-VIPs from it, or why they would want to -- there were laudatory quotes about UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and:

Obscura Digital has staged similar large-scale architectural mapping projection events on the Sydney Opera House, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. For examples of previous work, please visit the following link http://wdrv.it/1tx7Emd.

 In that video compilation, well worth watching, there are also corporate projects for Coca-Cola and YouTube owned by Google, with history at the UN.

  A message Inner City Press photographed on September 19, here,  was "In nature's economy, the currency is not money but life." Is this true of Coca-Cola?

   There are questions about the UN's UNcritical approach to corporations and corporate "partnerships."

   In the run up to the UN's September 23 Climate Summit, the UN put out a media advisory promoting the participation of 14 corporations ranging from Saudi Aramco through Cargill, McDonald's and Walmart to Bank of America and Credit Agricole.

  Inner City Press on September 16 asked Summit promoter Robert Orr how these 14 were selected for listing in the media advisory, and if the UN had reviewed their wider record. For example, the recent court decision involving Cargill and child slavery in Cote d'Ivoire, or Saudi Aramco not allowing employees in Saudi Arabia to protest.

   Orr mentioned a luncheon during the summit about carbon pricing and the UN Global Compact, a branch of the UN which repeatedly says it does not enforce substantive standards, only encourages reporting and dialogue.  Well, Saudi Aramco did not respond to the complaint about “employees allegedly dismissed after being detained for participation in civil rights protests in Saudi Arabia.”

   And what of the environment? Bank of America has been the number one funder of mountain-top removal coal mining, but Ban Ki-moon made it chairman the chief of his Sustainable Energy for All initiative.

  On behalf of the Free UN Coalition for Access, Inner City Press asked that those making commitments, like the 14 corporations named, hold question and answer sessions during the summit. We'll see.

September 15, 2014

A new study of Northern Indiana's Gary, East Chicago and Hammond says they have the highest concentration of heavy industrial activity than anywhere else in the state: worst air quality and highly contaminated waters and elevated cancer and asthma rate...

September 8, 2014

In Malaysia, Natalie Lowrey was stopped by immigration department officials at KLIA on grounds she was blacklisted from entering Malaysia. She was not told of the reason for her being blacklisted and was sent back to Bali where she flew in from. Lowrey is an Australia-based environmental justice activist who has been campaigning for the closure of Australian company, Lynas Corporation Ltd’s rare earth plant in Kuantan, Pahang...

September 1, 2014

In a SeafoodSource.com webinar a month ago, Daniel Murphy of the Environmental Justice Foundation said half of Thai seafood workers have reported seeing murder on the job and worker suicide is not uncommon. TruthOut: the US imports 90 percent of the seafood it consumes. Most comes from Asia. China is the largest supplier of tilapia to the United States. Vietnam is our nation's largest supplier of the cheap, white fish pangasius (basa, tra and swai) and Thailand is a major supplier of shrimp, as is Malaysia. Asia-Pacific nations reap $52 billion in illegal profits each year from forced labor in the private sector, says the ILO. Some in Congress are raising questions about the human rights and economic impacts of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership regional free trade agreement...

August 25, 2014

Restriction on environmental documents we disagree with :

“U.S. District Judge Phil Gilbert of Benton properly blocked the access of environmental groups to irrelevant documents that St. Louis lawyer Stephen Tillery filed in a suit against Syngenta Corporation, Seventh District judges ruled on Aug. 20.

They affirmed Gilbert’s decision to preserve seals on documents that Tillery had not cited in his pleadings.

Chief Justice Diane Wood wrote that Gilbert “explicitly declined to consider them after plaintiffs failed to offer a justification for their filing.”

“The public has no right to access these documents, which cannot conceivably aid the understanding of judicial decision making,” Wood wrote

She wrote that “the presumption of public access turns on what the judge did, not on what the parties filed.”

The civil suit itself ended two years ago, after Tillery and Syngenta settled it for $105 million.”

Bogus...

August 18, 2014

So the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today struck down an illegal permit that would have allowed Avenal Power to build a new gas-fired power plant in Avenal, California..

August 11, 2014

Environmental Protection Agency’s new policy on working with Native American tribes became official on July 24, as the Policy on Environmental Justice for Working with Federally Recognized Tribes and Indigenous Peoples.

August 4, 2014

Get ready: The People’s Climate March — scheduled for September 21 — will occur in NYC two days before the United Nations summit; it was discussed at a Times Square press conference last week. We'll have more on this.

July 28, 2014

So EPA has released a “preview of its Request for Information (RFI) on revisions to its Risk Management Program, which tracks information and requires disaster prevention plans from potentially risky chemical facilities. The request represents the next step in the federal process to improve the safety of our nation's chemical plants,” here.

July 21, 2014

Chicago's “data portal is great, but by no means comprehensive, especially in certain areas. Since GreenScore was released to the public at the beginning of the month, Greenhaw said, community groups have been contacting him to complain that it misses a few resources, particularly community gardens that aren't in the city's official list.”

July 14, 2014

In California, air quality regulators have reached an agreement with Exide Technologies that would bar its battery recycling plant in Vernon from resuming operations until it installs new controls on arsenic emissions that pose a health risk to surrounding communities. The South Coast Air Quality Management District is asking its hearing board this week to approve two enforcement actions that have been agreed to by Exide, one of the world’s largest battery recyclers.

July 7, 2014

Ohio residents have filed a complaint with the Environmental Protection Agency against the Kovach enhanced recovery injection well at 9795-9899 Coit Road in Mantua, Shalersville Township. The complaint states that the well has received millions of gallons of waste illegally for years, and asks for an immediate “cease and desist” order to stop further dumping, stating that “injection wells are dumps for oil and gas hazardous waste.”

June 30, 2014

From New Mexico: A draft environmental review of the Four Corners Power Plant and Navajo Mine Energy Project ignores the devastating danger it poses to the climate, people and wildlife, according to comments submitted by environmental groups. The “draft environmental impact statement” for the project, located on Navajo Nation land in northwestern New Mexico, is also riddled with significant flaws and ignores any possibility of shutting down the plant, one of the most polluting in the United States, in favor of cleaner energy.

June 23, 2014

The new bill that passed the NY State Senate Wednesday would direct the New York State Department of Health to study and prepare a plan for dealing with the high incidents of asthma in the Bronx. It now moves to the State Assembly for a vote...

June 16, 2014

In Wasco, California, a local ordinance has approved the expansion of a railroad coal depot next to a Latino neighborhood. The terminal would receive 1.5 million tons of coal annually for a proposed coal-powered plant known as Hydrogen Energy California in neighboring Kern County...

June 9, 2014

This, we like: in Troy, NY “members of the community are transforming the neighborhood one lot at a time. NATURE Lab stands, loosely, for North Troy Art, Technology, Urban Research and Ecology, which suggests the range of activities going on here. At this point, it's not a literal laboratory — although there are plans for that — but a collection of projects such as Collard City Growers, a garden and composting project on a vacant lot on the block.” Right on.

June 2, 2014

The lead California and federal agencies for the Bay Delta Conservation Plan to build the peripheral tunnels just announced that the public comment period for the draft plan and BDCP draft Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement has been extended, from June 13 to July 29. The agencies have released the draft Implementing Agreement for the BDCP. The agreement is available here: http://baydeltaconservationplan.com/Libraries/Dynamic_Document_Library/Draft_Implementing_Agreement_5-30-14.sflb.ashx

May 26, 2014

Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice is involved in “blight-removal work” and wants “to make certain that demolition strategies address the dangers of dealing with dust from lead paint.” Hmm.

May 19, 2014

 The nurses’ union had joined residents marching miles from the petcoke piles to the BP oil refinery in Whiting, Indiana, that produces most of the petcoke stored in Chicago. And they will be with the struggle for the long haul, they said, in keeping with their national opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline and the growth of tar sands refining – which produces large amounts of the waste material...

May 12, 2014

“Using EPA data and U.S. Census information, we found that populations near facilities – who live every day in danger – have lower average incomes and are more likely to be Black or Latino than the population of the whole U.S,” says Paul Orum, co-author of the report by EJHA, CEG, and Coming Clean.

May 5, 2014

Gina McCarthy of EPA said, "EPA engineers and scientists have found a way to develop and analyze data from inexpensive fence-line air monitoring technology, giving us the potential to provide much more up to date data. These data help us and our industries ensure compliance. And more importantly, they help families living in the shadow of large industries sleep better at night. That's what I call environmental justice. Does that mean we don't need EPA boots on the ground? No way. But it does mean that electronic data and new technologies expand our ability to hold polluters accountable, and to engage more diverse communities in our collective effort to protect public health and the environment."

April 28, 2014

Chevron Corp. plans to run higher- sulfur Alaskan and Middle Eastern crudes when it completes work at Northern California’s largest refinery in 2016, not Bakken oil... Richmond imports mostly light, sour crudes from Saudi Arabia, government data show. It will use the same sources after the work, Barber said. The U.S. supplied 86 percent of its own energy needs last year as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, unlocked supplies from shale formations such as North Dakota’s Bakken and Texas’s Eagle Ford. Imports also climbed from Canada’s tar sands.

April 21, 2014

Now Lisa Garcia, previously of NY then EPA, is going to Earthjustice....

April 14, 2014

  Over 20,000 people submitted comments in response to action alerts by public interest, labor, environmental justice and environmental organizations calling for the federal government to require facilities to use safer chemicals...

April 7, 2014

Here's a question: what are the environmental justice implications of moving the auto shops from Queens to Hunts Point in the South Bronx? The City says, "the relocation of the Sunrise Co-op to their new facility is an as-of-right transaction between two private parties." But what about EJ? Watch this site.

March 31, 2014

In Cali, "environmental justice groups have filed a federal lawsuit against the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and energy company Kinder Morgan after learning that the company has quietly been receiving crude oil by rail at its Richmond facility with the district's approval."

March 24, 2014

Lead paint in Sri Lanka: 97 paint samples from 57 brands were analyzed. Key Nation findings include:

• 59 of the 94 (63%) paints analyzed had lead levels above 90 parts per million (ppm) and would not be permitted for sale in most industrialized countries. Overall, more than three-quarters of the paints analyzed in all seven countries had lead levels above 90 ppm.

• 24 of 94 samples (25%) contained extremely dangerous levels of lead above 10,000 ppm. Overall, at least a quarter of all paints from all countries had lead content above 10,000 ppm.

• Overall, brightly colored paints (green, red and yellow) contained the highest lead levels.

• Some of the major paint brands that had high levels of lead in previously conducted studies in these same countries now have levels below 90 ppm.

• Paints with low levels of lead were available in all markets at prices comparable to the leaded products, suggesting that the technology exists to produce cost effective, lead-safe products.

• None of the paint cans containing lead stated this on the label or explained the hazards associated with lead.



March 17, 2014

Now Albany, NY County Executive Dan McCoy has halted the expansion of crude oil processing at the Hudson River Port of Albany, hub for rail shipments of volatile North Dakota crude to coastal refineries in the last two years. The order requires a health impact study by the county before Mass.-based Global Partners is permitted to add facilities to heat rail cars to liquefy thick crude like that mined in western Canada's tar sands.

March 10, 2014

Thou doth protest too much? The EPA's Gina McCarthy on March 3 defended the Obama administration's record on environmental justice, saying that new vehicle-emission limits will raise the standard of living for residents of heavily trafficked areas. "Millions of Americans still suffer from the health impacts of poor air quality, especially those in urban areas along high-traffic corridors," McCarthy said during a press call. "By reducing these pollutants we're really addressing an environmental-justice issue. Communities that live near major roadways often live, work, and play right along that roadway, and they're disproportionately harmed by air pollution."

March 3, 2014

In the US Congress, Progressive Caucus Cochairs Keith Ellison and Raul Grijalva have requested in a letter to be sent to Obama "that the Climate Action Plan explicitly address the unique environmental justice concerns of low-income, minority, indigenous, and Native American communities across the country... Climate change compounds existing inequities. Droughts, floods, wildfires, and extreme weather events increase the vulnerability of people living in areas with limited climate resiliency—communities with poor air quality, unsafe housing, and insufficient resources to plan, prepare and recover from extreme weather."

February 24, 2014

Buffalo-ed: The US General Services Administration is under fire for quashing an August 2012 investigation into the high childhood asthma rate in Buffalo’s West Side, while also conducting a cursory environmental review of a Peace Bridge project. We're following this, as we are Buffalo based M&T and its branch closing plans. Environmental justice and CRA: two sides of the same coin of injustice.

February 17, 2014

In Texas, a protest at Port San Antonio about neighborhood health, environmental and safety concerns they say stem from the increased truck traffic serving the Eagle Ford Shale energy boom. Formerly the Kelly AFB, the inland port and its clients have become a focal point for residents and environmental justice activists who want to keep the trucks out of neighborhoods in the Quintana Road area...

February 10, 2014

In Albany, NY, the state DEC reversed itself and will now make owners of a crude oil terminal seeking to expand at the Port of Albany prepare a way of the predominantly poor and minority South End neighborhood of the plans...

February 3, 2014

Speaking on EJ at Bowdoin on Feb 8 is Angela Park of Diversity Matters (soon to be Mission Critical)...

January 27, 2014

In the city fighting for eminent domain to save under-water mortgaged homes: In August 2012, the Chevron Richmond Refinery in Richmond, California suffered a fire that sent upwards of 15,000 residents to local hospitals complaining of respiratory problems. If the fire had spread to the tanks of anhydrous ammonia at the plant, it could have spelled catastrophe, including potentially fatal exposures, for the 160,000 people who live within the five-mile dispersion zone surrounding the facility....

January 20, 2014

This week: abuse in Bangladesh's shrimp industry: http://www.ejfoundation.org/shrimp/impossiblycheapfilm

January 13, 2014

West Virginia: "a 48,000-gallon storage tank, Tom Aluise, a spokesman for West Virginia’s department of environmental protection, said, 'all we know is that they discovered a hole in the tank, and material was leaking. How that hole got there, we don’t know. The Freedom Industries plant is on the river, a mile from a water treatment facility where the chemical contaminated the tap water, Aluise said. It wasn’t clear how much of the chemical had leaked...

January 6, 2014

While Inner City Press is also focused on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement's threat to globalize the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act circumvention of freedom of the press, exemplified by a August 14, 2013 bad faith DMCA complaint by Reuters UN bureau chief to get a document leaked to Inner City Press banned from Google's search, TPP presents major threats to environmental protection. Bills to allow it to be considered under "Fast Track" may be introduced as early as January 7 in Congress. Watch this site.

December 30, 2013

In The Bronx, New York, 753 Melrose Avenue: "The site was historically operated as a dry cleaner in the 1950's, and had solvent tanks in the rear of the property. Soil vapor and groundwater at the site are contaminated with chlorinated solvents, primarily tetrachloroethene (PCE) and its breakdown products. Due to the concentrations of PCE detected in groundwater and soil vapor, in conjunction with the proximity of occupied buildings to the site, further investigation to evaluate the nature and extent of contamination and the potential for exposures to contamination from the site is warranted."

December 23, 2013

Critique of Obama's climate plan - it should

"Establish a policy that requires all climate change strategies to improve the economic conditions of environmental justice communities. Environmental justice communities suffer a wealth gap as a result of limited economic opportunities, lowered property values, and a degraded quality of life brought on by undesirable land uses that contribute to climate change. This wealth gap sets back the capacity of environmental justice communities to recover from the effects of climate change."

December 16, 2013

In Texas an agreement with Koch Industries’ Flint Hills Resources concerning its planned expansion at its Corpus Christi West Refinery has the company:

• reducing the permitted limits of smog-causing nitrogen oxides by 25 percent and install continuous real-time monitors to ensure these limits are in compliance;

• reducing volatile organic compound emissions from storage tanks by 154 tons per year;

• reducing sulfur dioxide emissions;

• and cap and monitor greenhouse gas emissions from new heaters that will be built as part of the expansion project.

We'll see.

December 9, 2013

At UNEP's United National Environmental Assembly next June in Nairobi, Kenya will be the policy director at Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice (DWEJ), who was in DC for UNEP’s North American Major Groups and Stakeholders Consultation to plan for the June event. US to UN - but is it real?

December 2, 2013

So there's been a settlement in the US Supreme Court case of "Mount Holly Citizens in Action v. Township of Mount Holly," which was scheduled for oral arguments before the Court in December. So disparate impact continues to be... the law of the land, as it should be.

November 25, 2013

In Warsaw, Amid Dispute on Loss & Damage, Ban Says It's Up to (Some?) States

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 20 -- After the developing countries in the Group of 77 walked out of the climate change talks in Warsaw on the issue of "loss and damage," Inner City Press on Wednesday in New York asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Farhan Haq what Ban would like to see happen, since this along with Darfur now Syria are his main issues.

Haq replied that "the Secretary-General has made it clear that that’s an issue to be resolved by the States who are attending these talks. And we are leaving that decision there, in their hands."

  To some this approach seems strange. On Syria, when resolutions were vetoed Ban expressed disappointment. Before Ban even saw Ake Sellstrom's report on chemical weapons he called it overwhelming and said Assad had committed many crimes against humanity.

  After being nearly silent during the slaughter of 40,000 civilians in Sri Lanka in 2009, Ban has come out with, if not issued, a "Rights Up Front" plan which says his Secretariat will take leadership positions. But not on this?

  Some point at the smaller but more powerful -- read, richer -- roster of countries who don't want to deal with "loss and damage" before 2015, and wonder whether "the member states" means SOME member states.

  There was more to Haq's answer, and so in fairness we run this from the UN's transcript, cleaning up the choppiness the UN leaves or inserts we're told at direction to undermine the questions:

Inner City Press: From the climate talks in Warsaw it is reported that a block of developing nations are very angry and walking out due to the failure to address who should pay for damages like the typhoon in the Philippines under the loss and damage provision damage, and that Australia said it should only be discussed after 2015. Given the importance of this issue to so many countries and to the issue of climate change, does the Secretary-General have any view of whether this issue of compensation for damages caused by climate change should be dealt with now, or should be put back beyond 2015?

Acting Deputy Spokesperson Haq: Yes, while he has been speaking in Warsaw, the Secretary-General has made it clear that that’s an issue to be resolved by the States who are attending these talks. And we are leaving that decision there, in their hands.

But, he has been very clear about the need for nations to come together at these talks; he wants the Conference of Parties that is under way in Warsaw to be a useful stepping stone in this process.

And one of the things he said is I agree that we are all in this together. We need to work together. We need to be united and we need to have solidarity among all the people around the world.

No single country, no single organization, can address this problem on its own. Yet, every single country can benefit from climate action at the global level. So, he is urging a unified stance, and let’s see how that develops.

Yeah, let's see. Watch this site.

November 18, 2013

Dry eyes in the City : "Residents of major cities with high levels of air pollution have an increased risk of dry eye syndrome, according to a study presented at the world's largest ophthalmic conference, the 117th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, in New Orleans. Study subjects in and around Chicago and New York City were found to be three to four times more likely to be diagnosed with dry eye syndrome compared to less urban areas with relatively little air pollution."

November 11, 2013

California dreaming? Bakersfield, Merced and Fresno top the American Lung Association's list of cities with the most persistant air pollution in the country in 2013....

November 4, 2013

Mobil and Nigeria: Eket, Akwa Ibom State coincided with widespread community protests against the unpaid N26 Billion Naira compensation for the environmental atrocities committed by Mobil Producing Nigeria (MPN) Unlimited in the state. The aggrieved host communities: Eket, Ibeno, Ona and Esit-Eket are demanding compensation for the numerous oil spills within the state, especially the November 2012 spills which had destructive and deleterious effects on the environment and adversely affected the socio-economic development of the inhabitants of the areas of impact.

October 28, 2013

From Power Shift: In late 2010, Pittsburgh became the first city in the U.S. to ban drilling for natural gas within city limits in response to the health and environmental threats posed by fracking. This unanimous decision of the Pittsburgh City Council followed the May 2010 decision of the Delaware River Basin Commission to enact a moratorium on fracking within the basin, which supplies drinking water for 15 million people in four states.

October 21, 2013

Here's something those at Power Shift 2013 in Pittsburgh might want to consider:

When asked about fracking on Friday, the response of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon ignored the impacts on drinking water and instead said that "natural gas had an important role to play as we transition to lower-carbon sources."

The question by Inner City Press came in the context of Canadian authorities arresting and pepper spraying members of the Elsipogtog First Nation as they protested fracking. From the UN's online transcript of its October 18 noon briefing, to which it appended Ban's answer before sending the answer to Inner City Press:

Inner City Press: the Elsipogtog First Nation in Canada yesterday were arrested and pepper-sprayed as they protested fracking or shale gas extraction near their land. So, I wanted to know if the Secretariat is aware of this, if there is any comment on Canada's response. I also wanted to know, the Secretary-General, since he is big in this field of green energy and various kinds of energy, does he have any view of this fracking which many environmental and other activists say is destructive, trying to get the last rinds out of the earth in terms of hydrocarbons?

Spokesperson Martin Nesirky: Well, first of all, we are obviously aware of the reports from Canada, but I don’t have any comment on that at the moment. And with regard to the broader question of fracking, I will have to have to look and see what I can tell you on that, but I don’t have anything at the moment, okay.

If Ban's Spokesperson's office gets an answer in the hours after the noon briefing, they have been asked to e-mail it to the questioner, for use in the reporting the question was asked for. But often Nesirky's office chooses to withhold answers to Inner City Press' questions until they can be given to all at once, put in the transcript or sometimes even given to other media, not Inner City Press, before that. The Free UN Coalition for Access protests this practice, as applies to all correspondents. But it continues. After 8 pm on October 18, this arrived:

From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] UN.org
Date: Fri, Oct 18, 2013 at 8:05 PM
Subject: Question
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com

This was added to today's transcript after your question on fracking:

[The Spokesperson later said that natural gas had an important role to play as we transition to lower-carbon sources but that we must be aware that it cannot meet all our needs. He added that we must ensure that development of gas resources should go hand in hand with promoting clean energy solutions.]

So that's Ban Ki-moon's answer on and understanding of fracking? It'd be like asking about animal cruelty in the industrial production of poultry, and Ban saying, chicken is good, but so are other future foods.

Ban heads to Denmark on October 21 to discuss green energy -- with institutional investors. Is this what the UN has become?

October 14, 2013

Now in South Korea: the arrival of illegally caught fish transported by a Dutch cargo that was recently detected. The illegal cargo of fish is to arrive in the Korean port of Busan in about three weeks’ time, where it will then be sold at the seafood market in Asia. Korean vessel Kum Woong 101 had conducted illegal fishing activities between the 18th and 19th of September,off the coast of Sierra Leone’s Inshore Exclusion Zone (IEZ), which is off limits to foreign fishing ships. The fish was then transferred on to a Dutch cargo boat, the Holland Klipper, off the coast of Guinea. So why doesn't the Netherlands prove if the Holland Klipper was involved in any illegal fishing activities and issue the appropriate sanctions? We'll see.

October 7, 2013

DN: The oil giant BP is back in court for the April 2010 accident that caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, killing 11 workers and leaking almost five million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. On Monday, the second phase of the trial began with lawyers accusing the oil company of lying about how much oil was leaking..

September 30, 2013

Joan Martínez Alier, from the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at Universitat Auṭnoma de Barcelona, says these goals are best achieved by fostering collaboration on environmental health monitoring, legal strategies and evaluation of environmental services. "Academically, this project is pushing the field of statistical political ecology," explains Alier. "In social terms, it makes environmental conflicts more visible. Environmental justice is a major force in making the global economy more sustainable."

September 23, 2013

So: "We don’t need less regulation. Less regulation and looking the other way will give us disaster," said Dr. Robert Bullard at Texas Southern University where he’s the dean of the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs. "The environmental justice movement has been advocating for more than three decades we need stronger regulations, we need stronger enforcement, we need a strong EPA,” Bullard said... With the drilling boom in Texas and the expansion of refineries and petrochemical plants along the Gulf Coast, Bullard foresees more Texans becoming aware that there’s a potential downside...

September 16, 2013

In South Africa the High Court in Johannesburg has ordered steel giant ArcelorMittal SA to hand over its environmental records to the Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance. VEJA had been seeking the documents since 2011. The documents contained Amsa's environmental master plan, which had details about the pollution levels at its plants...

September 9, 2013

Here's a nice case: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/09/07/18742863.php against Avenal Power Plant, a proposed 600-megawatt facility that would emit hundreds of tons of air pollution in the San Joaquin Valley in California.

September 2, 2013

From the Bangkok Post: "A decision by the National Environment Board (NEB) not to appeal a Phitsanulok Administrative Court order _which called for three tambons in Tak province to be declared environmental protection zones...."

August 26, 2013

EPA's “Draft Technical Guidance for Assessing Environmental Justice in Regulatory Analysis,” is open for public comment until Sept 6, 2013. - See more at https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/07/01/2013-15736/technical-guidance-for-assessing-environmental-justice-in-regulatory-analysis

August 19, 2013

Is this environmental justice? The New York State DEC is "going paperless." Ok for some - but what about the digital divide?

August 12, 2013

Well, alright: Gina McCarthy, the new administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said: “I have no intention of leaving behind the environmental justice communities. Those are exactly the same communities that will bear the brunt of a changing climate. We can't just rely on national rules to get the average up. We need to look at who is not winning in this equation." Come on down.

August 5, 2013

Sounds like a CRA officer: "Waste Management... published our 2012 sustainability report, we were able to show that operations associated with recycling and production of renewable and alternative energy increased from 49 percent in 2007 to 57 percent in 2011....This evolution in business focus reflects the importance of sustainability as a business model for our sector – and for any other. Customers seeking environmental services want to be able to demonstrate concrete environmental benefits and resource conservation. Communities know that a sustainable business operates as a good and respectful neighbor. Environmental justice must be a core element of any company’s social responsibility initiatives. --Sue Briggum is Vice President, Federal Public Affairs at Waste Management"

Is it real? We'll see.

July 29, 2013

Since the signing of Executive Order 12898 in 1994, many programs to improve communities focus on small issues like bike paths, parks and sidewalks, but we still plan to send hundreds of coal export trains through low income communities and site landfills in them. (Well said, Triple.) As Bullard says, “there is always the other side of the tracks” for the elderly, the poor, the disabled, the homeless and those without access to cars or to transit systems. Poor communities wind up with a “disproportionate share of the bad stuff and a shortage of libraries, sidewalks, parks and greenspace."

July 22, 2013

The European Commission has launched a public consultation on ways to improve access to justice in the field of the environment. Access to justice – the right to challenge decisions or omissions by public bodies that are suspected of not complying with environmental law – is an international obligation under a UN Convention ratified by the EU in 2005.Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik said: "It is very important that citizens and NGOs are able to play an active role in defending the environment. In the words of Advocate General Eleanor Sharpston: 'the fish cannot go to court.'"

They've got that right...

July 15, 2013

Advocates headed to Brussels hoping to end illegal and unreported fishing by the EU fleet, targetting Gabriel Mato MEP, Chairman of the European Parliament's Fisheries Committee, Struan Stevenson, Senior Vice Chair of the Fisheries Committee, and delivering their new report to the 49 members of the Fisheries Committee. EJF will present their findings to the Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Maria Damanaki's office and other key departments in the European Commission.

July 8, 2013

We recommend: environmental justice comic, Mayah's Lot -- download it here

July 1, 2013

In March 2014, it'll be the 20-year anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 12898, requiring the federal government to address “the environmental and human health conditions in minority communities and low-income communities with the goal of achieving environmental justice.” We'll be there.

June 24, 2013

Haze from fires in Indonesia blanketing Singapore could persist for weeks or longer, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Thursday, as the smoke drove air quality to "hazardous" levels and disrupted business and travel in the region. Illegal burning of forests and other land on Indonesia's Sumatra island to clear space for palm oil plantations is a chronic problem during the June to September dry season...

June 17, 2013

Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA Administrator is required to review and (if necessary) revise the emissions factors used to estimate emissions of carbon monoxide (CO), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) from emission sources at least once every three years. However, according to a notice of intent preceding a lawsuit, “EPA has not reviewed emission factors for flares since 1991,” for wastewater treatment systems since 1998, and emission equations for tanks since 2006.

June 10, 2013

Welcome to Buffalo’s West Side, where heavy car and truck traffic crossing the Peace Bridge has led to high rates of cancer and miscarriage, among other ill effects; and the Town of Tonawanda, where a heavily industrial section produces the highest levels of airborne benzene in the state and where Tonawanda Coke recently was found guilty of violating the federal Clean Air Act and its environmental control officer was convicted of obstructing justice. UB

June 3, 2013

In Lebanon, Suez Environnment has collaborated with contracting company, Al-Jihad for Commerce and Contracting to cover up the huge Siada dump site -- what could go wrong?

May 27, 2013

EPA has put out two publications describing how it is integrating environmental justice provisions into its permitting processes. 78 Fed. Reg. 27,220 (5/9/13). Titled “Actions that EPA Regional Offices Are Taking to Promote Meaningful Engagement in the Permitting Process by Overburdened Communities” and “Promising Practices for Permit Applicants Seeking EPA Issued Permits: Ways to Engage Neighboring Communities in the Permitting Process,” they're part of EPA’s “Plan EJ 2014,” which established the goal of including environmental justice considerations into all EPA issued permit processes. We'll see.

May 20, 2013

The owners of a Pennsylvania power plant -- GenOn Power Generation, GenOn REMA, and Dynegy –have agreed to stop burning coal in two generating units and to provide $1 million towards environmental mitigation in Connecticut and New Jersey as part of a clean air settlement outlined in a consent decree filed Wednesday, May 15 in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia. The settlement stems from a lawsuit filed by New Jersey in 2007 over the greenhouse gases sent downwind from the Portland Generating Station in eastern Pennsylvania. Connecticut intervened in the lawsuit in 2008.

May 13, 2013

The Los Angeles City Council has approved BNSF’s Southern California International Gateway railyard project, 11-2. Uh, disproportionate impacts on low income communities of color...

May 6, 2013

Community groups in Texas and Louisiana have sued to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to review archaic and inaccurate formulas used for reporting the levels of toxic emissions from refineries and chemical plants.

April 29, 2013

Manchester, a Houston neighborhoods, is ringed a Rhodia chemical plant; a car crushing facility; a water treatment plant; a train yard for hazardous cargo; a Goodyear synthetic rubber plant; oil refineries belonging to Lyondell Basell, Valero, and Texas Petro-Chemicals... The refineries around Houston have been called the “keystone to Keystone” because they’re expected to process 90 percent of tar sands crude from Alberta if the controversial Keystone XL pipeline is completed....

April 22, 2013

EJ comes to Buffalo: SUNY Buffalo Law School is hosting a housing seminar at the end of the month about sustainable living. "Green and Healthy Homes and Communities in Greater Buffalo: An Environmental Justice Forum," is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., April 26 at the UB Buffalo Clinical and Translational Research Center, 875 Ellicott St., Buffalo. Speakers will include Matthew Tejada, director of the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Environmental Justice...

April 15, 2013

In New Hampshire, a jury found Exxon Mobil liable last week in a lawsuit over groundwater contamination by the gasoline additive MTBE, and ordered the polluter to pay $236 million...

April 8, 2013

RIP Emelda West, who died on Saturday, March 30, 2013, activist of Convent, Louisiana and the Lower Mississippi River...

April 1, 2013

In India, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) on Saturday ordered closure of Sterlite Industries' copper smelter unit, located in Tuticorin, with immediate effect owing to leaks of noxious gas. The TNPCB, under instructions from district collector Ashish Kumar, issued a notice, directing the Vedanta group company to close the plant.

March 25, 2013

To see TD Bank challenged for funding the Keystone XL pipeline does good for the soul.

March 18, 2013

In Nigeria, the governor of Rivers State Chibuike Amaechi has threatened to sue the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation for indiscriminate pollution of Okrika environment. The governor noted that the UNEP report on Ogoniland which discloses high level of Benzene which causes cancer in underground water.

March 11, 2013

Recently near Philadelphia, Crystal Lameman of the Beaver Lake Cree nation in Alberta, Canada talked about the negative impact of the exploitation of tar sands in her people’s ancestral lands.

March 4, 2013

  Before the Obama administration green-lighted the Keystone SL tar sands pipeline "an estimated 40,000 people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. for theForward on Climate Rally in the hopes of urging President Obama to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Issues of climate injustice are of particular importance to marginalized communities. Indigenous people, people of color and low-income communities are disproportionately threatened by environmental hazards. A Commission for Racial Justice study found race to be the most potent variable in predicting where toxic and hazardous facilities would be located—more powerful than poverty, land values, and home ownership."

February 25, 2013

A gloss on EJ: “The environmental justice movement was born in September 1982 when a group of poor residents of rural Warren County, North Carolina laid down in front of trucks transporting waste containing toxic PCBs to a nearby landfill. Those primarily African American activists eventually lost their battle to keep toxic waste out of the area, but their actions eventually led to an executive order by President Clinton in 1996.” And?

February 18, 2013

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has given hundreds of permits for Marcellus Shale gas development in Pennsylvania's low income communities of color. But none of those permits has triggered intervention by DEP's Office of Environmental Advocate to inform residents of those communities about potential health and environmental impacts from proposed industrial developments.

That's because Marcellus Shale gas facilities are not included on the list of "trigger permits" the DEP uses to determine when to provide enhanced notification, information and public participation opportunities in those "environmental justice" communities. Holly Cairns, new director of DEP's Office of Environmental Advocate, said that's fine. "[Marcellus permit proposals] were not recognized as a trigger permit at the time this program was developed," she said. "And they're not something that's on the table for consideration at this time."

February 11, 2013

As Fashion week begins in New York, we have this: six leading fashion brands rejected a recent survey which asked about their supply chains, on toxic water pollution and deforestation. Dolce&Gabbana, Chanel, Hermès, Prada, Alberta Ferretti and Trussardi refused to disclose information for the survey....

February 4, 2013

On January 30 the district court in The Hague, The Netherlands, ruled that Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria has to pay compensation to plaintiff Friday Alfred Akpan, a resident of the Nigerian village of Ikot Ada Udo in Akwa Ibom State in the Niger Delta. Applying Nigerian law, the Dutch court found that Shell Nigeria had breached its duty of care and had committed negligence by failing to take sufficient measures to prevent sabotage by third persons to Shell Nigeria’s submerged pipelines near the Nigerian village...

January 28, 2013

Incoming at EPA's Office of EJ, Tejada was asked and said "Tejada: Since Lisa Jackson has been administrator of the EPA, they have systematically gone through what environmental justice means within the agency, and also what environmental justice means outside of the agency, and tried to fill in some very important gaps, whether it be permitting or enforcement or different sorts of rule-making, to make sure environmental justice had its requisite chair at the table. I see it as my job to get in there and make use of these new rules."

But what are his views of Jackson's evasion of FOIA? Will he commit to stop it?

January 21, 2013

"As she prepares to step down as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa P. Jackson says one of the 'prouder moments' of her tenure was President Obama's agreement to have the federal government take the lead in trying to ramp up the lagging Chesapeake Bay restoration effort."

What about the fake e-mail accounts to evade FOIA?

January 14, 2013

The Environmental Protection Agency has tapped a Texan to help integrate the concept of environmental justice into the agency's everyday decision-making. Matthew Tejada, who has led Air Alliance Houston for five years, will start as director of the Office of Environmental Justice in Washington in March, the EPA said Friday.

January 14, 2013

Ranking 378 coal-fired power plants on the basis of toxic emissions and demographic factors, the NAACP has found that more than two-thirds of African Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired plant. Of the four million people living within three miles of the nation’s 75 "failing plants" – which account for the highest levels of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides – 53 percent are minorities, while more than three quarters of the people living near the 12 "worst offending plants" are people of color.

December 31, 2012

So Lisa Jackson is out from EPA, perhaps for the right reasons. But her decision to use scam email accounts to evade the Freedom of Information Act, we cannot support. Click here for Inner City Press' FOIA work on the Federal Reserve.

December 24, 2012

EPA's agency’s inspector general has announced plans to begin an audit of “electronic records management practices.... Our objective is to determine whether EPA follows applicable laws and regulations when using private and alias email accounts to conduct official business." The question is whther the agency promoted or encouraged the use of private or alias email accounts to conduct official business and whether employees comply with federal records management requirements pertaining to electronic records from private or alias email accounts. Jackson appeared to use the name Richard Windsor on an official account that she utilized to conduct agency business. The researcher figured it out because he dug up an EPA memo indicating that alias email accounts were created by a former agency head and it appeared that this was common practice at the agency. Now it's in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

December 17, 2012

From FirstMerit's submission to the Federal Reserve about Citizens Republic, the entire "Environmental Matters" section is blacked out, in response to Inner City Press' FOIA request...

December 10, 2012

DOJ brags a Liberian corporation was ordered to pay a $500,000 penalty after pleading guilty to violating a federal pollution law. U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan handed down the sentence last week against Tyana Navigation Limited. The case involved a cargo ship owned by the company. The ship dumped engine room sludge directly overboard from late September 2011 until late July 2012, including time when it was in United States waters....

What about Trafigura?

December 3, 2012

The NAACP studied the 378 coal plants in the United States by combining emissions of pollutants – particularly sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide – the population within three miles of the plants, and the median income and percentage of minorities living nearby. In this view, 75 plants were identified as having a "disproportionate and considerable impact on people of color and low-income people."

November 26, 2012

What an absurdly low fine of Trafigura Beheer BV for illegally exporting waste to Cote d'Ivoire in 2006. The company's chairman bargained its way to a piddling fine of 67, 000 Euros, barely a slap on the wrist for owner Claude Dauphin. Where is accountability?

November 19, 2012

Ruling: New York City violated State environmental law when it built a Bronx school complex on contaminated land without making public a detailed long-term monitoring plan before construction, the state’s Court of Appeals has ruled, against the City’s Education Department and School Construction Authority. If the city wants to build a school on a polluted site, state law requires it to present in-depth remediation and monitoring plans to the public during the initial environmental review process....

November 12, 2012

  From 1985 through 2000, more than 1200 cases of cancer were reported in Ecuador's oil-producing regions, including Sucumbios, Orellana, Napo, and Pastaza -- this per Ecuador’s National Cancer Registry...

November 5, 2012

HSBC has bankrolled logging companies causing widespread environmental destruction and human rights abuses in Sarawak, Malaysia, violating its sustainability policies and earning around US$130 million in the process, a Global Witness investigation reveals today. The bank is also providing financial services to companies widely suspected of systematic bribery and corruption. Malaysia’s Sarawak region exports more tropical timber than South America and Africa combined and now has just five per cent of its forests left intact following decades of industrial-scale logging and plantation development. The Global Witness report, “In the Future There Will Be No Forests Left”, identifies loans and services to seven of the region’s largest logging conglomerates that would have generated HSBC an estimated US$130 million in interest and fees.

October 29, 2012

In the southwest Detroit neighborhood of Delray the population is now under 3,000 people, down from 30,000 in 1930. Now, the New International Trade Crossing bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, should it get built, would land squarely in the Delray neighborhood. Debate, it's said, is focused too much on Manuel "Matty" Moroun (the Ambassador Bridge owner and financier of a campaign calling the NITC project into question) and Gov. Rick Snyder. We hope to have more on this.

October 22, 2012

At U of Tennessee last week, Robert D. Bullard, was scheduled in the University Center Auditorium. Hosted by the UT Amnesty International chapter, the lecture focused on how environmental justice, racism and corporate accountability relate to human rights. Right on!

October 15, 2012

In Texas, an appeals court on October 12 vacated a sanctions award Wells Fargo Bank Minnesota NA had won against an Austin appraisal district that refused to grant it a property tax break for its pollution control measures, holding the bank didn’t follow tax protest procedures. The case revolves around a former landfill site owned by Wells Fargo that now houses an apartment building and qualified for a pollution control tax break based on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s determination the land has a "positive use"...

Wells Fargo scamming? We've seen it before.

October 8, 2012

In Alaska, "the long dormant Healy Clean Coal Plant, a $300 million state-owned fiasco that shut its doors soon after they were opened, may get a second lease on life, thanks to a commitment by the Golden Valley Electric Association (GVEA) to spend tens of millions of dollars to reduce pollution at the plant if it fires up again. Utility officials believe that bringing the plant back to life will reduce oil-dependent energy costs in the Interior, according to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. In a deal stuck with the Environmental Protection Agency and the state, the utility has agreed to pay the state $50 million for the 50-megawatt plant and plunk down more than $40 million on pollution-reduction measures. The utility must also take other steps, including speeding up installation of a $5 million pollution-control system at another coal plant the utility operates."

October 1, 2012

Which way forward? U Mich is asking about the "legacy and future of the environmental justice field" at the Ann Arbor Sheraton Hotel, and celebrating the work (and retirement) of Bunyan Bryant. New era in EJ?

September 24, 2012

Ah, Illinois: "Ameren Corp. will get more time to meet tougher state pollution-control rules that company executives claimed would have cost hundreds of jobs at downstate power plants. The Illinois Pollution Control Board, meeting in Chicago, voted 4-0 to grant the company's request for a five-year delay, to 2020, of new standards for sulfur dioxide emissions from coal plants."

September 17, 2012

The Scotts Miracle-Gro is subject to $4 million in fines after pleading guilty to the illegal application of insecticides to wild bird seed. It's the largest fine in history under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. Hear FIFRA roar!

September 10, 2012

We are watching: "The draft California Communities Environmental Health Screening Tool would use nvironmental, health & socioeconomic data to assign scores to areas by ZIP code. It would consider ozone pollution, traffic density, pesticide use, the number of hazardous waste dumps and cleanup sites, cancer and asthma rates, and the number of childrens and seniors." How would, for example, The Bronx come out?

September 3, 2012

In Hanford, California, opponents of the California High-Speed Rail Authority project now argue the route violates environmental justice laws. The argument came at a meeting at the Hanford Fraternal Hall to take official public comment on the Fresno-to-Bakersfield draft environmental impact report. The deadline for official comment is Oct. 19, an extension of 30 days over the original deadline of Sept. 20. Game on.

August 27, 2012

In the Philippines, environmentally-minded Associate Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno has been picked the new Chief Justice to replace Renato Corona, who was ousted in May. The EcoWaste Coalition said, "under her watch she will revitalize the green courts to serve as bastions of environmental justice upholding our people's constitutional right to a healthful and balanced ecology." We'll see.

August 20, 2012

  In Louisiana, residents near Baton Rouge’s ExxonMobil Chemical Plant last week spoke out against the June 14 spill of naphtha. What’s in the air? How to clear the air? Supposedly there a community dialogue with ExxonMobil... We'll see.

August 13, 2012

The California Supreme Court has ruled that the state can recover money from its insurance carriers part of the cost of cleaning up the Stringfellow acid pits in Jurupa Valley, where 35 million gallons of toxic industrial waste was dumped. The dispute now returns to the trial court to determine the amount the state will receive. A group of 16 insurers, including Lloyd's of London, settled in 2005 for $93 million...

August 6, 2012

In Toronto on July 30, more 150 people showed up to hear two indigenous leaders and two delegates to the People's Summit Rio +20. on Contested Futures: Tar Sands and Environmental Justice....

July 30, 2012

In North Carolina, Taylor Finishing Inc. is being sued in federal court alleging the concentrated animal feeding operation illegally dumped pig waste and pollutants near the coastal plain of the Neuse River Basin...

July 23, 2012

Enviros want North Carolina regulators to force a full clean-up of PCBs in a waterway near the closed Alcoa Inc. aluminum smelter. Alcoa proposes covering a three-acre section of the Badin Lake bottom near the smelter it operated for 90 years to keep PCBs there from moving.

July 16, 2012

The city of Los Angeles has charged 4 Los Angeles-area scrap metal recyclers with criminal misdemeanor charges for environmental violations. Central Metal Inc. and its president Jong Uk Byun were charged with three violations of waste discharge requirements of the company's permit by allegedly allowing the discharge of stormwater containing toxic chemicals, such as copper, lead and zinc, and failing to implement best management practices designed to prevent releases of toxic chemicals by allowing lead pipes and aluminum to be stored on the ground, allowing bins containing metal scrap to remain open and peeling, allowing sediment to seep onto a nearby street and causing an oil spill; five violations for failing to label hazardous waste containers; and failing to maintain the facility to prevent spills or releases of hazardous waste.

July 9, 2012

Last on Rio, from the People's Summit / side event to Rio+20. It drew about 15,000 people a day: indigenous groups, environmental activists, unions, land rights groups and others opposing the timidity of proposals coming out of the official convention. Beyond timidity...

July 2, 2012

NY's environmental regulator last week adopted regulations requiring new and expanding power plants to meet stricter carbon dioxide limits and to conduct environmental justice reviews to mitigate pollution in poor communities. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation’s rule, proposed in January, will take effect July 12 and will apply to all new generating facilities greater than 25 megawatts and expansions greater than 25 megawatts at existing facilities. The rule limits carbon dioxide emissions from new and expanded fossil fuel-fired power plants to 925 pounds...

June 25, 2012

As noted from Rio , the word "reaffirm" is used 59 times in the 49-page document titled "The Future We Want." They reaffirm the need to achieve sustainable development (but not mandating how); reaffirm commitment to strengthening international cooperation (just not right now); and reaffirm the need to achieve economic stability (with no new funding for the poorest nations). And involved? Wal-Mart, Coca Cola and Unilever...

June 18, 2012

From Rio, Nikhil Seth, director of the U.N.'s Division for Sustainable Development, said on June 15 that consensus has been reached on just 28 percent of the Rio+20 outcome document. An estimated 130 heads of state are expected in Rio for the summit's three final days from June 20-22, culminating in the signing of some final document. Among the attendees? Some who are accused of war crimes...

June 11, 2012

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, whom Inner City Press has interviewed at the UN, went to Detroit ostensibly to support the M-1 light rail project. But the outcome is the cash-strapped and environmentally challenged city may have to wait two months longer for a federal verdict. Thanks, Ray....

June 4, 2012

Mexico's National Congress has given the Ministry of the Environment (SEMARNAT) 15 days to report on actions surrounding the environmental impact approvals granted to the controversial Cabo Cortés mega-tourism project. The Congress also urged the Ministry to consider canceling the project’s permits all together. The Cabo Cortés project is proposed by the local subsidiary of Spanish developer Hansa Urbana on land neighboring Cabo Pulmo National Park – a critical marine reserve in Baja California Sur that protects one of the region's most important coral reefs...

May 29, 2012

From a statement by Nnimmo Bassey and Laura Livoti: "Since the end of Biafra and the civil war in Nigeria, another war has been raging here and continues unabated. It is an ecological war. International oil companies are the source of the conflict, with Chevron playing a leading role. The latest front occurred on January 16, 2012 when an explosion rocked a gas well drilling rig at Chevron’s Apoi North field. That explosion killed two workers. This is the same Chevron that made oil rig safety the theme of its last shareholder meeting in May 2011. Following the explosion, Chevron offered initial information and updates on the incident, assuring that steps were being taken to contain and mitigate the disaster. This clearly was a half-hearted public relations gesture." And so: 99! 99!

May 21, 2012

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on May 20 announced the release of the New York City Wetlands Strategy... "The protection and preservation of wetlands is a critical component of the City’s strategy to improve water quality," said Environmental Protection Commissioner Carter Strickland. "The ability of wetlands to clean water is exemplified by our award-winning Bluebelt program which, from Staten Island to Queens, and soon the Bronx" --

What? Why does The Bronx come after?

May 14, 2012

In Newark, protests were rejected last week when the city's planning board approved a 655-megawatt natural gas power plant to be built in the East Ward. "The proposed new Hess natural gas power plant … will utilize the best available technologies and be one of the cleanest fossil fuel power plants ever constructed," said Adam Zipkin, Newark’s deputy mayor of economic development. Ah, Cory Booker...

May 7, 2012

At UN, Right to Info Stripped from Rio + 20, Extra Week Set, Indigenous Silenced?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 4 -- In the run up to the Rio + 20 conference, on Friday evening at the UN yet another week of negotiations was arranged, for May 29 to June 2.

  Four hundred paragraphs remain without agreement; Inner City Press asked about those dealing with the "right to information," switched by the US to "legitimate access" to information, limited by trade secrets, patents and copyright.

  After Friday night's deferral, the nine "Major Groups" were given two minutes each to speak. The Indigenous group, which started speaking in Spanish about la Madre Tierra or Pachamama, was cut off by the chair and told to speak in English. Ultimately this was translated by the Local Authorities group.

  Still the Groups hit hard, with Farmers criticizing the mention of the World Trade Organization in the agriculture section, and the Youth group denouncing greenwashing (if not Blue-washing, in a week where Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Myanmar congratulated a company involved in spying technology, as exposed by Inner City Press.)

  At the front of the room was outgoing DESA chief Sha Zukang, urging that at least 90% of the text be agreed before Rio begins. China has put in two names to replace Sha, but Brazil is pushing hard now for the DESA post, as Inner City Press exclusively reported yesterday.

Now, this update: China might accept the top post at the Department of General Assembly and Conference Affairs as long as it also got the Number Two post in DESA, at the Assistant Secretary General level.

  But then what would sub Saharan Africa get? The Department of Public Information has, as Inner City Press reported, been promised to a European. And so it goes at the UN.

At a press conference Friday afternoon, Inner City Press asked about the right to information that was in Rio Principle 10. The response, from Neth Dano of the ETC Group of the Philippines, was that "one delegation" pushed to limited the right to only "legitimate" information.

Inner City Press asked her to name that delegation, but she declined. Afterward she said it was the US, "from the State Department." Meanwhile, the US was expected to make a statement on Friday night about no more funding - will that now come on June 2? Will Obama go to Rio? Watch this site.


April 30, 2012

Welcome to "Southwest Detroit's 48217 zip code area which a study by University of Michigan Professor Paul Mohai concluded was the most polluted in the state of Michigan and third most in all of the United States. Now, the struggle of some 13 residents caught between the near simultaneous erection of Marathon's multi-billion dollar tar sands oil refinery expansion and the city's Waste Water Treatment plant in 2008."

April 23, 2012

In Texas, they haven't had chlorinated drinking water since October of last year and now arsenic has been found in the water. Those are just two of the issues facing one of Nueces County's Colonias. Last week, those issues got a first hand look by a group of people representing several environmental agencies. It was billed as an opportunity for residents of the Cyndie Park Colonias, located about 10 miles North of Banquette, to talk to folks from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U. S. Environmental Justice Interagency Working Group.

And what will come of it?

April 16, 2012

The owner of rental properties in Bridgeport is facing up to $127,150 in Environmental Protection Agency penalties for violating federal lead paint disclosure rules. According to a complaint filed by EPA's New England office, Juan Hernandez allegedly violated lead-based paint disclosure requirements seven times when he rented apartment units in Bridgeport between 2008 and 2010. During the EPA's investigation, all of the apartment buildings owned by Hernandez were located in potential environmental justice areas.

April 9, 2012

The World Bank says it will showcase new initiatives on oceans and the valuation of ecosystem services at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20, in Brazil in late June, but is attracting criticism from civil society groups for its approach to ‘green growth’. We'll see.

April 2, 2012

A Corpus Christi, Texas group is calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to require Citgo to quit storing and using hydrofluoric acid and to switch to a safer alternative. In the letter to EPA Regional Administrator Al Armendariz, Citizens for Environmental Justice executive director Suzie Canales writes that hydrofluoric acid could kill thousands of people. "Citgo has repeatedly shown that it cannot be trusted to use HF and must be made to switch to a safer alternative for the sake of its employees and the community," the letter states. Could this have something to do with Citgo's ownership?

March 26, 2012

Enviros say President Barack Obama has decided to ignore the environmental devastation associated with tar sands mining and its disproportionate impact on global climate change, and the unconscionable contributions to local air pollution in Port Arthur, Texas. Port Arthur is one of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) “Environmental Justice Showcase Communities” due to a concentration of environmental health risks that disproportionally burden minority communities. They say Keystone XL also poses another risk – a risk to U.S. consumers and the fragile economic recovery. Analysts and economists agree that building the southern leg of this pipeline will alleviate a glut of oil in Cushing, Okla., and allow more oil products to be exported to other countries, thereby reducing domestic supply and raising gas prices.

The southern leg of this pipeline does not bring oil into the country (a goal our organization does not endorse), but does create a clear path to get oil out to export markets. Since refined oil products are now the largest export commodity in the U.S., it seems obvious that pushing more oil to the Gulf Coast will result in more export activity and less supply for Americans....

March 19, 2012

" In response to the State Assembly's budget proposal to sweep up to $200 million in ratepayer-funded clean energy and energy efficiency programs administered by the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority, more than 20 environmental, energy and community groups sent a letter to Governor Cuomo, the State Senate, and the Assembly opposing the the use of clean energy funds for non-energy related purposes." Sounds like the states which are trying to put their portion of the $25 billion mortgage settlement into their General Funds...

March 12, 2012

In El Salvador, 14 years have passed since the Environment Law was approved, establishing the creation for agro-environmental courts to hear cases involving contamination and environmental damage, but so far, this has not happened. The Supreme Court, which would be responsible for creating the new chambers, has failed to create them....

March 5, 2012

In New Bedford, Lisa Garcia, EPA's associate assistant administrator for environmental justice, and Curt Spalding, EPA Region 1 administrator, will host a meeting on March 6 at Keith Middle School. EPA says they've heard "a lot of reactions from the community as far as environmental justice concerns." EPA staff working on the Parker Street Waste Site and New Bedford Harbor projects will be at the meeting in order to answer specific questions on those projects...

February 27, 2012

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson now says hydraulic fracturing can be done safely: "I think that fracking as a technology is perfectly capable of being clean. I do. But it requires people who are doing it and innovators who use the technology to take some time to make sure that it's done right. And it requires smart regulation, smart rules of the road," Jackson said at Richard Stockton College in Galloway, New Jersey. Hmm...

February 20, 2012

On Rio + 20: "Twenty years ago, the UN played an important role in calling attention to the dangers that human and nonhuman life runs if the myth of endless economic growth goes on dominating economic policies... Unfortunately, this moment of reflection and hope soon disappeared" -- as did positive UN role. So, alongside the UN Conference, civil society is organizing the Peoples Summit in Rio. We'll have more on this.

February 13, 2012

With the focus on the Canadian government's push to export tar sands bitumen via the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat, and from there by ship to China, the British Colombia government reclaimed some attention on the energy file when it released a strateg. Rabble says: "The short of it is that shale gas from B.C.'s Northeast is to be pipelined to Kitimat and loaded onto tankers in liquid form (LNG) to be exported to China. But while the Enbridge pipeline has huge swaths of B.C. up in arms, particularly First Nations and "environmentalists, the LNG plans, which already have been approved and have an export permit, have not." Until now...

February 6, 2012

"The indisputable health care and humanitarian crises from mountaintop removal coal mining should place it at the forefront of any litmus on President Obama’s commitment to health care, clean energy and dealing with climate change. Dr. Michael Hendryx of West Virginia University released a study that should have headlined every newspaper in the country—and launched an all-out national campaign on the level of the anti-tobacco campaigns of the past. Hendryx concluded: “Living in a mountaintop mining area was a bigger risk for birth defects than smoking.”

January 30, 2012

News from Ohio last week: FirstEnergy is closing units at six of the dirtiest coal plants in the nation. FirstEnergy temporarily idled its Lake Shore plant near Cleveland in 2010 because of lower regional power demand and the increasing costs of running a plant built in 1916 still using a 50 year old boiler. The plant was grandfathered in under the Clean Air Act and the company had avoided putting major new environmental controls on it for decades, even as it emitted a horrific plume of toxins and particulate matter on the surrounding community. The facility a target of the environmental justice movement for years because of its outsized impact on the African American community.

FirstEnergy’s nearly-60-year-old Bay Shore plant shares many of Lake Shore’s problems. But in addition to spewing toxic air pollution and climate changing-CO2 the facility is also one of the nation’s most efficient fish-killing machines. Located at the confluence of the Maumee River and Lake Erie, the plant sits astride one of the world’s most prolific fish spawning areas. Its water intake system and scalding water kill 46 million fish and 2 billion fish larvae annually, taking a significant bite out of the region’s $1.4 billion recreational and commercial fishing economy. Just to put the numbers into perspective, the State of Ohio says that the plant’s aquatic annihilation totals more fish than all the other plants in the state combined. h/t NRDC

January 23, 2012

South Bronx clean up of

"The site lies on the Hunts Point peninsula in the South Bronx. It was the former location of the Con Edison Hunts Point Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP), also known as the Hunts Point Coking Station. The initial coke oven plant at the facility was constructed over the period from 1924 through 1926 and had a capacity of 20 million cubic feet of gas per day. The gas produced was used as a primary source of energy for lighting and heating. Another battery of coke ovens was installed in 1931, increasing gas production capacity by 10 million cubic feet per day. The MGP included 46 buildings or structures and was devoted entirely to the manufacture of gas and its associated by- products, including coal tars, cyanide-contaminated purifier waste, sludge, and oils. The structures included two gas holders. The MGP operated into the 1950s."

January 16, 2012

It was only last month we received a notice from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s (“NYSDEC”) Brownfield Cleanup Program (“BCP”), specifically about its draft Final Engineering Report (FER) for the remedial actions performed at the 1800 Southern Boulevard Site....The Site is currently being developed with a new ten (10) story mixed-use building that will provide affordable housing to 68 moderate income households, as well as 12,579 square feet of commercial space and 4,922 square feet of community facility space. Historically the Site has been used as a filling station, auto repair facility and car wash beginning sometime between 1927 and 1940. The car wash operation closed in 1993 and the service station closed in 2003. BP-Amoco was operating the station at the time of closure in 2003.Removal of (17) 550-gallon underground storage tanks

Unstated was that this is where the gas was bought for the Happy Land Social Club mass murder... And now, dated January 13, comes a DEC announcement "that cleanup requirements have been achieved to address contamination related to the 1800 Southern Boulevard Site #C203046 (Bronx), under New York's Brownfield Cleanup Program." That was fast... 

January 9, 2012

NRC in Florida:

The environmental justice impact analysis evaluates the potential for disproportionately high and adverse human health and environmental effects on minority and low-income populations that could result from activities associated with the proposed EPU at St. Lucie Nuclear Plant... The NRC considered the demographic composition of the area within a 50-mi (80.5-km) radius of St. Lucie Units 1 and 2 to determine the location of minority and low-income populations and whether the proposed action may affect them.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau (USCB) data for 2000 on minority populations in the vicinity of St. Lucie Units 1 and 2, an estimated 1.2 million people live within a 50-mi (80.5-km) radius of the plant located within parts of nine counties. Minority populations within 50 mi (80.5 km) comprise 27 percent (274,500 persons). The largest minority group was African-American (approximately 135,250 persons or 13.3 percent), followed by Hispanic or Latino (approximately 111,000 persons or 11 percent). The 2000 census block groups containing minority populations were concentrated in Gifford (Indian River County), Fort Pierce (St. Lucie County), Pahokee (Palm Beach County near Lake Okeechobee), the agricultural areas around Lake Okeechobee, and Hobe Sound (Martin County).

Noise and dust impacts would be temporary and limited to onsite activities. Minority and low-income populations residing along site access roads could experience increased commuter vehicle traffic during shift changes. Increased demand for inexpensive rental housing during the EPU-related plant modifications could disproportionately affect low-income populations; however, due to the short duration of the EPU-related work and the availability of housing properties, impacts to minority and low-income populations would be of short duration and limited.

Oh really? For comment by February 6... http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-01-06/html/2012-32.htm

January 2, 2012

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board is getting petitions opposing Entergy's application to re-license the Indian Point nuclear power plants for another 20 years. Last summer the Atomic Safety Licensing Board accepted an Environmental Justice contention; there's a "potential for disproportionate impact" on inmates at Sing Sing state prison: "the ability of prisoners to respond to emergencies is completely different to that of the general population."

December 26, 2011

In the NY City Council two new bills on polychlorinated biphenyl will inform parents and school employees of contamination by PCBs, which was banned it in 1979 for its toxicity. Bill 563 makes the Department of Education to notify parents and employees of PCB testing results or if the school uses T12 fluorescents, an outdated type of lamp that often leaks PCB. Bill 566 asks for detailed reports from the DOE on their progress and plan eradicating PCB from schools. Nearly 800 city schools — built between the 1950s and late 1970s — are likely contaminated.

And how many are in The Bronx?

December 19, 2011

   For planning purposes: "July 1-7, 2012, Location to be announced when the time is right., Marcellus Shale Earth First! is working side by side with many local groups, attending meetings, offering workshops and trainings, and helping to build a campaign of direct action that is putting increasing pressure on the drillers, to show all of those fighting fracking that there is effective resistance growing in rural areas."

 From iWatch, "A March 2011 review of OCR by Deloitte Consulting, commissioned by the EPA, found that the office “has drifted in focus and struggled to perform fundamental tasks.” In its partially redacted report, Deloitte criticized OCR for focusing too much on “minor responsibilities” and “not enough on the critical cases affecting … disadvantaged communities.”

The Deloitte report suggested that Jackson and her predecessors were partly to blame for the office’s ineffectiveness. “The Director of OCR has a direct line reporting relationship to the EPA Administrator and takes administrative direction from the Chief of Staff or Deputy Chief of Staff on a day-to-day basis,” the consulting firm found.

In December 2010, Jackson chose Rafael DeLeon to lead the office. He manages an annual budget of $2.3 million and a staff of 38, nine of whom work on Title VI cases, according to the EPA spokeswoman.

In the wake of the damning Deloitte evaluation, DeLeon, who also headed OCR for a time during the Clinton administration, came under fire. The National Whistleblowers Center called for his ouster, alleging that he made disparaging remarks about former EPA whistleblowers and has had “numerous” discrimination complaints filed against him by female staffers.

“We call on you to make a clean break from the past,” Richard Renner, the center’s legal director, wrote in an April letter to Jackson. “We call on you to make a decision that visibly rejects discrimination, retaliation, and intimidation … We need your decisive leadership to end the paralysis of silence.”

December 12, 2011

When an eardrum piercing noise awoke residents of Roosevelt Island and Astoria and Long Island City, Queens last week, no one knew what it was. It can from a power plant run by TransCanada, which refused to answer press inquiries. TransCanada is the owner of the proposed XL Pipeline -- this should be another strike against them...

December 5, 2011

This is about the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s (“NYSDEC”) Brownfield Cleanup Program (“BCP”), specifically its draft Final Engineering Report (FER) for the remedial actions performed at the 1800 Southern Boulevard Site....The Site is currently being developed with a new ten (10) story mixed-use building that will provide affordable housing to 68 moderate income households, as well as 12,579 square feet of commercial space and 4,922 square feet of community facility space. Historically the Site has been used as a filling station, auto repair facility and car wash beginning sometime between 1927 and 1940. The car wash operation closed in 1993 and the service station closed in 2003. BP-Amoco was operating the station at the time of closure in 2003.

• Removal of (17) 550-gallon underground storage tanks; and

Unstated: this is where the gas was bought for the Happy Land Social Club mass murder...

November 28, 2011

On reports that the US and Saudi Arabia won't sign on to the Green Climate Fund, Inner City Press asked for the UN Ban Ki-moon's view. Spokesman Martin Nesirky said that beyond the Green Climate Fund, Durban's discussions will include other topics, "we need to wait and see." That is, unlike even the UK, no criticism of the Obama administration's positions...

November 21, 2011

The EPA has promulgated Plan EJ 2014 as its implementation of Executive Order 12898:

Plan EJ 2014 is not a rule or regulation. It is a strategy to help integrate environmental justice into EPA’s day to day activities.

Here is its plan document:

This implementation plan outlines a process by which the workgroup will research, solicit ideas for, prioritize, and then develop a suite of tools to better enable overburdened communities to have full and meaningful access to the permitting process and for permits to address environmental justice issues to the greatest extent practicable. For the first year, our activities will focus on developing a cohesive suite of tools most applicable to EPA-issued permits, and also collecting a larger set of tools for a public database.

Watch this site.

November 14, 2011

While one school under-participated, the Delaware County Alliance for Environmental Justice (DelCo Alliance) and the Chester Green youth group recently hosted Chester city’s first Environmental Justice collective during the last weekend in October during which they offered a tour pointing out all the polluters in Chester. The tour included stops at a coal power plant, two major natural gas burning power plants, a paper mill, the nation’s largest trash incinerator, a sewage sludge incinerator, two oil refineries, and various chemical plants and toxic waste sites. The paper mill, Kimberly Clark, burns waste coal and petroleum coke. It also produces six times more mercury than normal coal...

November 7, 2011

Of Keystone XL, Clayton Thomas-Muller of the Pukatawagan Cree Nation has said, "we were all overcome and awash with inspiration and positive emotion with the election of President Obama. Some of the things he said were very enchanting - that this would be the generation that our grandchildren would look back on and say that's when they took action on climate change. But through the continuation of deep sea exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, the permitting of Shell to drill for offshore oil resources in Bristol Bay in the outer continental shelf of Alaska, with the expansion of the fracking industry and now with the consideration of the Keystone XL pipeline, we know that Obama hasn't been able to meet his commitments to social movements in America that helped get him elected."

October 31, 2011

In Queens, NY until 1996, Jamaica Water Supply pumped millions of gallons of water out of the ground daily. When the City Department of Environmental Protection took over, DEP started bringing water from upstate, leaving the excess water underground with no place to go. In 15 years, the standing ground water level in Southeast Queens has risen to 30 feet, leaving many homeowners to deal with saturated basements each time there is heavy rainfall.

Now they should investigate...

October 24, 2011

The Aarhus Convention provides that environmental challenges should not be “prohibitively expensive." The UK system of “loser pays the costs” violates this. So the Ministry of Justice is proposing "that costs protection should be provided via codification of the rules concerning Protective Costs Orders. That means that a claimant in any public interest case may ask the court for a PCO, to “cap” his liability to pay the other side’s costs to such a figure as does not deter him from bringing those proceedings." We'll see.

October 17, 2011

 Bank of America Protested, including on Mountain Top Coal Removal, on Occupied Wall Street

By Matthew Russell Lee

WALL STREET, October 12 -- New York City police threatened to arrest protesters and the Press in front of a Bank of America branch on lower Broadway Tuesday at dusk, a block from Zuccotti Park which some now call Liberty Plaza. Click here for video by Inner City Press.

  At dusk a non-violent group long concerned with Bank of America funding of mountain-top removal coal mining crossed Broadway from the park. Inner City Press was among them. White suited Reverend Billy began an "exorcism," preaching how Bank of America finances wars -- then the police moved in.

  Other signs in the crowd spoke of Capital One, which in applying to buy ING DIRECT could become the fifth largest bank in the United States. It has sought to evade the protests against the Big Four -- Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase -- by means of comedic advertisements featuring such liberal icons as Alec Baldwin and Jimmy Fallon. Baldwin has yet to respond to mounting requests by NCRC and others that he distance himself from Capital One.


October 10, 2011

In (Occupy) Chicago there's been a call for the closure of the city's coal-fired power plants: Fisk Generating Station, 1111 W. Cermak Rd.—right across from the park—and Crawford Generating Station, 3501 S. Pulaski Rd. in Little Village. Both are owned by Midwest Generation...

September 26, 2011

Activists charges that the World Bank’s promotion of the controversial forest-carbon scheme called REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) harms both forests and forest dependent communities in developing countries, while encouraging continued pollution in vulnerable communities in developed countries like the USA. This follows the announcement of a new sub-national REDD agreement between the states of California, USA, Chiapas, Mexico and Acre, Brazil during the UN Climate Conference in Cancun last December. In Chiapas the REDD project claims to create carbon offset credits by quantifying the carbon stored by trees in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve in the Lacandon Jungle. The World Bank has been involved in the global forest/climate program known as REDD through its Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, announced by World Bank President Robet Zoellick, during the 2007 UN Climate Conference in Bali, Indonesia. The announcement met with strong popular protest, and the World Bank continues to draw criticism for its role in promoting schemes that displace forest dependent communities and promote large-scale industrial tree plantations that could potentially include socially and ecologically dangerous genetically engineered trees.

September 19, 2011

In San Fran / Oakland, the Superior Court has blocked the proposed early transfer of the toxic parcels of the Hunters Point Superfund site. “The court finds that the EIR does not adequately inform the public that the developer proposes to remediate portions of the shipyard instead of the Navy under an early transfer agreement. … Therefore, the court orders that the development of a parcel at the shipyard site may not proceed until the CERCLA remediation process for the parcel is complete and approved by regulating agencies as safe for human health and development, unless an early transfer is approved after completion of environmental review in compliance with CEQA,” according to the judge’s ruling. H/t Bayview.

September 12, 2011

The Keystone XL pipeline protest arrests took place in front of a White House without solar panels, that activists note the Obama Administration had promised to install by this spring....

September 5, 2011

Whither -- or wither -- Obama on the environment? He dropped the ozone regulations, just after calling for Congress to extend Bush-era funding for highway projects, and late August's go-ahead from the Obama State Department to construct an oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast. Will there be a Democratic Party primary challenge to Obama, on this or other issues? Watch this site.

August 29, 2011

Last week, the US State Department released its  for the proposed Keystone XL tar sands  pipeline, predictably finding that there will be no Final Environmental  Impact Statement (FEIS)  significant environmental impact to most resources. Activists say Secretary of State Clinton did not keep her promise to “leave no stone unturned” and the State Department’s pledge to do a “thorough and objective” assessment: the State Department is rushing this project.

August 22, 2011

In Los Angeles, we note the "MTA Cuts to Bus Service Lifelines" event begins at Immanuel Presbyterian in Koreatown about the impact that recent bus service cuts and fare hikes have had. Yes, it's an environmental justice issue...

August 15, 2011

In Kentucky, American Synthetic Rubber in western Louisville says it's "making plans to phase out the use of the moderately toxic chemical toluene. The plant has long used toluene to produce rubber, and it used to emit great quantities of it — as much as 4.7 million pounds in 1991, for example. That compares to 408,000 pounds of toluene emissions in 2009, the most recent year for which U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data is available. The company, which makes rubber for tires, is exploring the change because two replacement chemicals are considered safer and more useful, said Lynn Mann, a spokeswoman for Michelin North America, which owns the plant. It’s seeking a permit from the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District, which is accepting public comment through Aug. 30."

August 8, 2011

In California, a Jurupa Valley-based environmental group has filed a lawsuit seeking to set aside Riverside County's approval of an industrial project that would put warehouses next door to a Mira Loma housing tract, contending that Riverside County and developers of the proposed Mira Loma Commerce Center project violated the California Environmental Quality Act by preparing an environmental study that failed to analyze the project's impacts on air quality and traffic. It asks the court to set aside the certification of the environmental impact report and order a new one. A status conference on the lawsuit is set for August 18...

August 1, 2011

In Connecticut the Bridgeport Harbor Station (owned by New Jersey based Public Service Enterprise Group or PSEG) is among the worst polluters, according to an algorithm combining levels of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions together with demographic factors to calculate the score for the 431 coal-fired power plants in the United States. So - will it be shut down?

July 25, 2011

New Hampshire, too, is a toxic state for coal plants. The TRI fingers PSHN's Merrimack Station as the worst...

July 18, 2011

In Indiana, in addition to the Hammond plant owned by Dominion Resources, Duke Energy’s R. Gallagher Generating Station in New Albany ranked seventh and a plant in Michigan City also received a failing grade...

July 11, 2011

In Michigan a new study gives Holland’s James De Young coal-fired plant a environmental justice grade of ‘F.’ Detroit’s River Rouge Power Plant is ranked as 9th-most harmful in the nation. Other failing plants include Eckert (Lansing); B.C. Cobb (Muskegon); Monroe (Monroe); Trenton Channel (Trenton) and Presque Isle ...

July 4, 2011

Sleazy is as sleazy does: now the Upper East Side of Manhattan is arguing that IT is a environmental justice community, because it has a housing project:

“'I have nightmares just thinking that there’s a possibility that they might come back,' said Ms. Johnson, 66, a disabled resident of the Stanley M. Isaacs Houses, at 94th Street and First Avenue. The proximity of public housing figures prominently in a battle by Upper East Side residents to derail a city plan to reactivate a waste transfer station on the East River at 91st Street. In lawsuits, rallies and lobbying in the State Legislature, they argue that economically disadvantaged residents, already struggling, should not be saddled with additional problems. 'How can you ignore the fact that the closest community is 80 percent minority?' said Anthony Ard, president of the Gracie Point Community Council, a neighborhood group that was founded to fight the plan.”

This argument is made in order to jam the waste transfer station back to the South Bronx. For shame.

June 27, 2011

Union Pacific Corp. and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway got letters last week warning to prepare for a federal lawsuit under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act if they don't undertake measures to clean up hazardous waste their facilities emit into the air from diesel engines in 16 California rail yards. NRDC argues that minute particles in diesel air pollution, which include lead, cadmium, nickel and other toxic elements, are solid waste. If successful, such a suit could open the door for legal action against similar air pollution sources such as ports, airports or anywhere with a lot of diesel equipment.

June 20, 2011

In Puerto Rico, the owner of the Ponce Municipal Landfill has had to enter a settlement that will reduce water pollution from the landfill into a local stream. Allied Waste of Ponce, Inc. will spend at least $200,000 to build a new sewer line from the Ponce Municipal Landfill through the Barrio La Cotorra community located south of the landfill, which will then connect to the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority wastewater treatment plant in Ponce.

June 13, 2011

In New York City, those opposing a waste transfer station on East 91st Street and the East River need to ask themselves: where else should it go? The South Bronx is full of such facilities. It's only fair...

June 6, 2011

Brazil Says Advocate Against Dam to Displace 12,000 Could've Come to UN “on Vacation”

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 2 -- During the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York last month, the absence of Brazil's Azelene Kaingang was much noted. She was scheduled to speak on a panel as an advocate against that country's Belo Monte dam project. But she did not come.

On June 2, Inner City Press asked Brazil's Permanent Representative and Mission to the UN about Ms. Kaingang's abence and was told that she was not allowed to come as a government employee, but that she could have come if she had “taken vacation days.”

Brazil's Mission provided a vigorous defense of the dam, saying it would displace “only twelve thousand people” in a poor area “without electricity or running water... not indigenous land.” The defense included deriding those concerned about the displacement as “ladies from Stockholm and Mayfair who need to keep their NGOs going.” One of these NGOs, it should be noted, is Amnesty International.

More substantively, it was argued that after the nuclear power accident in Japan, and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, hydro-power is the only way for Brazil to go. But what about the 12,000 people the government acknowledges it would displace? We will continue to follow this.

Footnote: during the Permanent Forum, Inner City Press was told of the existence of a blacklist administered by the UN, at the request of governments, of indigenous activists who are not to be allowed to attend in this or future years. This, we are looking into.

May 30, 2011

The EPA has been petitioned about the the Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (SDEIS) for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, asking for field hearings along the right of way. There is draft legislation that would speed up the process for making a decision on Keystone XL even further than the State Department’s planned needlessly fast-paced timeline.

The Keystone XL pipeline would threaten communities from Alberta to Texas. It would put communities at risk in Alberta, where the tar sands are extracted and where communities downstream are already experiencing high rates of cancers. Along the pipeline route, the extra corrosive diluted bitumen it would carry could cause a rupture into the vital Ogallala Aquifer, which could be even more devastating and difficult to clean up than last year’s Enbridge tar sands pipeline spill into the Kalamazoo River. And in Texas communities such as Port Arthur, already named by EPA as an environmental justice showcase community, additional refinery pollution from the tar sands that would be refined would exacerbate already serious health and social justice issues.

May 23, 2011

The European Union in 2005 established a forest law enforcement, governance and trade plan. A 2008 regulation implemented the plan, while the individual voluntary partnership agreements attended to the legal contexts of each individual country. All six agreements apply to both exports and domestic markets, while checks are also intended to assure that the licensing system won't be based on corrupt existing systems. But this doesn't cover indirect trade...

May 16, 2011

Good news: environmental groups in Germany have the right to challenge in court projects that may have a significant impact on protected areas, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled last week...

As UNEP Prepares Award for Calderon, Drug War Protests, LG Pollution

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 5 -- When the UN Environment Program teased its May 10 “Champions of the Earth” ceremony by saying that an unnamed “Head of State from the Latin American region” would be given its “flagship environmental award,” many assumed that it would be Evo Morales of Bolivia, loud proponent of La Madre Tierra, Pachamama or Mother Earth.

  But inquiries by Inner City Press have found that UNEP's mystery guest will be Felipe Calderon Hinojosa of Mexico. The New York ceremony will come days after a protest of Calderon's drug war in Mexico. While the streets run red with blood, quipped one skeptic, Calderon drapes himself in green and UN blue.

  UNEP's event is sponsored by South Korea based LG Group, which is charged for business in China with Changzhou Hongdu Electronics Co. and heavy metal pollution.

  To be fair, particularly since it is Cinco de Mayo, some of Mexico's pollution has been reduced under Calderon. Click here for Inner City Press coverage of Cancun.

  But even on the environment, “critics suggest that the Mexican president and the Congress are not doing enough to promote renewable energy. A strong effort is important, they say, because Mexico is far behind other countries in implementing the technologies that will make a major difference in reducing pollution and ensuring Mexico’s energy security.”

  Another telltale sign, beyond Inner City Press' first hand reporting, that he is UNEP's May 10 awardee is the announcement that he will appear in Washington DC on May 11 for yet another award.

(At the UN, Mexico's departure from the Security Council is felt, on protection of civilians and, as the most recent example, the unqualified celebration of the killing of Osama bin Laden in a Presidential Statement on May 2. Mexico might, probably would, have voted for it, but would probably have asked for some changes.)

In any event, for this event, fleeing protests in Mexico, Calderon comes to the UN in New York. Many embattled leaders have done it. But sometimes their sojourn at the UN has hurt rather than helped them. How will it be for Calderon? Watch this site.

May 2, 2011

Politico reported last week: “a letter [has been sent] to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on Wednesday demanding the immediate dismissal of Rafael DeLeon, director of the agency’s Office of Civil Rights. ...

Marsha Coleman-Adebayo was one of the subjects of the disparaging remarks. She has been described by Time Magazine as "a former EPA employee whose complaints of a 'racially toxic' environment there led to the signing of the Notification and Federal Employee Anti-Discrimination and Retaliation Act of 2001." She is currently working on a book "No Fear: A Whistleblower's Triumph Over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA."

The legal director of the National Whistleblowers Center has said, "Dr. Coleman-Adebayo is an environmental whistleblower who raised concerns about the dangers of vanadium mining in South Africa. When her concerns focused on the role of U.S. companies in apartheid South Africa she became the victim of a hostile work environment. Ms. [Susan] Morris [another woman apparently disparaged by Mr. DeLeon] raised concerns about EPA's compliance with the Civil Rights Act and then suffered a removal from her supervisory position."

EPA head Jackson has recently been told: "The Office of Civil Rights under your administration has failed. As its name suggests, OCR should be at the forefront of eliminating discrimination and advancing civil rights and liberties within the Agency. Instead of taking positive actions to correct the endemic problems, your newly appointed director, Rafael DeLeon, has exemplified a continuation of the old mode of denying that any problems exist and defending management. The recent Deloitte Consultant Report on the civil rights program described OCR as essentially dysfunctional.

April 25, 2011

Bullard's predictions coming true: “Although people of color make up about 26 percent of the coastal counties in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana, the government approved most of the BP oil waste to be trucked to these communities. On July 15, 2010--the earliest reporting period--39,399 tons of BP waste went to nine landfills of which 21,867 tons (55.4 percent) were disposed in communities of color and 30,338 tons (77.0 percent) of oil waste went to communities where the percent people of color was greater than the percent people of color in the host county.

“As of April 10, 2011--the latest reporting period--106,409 tons of BP waste went to 11 landfills, of which 45,032 tons (42.3 percent) went to landfills in majority people of color communities, and 90,554 tons (85.1 percent) went to landfills located in communities whose percent people of color population exceeded the county's percent people of color.”

April 18, 2011

New York City mayor Bloomberg's proposed budget would delay funding for several key Solid Waste Management Plan facilities:

• East 91st St. Marine Transfer Station (from FY 11 to FY 16)

• West 59th St. Marine Transfer Station (from FY 14 to FY 19)

• Gansevoort Marine Transfer Station for recyclables (from FY 13 to FY 18)

• SW Brooklyn Marine Transfer Station (from FY 11 to FY 16)

And thus keep the negative impact in The Bronx and elsewhere...

April 11, 2011

In Sri Lanka, the paints sold contain alarming levels of lead surpassing the accepted rate by over 1526 times. This has prompted the Supreme Court to proceed with an application and urge the Consumer Affairs Authority to respond with necessary measures. “We have come to know that 68% of enamel and emulsion paints sold here have tested positive for very high levels of lead. One particular paint manufacturer contained 137,325 parts per million (ppm) (14%), 1526 times greater than the US limit of 90ppm and 226 times greater than the SL limit, which is a health hazard,” said a lawyer in the case “The FR application is seeking the Consumer Affairs Authority and others to produce suitable regulations to compel manufacturers and distributors to conform to the international standards of lead in paints considering its serious health hazards... Even the World Health Organization has recognized lead as a prime toxin.” Yeah, even the UN system's WHO.....

April 4, 2011

Brownfields as (dirty) business: “Philadelphia will host the 14th national brownfields conference April 3-5 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. It is the largest, most comprehensive conference in the nation focused on cleaning up and redeveloping abandoned, underutilized, and potentially contaminated properties. Brownfields 2011 will feature EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson as keynote speaker on Monday at 9:45 a.m. Cosponsored by EPA and the International City/County Management Association” - hmm

March 28, 2011

What a scam: NYC Mayor Bloomberg's proposed budget calls for postponing the construction of new marine transfer stations in Manhattan and Brooklyn until 2016-19 -- leaving the burden on the South Bronx. Some environmental (in) justice...

March 21, 2011

A set back by DC: in Maryland, “a bill that would create an 'environmental justice' review process on top of the regular permit application process was withdrawn after business opposition.”

March 14, 2011

On December 17th, 2009 at the UN Copenhagen Climate Summit, activists were arrested for politely and peacefully calling on some 120 heads of state attending a royal banquet to take urgent climate action. It has taken until this week for the prosecutor to levy charges against eleven activists, for trespass, falsification of documents, and impersonating a public official. The eleven are also facing the obscure charge of having committed an offence against Denmark’s Queen. The justice minister is required to personally approved its use - amazing...

March 7, 2011

Laughable is EPA's recent waste rule defining when industrial energy units are subject to strict air toxics rules for incinerators or less-stringent boiler requirements. EPA ruled that just 88 of about 200,000 boilers qualify for strict air toxics controls under the agency's incinerator rules. This leaves many small units with no emission controls to protect the public from hazardous pollution. Great...

February 28, 2011

​ In late January, West Dallas activist Otis Fagan turned up at City Hall with 20 or so other members of the Clean Association for Environmental Justice, asking the city council to help them get medical benefits he said they're guaranteed by a court decision years ago over pollution from the old West Dallas RSR lead smelter. He said, "The survivors are here because we have actual documentation the court had ordered for us to get medical treatment, and we have not received that.”

For more 60 years, the RSR lead smelter in West Dallas polluted the surrounding community and sickened its residents. Blood tests used to detect lead in the bloodstream were provided by the RSR Corporation, but Fagan says that is a far cry from the medical screenings and compensation guaranteed by the court order. "Parkland will give them treatment, but will not pay their bills," Fagan said at the City Council meeting. "It's not right for them to have to pay the bill for someone else's contamination that was forced upon them."

February 21, 2011

Vitriol from the IBD: “An Ecuador court's finding of Chevron liable for $8.64 billion over jungle drilling is a bogus case showing how easy it is for lawyers to manipulate banana republic systems. Hailing the ruling as a strike for 'environmental justice,' plaintiffs known as the Amazon Defense Front and their lawyers successfully convinced a judge in Lago Agrio, an Ecuadorean jungle town locally known as a supplying station for Colombia's FARC terrorists, that mighty Chevron, whose Texaco subsidiary drilled the rain forest from 1964 to 1990, irreparably polluted the rain forest with its drilling operations. That entitled the activists to $8.64 billion. The verdict has been hailed as the biggest environmental court payout of all time, nearly tripling that for the Exxon-Valdez cleanup, and a ruling that will change the callous way in which Big Oil does business.”

Let's HOPE it changes how Big Oil does business...

February 14, 2011

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) announced last week that it will issue a license to Ontario's Bruce Power plant, authorizing it to ship 16 decommissioned generators, each one the size of a school bus and weighing 100 tons, to Sweden for recycling. The corporation has said that it has at least 64 contaminated generators it would eventually like to ship to Sweden. Licenses must still be granted by Transport Canada and the U.S. Department of Transportation for the shipments to get under way. Governments in the United Kingdom, Norway and Denmark must also grant approval for the generators to go through their territorial waters.

February 7, 2011

10,000 people have now submitted a petition for a Global Record on Fishing Vessels to the UN Food and Agriculture headquarters in Rome, to representatives of the Committee on Fisheries, and personally handed the signatures to the Director of the Fisheries Division. We'll see.

January 31, 2011

Good news from Canada: “Peterborough residents defeated the General Electric-Hitachi Corporation of Canada (GE) at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission... permission for GE's secretive plans to process enriched uranium downtown were officially revoked. The tribunal decision stated, 'the issued license does not authorize activities related to low-enriched uranium (LEU) or possession of the same.'”

January 24, 2011

Mauritius is now suing the United Kingdom in International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg over the "Marine Protected Area" created around the Chagos Islands to deny the native Chagossians the right to return to their homeland. The UK Chagos Support Association (http://www.chagossupport.org.uk). "Chagos was hived off from Mauritius to create an air base when the country won its independence in the 1960s, and it has always insisted that it should have sovereignty over the islands”....

January 17, 2011

Of Chicago EJ activist Hazel Johnson, who died last week at 75, the Sun-Times writes that “Johnson, who was seen as the architect of the fight for environmental justice in Altgeld and Roseland was omitted from Obama’s book, Dreams from My Father, in which Obama traced his roots as a community activist in those communities.”

January 10, 2011

Lockheed Martin's clean up of Salina's Bloody Brook has stalled because more testing is needed, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Lockheed is supposed to excavate more than 39,000 tons of contaminated sediment and soil from the brook channel, side banks and residential areas from the Thruway to Onondaga Lake Parkway, said Myron Parkolap, manager for environmental safety and health at Lockheed Martin. More than 1,000 samples taken from 1994 to 2007 showed cadmium concentrations in the soil and sediment of the brook's west branch. According even to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry website, cadmium can cause kidney damage if swallowed. Thanks Lockheed...

January 3, 2011

In Connecticut, Mark Mitchell is leaving CCEJ, which worked with the New Haven Environmental Justice Network to prevent the recommissioning of the English Station power plant in the Fair Haven neighborhood. The plant would have burned fossil fuels to provide power during peak periods.m"Electricity would have been produced during times of the year when air quality was at its worst," Mitchell said. "The folks who would get the bulk of air pollution can't afford air conditioners, so they would have opened their windows." The state DEP denied the permit application filed by Quinnipiac Energy...

December 27, 2010

A new mine in the South Texas Uranium Belt received state approval last week, tut the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) still must agree with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) before the project can go forward. Locals say that nuclear energy poses a threat to the water supply in South Texas, where Uranium Energy Corp already has one active mine and where environmentalists are opposing the Goliad mine as well as a proposed nuclear reactor...

December 20, 2010

Jackson, Tennessee residents pleaded with state officials at hearing last week not to grant a permit approving construction of a Betty Manley Road landfill, but environmental officials said the matter may be out of their hands. The state has tentatively decided to issue Bill McMillen a permit to build a landfill at 677 Betty Manley Road, said Tommy Himes, a hearing officer with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation...

December 13, 2010

Last week the EPA's Office of Enforcement & Compliance Assurance released its FY10 enforcement results, confirming a drop in criminal cases opened and fines and restitution collected compared to FY09, from 387 cases opened last year to 346 opened this year, and from $96 million collected last year to $41 million in FY10. Good job, guys.

December 6, 2010

EPA Region IV Administrator Gwen Keyes-Fleming heard November 10 a request that EPA sue the Arrowhead Landfill near Uniontown, Alabama taking TVA coal ash waste as a way to sidestep the bankruptcy proceedings that could stall residents' lawsuit against the facility.TVA ash that was disposed of in the near an African-American community near, AL. The complaints are wider: EPA Region IV includes North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky. In the last three years activists have asked EPA to revoke permitting authority in states across the country, including Alaska, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Maryland...

November 29, 2010

California -the 824-page environmental impact report prepared by Ventura-based Marine Research Specialists - is at the center of the debate over Ventura-based Matrix Oil Co.'s proposal to drill for oil in the Whittier hills. Opponents of drilling use the report to support their claims for killing the project while others say it shows why drilling for oil will do little harm and buoy city coffers to the tune of $6 million to $9 million annually. Matrix's original proposal had called for a new road - just north of homes on Lodosa Drive - from Colima Road to the main oil drilling site situated on about 7 acres. The report also calls for nearly 120 mitigation measures in many of the 16 areas of study to ease the impact of drilling. This report isn't final or even close to it. Supporters, opponents and many others have until Dec. 6 to make comments, ask questions or seek changes to the report. The city will hold a public comment meeting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Whittier Community Center gymnasium, 7630 Washington Ave. Marine Research Specialty will make a written response, which could lead to changes in the document, to every single comment in the report. The report, the comments and the responses will make up the final environmental impact report that will go to the Planning Commission in a public hearing expected to be held in March or April.

November 22, 2010

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has announced that it'll hold “a public hearing to accept comments on Eastern Metal Recycling Terminal LLC's plan to build and operate a metal shredding and processing facility in Eddystone Borough, Delaware County. The hearing will take place at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 14, at Union Hall, 1000 E. 4th St., Eddystone, PA 19022. Eastern Metal Recycling, a subsidiary of Camden Iron and Metal, has proposed relocating its Philadelphia car-crushing operation to Eddystone Borough, an environmental justice community. DEP requires permit applicants in environmental justice communities to provide residents with opportunities to hear about and to comment on the project. An environmental justice community is one in which 30 percent of residents are members of racial and ethnic minorities or 20 percent live in poverty.”

November 15, 2010

In Ireland, thirty-three pilot whales have recently been found dead along the coast of County Donegal, a tragedy being named one of the largest mass deaths of whales in the country's history. Scientists at the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group believe Royal Navy sonar may have affected the whales behaviors and ultimately led to their deaths...

November 8, 2010

The EPA has created a new post for environmental justice. Lisa Garcia proclaimed her new title as associate assistant administrator for environmental justice on a "community outreach" conference call last week. Garcia said that the move is "an effort to really capture the administrative priority and to make sure we integrate EJ into many programs at EPA. Garcia's first job is finishing for Plan EJ 2014 the guidance for a new database that will help EPA identify communities that have been unfairly impacted by environmental laws and development. We'll see.

November 1, 2010

In Oakland last week, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson boarded a hydrogen fuel cell bus accompanied by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Region 9 EPA Administrator Jared Blumenfeld, on her fifth environmental justice tour this year, after visits to South Carolina, Missouri, Mississippi and Georgia. Uh, heard of The Bronx?

October 18, 2010

In St. Louis last week at a public hearing on EPA's plan for Carter Carburetor, neighborhood residents wondered why it had taken so long to finally act. The EPA proposal has no date certain for removal of the old factory. Superfund — the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 — was created with former factories like Carter Carburetor in mind. The law allows federal officials to order the cleanup of polluted sites. When polluters fail to act, it gives the EPA the authority to intervene and clean up the site and bill the polluter for the costs. But in 1995, Congress refused to renew a tax on polluting industries that was used to pay for the cleanups. Slowly, the available money dwindled. In 2003, the special cleanup fund disappeared entirely. The EPA is soldiering on, using money from congressional appropriations. Just 19 sites were worked on last year, down from 89 in 1999. ACF Industries, which owned the Carter Carburetor plant from 1956 to 1985, is the responsible party. ACF paid for the study unveiled this week, but no decision has been reached about when money might be made available for the remediation. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama proposed reinstating the polluter tax. That’s a good idea, but doing it won’t be easy. And is there time? Watch this site.

October 11, 2010

Fair share in NYC: on November's ballot in New York City there is a proposed amendment to the 2010 Charter Revision Commission to address the loopholes in the city’s fair share review process: that solid waste and transportation public and private infrastructure be added to the atlas and accompanying map, that the city include environmental and public health data for each community district -- data that is already collected by the departments of health and environmental protection...

September 27, 2010

In Philadelphia, Eastern Metal Recycling Terminal LLC is planning to relocate its car crushing operation to the former Foamex site in Eddystone borough-- an “environmental justice community” per the PA DEC...

In Nigeria's Zamfara state, over 200 children have died of lead poisoning related to gold mining...

September 20, 2010

In Cleveland, a number of homes, some existing businesses, even a few small churches, would be leveled in the Slavic Village, Kinsman, Fairfax and Buckeye neighborhoods to make way for the proposed Opportunity Corridor road...

September 13, 2010

Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov's "multi-vector" foreign policy and desire to diversify routes to world markets for his country's considerable gas reserves... When the U.S. sent a delegation for talks this summer, oil and gas interests seemed to dominate and the State Department officials charged with raising the unwanted human rights topics appeared diminished... Berdymukhamedov is quickly building a cult of personality rivaling that of the previous “President for Life,” Niyazov, who died suddenly of a heart attack in December 2006.The country’s previous president deposited petroleum funds in a semi-private, off budget account in Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt. President Berdymukhamedov has made no reforms in this area, and a newly touted “Stabilization Fund,” into which oil and gas revenues would be placed, remains a mystery as there is no public documentation that such a fund actually exists. From Chevron's Annual shareholder Meeting in May 2010: “while the U.S. energy company is among direct sponsors of the Turkmen government's annual oil and gas conference and hopes to do business in this gas-rich Central Asian country, Chevron has robust human rights and corporate accountability policies amply indicated on its corporate website.
We'll be following this.

September 6, 2010

From a class in Arizona: “the environmental justice movement and literature about it have expanded over the years. This course offers a unique perspective by examining environmental justice struggles, such as those that have occurred in NOLA (New Orleans, LA), through the conceptual lenses of body politics and human rights. That is, the course begins with the assumption that all EJ struggles are intimately connected to the ways in which human bodies – especially racialized, gendered and classed bodies – are shaped, regulated, distorted and damaged by social structures and practices. NOLA has long been ‘EJ Central,’ with some of the major figures in the EJ movement based there. Also, the city has a unique set of factors that make it particularly susceptible to catastrophe: urban poverty, an eroding shoreline, ‘natural’ phenomena such as hurricanes, institutional and governmental racism, and a legacy of corruption. Any ‘natural’ disasters are part and parcel social disasters, too. Hurricane Katrina was the most visible indicator of this, and recently we’ve had the BP oil spill to add to the mix.”

August 30, 2010

Per EPA's most recent quarterly update of Title VI cases , in March 2010, the EPA accepted for investigation a complaint filed the previous December against the city of Rapid City, SD, and continues jurisdictional reviews of complaints filed between January and March of 2010 against St. Augustine, Florida; Salem, Oregeon; the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality; the state of California; a number of Alabama agencies and a number of Montana agencies...

August 23, 2010

ArcelorMittal South Africa has been in environmental skirmishes with the Green Scorpions and communities living near its mills. This year, its share price fell after executives neglected to apply to convert its share of mineral rights at Kumba Iron Ore's Sishen mine. A week ago, the steel maker announced a black economic empowerment (BEE) deal engineered solely to get the rights back. ArcelorMittal SA admits that the deal with the politically connected Ayigobi consortium is a "dispassionate" attempt to secure access to ore supplies on favorable terms...

August 16, 2010

In Biloxi, Mississippi last week, Beverly Banister, EPA deputy regional administrator, said “There are a lot of unanswered questions about the dispersants used to neutralize the oil spill’s toxic effects and we need people here to help us find the answers.We are grappling. This is a huge, huge issue. We have never dealt with an oil spill of this magnitude before and the EPA is reaching out.” Not enough...

August 9, 2010

They say: “Rather than directly confront environmental justice challenges, the Environmental Protection Agency has issued internal guidance that is so convoluted and vague that it will stymie effective action, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). At the same time, EPA is allowing affirmative approaches to relieving the air pollution burden on the urban poor to languish. In late July, EPA released its "Interim Guidance on Considering Environmental Justice During the Development of An Action" which proclaims that it "empowers decision-makers" to "integrate EJ [environmental justice] into the fabric of EPA's" actions. The actual guidance, however, lays out a stultifying multi-step process steeped in terms that seem designed to encourage inaction.”

August 2, 2010

Per Bullard, “as of July 15, more than 39,448 tons of BP oil spill waste was disposed in nine approved landfills in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Five of the nine the landfills receiving BP oil-spill solid waste are located in communities where people of color comprise a majority of residents living within a one-mile radius of the waste facilities. A significantly large share of the BP oil-spill waste, 24,071 tons out of 39,448 tons (61 percent),was dumped in people of color communities. This is not a small point since African Americans make up just 22 percent of the coastal counties in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana”...

July 26, 2010

But what about the human rights and environmental issues surrounding Total? “HSBC Holdings PLC and French oil company Total SA have agreed to a partnership in energy trading, a link-up that aims to capitalize on Asia's fast-growing resource needs. The partnership will enable HSBC, already active in precious-metals markets, to dive into over-the-counter energy trading, where other global banks are already well-established. Total will gain a stronger foothold in Asia and other emerging markets, where HSBC has a strong presence. The alliance between HSBC and Total announced last week is the latest pairing of a financial institution with a company commanding the physical flow of commodities. Growing concerns about tougher regulations over derivatives trading, along with heated competition in the commodities business, are encouraging such business models. Earlier this month, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. completed its $1.6 billion acquisition of RBS Sempra Commodities's energy and metals business.”

July 19, 2010

The EPA's coal ash hearings will bypass Tennessee, site of the biggest coal ash disaster in history, Pittsburgh, where drinking water supplies are poisoned with coal ash and EJ hot spot Atlanta...

July 12, 2010

Canadian politicians from the government and opposition benches have mysteriously canceled an 18-month investigation into oil sands pollution in water and opted to destroy draft copies of their final report. The aborted investigation comes as new questions are being raised about the Harper government's decision to exempt a primary toxic pollutant found in oilsands tailings ponds from a regulatory agenda. The government is in the process of categorizing industry-produced substances that could either be toxic or harmful, but has excluded naphthenic acid — a toxin from oil sands operations — from the list, and left it off another list of substances that companies are required to track and report.

J uly 5, 2010

From West Virginia, "In approving the Pine Creek permit, the EPA has failed our community. Any more mountaintop removal mining in Logan County is going to further degrade the watershed, increase pollution-related health impacts and increase the likelihood of more flooding. As deforestation on the Arch Coal mine site would continue to dismantle an important global carbon sink, the mine itself would produce over 14 million tons of coal, which when burned in power plants, would contribute over 40 million tons of carbon dioxide greenhouse gas pollution to the planet's atmosphere.”

June 28, 2010

Protest against oil sands appeared in Toronto, at the G-20 meeting there...

June 21, 2010

Check out Detroit's zip code 48217

The decision of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) to ignite a new flare in Opolo-Epie, Bayelsa State, raises questions about all of the company's previous claims...

June 14, 2010

The largest shareholder in BP? JPMorgan Chase, they of mountain top removal mining...

June 7, 2010

Through the revolving door: Jaime Gorelick, former Clinton administration lawyer, has signed up to defend BP. Oily...


As Palau and Pew Fight To Save Sharks and Tuna, Japan Counters with Sushi and Conditional Aid

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 24 -- When nations and activists met this year about endangered species of sharks and Atlantic blue tuna, Japan lobbied against protections with conditional financial aid to small island states, and even sushi and shark fin soup receptions.

These stories were told Monday evening in the UN's new North Lawn building, as Jacques Cousteau's grandson spoke about seeing fewer and fewer sharks during his dives. . "We protect what we love," he quoted. But with sharks, given the perception of them as people killers, the phrase may not be helpful.

The event was sponsored by Palau, which had declared itself a shark sanctuary. A speech was given by its Permanent Representative to the UN, Stuart Beck, who is decidedly not from Palau. But as his deputy later explained to Inner City Press, he was Palau's lawyer even before it became independent.

Beck testified that Palau "championed adding four sharks to the CITES list of endangered species. Despite winning the majority of votes on all four, we could not overcome the obstructive super majority requirement."

Experts in the crowd uniformly trashed the role of Japan. It was ironic, as elsewhere in the North Lawn building Japan was presenting itself as an anti-nuclear hero. Janus face, forked tongue, one said.

Earlier on Monday, the Pew Environment Group held a press conference urging Regional Fisheries Management Organizations to do more about illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing. Inner City Press asked about such fishing off the coasts of Somalia and Western Sahara.


  Pew's Kristin Von Kistowski cautioned against excusing piracy in terms of illegal fishing. She added that international fleets harm coastal communities in Western Africa.

  Susan Lieberman of Pew said that European Union fleets are overfishing, and the the depletion of fish stock off Somalia may have played a role in driving former fishermen to piracy. Video here, from Minute 36.

  This stood in welcome contrast to the commander of the EUNAVFOR ships, who earlier this month was dismissive of Somali claims about illegal fishing. Click here for that.

Footnote: weeks ago, Inner City Press asked a spokesman accompanying Japanese Foreign Minister Okada to the UN a series of simple questions, and has twice been promised answered. But none have arrived. Watch this site -- or CITES.

May 24, 2010

 In Vermont, a mishap during a test at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant last week allowed the water level to rise too high in the reactor, flowing through emergency valves that are typically about 8 feet above the water level and into pipes that normally carry steam to the turbine. David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists and Diane Screnci of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said if water mixes with steam it can damage a plant's turbine...

Dutch oil trading firm Trafigura denied last week that it had paid witnesses to give false testimony about toxic waste dumped on public trash sites in Abidjan. Some men who said they had transported the toxic waste in 2006 told Dutch current affairs television program "Nova" yesterday that they had given false information in statements about the waste. Greenpeace said it has asked Dutch prosecutors to investigate the men's statements. Trafigura settled out of court in February 2007 over the dumps, paying the Ivorian government $225 million...

May 17, 2010

New Jersey regulators have ordered Exelon Corp .to cooperate with an investigation and clean up a leak of radioactive tritium at the company's Oyster Creek nuclear power plant. About 180,000 gallons of tritium-contaminated water is believed to have leaked from two pipes at the plant, and some of the water could have reached the Cohansey Aquifer..

Weird cooperation of the week: U.S. EPA will work with the Chinese environmental bureau to monitor the air quality at the World Expo in Shanghai. The two agencies will use an online system called AIRNow International to deliver real-time data and day-before forecasts of air quality. The Expo, which began May 1, is expected to attract 7 million people on top of the 20 million who live in Shanghai...

May 10, 2010

Bolivian President Evo Morales has announced that his government now controls 80 percent of the country's electricity production after nationalizing four utility companies. Among the utilities was Corani SA, a subsidiary of French utility GDF SuezSA. Morales, who has also nationalized Bolivia's oil and natural gas industries, said this weekend that he intends for the state to control all utilities..

In California, environmental groups have sued U.S. EPA over the agency's weak response to pollution in the San Joaquin Valley. The lawsuit says EPA could do more to force the California Air Resources Board and other local air quality boards to monitor the region...

May 3, 2010

In the week of focus on nuclear issues, in Nevada the Yucca Mountain site remained mired in delay. The NRC has given the US Department of Energy until June 1 to withdraw its contested application...

April 26, 2010

In New York, state environmental officials in New York announced that they will exclude the Catskills watershed from regulations authorizing hydraulic fracturing in the state's portion of the Marcellus Shale. Though the Department of Environmental Conservation did not explicitly ban natural gas drilling in the Catskills, the decision to exclude the region from the regulations creates daunting and costly bureaucratic hurdles for any companies that would want to drill there. Officials originally included the Catskills watershed in their regulations, but backed down after New York City raised concerns. "We acknowledge that there's a separate subset of issues that are independent of the safety of hydrofracking," said Stuart Gruskin, executive deputy commissioner at the department. "It's better to leave those issues out of it."

April 26, 2010 - click here for BloggingHeads.tv debate on Afghanistan cover up, Bhutto, Iran, Sudan and the UN's Love Boat in Haiti, by Inner City Press

April 19, 2010

In Texas, blood and urine tests of residents of the Denton County town Dish show they have the same toxic chemicals found in the community's air and water but not in elevated levels. State health officials cautioned that no one element was elevated and that residents should not jump to conclusions. Residents have complained for more than a year about the environmental impact of natural gas compressors and a natural gas well in their town...

A report last week found that the northern part of Sudan may have been hording oil revenues and owes South Sudan at least $700 million, in addition to the approximately $7 billion of oil money it has transferred to the south since striking a peace agreement five years ago that mandates sharing oil revenues. The watchdog group said oil production figures published by one of the biggest foreign companies producing oil in the country, the Chinese National Petroleum Co., indicate production levels that were 12 percent higher in Blue Nile state in 2009 than what the Sudanese government in Khartoum reported for the same time period...

April 12, 2010

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will conduct additional inspections at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant because of a recent radioactive tritium leak. Entergy Corp., which operates the plant, found and stopped the leak, and NRC said the contamination did not threaten the public or plant workers. The leak did prompt the Vermont Senate to vote not to renew the plant's license when it expires in 2012...

In Kenya, environmentalists successfully blocked a shipment of genetically modified maize from South Africa. Protestors said the maize developed by multinational firm Monsanto Co. had not been properly checked and could contaminate the soil. Several African countries have banned the import of genetically modified plants...

April 5, 2010

  Environmental justice as international human rights:

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) will hear a complaint filed by the New Orleans-based Advocates for Environmental Human Rights (AEHR) on behalf of the people of Mossville, La. An autonomous body of the Organization of American States, the IACHR along with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights comprise the inter-American system for promoting and protecting human rights.

Scheduled to take place some time in the next three months, the review will consider whether the U.S. government has violated the predominantly African-American community's residents' human rights to life, health, equality, freedom from racial discrimination, and "privacy as it relates to the inviolability of the home" by allowing numerous industrial facilities to locate there and emit millions of pounds of highly toxic chemicals every year.

Located near Lake Charles in southwestern Louisiana's Calcasieu Parish, the unincorporated rural community of Mossville is surrounded by 14 industrial facilities that each year spew more than 4 million pounds of highly toxic chemicals to the environment. The pollution includes known carcinogens including dioxin, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, solvents like xylene and toluene, and heavy metals such as lead and mercury.

March 29, 2010 --

Pachauri's Opaque Moonlighting Critiqued by Figueres, of 2 Costa Ricans and the Alba Group, UNFCCC

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 22 -- The embattled chairman of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, refuses to disclose how much money he makes from his simultaneousconsultancies with Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and other institutions. Now, a candidate to head the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica, has announced she would cease all outside consulting if given the "full time and a half" post.

Inner City Press asked Ms. Figueres on Monday for her view of Pachauri's side business and other IPCC matters. "That would not be my choice," Ms. Figueres said, of Pachauri's side work for business. She also said diplomatically that "Doctor Pachauri I believe is at freedom to allocate his time as he sees fit." Video here, from Minute 27:18.

  But shouldn't Pachauri at least be required to formally disclose who he works for on the side, and how much he gets paid? He has resisted even this.

  Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon and his spokesman for the UN view on this lack of transparency. The answer was that the IPCC is not a UN body, and that Pachauri would answer the questions himself. But when he came to the UN, seeking to use Ban Ki-moon as a prop and character witness, neither took any questions from the press.

Ms. Figueres, the daughter of a former Costa Rican president, is viewed as a serious contender to replace Yvo de Boer, who is moving to KPMG (some are calling it cashing in). Inner City Press asked her if the recent appointment of another Costa Rican, Rebecca Grynspan, to the number two post at the UN Development Program might make it less likely she will get this job.

  "It may be a stretch," Ms. Figueres agreed, that a country of four million people could get two high posts. India's candidate is said to also have the support of China.

  Inner City Press asked Ms. Figueres about the opposition to the Copenhagen process by the five Latin American countries in the Alba Group. Surprisingly to some, Ms. Figueres responded that the Alba Group was "correct in the moment," that all now agree with them. An Alba Group-er afterwards said skeptically to Inner City Press, "Costa Rica never gets along with the Alba Group." Hey -- climate change bring everyone together...

March 22, 2010

While more than 84,000 chemicals manufactured, used, or imported in the United States are currently listed on the TSCA Inventory. But EPA is unable to publicly identify nearly 17,000 of those chemicals because they have been claimed as confidential business information under TSCA by the manufacturers. Some database...

A review of OMB could revoke or revise Clinton's Executive Order 12866, which gives OIRA the power to review and edit agency regulations and makes cost-benefit analyses a significant factor in rulemaking. For major rules, OIRA and federal agencies use cost-benefit analysis to try to ensure that the benefits of regulations outweigh the costs. Environmentalists and regulatory watchdog groups -- many of which accused Bush's White House of using the regulatory review process to make rules more industry-friendly -- have called for a major overhaul of the review process, including scaling back the role of cost-benefit analysis and reducing the White House's influence in agency regulatory decisions. But some lawmakers and regulatory experts have argued that provisions included in the Clinton order are needed to protect against overly costly and burdensome regulations.

March 15, 2010

Sacharine politics in the Sunshine State: "The South Florida Water Management District voted unanimously today to keep the state's offer to buy 73,000 acres of land from United States Sugar Corp. for Everglades restoration on the table for six more months.

The extension until Sept. 30 will allow the deal to remain on hold as the Florida Supreme Court considers a challenge to the $536 million offer backed by Gov. Charlie Crist (R). Praised by environmentalists who see the land purchase as key for the protection of the Everglades, the extension was viewed cynically by critics who describe the deal as a taypayer-funded handout for a struggling sugar company. It would allow a decision on the controversial land deal to be put off until after Crist's primary contest against Marco Rubio, said Gaston Cantens, a spokesman for sugar competitor Florida Crystals Corp., which supports Rubio in the race."

March 8, 2010

In the court case against Syncrude Canada Ltd., an oil sands company accused of violating provincial and federal wildlife laws, environmentalists have rallied around images of birds trapped in sticky bitumen. During proceedings yesterday in Alberta, images of ravens eating a trapped duck alive were presented...

March 1, 2010

First Amendment rights burned like dirty coal: a federal judge extended an order that bans protests at the Massey Energy Co. coal mining facility. The temporary order bars protestors, agents, lawyers and Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice from their yearlong protests. Massey wants the ban extended to the duration of a lawsuit filed against five protesters arrested in the complex last month ...

February 22, 2009

In West Virginia, Massey Energy is asking a court to bar protesters of mountain top removal mining from any of its facilities in the southwestern part of the state...

Click here for Inner City Press' questions and answers last week with Guatemala's president about mining.

February 15, 2010

EPA Region IV, which has so far not agreed to activists' calls to investigate a history of inequitable decisions, has allowed minority and economically disadvantaged communities to bear the brunt of pollution problems in the area, most recently by allowing coal ash that spilled from a Tennessee power plant in 2008 to be disposed near an environmental justice community in Alabama...

February 8, 2010

Kentucky's former director of mine permits has filed a "whistleblower" lawsuit, contending he was fired for complaining that his superiors broke the law by approving certain permits. Ron Mills was fired in November without explanation. His suit charges that the administration of Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R) and Energy and Environment Cabinet Secretary Len Peters had implemented a policy to "improperly and unlawfully allow coal companies to obtain mining permits that would encompass land sites for which the coal companies had failed to obtain right of entry." Peters said in interviews that he fired Mills because he lacked the management skills required for the job

February 1, 2010

Last week saw the launch of the Congressional Coal Caucus, an organization dedicated to representing the embattled fossil fuel's role in national energy policy. Republican Reps. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Dennis Rehberg of Montana and John Shimkus of Illinois joined Democrats Jason Altmire and Tim Holden of Pennsylvania and John Salazar of Colorado in announcing the caucus and sent out a letter encouraging other members to join. Just what we need...

January 25, 2010

Many Chicagoans have resisted racially imbalanced distribution of transportation services. There's another battle on Feb. 7 when new CTA cuts will weigh most heavily on predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhoods. Out of the nine express bus routes that the CTA plans to eliminate, seven cross South and West Side neighborhoods that are typically populated by minorities less likely to own cars.

And what about, in NYC, the MTA's cuts? Also in NYC the Board of Education, rather than closing ALL of Alfred E. Smith Career and Technical Education High School in the Bronx, is only phasing out carpentry, plumbing, electrical and other trade programs, leaving open only automotive... What was that about green jobs again?


January 11, 2010

EPA defends itself -- why are we not surprised? Despite protests to efforts to redevelop the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard which residents are being harmed by toxic dust from the project, U.S. EPA believes the project has effective safeguards to prevent asbestos exposure, according to a draft report. The agency's report bragged of "no reason to suspend or stop the construction project," saying it is effectively preventing "dust generation and limiting asbestos exposure." We'll see.

January 4, 2010

We step back from weekly news to note and mourn the loss in June 2009 of EJ activist Luke Cole, in a car crash in Uganda. He will be missed...

December 28, 2009

In the UK, H&M and Zara are two stores accused of using cotton suppliers in Bangladesh. It is thought many of their raw materials come from Uzbekistan, where children as young as 10 are forced to work in the fields. They are calling on retailers to ban the use of Uzbek cotton and implement "track and trace" systems to make sure the source of the material can be vouched for. H&M said it "does not accept" child labor and "seeks to avoid" using Uzbek cotton. But the company said it did "not have any reliable methods" to ensure Uzbek cotton did not end up in any of its products...

December 21, 2009

In Massachusetts, court documents filed at the Bristol County Superior Court last week show that Monsanto Co. and Cornell-Dubilier Electronics Inc. manufactured pesticides and electrical parts, respectively, which have been linked to PCB contaminations at three properties near Keith Middle School. The documents, filed in the ongoing lawsuit neighbors brought against the city of New Bedford, include photographs of PCB-containing electrical capacitors.

December 14, 2009

As UN Flies 700 Staff to Copenhagen, Coup Leader Set to Speak, Major Emitter Excluded

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 10 -- In the run up to the Copenhagen climate change conference, Inner City Press on December 4 asked UN climateer Janos Pasztor how many UN system staff, officials and consultants would be traveling to Denmark, with what carbon footprint. Pasztor said it wouldn't be known until the conference began.

  On December 10, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky finally answered the question, or part of it. He said that the Copenhagen conference has among its participants 477 people from the UN Secretariat and 309 from 19 specialized agencies and related organizations. That is, 786 people from the UN. But does this include consultants? And what is the carbon footprint and will it be offset?

  Nesirky did however answer two questions Inner City Press asked on December 10, after an ill attended noon briefing held at the same time as a media stakeout by U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice. Inner City Press asked if Ban Ki-moon is aware of the request that the coup leader of Madagascar not be allowed to participate in the Copenhagen conference, just as he was barred from speaking before the General Assembly in September.

  Nesirky answered, "As for Madagascar, it is scheduled to speak on next Wednesday 16 December, sometime after 6 p.m., so they seem to have been invited." But what about the request that, as at the UN General Debate in September, they be disinvited?

  On December 8, Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon

Inner City Press: Has Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, has he indicated to you – we’ve heard that you’ve spoken to him weekly by videoconference – he represents the African Union. Is the $10 billion enough? They threatened to walk out if not sufficient funds were committed. What’s you stance on how that issue’s going to play out?

SG: As you know I, together with Prime Minister [Lars Løkke] Rasmussen [of Denmark], have been engaging in weekly videoconferences with major stakeholders on climate change - particularly the representatives of the most vulnerable countries, including the African Union and small island developing countries. We are going to continue to do that, as we did in Trinidad and Tobago. Now the idea of short-term fast-track financial support is supported by developing countries. We had a very in-depth discussion on this issue during our Commonwealth summit meeting in Trinidad and Tobago. As you know the 53-Member State Commonwealth adopted a consensus declaration where this financial support – fast-track support – was agreed by all the Member States, including a provision that 10% of this $10 billion will be provided to small island developing countries.

  So the Commonweath agreed -- but has the African Union? Inner City Press asked Ban's top humanitarian John Holmes on December 10, but he said he hadn't been involved in setting the $10 billion figure. So who was?

  Inner City Press also asking about the block on participation by Taiwan, which is a major industrial emitter. Nesirky answered only that "Taiwan is not a party to the UNFCCC." But why not? Would the UN want a major source of emission like Taiwan to participate?

  The answer, of course, in China, a senior diplomat of which told Inner City Press a good joke on Thursday. He noted that U.S.' Susan Rice had been harsh against Iran in that morning's Council meeting. She has to play to the electorate, he said, just as Iran's teetered regime tries to strengthen its power by being ever more hard-line. The Chinese diplomat said, "This is the problem with democracy." And then he laughed.

Footnote: New Jersey, more than 100 gas stations sued Exxon Mobil Corp. last week, saying the company is manipulating the quantity and timing of fuel deliveries to overcharge them for wholesale gasoline and rent. Sounds like Exxon...

December 7, 2009

Even as cleanup efforts are still under way for a North Slope oil spill discovered Sunday, BP reported a leak from another pipeline it manages on Wednesday. BP discovered the new spill Wednesday afternoon and reported it to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Officials estimate 7,000 gallons of "produced water" -- water pumped with oil from wells and then separated from crude at processing centers -- are at the leak site. The leaky 6-inch pipeline was inside a manifold building where different pipes come together. BP estimated that about 5,040 gallons remained inside the building while the remaining produced waters spilled out onto the gravel production pad outside... Beyond Petroleum?

November 30, 2009

In Lagos last week, Ngeri Benibo, the director general and chief executive of Nigeria's National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency, argued that “Africa should be equitably compensated in the context of environmental justice, for environmental resources, economic and social loses as a result of climate change...the Copenhagen outcome must provide new, additional, sustainable, accessible and predictable finance for climate change programs."

  The call for unity comes as the UK and UN got the Commonwealth meeting to endorse the $10 billion proposal, lower than Africa's reported $67 billion figure. Then again, Ms. Benibo's comments were in a speech at the Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society / ExxonMobil annual conference. Couldn't find another sponsor?

November 23, 2009

Alcoa said last week that it would suspend operations at two aluminum smelters in Italy, cutting about 2,000 jobs, over concerns that it would no longer receive what it considered affordable electricity rates. A recent ruling by the European Union struck down rate subsidies the Italian government had provided for the smelters, ordering the government to recover its previous aid...

November 16, 2009

In August, five months after the Mozambican government adopted its biofuels policy, two organizations released a study called "Jatropha! A Socio-economic Pitfall for Mozambique." In it, the groups Environmental Justice and the National Union of Peasants question what they say are "myths" propagated by the jatropha industry and government officials. "Almost all of jatropha planted in Mozambique has been on arable land, with fertilisers and pesticides," the report says. "Jatropha is planted in direct replacement of food crops," it adds. "Given that around 87 percent of Mozambicans are subsistence farmers ... major concerns arise when one considers the plan to encourage (them) to plant large amounts of jatropha."

November 9, 2009

As UN's Ban Admits Copenhagen Deal Unlikely, His Story Is Re-Written

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 4 -- For months, the UN and its Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have been calling for a legally binding agreement on climate change to be reached at the Copenhagen meetings in December. When Ban's advisor Jeffrey Sachs on October 6 said this would be unlikely, and Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson to comment, the response was that Sachs spoke only his his personal capacity.

   When UN climate negotiator Yvo de Boer later in October was quoted by the Financial Times that a legally binding agreement was unlikely, and Inner City Press asked Ban's climate point man Janos Pasztor about it, Pasztor said that de Boer had been spoken to, and was incompletely quoted by the FT.

   But when Ban was quoted in London that a legally binding agreement is unlikely, and Inner City Press asked his spokesperson Michele Montas to comment on this change of position, she replied "that has already been said here." Video here, from Minute 20:25.

  To some it seemed that comments portraying an agreement in Copenhagen as unlikely has been repudiated by Team Ban, and only now adopted. Why not admit to the change?

  Later a senior Ban advisor explained to Inner City Press, a legally binding agreement is now "physically impossible," given the amount of time remaining. But why publicly downplay the change? Inner City Press asked the advisor, and will continue to ask: what does "Seal the Deal" mean now? And who has the SealTheDeal2010 website, now that the 2009 version become of only historical interest? Watch this site.

November 2, 2009

Surreally, in the run up to this week's NJ governor election with its high profile endorsement, efforts to deepen the Delaware River's main channel would face a lawsuit if the Army Corps of Engineers begins the work without permits, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) said Monday. The Corps said last week that it would go ahead with its $300 million project, which has not yet received permits from Delaware.

October 26, 2009

China has started to evict 330,000 people to make way for a project to divert water from the south of the country to the north. The central route, which is scheduled for completion sometime in 2014, is supposed to supply about a quarter of Beijing's water. Critics argue that the water diversion will be harmful to the environment...

October 19, 2009

When even UN advisor Jeffery Sachs says a deal is unlikely at Copenhagen, there's little chance. Inner City Press has pursued whether Sachs spoke on behalf of or with the knowledge of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. No, it appears.

October 12, 2009

The UK's BP and the China National Petroleum Corp.have signed an initial agreement with Iraq to develop Rumaila, Iraq's largest producing oil field. According to the deal, which could lead to $15 billion in investment, BP will hold a 38 percent stake in the venture, with CNPC and the Iraq government holding 37 percent and 25 percent, respectively

October 5, 2009

In China, more than 100 children in Fujian province have suffered lead poisoning as a result of pollution from a nearby battery plant. Blood samples of children younger than 14 taken last week revealed 121 of 287 had excessive lead levels, officials announced. Local authorities have closed the local Huaqiang Battery Factory and promised to treat the poisoned children and provide them with extra nutrition

September 28, 2009

In Utah, the Mine Safety and Health Administration has taken a coal mine off of its special watch list. The Horizon mine had faced scrutiny for the number of roof falls and safety violations it had wracked up. The mine's present operator, American West Resources Inc., has retreated from the problematic mine section, abandoning 300,000 tons of coal. For now...

The Italian oil firm Eni SpA has decided against trying to take over Tullow Oil PLC, a British firm that has rich oil-development prospects in Uganda and Ghana. Tullow, which saw its value jump this week after it announced two additional finds in Africa, opposed the bid...

September 21, 2009

In Uganda, Tullow Oil PLC last week said it has made the largest oil find yet in the Lake Albert area of Uganda, a region where it has already found more than 700 million barrels of oil equivalent. The find could prompt bids for the company. Italian energy firm Eni SpA is one potential bidder...

September 14, 2009

New tests have confirmed extremely high levels of dioxin, a toxic ingredient used in the military defoliant Agent Orange, at the site of a former U.S. air base in Vietnam. The site, where Danang Airport now sits, shows dioxin levels in the soil, sediment and fish at 300 to 400 times higher than international safety standards.

September 7, 2009

The EPA is being asked to stay implementation of its rule changing the definition of solid waste (DSW) until the agency finishes the review of how the regulation would impact lower-income and minority communities. The concern is that companies with previously dubious environmental practices are taking advantage of regulatory exemptions in the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) rule...

August 31, 2009

In Michigan, a huge fire tore through a subsidiary of Sterling Oil & Gas, closing down rail service between Detroit and Pontiac. The fire sent black smoke hundreds of feet into the air. U.S. EPA says that it is monitoring the fire's residue, but that it expects it should cause no health risks. Oh really?

August 24, 2009

In California, the operator of the cargo ship that caused a 2007 oil spill in the San Francisco Bay has pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to pay a $10 million fine. The Hong Kong-based company, Fleet Management Ltd., pleaded guilty to charges of obstruction, making false statements and negligent discharge of oil. The deal must still be approved by a federal judge. It shouldn't be...

August 17, 2009

Exxon Mobil had pled guilty to killing at least 85 protected birds in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming between 2004 and 2009 by exposure to natural gas well reserve pits and waste water storage facilities drilling and production facilities

August 10, 2009

In the U.S. Senate last week, Gary Guzy was asked how Browner and Mary Nichols, the head of the California Air Resources Board, decided to keep their discussions as quiet as possible during the run-up to new national auto standards proposed in May, holding no group meetings and taking care to not leak updates to the press -- what ever happened to transparency?

August 3, 2009

USEC won't withdraw a $2 billion loan-guarantee application for building a commercial nuclear-fuel enrichment plant, despite the Energy Department's request that it do so, the company announced last week. The Bethesda, Md.-based company said it is proceeding with the application to fund construction of the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio, because the proposal meets "the financial and technical requirements of the department's loan guarantee program as well as numerous Obama administration policy objectives," USEC said...

July 27, 2009

China's CNOOC and Sinopec have agreed to buy a 20% stake in an oil field off the coast of Angola for $1.3 billion, the latest in a series of Chinese acquisitions of overseas energy and mining assets. The companies would split ownership of the resources in an area known as block 32, which has already yielded 12 discoveries ...

July 20, 2009

  JPMorgan Chase has a Community Reinvestment Act duty in West Virginia and Kentucky, for example, and in neighboring states. Meanwhile, Chase is funding 6 out of the top 8 corporate producers of MTR coal in Appalachia. (Massey, International Coal Group, Arch Coal, Consol Energy, TECO and Foundation Coal.), per RAN. Chase was a co-lead arranger and underwriter for more than $1 billion in new financing to Massey Energy less than 12 months ago. Massey Energy is the biggest and most controversial MTR mining company in Appalachia, and is responsible for nearly 20% of all MTR coal mined. Others have stopped funding it -- why not Chase?

July 13, 2009

In Delaware, the federal government fined Sunoco more than $200,000 this week, citing multiple health and safety violations at the company's refinery near Wilmington. Sunoco did not provide employees with proper protective equipment and did not maintain diagrams that accurately reflect the refinery's piping structure, according to OSHA...

July 6, 2009

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will aim toward climate legislation with a hearing July 7 including three top Obama administration officials. U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack are slated to testify at the hearing. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved a broad energy bill last month, while Majority Leader Harry Reid has given other committees with jurisdiction expected to weigh in -- Agriculture, Commerce, Finance and Foreign Relations -- until Sept. 18 to produce their additions to the package. The Senate hearing follows the House's passage of a climate and energy bill last week. The 219-212 House vote shifts the battle to the Senate, where assembling the 60-vote coalition needed to pass a climate bill is expected to be as tough as securing House passage, if not harder.

June 29, 2009

In California, The company that operated a container ship that rammed into the Bay Bridge in 2007 and released 53,000 gallons of fuel oil was denied its request yesterday to limit its fine to $400,000 on criminal charges of polluting San Francisco Bay. Fleet Management Ltd., which operated the 901-foot-long Cosco Busan during the Nov. 7, 2007 spill, offered to plead guilty to two misdemeanors last month, but U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said federal prosecutors are entitled to file amended charges that could carry fines of $40 million...

June 21, 2009

Will the Obama administration release the locations of 44 coal-ash disposal sites deemed national security risks? The information has been requested under FOIA from the U.S. EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Homeland Security requesting a list of coal-ash dumps designated "high hazard," meaning they could threaten human life if their barriers fail. Questions about health and environmental risks posed by ash impoundments arose following the collapse of an impoundment at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant last December. EPA collected information about impoundments from power companies that operate ash sites, but was urged by Homeland Security and the Army Corps not to make public the locations of those dumps. The requests argue that people who live near these sites have a right to know about their potential hazards, noting that locations of nuclear, Superfund and other hazardous sites are public knowledge. Is there a "we are embarrassed" exception?

June 15, 2009

In Kentucky, an agreement to allow 50 additional state counties and 20 more in Indiana at the the Outer Loop Landfill was discarded because it violated the state's open meeting law. Seven months ago, the chairwoman of the Louisville/Jefferson County Waster Management District board mailed the agreement to board members, asking for their approval. But it had to be done in public...

May 25, 2009

In California, two waste management companies, American Metal and Iron Inc. and California Waste Solutions are being fined by U.S. EPA for violating the Clean Water Act. Waste Solutions is in violation of sending trash and other pollutants from three of its locations in Oakland and San Jose into nearby waterways from 2002 to 2007, agency officials said. American Metal and Iron is in violation of sending polluted storm water discharges from two of its San Jose sites into Coyote Creek. The companies combined will pay a mere $306,000 in fines...

May 18, 2009

In China, more than 160 are in the hospitals and hundreds more are sickened by air pollution suspected to have come from a chemical plant in the country's northeast. Staff at the plant and residents living near the Jilin Chemical Fibre Group facility complained of headache, nausea, vomiting and general fatigue in late April. Air tests by authorities have not been able to identify what could be causing the illnesses

May 11, 2009

Asking, asking: The federal government is being asked to investigate whether scores of Crestwood residents are suffering any diseases or illnesses after drinking the village's tainted water for decades. Durbin sent a letter this week to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, asking it to at least try to answer the difficult question of whether illnesses could be linked to the tainted water. There appears to be very little information available to guide such a review...

Chevron is being asked to be more transparent with shareholders about the company's potential liability in a $27 billion environmental damages case in Ecuador. Texaco, which Chevron acquired in 2001, is accused of dumping toxic wastewater from drilling operations into unlined pits in Ecuador, causing widespread environmental damage and alleged cancer deaths. Chevron is fighting the lawsuit filed on behalf of tens of thousands of Ecuadorian villagers in the Amazon

May 4, 2009

In Oklahoma, Freeport-McMoRan and Phelps Dodge are defendants in a zinc smelter pollutions class action case returned last week to state court... Meanwhile on the other side of the world, Chevron is under fire in Western Australia for gas flares...

April 27, 2009

Last week, a federal judge gave residents living near two chemical companies the opportunity to "opt out" of a proposed settlement over
foul odors from the Louisville plants they say have degraded their properties. U.S. District Court Judge John G. Heyburn II's decision
extends the deadline to May 15 to ensure there has been adequate public notice about the settlements, which total an estimated $800,000
in joint scholarships but restrict participants' right to make legal claims against companies Rohm and Haas and DuPont...

Saudi petrochemicals maker Saudi Basic Industries Corp., the largest listed company in the Middle East, reported a first-quarter loss of $260 million, its first quarterly loss since 2001 -- which was the year when...

April 20, 2009

Defense lawyers in the W.R. Grace & Co. asbestos trial last week urged the judge to order federal agents to produce their pretrial communications with government witnesses and accused prosecutors of intentionally presenting false testimony and withholding evidence. Grace and five former managers are standing trial over allegations that the company and executives knowingly exposed Libby to a particularly lethal form of asbestos... Click here for Inner City Press' story last week about asbestos at the UN...

The Nigerian government has fined Shell $6,800 for its refusal to clean up its September 2008 oil spill in a timely matter. The oil company has also been ordered to pay damages to landowners adjacent to the spill. Civil unrest, vandalism and sabotage have lowered Nigeria's total crude production to 1.78 million barrels per day, down from 2.6 million barrels in 2006

April 13, 2009

  In New Mexico,  Espanola Mayor Joseph Maestas and a group of business owners plan to oppose a federal agency they see as the only obstacle to a multi-million dollar reconstruction project on Paseo de Onate. Maestas said Tuesday he plans to file an environmental justice complaint against the Federal Highway Administration’s New Mexico Division for allegedly discriminating against Espanola while favoring projects elsewhere. “We’re ready to go, but we have a federal agency that is obstructing the process,” said Maestas, a former Administration engineer. Under this administration?

April 6, 2009

   The U.S. Department of Justice is accepting public comments until April 25 on the proposed $52 million settlement agreement with Asarco for cleanup of its El Paso copper smelter site. The proposed settlement agreement can be found online at www.usdoj.gov/enrd/1043.htm

Separately, the Texas attorney general's office is accepting public comments on the proposed agreement until May 3.

March 30, 2009 -- annals of environmental justice: the president of the Sierra Club wrote in the New York Times, March 26, that "We offer at-risk young people in the Bronx their first wilderness experience."  No, we have some wilderness right here in The Bronx...

March 23, 2009

  Consider American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO), which filed for bankruptcy in 2005.  ASARCO faces some $7.9 billion in environmental claims.  ASARCO offered to submit payments for only  $1.1 billion for toxic cleanups. Who would pay for the rest? What ever happened to Superfund?

March 16, 2009

   We hear that the Ecuadorian government has closed Accion Ecologica in "retaliation against Accion Ecologica's opposition to mining, an activity eagerly promoted by President Rafael Correa's government." Hmm...

 While Detroiters fight to close down the garbage incinerator run by the Greater Detroit Resource Recovery Authority, some argue that it must remain open and receiving the city's waste, due to the one-sided contract with NJ-based Covanta Energy and Boston's Energy Investors Funds. Yes, we can call this contract a suicide pact...

March 9, 2009

As UN Covers For Obama Climate Backslide, It Does Not Carbon Offset, "Act Not Together"

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, March 6 -- As the UN provides groundcover for the Obama administration's retreat from its climate change rhetoric during the electoral campaign, the UN "doesn't have its act together" on even offsetting the impacts of travel by its Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other high officials, the UN's Yvo de Boer told the Press on Friday.

  Mr. de Boer held a press conference to announce positive movement on climate change in Congress, at least in the House of Representatives. Inner City Press asked if he and UN agree with the Denmark's Minister of Climate and Energy Conniee Hedegaard, who has said if the U.S. doesn't pass cap and trade legislation in 2009, it will be a step backwards.  De Boer responded that Rep. Markey (Dem-MA) told him legislation should emerge from his House committee in May. The Senate, de Boer said, is more complicated. That's an understatement.

  Inner City Press asked if he agreed that Obama's climate negotiator Todd Sterns statement that any 25% reduction in emissions by the U.S. by 2020 is unrealistic is a "diss" of the UN's IPCC.  De Boer said he agreed with Stern -- de Boer subtly moved the goal post being dissed to 40% -- but said that perhaps the U.S. could invest money in deforestation projects as a way to show seriousness.

  On that, Inner City Press asked de Boer whether he, Ban Ki-moon and the UN are offsetting the carbon emission of their travel. De Boer admitted that they are not, saying that they are trying to come up with a methodology but "we don't have our act together yet." Video here, from Minute 49:22.

  This seems the least one could expect from a Secretary-General who speaks so much about climate change. A senior Ban advisor, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Inner City Press that the Ban administration thinks that carbon offsetting is hype. Why not say that publicly, then?

  Inner City Press asked asked de Boer about a leaked draft of European finance ministers, that industry and not government should foot the bill of helping the developing world reduce its emissions. Governments print money, de Boer quipped, but they don't make it. One way or another, the taxpayer is on the hook. It's what the banks are saying, too. Some view it as competing ransom notes.

   De Boer was asked about the climate "mini-summit" with Obama that the Ban Administration had leaked and then undercut, when they thought Obama would not come. De Boer said that climate and summits will be on Ban's agenda in Washington next week. We will continue to follow these issues.

Footnote: in fairness to Ban Ki-moon, Inner City Press asked the spokesman for President of the General Assembly Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, before his recent trip through Iran, Syria and Geneva, if he would be carbon offsetting. Ask the PGA, the spokesman said.

  But the next day, when d'Escoto took questions in front of the Trusteeship Council, Inner City Press was asked to not repeat the question, an answer would be forthcoming. Then none was received, despite Inner City Press providing its previous coverage of UN offsetting -- in the case of one conference -- and not offsetting.

  It's like Ban's demotion of Tanzanian Anna Tibaijuku from the UN's top post in Nairobi, during women and gender week: practice what you preach. We'll see.

Click here for Inner City Press' Feb 26 UN debate


March 2, 2009

  Off the coast of New Jersey, there are proposals for three port storage and regasification (conversion of liquid back to gas) facilities for imported liquefied natural gas (LNG), including the "Atlantic Sea Island Group (ASIG) proposal that envisions building the world's first man-made opensea island, located 19.5 miles from Sea Bright and 13 miles from Long Beach, N.Y. A group of investors proposes to build a 116-acre LNG terminal and industrial complex for a project known as Safe Harbor Energy. Next is Excalibur Energy, a new conglomerate of Canadian Superior Energy and Global LNG, a Delaware company, is promoting the Liberty Natural Gas project, which would consist of four submerged turret buoys and 50 miles of new pipeline to be built 15 miles off Asbury Park. And there's ExxonMobil's BlueOcean Energy project, which proposes a LNG floating terminal with storage and regasification facilities. It is slated for 20 miles off Manasquan...

February 23, 2009

  In March 2005 in Texas City, Texas, BP killed 15 people and injured more than 170. Last week, BP paid a $180 million fine. "We are pleased to have achieved this settlement and will work to continue reducing emissions and to ensure regulatory compliance at Texas City," BP's spokesman said-in-a-statement...

 One of the 10,000 students heading to Washington for Power Shift '09 said was quoted that, "We need to make this movement more than just Whole Foods and Toyota Priuses." Yeah -- how about targeting corporate wrongdoers?

February 16, 2009

  We note "Palm Beach County Judge Laura Johnson, who ruled last week that environmental activists Lynne Purvis and Panagioti Tsolkas would spend 30 and 60 days, respectively, in jail. Their crime? Organizing a February protest that blocked the entrance to Palm Beach Aggregates — soon to be the site of the West County Energy Center. The natural gas-fueled power plant will one day have three 1,250-megawatt units, enough juice to power three-quarters of a million homes and businesses. It will require massive amounts of natural gas for burning and water for cooling." Some justice....

   Faith in action: The country’s environmental movement in Honduras has significantly slowed deforestation in one section of the country, but an activist priest says he will keep up the pressure against commercial logging. "We have neutralized the enemy," said Father Jose Andres Tamayo, the parish priest in this ramshackle town in Olancho, a once heavily-forested central department of Honduras. “We haven’t won everything we wanted, but we’ve achieved a greater level of awareness and changed the mentality of people in the government offices where decisions are made,” he told Catholic News Service.  “In this region we’ve stopped 80 per cent of the illegal logging.”  Hear, hear...

February 9, 2009

  American International Group has withdrawn its membership from the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, the company said Friday. AIG still stands to gain from the creation of a potential multi-trillion dollar market in insuring climate change policies that could range from protection for potential weather-related incidents to liability for carbon dioxide storage leakage.

In West Virginia, Patriot Coal Corp. will pay $6.5 million in fines to settle hundreds of water pollution violations at mining operations across the state. citizen groups likely will seek to intervene and oppose the government's deal with Patriot, saying it's not clear how much damage was done by Patriot's violations, and therefore impossible for the government to know if the fines are adequate.

February 2, 2009

  In Nevada, Native American tribes vowed to charge forward with their efforts to stall the expansion of a gold mine on federal land in Nevada despite the fact that a federal judge denied an injunction this week. U.S. District Judge for the Nevada District Larry Hicks this week said there was not enough evidence to force Barrick Gold Corp.  to stop digging its 900-acre, 2,000-foot-deep open-pit gold mine at its Cortez Hills site on Mount Tenabo in Lander County, Nev...

  In Australia, "uncertainty over the future of the Gunns pulp mill in Tasmania has again weighed down the forester's share price. The Environment Minister Peter Garrett has suggested the company may have misled the stock exchange by yesterday saying the mill's technology would meet approval requirements... After sitting in the red for most of the day Rio Tinto shares surged in late trade to close more than five per cent higher. But it has little option other than to go ahead with a carve-up in order to keep its promise to pay off $AU15-billion of debt this year.

Today it announced it's sold some of its South American operations to Brazilian iron ore giant Vale for $US1.6-billion or about $AU2.5-billion. And another miner with debt issues, OZ Minerals, is selling its eight per cent stake in zinc producer Nyrstar at a loss for $33-million.

OZ Minerals has until late February to refinance about $AU870-million in debt, and today it confirmed it's prepared to sell all of its flagship prominent hill mine in South Australia. BHP Billiton is seen as a likely buyer."

January 26, 2009

In Delaware, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has noted three "very low safety significance" problems at the Salem 1 nuclear plant after an investigation triggered by a cooling system control failure in October. The report was released the same day that regulators held a public meeting to review backup power problems at Salem Unit 1 along the Delaware River in New Jersey in 2005 and 2007

In Chile, BHP Billiton will delay a $3.5 billion expansion of its Escondida copper mine, the world's largest, because of slumping metal demand. BHP had planned a desalinization plant but now estimates that copper prices will stay relatively low for the next 12 to 18 month. BHP Billiton will also be cutting 2,100 jobs at the company's Australian nickel unit, 550 jobs in the U.S., the 2,000 in base-metals operations in Chile, 1,100 in metallurgical coal in Australia and 200 at the Olympic Dam copper-uranium expansion project in Australia. BHP will cut coal production in Australia by 10 percent to 15 percent, equivalent to an annual loss of 4 million to 6 million metric tons of metallurgical coal, said BHP CFO Alex Vanselow...

January 19, 2009

  The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a proposal last week to build a natural gas terminal on the site of the former Sparrows Point shipyard in eastern Baltimore County, and an 88-mile pipeline to Pennsylvania. The five-member FERC panel voted 4-1 without discussion to approve the request from Virginia-based AES Corp. The pipeline is to run through Baltimore, Harford and Cecil counties on its way to southern Pennsylvania. AES Corp., which declined to comment yesterday, has 30 days to accept the commission's conditions and 90 days to submit implementation plans. Other parties to the case have 30 days to appeal the decision. Fight fight fight.

January 12, 2009

  NY State governor Patterson has a new plan of which his supporter say, "In New York City there's a much stronger emphasis on environmental justice and access to parks, which ties into the governor's proposal to have more healthy, outdoor exercise accessible to children."  We'll see...

January 5, 2009

  While a press release promotes "the NYC Community Air Survey [a]s an initiative of Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC, which aims to... Reforest targeted areas of our parkland," parkland in The Bronx was given away and eliminated for the new Yankee Stadium.  Oh but "air samples will be analyzed for fine particles (PM2.5), nitrogen oxides (NOx), elemental carbon (EC), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and ozone (O3)." Hot air...

December 29, 2008

   So HBOS is said to be cutting off Oz Minerals, not extending loans, the extractive party is over... and in New York, the Parks Department has closed Harlem's Thomas Jefferson Park due to elevated levels of lead...

December 22, 2008

Wisconsin Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner on December 18 offered to give his take on the status of the negotiations after spending a full week at the Poznan climate conference for meetings with foreign diplomats, industry officials and former Vice President Al Gore. Obama did not send his own team to the U.N. meeting, but instead asked members of Congress and staff attending the negotiations to brief him when they got back. Several U.S. lawmakers signed up for the trip to Poland, but only Sensenbrenner and Sen. John Kerry actually crossed the Atlantic for the negotiations. On December 15, Obama said he had spoken with Kerry, the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, about the Poznan negotiations. But a Sensenbrenner spokesman said today that no such conversation has taken place between the Republican congressman and the president-elect. Meeting with reporters last week in Poland, Sensenbrenner predicted that because of the economic implications of cap-and-trade legislation, Democrats would lose their House and Senate majorities in the 2010 elections if they pursue votes on such a bill.

In his letter to Obama, Sensenbrenner said he was "deeply concerned" about the shape of the U.N. climate negotiations after hearing from Chinese and Indian diplomats who explained that they would not accept legally binding emission reductions in a new international global warming agreement.

Sensenbrenner cautioned Obama that the U.S. Senate rejected the 1997 Kyoto Protocol because developing countries took a similar position more than a decade ago. "The current negotiations seem to be leading toward a similarly flawed outcome," he wrote. At the U.N. negotiations, representatives from several emerging economies did outline new domestic emission reduction strategies that show a willingness to go much further than they did during the Kyoto negotiations. Brazil, for example, said it would set a target to reduce deforestation 70 percent over the next decade. Mexico said it would establish a cap-and-trade program aimed at curbing its midcentury emissions by 50 percent compared with 2002 levels.

 China, South Africa and South Korea also drew praise for their domestic climate plans. And U.N. climate meetings over the next year are aimed at figuring out exactly how to actually measure, report and verify the global warming policies of developing countries -- with the outcomes included when the talks conclude in December 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark. "They're not saying what we heard a few years ago, which is we won't take action," said the head of the international policy office at the Natural Resources Defense Council. He said there was good reason for Obama to sit down with the Republican congressman to talk about climate change. "Given the bipartisan spirit Barack Obama has pledged going forward, it'd be useful to hear both sides of the perspective," Schmidt said. "It'd give Obama a chance to compare notes." An Obama spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

December 15, 2008

 In Texas, a Dallas program that seeks to improve local air quality by offering up to $3,000 in subsidies to low-income residents to replace old vehicles with new ones is struggling as applications have dropped 40 percent amid economic turmoil. Participation in a similar program in Houston is down about 55 percent. Old cars and trucks emit up to 30 times more pollution than new vehicles...

 In Ukraine, President Viktor Yushchenko said his country will pay in full for any natural gas it imports and that any Russian supplies will flow unmolested through his country's borders. The statements came hours after Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Ukraine has not fully paid its electricity bills and said the West had no grounds to demand Russia sell gas to Ukraine at subsidized prices...

December 8, 2008

Falling uranium prices forced Toronto-based Denison Mines Corp. to shut down the Tony M mine in southern Utah last week, but the company will open another Utah mine, the Beaver Shaft mine, that has higher grades of uranium and deposits of vanadium, which is used in steel alloys. Uranium yellowcake hit a high of $136 a pound last year, then dropped to $44 a few weeks ago...

  Meanwhile in Virginia, a state commission will study whether 60,000 tons of uranium can be safely mined in the rural south-central region despite opposition from the General Assembly. The Coal and Energy Commission can review the possible effects mining would have on the air, land and drinking water resources, but it does not have the power to lift a 25-year-old ban on uranium mining, which the General Assembly enacted shortly after the deposits were discovered. Supporters of the study say Virginia needs to expand its search for alternative energy sources, but opponents from the area where the uranium was discovered and environmental groups say mines put the drinking water and other natural resources at risk of contamination

  China National Petroleum Corp., the parent of Asia's biggest oil producer PetroChina Co., has made six major oil and gas discoveries this year and may hit a record for a third year, the company said on its Web site. It is stepping up efforts on fuel searches to meet rising domestic demand for energy and will maintain a "stable" increase in crude production and a "rapid" gain in gas output next year, the statement said...

December 1, 2008

For a grassroots debate in Cincinnati this week, "environmental Justice is about keeping already polluted neighborhoods from having to accept more polluting neighbors – usually industry, not a family of 12 or more. The myth that jobs will be lost and businesses will choose other locations (taking their precious tax dollars with them) is one of several objections used to support placing polluting companies in 'overburdened' areas."

  Globally, HSBC client companies' violations include... client companies embroiled in conflicts over lands and forests with the Penan communities in Sarawak regarding the establishment of oil palm plantations on community lands

.. long standing conflicts between client companies and communities in North Sumatra which have led to the imprisonment of villagers and restrictions being placed on people’s movements, which have in turn prevented children from getting to school and villagers from going to market or their farmland

.. the takeover of community lands in West Kalimantan undermining community food security

.. repeated allegations that client companies in several parts of Indonesia are clearing forests and areas of high conservation value.

Nearly all of the 17 business groups which are HSBC’s clients have announced plans to expand their palm oil operations. Unless their practices change, these operations will inevitably destroy more forest, wildlife and peoples’ homes.   Yep, that's HSBC..

November 24, 2008

On Climate, UN Lobbies Itself, On Migration It Tells the Poor to Go Home

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, November 20 -- That women are impacted by climate change, and that global warming talks in Poznan should take notice, are hardly controversial positions. But Thursday at the UN a strange grouping held a briefing on this issue. Ostensibly a "civil society" organization, the "Global Gender and Climate Alliance," said they will try in Poznan "to ensure that climate change funds target women and men equally." 

  Strangely, the founders of this Alliance are UN agencies, the UN Development Program and the UN Environment Fund. Inner City Press asked if this doesn't constitute the UN lobbying itself, the UN taking up the space where independent civil society should be. Video here, "under construction" (at time of press conference) GGCA web site here.

  The briefers recoiled at the suggestion, calling the Alliance a "coalition of the passionate" and saying that the UN needs to work with civil society. Yes, but implicit in that formulation and in common sense is that the UN and civil society are not the same thing. The UN can't lobby itself, with member states money. Or can it?

November 17, 2008

  In Indiana, a a 79-year-old Vigo County woman is suing Pfizer, claiming her property was contaminated by PCBs when a breached wastewater lagoon at a Pfizer plant flooded the property after heavy rains in June. The woman is seeking temporary housing, and the lawsuit claims that Pfizer was negligent in maintaining the lagoon's dam, and also seeks environmental legal action against the company...

  In Vietnam, the environment minister admitted the fines for industrial polluters were too low to deter them from fouling the environment and proposed raising the penalties for every breach of regulation from 70 million dong ($4,100) to 500 million dong ($29,800). There were a series of pollution scandals in which companies from Taiwan and other nations were caught pumping toxic waste into rivers. The government was aware of 4,000 factories that were heavily polluting the air and water, but the environmental agency in Vietnam lacked the resources to staff them and efficiently crack down on the corruption...

November 10, 2008

  The Maryland Public Service Commission approved plans proposed by a subsidiary of Clipper Windpower last week for 28 turbines on 3,000 acres of Backbone Mountain, and the company hopes to start construction next year. The project would cost more than $120 million, and a representative for the company said that given the credit crisis, they still face many challenges...

  In the UK, car sales fell for the sixth consecutive month, dropping 23 percent in October as consumers hesitated to make big purchases while the U.K.'s economy headed toward a recession. The Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders lowered its 2008 sales forecast 4.9 percent, to 2.15 million vehicles, and is also calling for lower interest rates and cuts in vehicle taxes. Sales are also falling in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, which also lowered its vehicle sales predictions...

November 3, 2008

 As per the WashPost, another down side of ethanol: Alexandria, Va., is one example of a town caught off guard by ethanol transport through its boundaries. A company working with Norfolk Southern Corp.   railroad started unloading ethanol in the densely populated Washington, D.C., suburb in April, but it was more than a month later that Alexandria firefighters obtained the key tools they needed to extinguish ethanol fires, which cannot be put out with typical foams. Emergency preparation evacuations at an elementary school across from the loading operation did not begin until this month.

Officials are looking to shut down or restrict the ethanol transfer operation, saying it is potentially dangerous and a slap at city residents. The Alexandria ethanol controversy has also spurred a congressional scrutiny of rail laws. Long-established laws give railroads broad powers to move freight across state lines, including the authority to unload and load what they want with little or no deference to local officials in most cases. Top Alexandria officials, including the mayor, met with Norfolk Southern executives about the operation starting in 2006, but they did not notify residents or discuss it publicly, mistakenly assuming that Norfolk Southern would be required to apply for city approval before opening.
Now, Alexandria officials have taken their concerns to federal regulators, who have yet to issue a ruling. The two sides are also in court. Ethanol transfer accidents have been serious. A 2006 derailment of 23 Norfolk Southern tank cars in New Brighton, Pa., sparked a fire that burned for 48 hours and forced a seven-block evacuation...

 In Peru, a mining mess could contaminate ponds that provide drinking water to Lima. The metals company, Gold Hawk Resources of Canada, stopped production at its processing plant for its Coricancha mine in May as a preventative measure, and the government issued an emergency decree in July that helped stop farmers from irrigating crops on the hills above the tailing site to prevent the water from pressuring the walls of the ponds, which contain toxic chemicals. But the rainy season is approaching, and the government is bracing for a potential disaster...

  October 27, 2008

   In Pennsylvania, Penn Ridge Coal LLC and Allegheny Pittsburgh Coal Co. are suing Blaine, claiming that ordinances that protect the community from long-wall mining violate their right to do business. The ordinance prohibits corporations that have more than three violations against it in the past 20 years from doing business in the township, and companies claim that is an "anti-corporation law." No, we call it wise...

  In Ivory Coast, a court jailed two men for dumping toxic waste from a ship chartered by an international oil trader at open sites around the commercial capital Abidjan. The spill killed 17 people and sickened thousands. Nigerian Salomon Ugborugbo, director of the local Tommy company that had used trucks to distribute the waste, was charged with poisoning and given a 20-year sentence, while Ivorian shipping agent Desire Kouao got a five-year sentence for complicity. But what about the bigger fish?

October 20, 2008

 In Columbus, Ohio, Georgia-Pacific sued to force AIG, its insurer, to cover part of the $22 million settlement it paid to South Side residents when one of its resin plants exploded in 1997. Georgia Pacific paid $22 million to residents in 2001, but AIG refused to reimburse the company for its losses...

In Rhode Island, a Texas-based gas company is guilty of illegally storing liquid mercury without a permit, a jury decided this week. The mercury was removed from home gas regulators, and Southern Union was guilty of storing the containers inside an abandoned home in Pawtucket instead of shipping it out. The company faces a maximum fine of $38 million...

  Than Shwe versus nature, too: skins, teeth, claws and bones of 1,200 protected species, including 107 endangered tigers and cats, are being sold in Myanmar's markets...

October 13, 2008

  Fund diversion averted: the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality has agreed to pay $1 million to track air pollution and screen children for illnesses in south Phoenix after an outcry over a plan to use the money to fight global warming. The money came from a $6 million fine levied against a Honeywell plant for discharging harmful solvents and jet fuel into soil and the sewer system...

  Alabama-based Drummond Co. has claimed a 2.3-trillion cubic foot natural gas field that the company says could supply 10 percent of the annual U.S. usage. The field is near the company's vast coal fields in northeastern Colombia...

October 6, 2008

Native rights organizations and environmental justice groups are calling on the U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee and other Congressional Committees to conduct hearings concerning federal land management practices that threaten or destroy Tribal sacred lands.

September 29, 2008

At UN, Green Funding Is Blood Oil Money As Questions Are Excluded

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, September 24 -- When climate change is discuss in the UN, there is more than a little hot air. Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg appeared alongside Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on September 24, to announce $35 million in funding to the new UN Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation program, known by the catchy acronym REDD. As one correspondent noted, REDD in Norwegian means fear. Inner City Press asked about Norway's controversial $10 billion Arctic liquefied natural gas facility near Snoehvit, which will increase carbon emission levels. Video here.

   In response, Stoltenberg acknowledged that Norway's green philanthropy is an attempt to make up for the country's still rising level of green house gas emissions. That sure wasn't in the UN's press release.

September 22, 2008

   In St. Paul, Virginia 11 protesters were arrested in what they called "an action that successfully demonstrated to Dominion that there are a lot of people in the community that are having strong opposition to the power plant and to mountaintop removal mining and to what Dominion is trying to do to Southwest Virginia." Hear, hear.

September 15, 2008

A Kentucky environmental group sued the Clintwood Elkhorn Mining Co. for dumping mining waste into an Appalachian stream valley without a permit. The company acknowledged the dumping and called it an "isolated incident."

  And that makes it okay?

In Norway, as high gas prices increase incentives, the country's oil and gas industry will boost investments to $22.9 billion in 2009 to increase exploration for new reserves, the state statistics office said. Costs for companies such as StatoilHydro ASA  Click for Enhanced Coverage Linking Searchesand Det Norske Oljeselskap ASA have also climbed as a worldwide expansion in exploration drives up demand and prices for drilling rigs and engineers...

September 8, 2008

  In West Virginia, the head of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board said the agency's investigation into last week's deadly explosion at the Bayer CropScience plant could take about a year. The explosion occurred in the methomyl section of the plant and involved a new 4,000-gallon tank in the plant's southwestern corner. Bayer makes the pesticide methomyl in the plant and uses it to make Larvin, an insecticide used to kill pests on cotton, corn and other vegetables...

  Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev led the groundbreaking ceremony yesterday for a $5.8 billion new nuclear plant near the northern town of Belene, following the partial closure of the country's single nuclear facility. Building work on the first of the plant's two reactors was expected to be completed in 2013, and work on the second reactor was to be operational in 2014...

September 1, 2008

  Why on September 11?

Pursuant to the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), Public Law 92-463, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hereby provides notice that the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) will convene a meeting on the date and time described below. All meetings are open to the public. Members of the public are encouraged to provide comments relevant to the specific issues being considered by the NEJAC. For additional information about registering for public comment, please see SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION.

DATES: The NEJAC will convene an open meeting via teleconference call on Thursday, September 11, 2008, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. (all times noted are Eastern Time). Due to limited telephone lines, all members of the public who wish to attend the teleconference meeting or to provide public comment must register in advance, no later than Monday, September 8, 2008.

ADDRESSES: Because this meeting will be held via teleconference call, there is no physical location where members of the public can listen in. To attend, you must register in advance. See FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section below.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Pre-registration for all attendees is required. Because this meeting is conducted via teleconference call, online registrations will not be accepted. Rather, requests should be sent to Ms. Julianne Pardi of ICF International at: 33 Hayden Avenue, 3rd Floor, Lexington, MA 02421; Telephone: (781) 676-4010; E-mail: jpardi@icfi.com, or FAX: (781) 676-4005. Please provide name, organization, and telephone number for follow-up as necessary.

Correspondence concerning the meeting should be sent to Ms. Victoria Robinson, NEJAC Program Manager, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, at 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., (MC2201A), Washington, DC 20460; via e-mail at environmental-justice-epa@epa.gov; by telephone at (202) 564-6349; or by FAX at (202) 564-1624. Additional information about the meeting is available at the Internet Web site: http://www.epa.gov/compliance/environmentaljustice/nejac/meetings.html.

  But again, why on September 11?

August 25, 2008

  In Alaska, Canadian mining firm Ucore Uranium Inc. will spend $4 million this year to conduct exploratory drilling for uranium and other precious metals on the Prince of Wales Island, where the state's only producing uranium mine was in operation from 1957 to 1971...

   China National Petroleum Corp. said it has discovered oil and natural gas in two blocks in Kazakhstan. Chinese oil companies have boosted investment in domestic and overseas fields recently to help meet domestic demand in the world's fastest-growing major economy. China National's subsidiary, PetroKazakhstan Inc., made the discoveries, which yielded as much as 203.2 cubic meters (1,278 barrels) of oil per day and 173,100 cubic meters (6.11 million cubic feet) of natural gas per day. China National acquired PetroKazakhstan in 2005 for $4.18 billion in the country's biggest energy takeover...

August 18, 2008

  The Ecuadorian government has agreed to mediate a settlement between Chevron Corp. and 30,000 Amazon residents suing the company for up to $16 billion in environmental damages. The jungle dwellers are suing the U.S. oil company over charges it polluted the jungle and damaged their health by dumping 18 billion gallons of oil-laden water between 1997 and 1992. Neither party has ruled out a settlement, but experts say a deal is unlikely...

 In Arizona, Honeywell International directed $1 million of its environmental justice settlement for polluting Phoenix to... the Western Governors Association. The settlement, which still must be approved by the courts, states that the money will be earmarked for the governors' use as part of the Western Climate Initiative efforts to "develop regional strategies for addressing climate change." ADEQ Director Steve Owens claims, "This grew out of Honeywell's own interest in doing something to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions."

August 11, 2008

  Some Alaska lawmakers considered rescinding approval for an exclusive TransCanada license to build a gas pipeline after the company's chief executive remarked to a newspaper, "Nothing goes ahead until Exxon is happy with it." TransCanada Chief Executive Hal Kvisle sought to reassure legislators that the comment was neither meant as a slight against Exxon Mobil nor an indication that the gas company would have veto power over the project, a 1,715-mile line that would run from the North Slope to Alberta...

   Norway's Petroleum Directorate said it had completed a seismic scan of Arctic waters near the Lofoten Islands, which industry would like to see opened for oil and gas exploration and environmental groups say should not be disturbed. The state is refusing to publish the survey...

August 4, 2008

 In Kentucky, U.S. military officials last Tuesday confirmed that "trace" amounts of mustard gas, a deadly nerve agent, had leaked from a weapons stockpile in Richmond...

 The Bulgarian The environment ministry has granted a permit to a Canadian company to expand Europe's largest gold mine. Dundee Precious Metals Inc. has agreed to pay Bulgaria a higher annual fee and to allow the country to take a 25-percent stake in a planned gold- and copper-processing plant...

July 28, 2008

Resources, resources, and extractive industries --  Canadian mining company Minco Silver Corp. has agreed to pay $62.3 million for Sterling Mining Co., which has had financial problems that would have required it to unload assets if it did not find a partner. In 2003, Sterling bought the Sunshine silver mine, which has produced about 360 million ounces of silver since it opened in 1884...

  Vietnam wants to continue pursuing a joint oil-exploration project with Exxon Mobil Corp. in disputed waters despite warnings from China to drop the deal. The exploration would occur in parts of the South China Sea that both Vietnam and China have laid claim to...

July 21, 2008

 In North Carolina, there is a suit in federal court to stop a proposed Duke Energy Corp.  Click for Enhanced Coverage Linking Searchespower plant in Cliffside, saying the utility needs to remove more mercury from the future plant's emissions...

 Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed an agreement with the Indonesian president Saturday to cooperate on biofuels. The two nations are home to much of the world's remaining intact tropical rainforests. Brazil is a leading sugar cane-based fuel producer, and Indonesia is the world's largest producer of palm oil...

July 14, 2008

  In France, a 75-kilogram leak of untreated liquid uranium from a nuclear plant in Provence last week forced officials to ban residents and visitors in the popular tourist destination from drinking well water, swimming, or fishing in two rivers. Nuclear officials set the leak at the lowest danger tanking, but the incident embarrassed the government amid an arts festival in nearby Avignon...

 In California, state lawmakers called for an investigation of a Mojave Desert chemical plant after a San Francisco Chronicle series about a former chemical worker who battled for a decade to convince officials that toxic substances at the company -- now called the Searles Valley Minerals -- have harmed workers...

July 7, 2008

  Bangladesh last week called for global action to control soaring global crude prices, the day after it raised state-set fuel prices by up to 66 percent. The country explained that it could no longer afford to sell petrol, diesel, kerosene and gas at subsidized rates when oil has soared above $140 per barrel... In Haiti, gasoline subsidies were further cut last week, pushing the price per gallon up to $6.14, further burdening an impoverished people. The subsidies began after April riots over the high cost of food, but the cash-strapped government could not maintain the assistance that totaled an estimated $15 million over three months...

 In Utah, Emery County has signed an agreement with the U.S. subsidiary of British Columbia-based Blue Rock Resources Ltd. to build a $100 million uranium mill to produce yellowcake for nuclear reactors. According to the company, the mill would be modern, green, a source of good jobs, and just the first facility in an industrial park that could later include a nuclear reactor and coal-fired power plant on land leased by the state

June 30, 2008

  In West Virginia, DuPont filed an appeal Tuesday after a West Virginia jury in October found the company negligent in creating a waste site tainted with heavy metals and ordered it to pay $196.2 million in punitive damages for the way it handled cleanup of the Spelter site. ..

  In Myanmar, the Thai energy firm PTT Exploration and Production on Monday signed a deal to drill for natural gas in Burma's Gulf of Martaban. The field, which will require an investment of about $2 billion, is expected to produce about 300 million cubic feet of gas a day, 80 percent of which will be exported to Thailand. Not unlike a Laos dam Inner City Press covered last week, click here for that.

On global issues, click here for hour-long debate...

June 23, 2008

  In California, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has ordered an investigation into the illegally dumped trash that was allowed to sit for weeks in South Los Angeles, one of the city's poorest neighborhoods. The report, Villaraigosa said, will evaluate deployment of waste collection workers and their response times...

  The British navy has denied allegations by animal rights activists that its use of underwater sonar is to blame for the deaths of 32 dolphins found stranded in a creek near Falmouth. The animals had empty stomachs, leading experts to suspect that they were not looking for food when they fled to shallow waters -- but a navy official said it was "extremely unlikely" that side-scan sonar used by one of its survey vessels could have anything to do with it...

June 16, 2008

  In West Virginia, officials from chemical maker DuPont Co. discovered evidence of elevated cancer rates among workers at a plant near Parkersburg, according to government records. Rates at the plant were five times those at Dupont's other plants, the company told federal regulars. The officials say they do not know the cause but have pledged a full review

   PetroChina Co. plans to match China's record corporate bond sale, raising 60 billion yuan ($8.7 billion) as refining losses strain its resources. The bonds will last 15 years and may be sold in stages. China's biggest oil producer and the world's second-biggest company by market value plans to increase capital spending by 15 percent this year to 207.9 billion yuan to increase energy supplies in the fast-growing economy.

June 9, 2008

  Cote d'Ivoire citizens are suing London-based Trafigura in British courts, alleging the company's 2006 dumping of 400 tons of toxic waste was responsible for 10 deaths and led 100,000 to seek medical attention. The company has already agreed to pay $195 million (£100 million) for environmental damages, but denies the dumping was associated with health effects. After the incident, many in the Ivory Coast national government resigned. But not President Gbagbo, who is meeting with a UN Security Council delegation on June 9...

 The Maryland Department of the Environment filed a lawsuit against Atlanta-based Mirant power company for allegedly allowing polluted water and heavy metals to escape from a landfill in southern Maryland. The lawsuit seeks millions of dollars in penalties and an end to dumping of coal ash, the alleged pollutant, at the 38-year-old Faulkner landfill...

June 2, 2008

  In Russia, metal magnates are discussing a three-way merger to create a metals and mining giant. Holdings company officials Vladimir Potanin and Alisher Usmanov would combine assets to buy blocking shares in Norilsk Nickel and Metalloinvest to further control the country's metals market. The merger would be the largest in the country's history.

  In Alabama, Teledyne Brown Engineering is expanding its nuclear engineering and manufacturing with a new 200,000-square-foot plant and a $92 million contract to make service modules that aid uranium enrichment...

May 26, 2008

  In Brazil, Franco-Belgian water and energy utility Suez has won a building and operation license for the second of two controversial hydroelectric power dams on the River Madeira on the edge of the Amazon rainforest. The plants are opposed by indigenous peoples and former environment minister Marina Silva, who resigned last week in protest of the projects...

  In Texas, the EPA will examine air samples for trichloroethylene -- a likely carcinogen -- in the town of Grand Prairie this week. The chemical in liquid form has pooled beneath parts of the town, and residents fear it is affecting their air quality...

May 19, 2008

  In DC, the 33-acre federal Fort Reno Park in northwest Washington was abruptly shut Tuesday and will remain closed indefinitely after soil analysis showed arsenic levels far above what the federal government considers safe...

 In Massachusetts, Federal environmental officials have recommended all buildings at the Starmet Corp. hazardous waste site in Concord be demolished because they are contaminated with depleted uranium and other hazardous substances. Officials say they could pose a safety threat. Demolishing and disposing of the waste could cost an estimated $64 million

  Malaysia's national oil firm Petronas announced last week it had signed production sharing agreements for oil fields in Uzbekistan, where it will also take part in a gas-to-liquid project. Petronas is already involved in several Uzbeki oil exploration blocks...

May 12, 2008

  In Idaho, construction on a new $2 billion uranium enrichment plant near Idaho Falls could begin as early as 2011, once French-backed Areva obtains a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It will be one of the largest construction projects in the state's history and could create 1,000 jobs for the five years it takes to complete it. The facility will produce fuel for nuclear power plants. Calling the IAEA...

  Ghana's first industrial-scale ethanol plant, build by Constran S/A of Brazil, will begin exporting ethanol to Sweden by the end of 2010, said officials from Constran and Northern Sugar Resources Ltd., which will provide the sugar cane for refinement. Swedes starving...

May 5, 2008

   Here's pro-corporatism cum environmentalism: "Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, called for the state Public Service Commission to drop conditions it has placed on Spanish utility Iberdrola SA  in return for approving the company's bid to buy Energy East Corp.,  the parent company of New York State Electric & Gas Corp. Schumer said the PSC is insisting that Iberdrola sell all its wind power assets in New York and promise not to develop any new wind power. The senator said that requirement is not in keeping with the goal of moving New York toward renewable sources of energy.  He also said the PSC wants Iberdrola to sell a coal-fired power plant near Rochester but would not require a new owner to convert the plant to cleaner natural gas. Anne Dalton, a spokeswoman for the PSC, said in response to Schumer's statement that wind generation is only one issue surrounding the proposed deal."

  Yeah, but isn't a wonderful two-fer, lobbying in favor of a corporate merger, in the name of the environment?

  In Nigeria, another pipeline has been sabotaged, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta announced Friday. The militant group is demanding more oil revenue be directed to their oil-rich but heavily polluted region. Royal Dutch Shell PLC confirmed three attacks during the past week and announced it may be unable to meet its commitment to exporting 169,000 barrels per day from Nigeria during the next few weeks.

   Critics are accusing Norway's sovereign oil fund of pursuing nationalist motives after it voted last May for Exxon Mobil to reduce greenhouse emissions -- the country owns 0.3 percent of the company's stock. The fund makes no such demands of state-controlled StatoilHydro, of which it owns 62.5 percent. The ExxonMobil  measure failed 68 percent to 32 percent. The fund has defended itself, saying it follows strict ethical guidelines such as refusing to own shares in nuclear arms makers and emphasizing climate change awareness

April 28, 2008

  Maryland State Treasurer Nancy Kopp is pushing for Exxon Mobil  shareholders to approve a resolution that would separate the roles of chairman and chief executive officer and make the company's board chairman independent. Kopp said the current board of directors is led by an "insider chair," which does not bode well for the decisions the board must make. Exxon's board opposes the resolution

 Ecuador's Energy Minister Galo Chiriboga said Wednesday that the country has settled with U.S. oil company Occidental Petroleum Corp.  and will return $100 million of the $171 million in tax dollars that the company demanded. In a separate claim, Occidental, which operated in Ecuador from 1999 to 2006, is seeking $1 billion in damages for property it said was illegally confiscated...

April 21, 2008

  In Pennsylvania, Amerikohl Mining Inc. has proposed a strip mine next to the Youghiogheny River and along the popular Allegheny Highland trail. Amerikohl President John Stilley said the mine would have minimal impact on the trail, but citizen groups say it will be an eyesore and an environmental hazard

  In Spain, two senior managers of a Catalonian nuclear plant run by energy company Endesa have been fired for failing to disclose full information about a radioactive leak, the plant's directors said yesterday. The managers discovered the link on March 14 but failed to notify the CSN, Spain's nuclear safety body, until April 4. A subsequent inspection discovered that the leak was more serious than the managers had first indicated...

April 14, 2008

  Washington State regulators fined Puget Sound Energy $1.25 million last week over falsified gas pipeline inspection records. The Utilities and Transportation Commission said there were 209 violations in which PSE's subcontractor, Pilchuck Contractors Inc., falsified and altered safety maintenance records. PSE said that although records were falsified, the work had been performed. Great defense, that...

 Italy has not fulfilled its obligation to clear mountains of rubbish dumped in landfill sites and elsewhere around the Naples area, according to a ruling yesterday by a European court. Many of the landfills in the region are controlled by the Camorra mafia, which make a lucrative business out of subverting waste-handling procedures and shipping in industrial waste from the north...

April 7, 2008

    A judge exonerated Ingram Barge Co. of liability for its 200-foot barge that broke away from its Industrial Canal moorings during Katrina and landed on top of houses in the Lower 9th Ward. The judge found that the barge was in the custody of another firm at the time but did find negligence in two other marine companies for not properly securing two Ingram barges...

  In Malaysia, the government scrapped plans yesterday to build a 1.3 billion ringgit ($408 million) coal-fired power plant in eastern Sabah state on Borneo island due to worries it would pollute the environment. The 300-megawatt plant was to have been built near a tropical forest by a subsidiary of state-controlled utility Tenaga Nasional and a Sabah state government agency...

March 31, 2008

  In California, Kern County officials approved Cilion Inc.'s plans Tuesday to build a corn-powered ethanol plant north of Bakersfield. The project is expected to generate up to 55 million gallons of fuel additive each year. Environmentalists protested, saying the plant would worsen air quality in the San Joaquin Valley...

   In Afghanistan, about 70 percent of people do not have access to safe drinking water, a government minister said Tuesday at the opening of the first of a chain of hydrological stations to monitor water supply. The Qargha hydrological station is the first of 174 to be erected across Afghanistan to measure water resources, including rainfall, as well as water quality and levels, Deputy Minister for Energy and Water Shojaudin Ziaie said...

March 24, 2008

  In Wyoming, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will take responsibility for cleaning up one source of contamination in Cheyenne's drinking water. A Cold War-era missile site near the city has been identified as one source of trichloroethylene, a chemical used as a nuclear missile cleaner and lubricant, in the water....

  In France, over 3,000 barrels of fuel oil leaked into and along the Loire River after a pipe burst while a tanker was being loaded at the Donges refinery in western France late Sunday, the oil company Total said Monday. Cleanup teams were using floating dams, and Total mobilized a separate 200-member team to cope with the spill...

March 17, 2008

 In Maryland, Mirant Mid-Atlantic, the owner of three coal-burning power plants in the state, has agreed to pay a $175,000 fine and reduce the soot coming from its smokestacks after regulators found that the plants had repeatedly violated emissions limits. The agreement, laid out Tuesday in a consent decree filed in Prince George's County Circuit Court, also requires that the company, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Mirant, donate $75,000 to reduce pollution coming from Prince George's school buses...

   Ukraine President Viktor Yushencko last week denounced his prime minister over her call to eliminate immediately all joint venture intermediaries that ship gas in from Russia and distribute to Ukrainian consumers. The flap comes ahead of new talks to resolve long-running price and supply disputes between the two countries...

March 10, 2008

  In Arkansas, state officials have filed a preliminary injunction request as part of the state's 2005 lawsuit against the $2 billion poultry operation in Arkansas -- including Tyson Foods Inc., the world's largest meat producer, Cargill Inc., George's Inc. and Simmons Foods Inc. -- for polluting the once-pristine Illinois River watershed with chicken waste, which contains bacteria, antibiotics, growth hormones and harmful metals...

  In Brazil, police used rubber bullets last week to oust 900 activists from a tree farm they had invaded to highlight allegations its Swedish-Finnish operators, Stora Enso, violated a law forbidding foreign companies from owning certain lands

March 3, 2008

 In Indiana, a federal Superfund site of lead-contaminated soils spanning an entire neighborhood in Jabsville will be cleaned up as part of a $21 million project that could take up to five years, U.S. EPA announced on Tuesday. The cleanup is expected to begin in Spring 2009...

      In  Seoul, Samsung Heavy Industries Co. announced last week that it will set up a fund worth only $107 million to help residents in areas hit by a December oil spill in which a barge it operated leaked 78,920 barrels of oil into South Korea's western waters...

February 25, 2008

  In Kazakhstan, Ministry of Emergencies head Vladimir Bozhko last week warned ArcelorMittal, the world's biggest steel company, that it could be forced to close one of its coal mines it if does not improve safety conditions after an explosion last month killed 30 people. The company was given one month to draw up a plan to introduce 41 safety reforms at the Abaiskaya mine in central Kazakhstan. ArcelorMittal is making steel for New York's Freedom Tower...

  Meanwhile, New York State Inspector General Kristine Hamann released a report last week concluding that Gov. Eliot Spitzer's (D) nomination last year of Angela Sparks-Beddoe as chairwoman of the state Public Service Commission created a number of ethical problems because Sparks-Beddoe began assuming official duties at the agency while still working for the utility Energy East...

February 18, 2008

  In Texas, regulators last week approved a controversial air permit to allow Tucson-based Asarco LLC to restart a dormant copper smelter in West Texas over the objections of elected officials in El Paso, Texas; New Mexico; and Juarez, Mexico. The three-member Texas Commission on Environmental Quality voted unanimously to approve Asarco's request...

  In Nepal more than 80 percent of Katmandu's buses, vans and trucks were non-operational this week because a fuel shortage made it impossible to buy diesel and gasoline to run them...

February 11, 2008

In California, the secretary of the state Environmental Protection Agency has called for an independent investigation of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, after Marin Country officials were slow to respond to two January spills that dumped more than 5 million gallons of raw and partially treated sewage into the bay...

The Mexican Energy Ministry announced this week that it will soon begin issuing the first-ever permits for companies to produce biofuels in the country in a bid to cut emissions from cars and boost incomes for impoverished farmers. And, some ask, what about the cost of corn and tortillas?

February 4, 2008

  In Michigan, a lawsuit against Dow Chemical stating that dioxin from the company's Midland plant got into the Tittabawassee River and contaminated property should become a class-action suit, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled last week. There could be as many as 2,000 plaintiffs in the case. Blue Planet Run, anyone?

 France's government-owned electricity group EDF recently held preliminary talks with Spain's ACS about a joint bid for Spanish utility Iberdrola, and EDF also is reportedly weighing bids for Germany's RWE and the Belgian assets that other French utilities Suez and Gaz de France must shed to meet European Union conditions in their still-only-proposed merger...

January 28, 2008

  BG Group's project to build a liquefied natural gas terminal in the port of Brindisi has faced environmental protests and political hurdles that have turned the investment into a "nightmare for the British energy group," per the FT...

ConAgra Foods  said last week it has dropped plans to build an ethanol plant in Clovis in eastern New Mexico. Last month, the state Environmental Improvement Board ordered another hearing on the Clovis plant after groups that opposed it appealed the Environment Department's decision to issue an air quality permit for the facility. The company planned to build it on property where ConAgra operates a grain elevator, but opponents objected. They contended the location was too close to mostly Hispanic and black neighborhoods, subjecting those residents to pollutants. They said that was inconsistent with an environmental justice executive order signed in 2005. Letters sent in 2006 to some residents, as well as radio and print notices, described the location as three miles west of Clovis. The site actually was at the city's edge on land straddling the city limits.

January 21, 2008

   Bausch & Lomb, DuPont Chemical Corp., Eastman Kodak and Xerox are among eight companies that will pay New York $1.6 million in remediation fees to clean up Rochester Fire Academy, which is a hazardous waste site where six companies -- along with the University of Rochester and Monroe County -- disposed of hazardous waste from 1954 to 1980.

  U.S.-based NSF International said yesterday it withdrew certification for pipes made by Saudi Industries for Pipes Co. after high lead levels were found in pipes used for drinking water...

January 14, 2008

            Environment Maryland has now said in a report it found potentially toxic fly ash residue, a byproduct of coal-fired plants, in air samples taken near a power company's dumpsite..

  Nigeria now accounts for 36 percent of global gas flaring, making it one of the single largest contributors to global warming. The government and industry are forming an ad hoc "Flare Reduction Committee" to purport to address the flaring...

January 7, 2008

  In Kentucky, the Army Corps of Engineers withdrew its permit for a large-scale mountaintop-removal expansion until it can review issues raised by environmentalists...

  Which kind of green? Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni last month revived a controversial plan to give ownership of a 7,100-hectare swath of rainforest land to the Mehta Group, which is planning to destroy the forest and replace it with a sugarcane plantation...

December 31, 2007

  In Kentucky, there is a U.S. Army plan to use off-site disposal for sarin. Army and DOD agencies charged with storage and destruction of chemical weapons at Blue Grass Army Depot, KY, this month announced an emergency plan to destroy three containers holding a mixture of sarin (GB) nerve agent and acidic neutralizing chemicals. The unplanned disposal of the containers and their contents is necessary, military sources say, following the discovery of a serious leak from one of them in August. Great...

December 24, 2007

            Missouri's chief utility regulator, Jeff Davis, plans early next year to hold public hearings to discuss changing the laws governing commissioners' contacts and disclosures, after protests erupted regarding an informal meeting he held with a utility executive prior to a proposed merger was announced...

            Mongolia's new prime minister, Sanj Bayar, said the government has a "moral right" to full control of the $2.4 billion Tavan Tolgoi coal project, but has vowed not to abuse the rights of its private developers, according to officials...

December 17, 2007

   In Louisiana, state environmental officials last week officially declared an emergency to clean up two 1,500-gallon tanks filled with a toxic substance that were dumped illegally along Interstate 12 near Lacombe. The state Department of Environmental Quality hired contractor U.S. Environmental Services to remove the tanks and clean up any contaminated soil nearby

  Don't believe the hype: Beijing will target outdoor kebab sellers as part of a 20-day campaign against street-level polluters leading up to the 2008 Olympics, it was reported last week...

December 10, 2007

  In Maryland, a retired Navy hospital ship is barred from being exported from Baltimore's harbor after U.S. EPA obtained a warrant to search it for toxic chemicals...

   China-based Yunnan Joint Power Development Co. announced this week that it brokered a deal with the Burmese government to operate the Shweli dam power station in Myanmar for the next 40 years...

December 3, 2007

            More than 500 Southwestern Utah residents have signed a petition to stop the building of Toquop Energy Project, a proposed 750-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Mesquite...

            EPA said last week that Anadarko Petroleum Co. was fined $157,500 for destroying 3 acres of wetlands in southwest Wyoming during a natural gas well drilling project, violating the federal Clean Water Act. EPA officials said the company agreed to restore the wetlands

            The Chilean government awarded Apache Corp. rights to explore two oil and natural gas drilling blocks on the island of Tierra del Fuego last week...

November 26, 2007

  In New Jersey, remediation company EnCap has until Nov. 27 to fix environmental and financial problems with the $1 billion Meadowlands landfill project. Jimmy Hoffa, anyone? The Meadowlands Commission wants to clean up and close four landfills by using some of the $149 million collateral put up by EnCap in its $1 billion plan to turn nearly 800 polluted acres into a development of luxury homes. Great...

  In Brazil, the increase in carbon dioxide pollution that the country produced in the past 13 years surpassed the country's rate of economic growth, according to a study published this week by the Economy and Energy Institute...

November 18, 2007

  The Pennsylvania Environmental Protection Department last week charged Purco Coal Inc. with intentionally discharging acid mine drainage into Jonathan Run creek in Fayette County and concealing the pipes to prevent its discovery...

   Able UK, the company behind plans to scrap U.S. "ghost ships," was fined more than 20,000 pounds for failing to cover or dampen asbestos when it disposed of at Hartlepool's Seaton Meadows landfill. Heavy machinery used to crush the material could have released dangerous fibers into the air...

  In Kentucky, plaintiffs rejected a proposed emissions settlement with Zeon Chemicals that would prohibit them from saying anything negative about the company, leading to further settlement discussions. Gag....

November 12, 2007

 In Iowa, debate is heating up over two proposed, coal-fired power plants near Waterloo and in Marshalltown as environmentalists, NASA's chief climate scientist, industry experts and citizens line up to testify about the projects

  Meanwhile, Idaho Power Co.  said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it is abandoning its plans to develop 250 megawatts of coal-fired power by 2013, concluding that it is not the best technology to meet its resources needs. Instead, it will develop natural gas, wind and geothermal power facilities to meet its expected demand...

 But Indonesia, the world's largest exporter of thermal coal, is planning to instate a domestic market obligation on coal producers to ensure sufficient supplies for 35 power stations, following attempts to nationalize other resource-based industries, including palm oil and gas...

November 5, 2007

  In Minnesota, EPA has completed soil testing of an area surrounding a pesticide plant in south Minneapolis, concluding that the contamination of the soil near hundreds of homes is likely due to several sources, most of them not known. Great...

  Qatar Airways is striving to be the first carrier to fuel its fleet with natural gas, said the airline's commercial general manager, Ali al-Rais, who added that the state-owned airline would announce details of the plan at the Dubai Air Show next month. Meanwhile, Maurice Flanagan, the executive vice chairman of the Dubai-based carrier Emirates, said that he does not believe in global warming and thinks Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" is "absolute rubbish." In denial in the Emirates...

October 29, 2007

  The Pennsylvania Toxic Substances and Disease Registry reported this week that there was no conclusive link between cases of a rare cancer and any environmental factors in northeastern Pennsylvania. There were 97 cases of polycythemia -- a bone marrow cancer -- in Schuylkill, Luzerne and Carbon counties reported to the ATSDR between 2001-05. Based upon the population, there should have only been about 25 cases...

President Hamid Karzai wants an international scientific committee formed to review the environmental and health risks of herbicides used to destroy the country's opium poppy crop. The government has already formed two review committees of its own. Politics over science...

October 22, 2007

            Alabama-based Vulcan Materials Co., a producer of construction materials, has reached a settlement with the city of Modesto over claims a dry cleaning compound produced by one of the company's former divisions contaminated the city. Vulcan sold the manufacturer that produced the perchloroethylene in June 2005...

            BHP Billiton bought a $10 million stake in Falklands oil exploration this month, triggering yet more controversy between Britain and Argentina. Ah, oil...

October 15, 2007

  In Montana, W.R. Grace & Co. is challenging a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that restored criminal charges of "knowing endangerment" to the government's case regarding citizens' and employee's exposure to asbestos in Grace's vermiculite mine...

  In Northern Cyprus, more than 1,000 metric tons of sewage spilled into the sea after a wall collapsed Wednesday at a Kyrenia waterfront sewage plant, and the flow was continuing at a rate of 42 metric tons per hour yesterday, Turkish Cypriot authorities admitted...

October 8, 2007

  In West Virginia, DuPont Chemical Corp. is liable for environmental damage in the town of Spelter where the chemicals manufacturer dumped waste from a zinc-smelting operation, a jury decided last week. The company was sued by 10 Harrison County residents in 2004 after they claimed they were exposed to high levels of the toxic metals from a 100-foot waste pile in the town...

   In El Paso, Texas, requests have been made to County Attorney Jose Rodriguez to seek criminal prosecution of the copper company Asarco for burning illegal toxic waste...

  Meanwhile, U.S. President Bush signed off on the first U.S. shipment of heavy fuel oil to North Korea in five years after the country agreed to complete an inventory of its nuclear programs and disable its existing nuclear facilities by the end of the year. The United States will send 50,000 metric tons of fuel worth about $25 million, according to the president's order...

October 1, 2007

            Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) paid Vermont-based Native-Energy $1,152 on Tuesday to offset the emissions his weekly flights home are likely to generate over the next year. The funds will finance pollution-free energy projects like wind turbines

            The state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Company announced Sunday that the United Arab Emirates would cut oil output by around 600,000 barrels per day in November due to planned maintenance work at three oilfields...

September 24, 2007

The French consortium Novarka signed a contract last week to construct a steel shield over the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident for more than 430 million euros...

  California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) fired state Fish and Game commissioner Judd Hanna last week, just weeks after Hanna voiced support for a ban on hunters using lead ammunition in California's condor range. At least 12 condors have died from lead poisoning in the past decade. Thirty-four Republican state senators and Assembly members wrote a letter the governor asking him to fire Hanna, calling the commissioner "an outspoken advocate seeking to achieve his own personal objectives"....

September 17, 2007

  In North Carolina, Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigators visited the McGuire nuclear plant in Lake Norman on September 11 after Duke Energy reported last week that it found improperly installed caps on heat exchangers that cool the oil in the plant's pumps...

An explosion on a pipeline carrying natural gas from Iran to Turkey caused a temporary supply cut to the country, Turkish and Iranian officials said last week. The explosion, caused by a "technical malfunction," caused only partial damage to the pipeline, but it is unknown when deliveries will resume for the pipeline...

September 10, 2007

  In Delaware, DuPont Chemical Corp.'s Edge Moor plant released more than 1,000 pounds of highly reactive titanium tetrachloride into the Delaware River on September 2. The plant reopened late Tuesday after the company investigated the leak...

  In Finland, two decades after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine, fish and mushrooms in parts of Finland still have elevated levels of cesium-137 from radioactive fallout, the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority and Finnish Food Safety Authority said last week...

September 3, 2007

  The recent ExxonMobil refinery suit in Louisiana, St. Bernard Citizens For Environmental Quality, et al. v. Chalmette Refining, could not have been brought if the EPA's April 20 rule letting emitters off the hook from minimizing emissions during startups, shutdowns and malfunctions (SSM) were in place. The rule among other things denies the public a right to see the SSM plans, purportedly due to security concerns. Polluters still trying to milk and hide behind 9/11...

August 27, 2007

  In Louisiana, the U.S. Justice Department may pursue criminal charges against Citgo Petroleum Corp. for the oil spill at its refinery near Lake Charles last year. The investigation became public last week after Citgo filed court papers trying to keep its employees from having to give pre-trial testimony to investigators about the June 2006 spill that released about 99,000 barrels of oil from the refinery's tanks. ICP note: It's not yet clear if there is any political aspect to the case, given that Citgo is controlled by... Chavez' Venezuela...

  In Guyana, mercury used by gold miners has poisoned number of residents of rural Guyana by seeping into area rivers and streams. In one community, 90 percent of villagers showed signs of illness and tested positive for mercury...

August 20, 2007

  California regulations to reduce diesel engines' greenhouse gas emissions have prompted equipment rental companies to begin selling construction equipment that does not meet new standards set by the California Air Resources Board to countries with looser environmental rules, such as Mexico, Taiwan and Vietnam.  That's it, push the pollution elsewhere...

Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, called on New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma to consider setting up an experimental clean coal plant when the state reports on its energy needs this month

August 13, 2007

  In California, people are starting to question the environmental record of British grocery giant Tesco, which plans to open 27 stores in Arizona and California, saying the company has a mixed record on labor and reducing its greenhouse gas emissions...

  About two billion people in Asia lack proper sanitation, which leaves Asian nations facing huge cleanup costs, according to the Manila-based Asian Development Bank. Underinvestment in sanitation has led to "massive pollution of both surface and groundwater," which leads to disease outbreaks, the ABD said...

August 6, 2007

  The New Jersey Environmental Protection Department announced last week it is fining Encap and other firms $1.9 million for allowing uncontrolled methane emissions to escape from the Meadowlands landfills they hope to refurbish for their $1 billion EnCap Golf project...

   A UN review board has rejected an emissions-cutting project in Equatorial Guinea, making it the largest project to fail the approval process under the Kyoto Protocol. The project, which would have turned natural gas into methanol, failed to demonstration how the emissions cuts would have happened with or without Kyoto incentives...

July 30, 2007

Increased bureaucracy and terrorism-rated concerns have made it more difficult to access data on toxic chemicals stored in the Wichita area, a Wichita Eagle analysis of state records shows. All told, there are 240 companies in Sedgwick County that handle toxic chemicals, storing as much as 1.4 billion pounds of toxic and flammable compounds...

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko fired the heads of Belneftekhim, the state petrochemicals company; state gas pipeline group Beltransgas; and Belarussian Oil Company, the state oil and refined products trader, for failing to avert an energy shock in the nation due to a sudden rise in Russian gas prices. The firings took place as Belarusian officials were holding crisis talks at the Gazprom headquarters regarding Belarus' unpaid gas debt of $500 million...

July 23, 2007

  In Illinois, EPA is supervising the testing of natural-gas systems at 80 homes in Park Ridge after PCB-contaminated liquids were found in four homes. The gas company Nicor found the chemicals in three homes in February and one in May, a spokeswoman said last week...

  In Serbia, 10 metric tons of fish have been found dead in the Toplica River, a tributary of the Sava River. The incident recalls one earlier this month, in which 20 metric tons of dead fish were found in the river due to high concentrations of ammonia...

  Shell and Colombian state-owned oil company Ecopetrol announced on July 16 they will work together on a 50-50 partnership to explore 650,000 hectares of land in central Colombia for oil. And human rights?

July 16, 2007

  Self-investigation? The New Jersey Environmental Protection Department approved DuPont Chemical Corp.'s plan Tuesday to continue its investigation into contamination from PFOA used in non-stick and stain resistant products at its Chamber Works plant near the Delaware River. A company report filed with state regulators last fall confirmed the presence of the chemical in groundwater around the plant and in the factory's discharges into the Delaware River...

  Britain's Brinkley Mining signed a protocol with the Democratic Republic of Congo yesterday agreeing to jointly develop uranium reserves in the central African country. The Congolese atomic energy agency CGEA would hold 25 percent of the venture while Brinkley would hold the remaining 75 percent. The British firm has already committed at least $3 million to the venture...

July 9, 2007

The Mongolian government came out in favor last week of the construction of a mine at the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold deposit by Canada's Ivanhoe Mines and U.K.-listed Rio Tinto. The government will receive a 34 percent stake in what will be the country's largest mining investment

 The Hungarian government is drafting legislation to prevent a possible takeover of Mol, the country's oil and natural gas company, by OMV, its Austrian rival, Hungarian Finance Minister Janos Veres said last week. The legislation is a response to OMV's announcement that it increased its stake in Mol to 18.6 percent and would like to hold "friendly talks" on a possible alliance... Yeah, very friendly...

July 2, 2007

  In Ohio, DuPont Corp. will begin testing private wells for the chemical C8 in Barlow, Belpre, Decatur, Dunham and Warren townships as part of the first phase of a new contamination survey mandated by U.S. EPA. The agency reported last year that C8 was "likely" carcinogenic to humans. DuPont continues to claim there are no known health effects associated with C8...

  In Armenia, the government has approved plans to begin developing the Teghut copper-molybdenum deposit in the Lori region despite fears over the mine's environmental impacts. In the 1970s, the former Soviet republic banned the development of the reserve out of fear for the mine's effects on local humans, plants and wildlife

June 25, 2007

   Confession time? Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Michael Somare has finally acknowledged financial ties to his country's controversial logging industry, after previously denying personal association with the forest industry. He admits chairing the Sepik River Development Corporation...

  Sleazy with the books, too: Xcel Energy agreed Tuesday to pay $64.4 million to settle a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service over whether it could deduct costs of corporate-owned life insurance on employees from taxable income. Officials said the profit deduction would cause the company to lose 5 cents per share.

  On a positive note, for the first time in more than 40 years, bluebirds are nesting on San Juan Island, according to a recent sighting...

June 18, 2007

 In Massachusetts, state lawmakers introduced legislation last week that would require the phasing out the use of 10 toxic chemicals in the By State, mandating that alternatives be used for dry cleaning, pesticides and solvents. The chemicals proposed are formaldehyde; lead; trichloroethylene; perchloroethylene; dioxins and furans; hexavalent chromium; organophosphate pesticides; polybrominated diphenyl ethers; di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, aka DEHP; and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid...

   Last week, the European Commission yesterday approved a planned joint venture between South Korean group Hyundai Heavy Industries and Finnish company Wartsila to build engines for liquefied natural gas tankers that can run on LNG or oil-based fuels. The commission concluded the deal would not impede competition...

June 11, 2007

Chile's Supreme Court ruled last week that the general government must compensate 356 residents of two slums in Arica for health problems due to exposure to toxic waste from the town's mining industry. The Swedish company responsible for importing the toxic materials, Promel, cannot pay the residents because it no longer exists...

  In Florida, EPA received $2 million to begin initial work cleaning up Mt. Dioxin, a mound of contaminated soil at the former Escambia Treating Co. The cleanup is expected to take 16 months and EPA will spend at least another $15 million to encase more than a half-million cubic yards of soil containing dioxin, arsenic and other toxic chemicals at the Superfund site...

June 4, 2007

   In Kentucky, a federal judge has approved a class-action settlement filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky between Hexion Specialty Chemicals and residents of Rubbertown, a southwestern Louisville neighborhood. According to the settlement, the company will have to spend $4 million upgrading its operations and pay about $2,500 to Rubbertown residents. Cheap settlement in Rubbertown....

            Australian mining company Rio Tinto PLC may be considering a $27 billion bid for Canadian rival Alcan Inc., analysts said this week. Rio Tinto has hired Deutsche Bank to advise it on a possible bid for Alcan, the analysts said...

HSBC last week was fined $850,000 for mismanaging "hundreds of containers of abandoned chemicals... NYS said HSBC knew of the abandoned chemicals, as well as frozen pipes and faulty fire suppression system at the site. However, HSBC didn't contact the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation or any state or local emergency responder to report the threat as required under state law."  Meanwhile HSBC makes loud claims about carbon neutrality and climate change funding. Environmental responsibility begins at home, though, no?

May 28, 2007

  In Maryland, Baltimore officials approved a consent agreement last week with New Jersey-based Honeywell International, requiring the company to study pollution at its former pesticide plant in South Baltimore and propose a way to stop the leaking of toxic chemicals. The study comes a little late, no?

Efforts to put a stop to Japan's bid to resume commercial whaling have been strengthened by new countries joining the conservation bloc, New Zealand's conservation minister said yesterday. The International Whaling Commission holds its annual meeting next week in Alaska. Japan has been recruiting countries in an attempt to meet the three-quarters majority necessary to overturn the ban. We'll see...

May 21, 2007

  In Cambodia last week, a factory spill outside Phnom Penh poisoned nearby fisheries, killing more than 50 metric tons of fish when it seeped into ponds. Farmers said they doubted they would be compensated for their loss.

  In North Carolina, Duke Energy Corp. says it will move ahead with a controversial coal-fired power project at its Cliffside facility in the Blue Ridge Foothills, Duke CEO Jim Rogers said last week after the company's annual shareholders meeting. The company still needs a permit from the North Carolina Division of Air Quality. We'll see.

May 14, 2007

   Exxon Mobil agreed last week to pay $400,000 in penalties to California for air permit violations at its Torrance Refinery. The company also said it would spend a mere $2 million on a plan to cut excessive emissions of carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds and other pollutants...

  Nepal has been hit by fuel shortages after state-run Indian Oil Corporation reduced supplies to the country by 40 percent, a minister said yesterday. Indian Industry Minister Rajendra Mahato said Nepal owes $91 million dollars to the company. The fuel cuts began last week...

May 7, 2007

  In Massachusetts last week, nearly 100 residents of Spencer went to the hospital with burns or rashes after the town's water supply was accidentally treated with too much corrosive lye, officials said. Water treatment plants routinely put lye in water to reduce acidity and limit pipe corrosion....

  Last week the Chinese government finally released environmental activist Tan Kai from jail after he spent 18 months behind bars, accused of taking state secrets from a government official's computer he was repairing, Tan was targeted due to his investigation of a chemical factory's pollution and the government's lack of response to local residents' complaints about the situation...

April 30, 2007

            Chevron Corp. agreed to pay the New Jersey Environmental Protection Department a $1 million settlement for spilling more than 10,000 gallons of crude oil into the Arthur Kill off Perth Amboy on Feb. 13, 2006, the New Jersey Attorney General's Office announced last week. That's getting off cheap...

            Uganda's health ministry announced last week that the country would start using DDT in the battle against malaria. Spraying will begin in August in Kabale, according to the malaria control program chief...

April 23, 2007

The Guam EPA is looking further into reports that Lujan's Salvage Yard and Towing Services in the tri-village area of Mongmong-Toto-Maite is continuing to improperly store solid waste despite a recent grassfire and EPA action against the company. A Guam EPA official said the agency fined Lujan's $12,000, adding that cleaning up and bringing the Lujan salvage site into compliance with regulations is one of the Guam EPA's highest priorities

A bankruptcy court judge has set an April 25 hearing to discuss contracts Entergy New Orleans has signed with both the state and an insurer to receive more than $220 million to help the company pay for storm damage it sustained from Hurricane Katrina. Under the state contract, Entergy is to receive a $171 million Community Development Block Grant. The company also has reached a $53 million settlement with Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance, a subsidiary of AIG Inc

  Yeah, AIG likes to play cheap in paying on insurance policies it has collected premiums for...

April 16, 2007

   The city of Norilsk, Siberia, is home to half the world's palladium industry, but its massive sulfur dioxide emissions could also be making it the world's largest producer of acid rain, BBC reported last week...

  In Guam, family members who used to own parts of Urunao -- a site where the U.S. Air Force discarded tons of metallic debris, tires and ordnance in the 1940s -- said they are upset that only the current owner of the site is being compensated for the damage done. The former owners noted that they paid property taxes on the land up until 2001 or 2002, and they say they deserve compensation...

April 9, 2007

 In California last week, construction workers closed a 10-inch hole in a main sewer pipe in Carlsbad that had spilled more than 5 million gallons of raw sewage into the freshwater Buena Vista Lagoon. That is, Countrywide Mortgage is not on the only toxic thing in Carlsbad...

  Rwanda and Congo-Kinshasa recently reached an agreement to extract methane gas stored under Lake Kivu. The two countries hope the extraction will not only provide fuel for power generation but also mitigate the danger of the 55-billion-cubic-meter deposit. Authorities fear that if the methane gas explodes it will release enough carbon dioxide to kill tens of thousands of people around the lake, much the same way 1,800 people died around Lake Nyos around Cameroon in August 1986 after CO2 escaped from the lake. There is four times as much CO2 as methane under Lake Kivu...

April 2, 2007

  In Louisiana, Murphy Oil Co. sent out $60 million in checks last week to more than 6,000 Chalmette residents as part of its settlement for oil spilled from its Meraux refinery during Hurricane Katrina. The checks are the first part of the $330 million settlement agreed to earlier this year.

 Shell Nigeria confirmed last week that the Nigerian government has charged the company with the alleged loss of some "radioactive tools" belonging to one of Shell's contractors. Shell denied reports that it was involved in the dumping of toxic waste in Nigeria. We'll see.

March 26, 2007

 In Delaware, NRG Energy said last week that it would sue to keep the state Public Service Commission from releasing information about the utility's bid to build a new coal-fired power plant. Delaware, home of transparency...

  Last week, Total oil company CEO Christophe de Margerie was detained and questioned
by French police over whether the company paid bribes in 1997 to win the contract to develop Iran's South Pars natural gas fields

   Telma Manjate, the national coordinator for the Convention on Climate Change, announced last week that the Mozambican government has $405,000 ready to prepare its second national communication on climate change. The document should be completed by the first
quarter of 2009...

March 19, 2007

 Energy Department officials acknowledged last week that a small amount of radium-226 is missing from the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion plant in Piketon, Ohio. The material does not pose a security risk and does not threaten the environment, a spokeswoman claimed. How not?

  In Sudan, the Chinese-built Merowe dam will wipe several Nile-side communities off the map as raising waters form the dam's reservoir. When the project finishes in six years the dam, which will double Sudan's power capacity, will displace 60,000 people...

March 12, 2007

  Qui tam, anyone? A federal judge in Denver said last week that he will rule within a month in the case of a lawsuit brought by a former Interior Department auditor that said Oklahoma-based Kerr-McGee Corp. had cheated the government out of millions in royalties for offshore oil production. A jury ruled last moth that the company cheated the government out of $7.6 million in royalties

  In Russia, draft legislation in the Duma would allow state-owned Gazprom and Transneft to set up their own security services with the same powers as the police -- they would be able to stop and search people and vehicles and use firearms outside company sites.

March 5, 2007

  In Arizona, aerospace firm Honeywell International Inc. announced last week that it will pay a $500,000 fine for hazardous waste violations committed at its Kingman plant in 2005

 Guam EPA and Andersen Air Force Base are beginning a $13 million cleanup operation at Urunao to dispose of unexploded ordnance, lead contamination and other unknown pollution left over from the Air Force's use of the site as a dumping ground in the 1940s...

  Nigerian Information Minister Frank Nweke is touring U.S. cities to promote and improve the image of his country in hopes of enticing foreign investment in it's natural resources. Nweke has visited several U.S. cities, including Houston on Tuesday, to encourage investment in his nation that has suffered from deteriorating political stability and continued violence in the oil-rich Niger Delta...

February 26, 2007

  This week we're temporarily going highbrow, the recent work of Professor Paul Mohai showing that people of color were living in the areas where hazardous waste facilities decided to locate before the facilities arrived.  "What we discovered is that there are demographic changes after the siting but they started before the siting," Mohai says. "Our argument is that what's likely happening is the area is going through a demographic shift, and it lowers the social capital and political clout of the neighborhood so it becomes the path of least resistance." U of M announces that Mohai will present the findings during a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Mohai's talk, "Which Came First, People or Pollution? How Race and Socioeconomic Status Affect Environmental Justice," is one of seven scheduled presentations, Robert Bullard is also hoped for...

February 19, 2007

  Beyond petroleum (jelly)? BP told a resident living near the company's Texas City plant that exploded in 2005 that she had no right to sue following the accident, an attorney told a state court last week. Robert Hilliard, who is representing Texas City resident Sealy Davis in a lawsuit against BP, said that the oil company offered his client $2,000 in compensation following the explosion to cover Sheetrock and foundation damage to her home...

 Indonsia's state-owned Pertamina announced last week that it will undertake six oil exploration projects in Ecuador this year as part of a strategic alliance agreement signed last year. An executive with the company said that once the projects begin commercial production, they will likely add 20,000 barrels of oil per day to the company's total output. Also in Ecuador, two Japanese tourists were killed while riding on the top of one of the busses called chivas...

February 12, 2007

  Oil and corruption: Three oil companies -- Vetco Gray UK Limited, Vetco Gray Controls Inc., and Vetco Gray Controls Limited -- will pay the U.S. government a total of $26 million in fines related to bribing Nigerian customs officials $2.1 million to speed up entrance of people and equipment into the country, the Justice Department announced last week...

  Sleaze in Alaska: KeyBank, which acted as a financial adviser and banker to Knik Arm Power Plant developer Marc Marlow, this week sued Marlow for the second time. The lawsuit is an attempt to recover hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees that the bank says it is owed for advising Marlow in the deal. Plans to build the facility recently collapsed....

February 5, 2007

  This gun for hire: former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke was paid to say last week that the development of a liquefied natural gas facility in Sparrows Point would be "safe" and does not pose a terror threat. Clarke is a consultant for AES Corp., which is proposing to build the LNG plant in Baltimore County. Giuliani is engaged in similar work, for another LNG project...

World Economic Forum attendees will donate $100,000 to support clean energy projects in rural Indonesia, forum Managing Director Andre Schneider said last week. But what even happened with the WEF's too-small pittance to the UN's CERF?

January 29, 2007

  In Indiana, a group of Madison County residents suing zoning officials over their decision to allow the construction of a $105 million Broin Companies ethanol plant argued in court this week that the county officials should not have allowed the facility to be built. The residents said one of the families living near it has a special-needs child who is at high risk of breathing in pollutants generated by the development work...

  In Azerbaijan, a natural gas consortium led by BP PLC has halted production at a natural gas field in the Caspian Sea off the coast of Azerbaijan. The field shut down for a week shortly after starting operations last month and only restarted again on Jan. 14. The shutdown was prompted by tests on the effectiveness of the repair work done after the first shutdown...

            Devon Energy Corp. announced Tuesday that it will sell all its assets in West Africa as a means to reduce its debt and focus on North America, Brazil and China. The properties held by the company in West Africa -- located in Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ivory Coast -- held an estimated proved reserves of amount 90 million barrels of oil equivalent as of the end of last year...

January 22, 2007

  In California, the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board has ordered the Marine Corps to pay between $5.5 million and $29.4 million to clean up the Las Pulgas Landfill, which was used by Camp Pendleton to house decades worth of trash. Temporary fixes for the site have already amounted to nearly $3 million...

  In Azerbaijan, a Baku district court Sunday sentenced Bakhtiyar Hadjiyev, editor of the political opposition Web site www.susmayaq.biz, to 12 days of jail for allegedly campaigning against increased energy prices after the Azerbaijani government canceled natural gas contracts with Russia. Gasoline prices have risen 50 percent and household electricity prices have gone up 300 percent since the government's decision last week... Click here for a recent BBC piece on Inner City Press' reporting from the United Nations.

January 14, 2007

  In California, South Coast Air Quality Management District regulators said last week that they are investigating an incident at the ConocoPhilips oil refinery in Wilmington that sent flames shooting high into the air. The district recently increased the strength of its "anti-flaring" law for refineries, banning open burn-off of excess gases from South Bay refineries except in emergencies or during planned shutdowns, start-ups or other "essential" operations. Violators can face fines of $1,000 -- too low.

  In Fiji, the military regime backing last month's coup in Fiji seized the country's only operational gold mine last week. Vatukoula mine operator Emperor Mines is negotiating with the government and military officials, the Australia-based company said...

January 8, 2007

  In Ohio, EPA is trying an emergency $1 million hazardous waste cleanup to unearth and remove more than 1,300 drums of paint and solvent buried in a hill overlooking the Little Miami River in Warren County.

Democratic Republic of Congo government officials will review three of the country's biggest mining contracts soon after a World Bank report released recently found that they were approved with "a complete lack of transparency." The three contracts -- representing joint ventures between Gecamines and three mining companies that include Phelps Dodge -- refer to deals approved in 2005 under a power-sharing government, which was seen by many diplomats as deeply corrupt but necessary to put an end to a war in the country central to the region's stability...

  Most recent move in a long saga: Ecuadorean Attorney General Jose Maria Borja Gallegos asked the U.S. attorney general Dec. 5 to investigate allegations that Chevron Corp. did not properly clean up toxic waste left over from Texaco Inc.'s oil drilling activities in rainforests...

January 1, 2007

 EJ notes. In Wisconsin, "community leaders should not be planning to invest billions of dollars in new freeway construction without first considering that nearly one-third of all African-Americans in Milwaukee do not even have a driver's license."

 In Massachusetts, the now planned location of a diesel power plant, Chelsea, "is classified by the US Environmental Protection Agency as an Environmental Justice Community of Concern, is considered one of the state's most "environmentally overburdened cities." Such a classification is given to a neighborhood or community composed of predominantly poor or minority residents and that, compared with similar communities, carries a disproportionate level of environmental hazards.

December 25, 2006

 In Tennessee, the Energy Department said last week that it finished removing all of the depleted uranium hexafluoride left at the former uranium-enrichment site in Oak Ridge ahead of schedule. DOE transported about 6,000 cylinders filled with the depleted uranium to a storage site in Ohio over the last three years...

   Migratory birds traversing Finland on their way south for the winter are confused by the country's exceptionally warm winter this year and are singing and mating as if it were spring, experts said last week. Disconcerting...

December 18, 2006

 In West Virginia, DuPont Co. officials said Wednesday that more than 600 pounds of the chemical trimethylamine were released during two leaks at the company's plant in Belle over the weekend. The company previously reported that only 150 pounds had leaked from the plant...

 In New Mexico, the Las Cruces Superfund site contains at least 7.2 billion gallons of perchloroethylene-contaminated water, U.S. EPA officials said last week. The agency said the contaminated plume must be treated to bring the water up to agency standards. The city of Las Cruces and Dona Ana County own the land that is contaminated and are responsible for covering the estimated $13.7 million cost of cleanup...

A federal grand jury indicted two oil tanker crewmen with falsifying records to conceal the illegal dumping of waste oil and sludge from their ship, the M/T Captain X Kyriakou, off the California coast from Oct. 27 to Nov. 2. The indictment returned Tuesday charged Artemios Maniatis, the chief engineer, and Dimitrios Georgakoudis, his top assistant in the engine room, on a felony charge of knowingly failing to maintain accurate logs of discharges...

December 11, 2006

  In Ohio, the Energy Department is conducting a final review of the Fluor Fernald former uranium processing plant this month to ensure that the company's cleanup work meets the agency's standards. Fluor Fernald announced Oct. 29 that remediation work at the site was complete and signs of life in the wetlands there lend hope to the assumption that 20 years' worth of work to remove soil contaminated by radioactive materials is over...

  In Russia, Sakhalin regional prosecutor Yury Chaika said yesterday that Russian environmental and migration authorities detected "over 100 violations of environmental, migration and labor laws" at the Shell-led Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project. Chaika said the operating consortium running the project could face criminal prosecution for the violations. But what about the banks?

December 4, 2006

Tanker engineer James Legg filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas last week accusing ConocoPhillips of retaliatory actions against him for uncovering evidence that the company covered up a midocean oil spill in January 2004...

 In Indonesia, an explosion on the Pertamina-owned East Java Gas Pipeline on the island of Java last week caused by a mud slide left hundreds of companies and tens of millions of people suffering power disruptions. At least seven people were killed in the explosion, 16 were injured and four are reported missing...

  More than 400 cities in China face water shortages, state media reported last week. Quoting a senior government official, the China Daily newspaper said rapid urbanization combined with pollution is staining the country's water supplies. About 45 billion metric tons of untreated wastewater pump directly into lakes and rivers...

November 27, 2006

   The NBA's Utah Jazz has dropped the Delta Center name from its Salt Lake City arena in favor of EnergySolutions Arena. The move honors the arena's new beneficiary, hazardous waste disposal firm EnergySolutions. It is unknown how much the firm paid for the 10-year naming rights.  And it's hazardous to even ask...

            A report commissioned by Tasmania's Resources Planning and Development Commission found that Gunns Ltd. failed to address concerns about air and water pollution in its plans for a $1.4 billion pulp mill in Tasmania. The report said the company would have to conduct new studies on emissions if it wants to "achieve credibility" as the biggest industrial project in Tasmania's history...

November 20, 2006

  North Carolina state officials last week approved EQ Industrial Service's plan to ship hazardous waste from last month's fire at its APEX chemical plant to a landfill in Belleville, Michigan. Great...

  Meanwhile, Russian environmentalist group Ekozashchita asked the German government last week to prosecute the uranium-enriching company Urenco of trying to turn Russia into a "nuclear dump." The group said that the company is illegally delivering nuclear waste to Russia...

Last week Inner City Press sat down for an interview with the president of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Arkady Ghoukasyan, and asked him about the fires, about the United Nations and other matters. Click here for the footage, on Google Video.

November 13, 2006

  In Pennsylvania, a lawsuit was filed last week against pottery manufacturer CBS Corp. for the costs of cleaning up a hazardous waste site north of Gettysburg. The cleanup of groundwater at Shriver's Corner began in 2002 and will take more than 30 years.

  Judge David Hurd of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York approved a consent decree between General Electric and the federal government last week to dredge PCBs from part of the Hudson River.

 On the global tip, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a memorandum of understanding with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso yesterday establishing an energy partnership to offset concerns of dependence on Russian energy sources.

And in global Environmental Justice news, a beat we particularly like, The European Court of Human Rights condemned Italy last week for permitting a factory near Brescia in northern Italy to treat toxic industrial waste only 30 meters away from an inhabited house. The court awarded resident Piera Giacomelli 20,598 euros for damages, costs and moral damage due to the factory's operations...

November 6, 2006

  In New Jersey, PCB concentrations in the wetlands around the Kin-Buc Landfill Superfund site have risen over the past 10 years. PCB levels rose from 2.1 parts per million in 1996 to 2.7 ppm in 2002...

  Missouri- based Bunge North America Inc. will pay the EPA $13.9 million under the terms of a U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois agreement signed last week. Bunge will spend $12 million to reduce harmful emissions at 11 soybean processing plants and a corn dry mill extractions plant in eight states: Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois..

  Polluters on the move: More than 30 multinational companies operating in China -- including Panasonic Battery Co., Pepsi Co. and Foster's Group Ltd. -- violated national water pollution control guidelines recently, according to a Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs report released last week

October 30, 2006

In New Mexico, Clovis-area officials are disturbed by a new report from New Mexico and federal officials that recommends that the $459,000 settlement from Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway for environmental damage in Clovis should instead be spent to restore 43 acres of wetland at Bottomless Lakes State Park in Roswell, more than 100 miles away. The railroad had dumped waste water into a playa lake in Clovis for years...

 In Delaware, the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control ordered Claymont Steel this week to end excessive slag dust releases and said it could possibly release a report on solutions to the facility's emissions problems by March 1, 2007. Four Claymont-area Republican lawmakers also asked this week for a state attorney general's office probe into pollution from the company's facility, citing recent findings of higher-than-reported mercury emissions..

 In Peru, indigenous people took over four oil wells last week in protest of contaminated river water, shutting down Pluspetrol's 50,000 barrels per day of output...

October 23, 2006

  In Alaska, the EPA has filed a federal lawsuit against the owners of Safety Waste Incineration in Wasilla alleging that the incinerator the company uses exceeds pollution limits and is out of compliance with standards set forth in the Clean Air Act.

 In Washington state, ConocoPhilips paid the Department of Ecology a $540,000 fine last week in relation to a 2004 violation in which 1,000 gallons of oil spilled into the Puget Sound

  Meanwhile the European Commission took legal action against Hungary and three other members last week for violating the environmental impact assessment mandate on various projects in sensitive areas. The commission also took action against Hungary for submitting its greenhouse gas allocation plan for the 2008-12 phase of the Emissions Trading Scheme late...

October 16, 2006

  In Illinois, Toxic chemicals from inside barrels at the Feddeler Landfill in Lowell will likely cost the city between $20 million and $35 million to clean up.

 In Texas, workers last week began removing an estimated 200,000 gallons of oily water, leftover fuel, lube oil and grease surrounding the disused mobile offshore-drilling unit Zeus sitting on the edge of the Freeport harbor channel.

  From the Sunday Telegraph of Oct. 8: "Spin over substance? 1 HSBC: has reduced its CO2 production from 550,000 tons to 0. Actual cost: $3 million."  HSBC was sure given a lot of flattery for this $3 million. Meanwhile they steal that amount very quickly through their subprime ex-Household units...

  Also troubling: a South Korean businessman was arrested last week for exporting uranium-enrichment materials to a Middle Eastern country, prosecutors said. He allegedly shipped 15 metric tons of potassium bifluoride to an unidentified country and planned to ship 25 more

October 9, 2006

  In Texas, Citgo's Corpus East refinery had two 12-million-gallon oil vats sitting uncovered for at least a dozen years, releasing benzene into the air, according to the Justice Department's August indictment of the company accusing it of knowingly releasing illegal amounts of the toxic chemical in 2001 and 2002. This may also be a global item, given Citgo's ownership by Venezuela...

  On the global / bottom of the sea beat, mining investors such as Nautilus Minerals Inc. and Neptune Minerals Plc. raised more than $50 million recently in bids to begin pulling rocks lined with copper and gold worth $300 each off the sea floor a mile beneath Papua New Guinea.

  In China last week, the Three Gorges Project Construction Committee raised its estimates of the number of people who will be displaced by the construction of the Three Gorges Dam from 1.13 million to 1.4 million.

  In Cote D'Ivoire, a household waste dump near Abidjan will be reopened for a year under the terms of a deal struck last week between Construction and Town Planning Minister Marcel Amon Tanoh and the village of Akouedo... Until next time, for or with more information, contact us.

October 2, 2006

  In Illinois, EPA fined the Lehigh Cement Co. $84,378 this week for exceeding federal limits for furan and dioxin emissions from its plant in Mitchell. The agreement, announced Wednesday, does not require the company to admit any wrongdoing. Great...

 And we're back: former Treasury Secretary John Snow will serve on the board of directors of Marathon Oil Corp., officials with the company announced last week...

September 25, 2006

  On the Gulf Coast, DuPont last week began a new PFOA processing project at its First Chemical plant in Pascagoula, dodging an appeal of the water emissions permit rubber-stamped for First Chemical by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality...

  The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management has fined Southern Union, the parent company of New England Gas, $1,000 per day for failing to submit three soil remediation plans for dumping toxic soil over 50 acres in a neighborhood in North Tiverton.

September 18, 2006

  Iran wants to build a second natural gas pipeline to Armenia, Parliament Speaker Gholam-Ali Hadad-Adel said last week while visiting the former Soviet Republic. Armenia is short on energy reserves due to a dispute with energy rich neighbor Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. Hadad-Adel said a new Iranian pipeline would serve primarily to supply Armenia with natural gas, but added that "the possibility of transporting gas to third countries through the [country] is not excluded"

  In Maryland, Harford County officials notified 375 households in the Forest Hill neighborhood last week that levels of the gasoline additive MTBE had been rising in the groundwater since the spring. The results of these tests had been in the state's possession for two months, but state officials only told county officials last week, which could constitute a violation of a Maryland law that requires notification within 14 days for such a test."

September 11, 2006 - As UN Checks Toxins in Abidjan, the Dumper Trafigura Figured in Oil for Food Scandal, Funded by RBS and BNP Paribas

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN

  UNITED NATIONS, September 11 -- While in Ivory Coast the dumping of toxic chemicals by Trafigura Beheer BV has led to a new political crisis, it has emerged that the dumper Trafigura figured in the UN - Iraq Oil for Food scandal, alongside mining operations in Kazakhstan, derivatives and loans from such mega-banks as Royal Bank of Scotland, ING and BNP Paribas. The toxins were dealt out in at least nine places around the port of Abidjan, leaving five dead and over 7000 in need of medical treatment. How far the liability and accountability will spread is not yet known.

   Before the UN Environment Program sent investigators to Abidjan, at UN Headquarters on September 7, Inner City Press asked the spokesman for Secretary-General Kofi Annan for the UN's position and actions to date on the spill. The spokesman responded that

"On this specific issue, the Prime Minister, Charles Konan Banny, spoke to Mr. Guehenno today, to brief him on the dissolution of the Government.  He told them the decision was made to ensure that all those who have a hand in what happened in the dump of the toxic waste, take full responsibility and are removed from Government jobs.  We obviously acknowledge the decision.  I think it is always good when people take responsibility for these sorts of things."

   Even cursory research finds the dumper, Trafigura Beheer BV, listed in various reports on the UN's Oil for Food program. Facts on File reports that:

"in May 2001, the Essex tanker, chartered by Dutch oil-trading company Trafigura Beheer BV, had been topped off with an extra 230,000 barrels after inspection at an off-shore Iraqi oil platform. Trafigura had purchased the oil in the shipment from French oil-services company Ibex Energy France. The cargo had been seized in the Caribbean Sea after the captain alerted U.S. and U.N. authorities. Later, according to the Journal, Ibex's general manager, Jean Paul Cayre, in an affidavit filed with Britain's High Court of Justice, had said the two companies performed the same routine with the Essex in 2000, under Trafigura's direction, paying Iraq $5.4 million for the extra oil. At Trafigura's direction, Cayre said, the two companies had shredded records of the deals and replaced them with false ones."

    Documents tie French President Jacques Chirac's friend Patrick Maugein to the 25 million barrels allocated to Trafigura Beheer BV, which employed Patrick's brother Philippe as a consultant. Trafigura was accused of evading taxes on oil imports into Thailand; the International Relations Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives has taken testimony on Trafigura's involving in the Sudanese oil industry.

    Public reporting on Trafigura comes even closer to the current UN.  The Financial Times' Claudio Gatti one year ago reported:

"Kojo Annan, son of Kofi Annan, United Nations secretary-general, received more than Dollars 750,000 from several oil trading companies now under investigation for their role in the UN's oil-for-food program (OFFP) for Iraq. The funds were dispatched between 2002 and 2003 to an account Kojo  Annan opened under his middle name - Adeyemo - in a Swiss branch of Coutts bank... In 2003, one company - Trafigura Beheer BV, a Dutch-based entity founded by traders who formerly worked for the then fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich - sent $247,500 to Kojo Annan's account at Coutts... The company found records of the payment in question, but explained that it was related to a transaction with PPI, the Nigerian company that employed Mr Annan as a director. 'The request (of payment) was received from a PPI fax and it was assumed that this was a PPI account.' Mr. Annan's lawyer said PPI 'conducted business with Trafigura in 2002 and 2003' clarifying the deals were confined to Nigerian gas oil and petrol. PPI's representative in Geneva is Michael Wilson, a Ghanaian friend of the Annan family, who has attracted scrutiny in the oil-for-food investigation. Mr Wilson and Mr Annan both worked for Cotecna, the Swiss inspection company that in 1998 received a UN contract under the oil-for-food program ultimately worth $60 million. Between spring 2002 and spring 2003, Mr Annan's Coutts account received over $200,000."

    Control of Coutts lay with Royal Bank of Scotland. As research into who funds and enables Trafigua continues, earlier this year Euromoney reported "BNP Paribas, ING and Royal Bank of Scotland's $300 million facility for commodity trading group Trafigura Beheer has closed."

  On Friday the UN said it is sending the UN Environment Program to investigate the toxic dumping in Abidjan. But the trail is not without self-reference, and leads well beyond the Ivory Coast. Bigger picture, Reuters reports that "countries that report to the Basel Convention, which monitors hazardous waste, produced around 108 million tonnes of the wastes in 2001, according to U.N. statistics. Uzbekistan was top with 26 percent of the total." Developing...

   In U.S. dumping news, South Korean shipping company Sun Ace Shipping Co. plead guilty this week to dumping oil residue off the coast of New Jersey and agreed to pay $500,000 in fines, the Justice Department said. New Jersey groups working to protect and restore the Delaware Estuary and its watershed will get $100,000 of the fines, the agency said. Sun Ace vessels will also be banned from U.S. ports and waters for three years, according to the terms of the plea agreement...

September 4, 2006

 In Kentucky, Paducah Remediation Services, a contractor at the Energy Department's Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, intends to fix a series of safety and other problems jeopardizing millions of dollars in performance fees, company President Mike Spry said last week.

 In Nigeria, the military burned hundreds of homes and shops in Port Harcourt after gunmen kidnapped at least two Italian oil workers and killed their military guard last week, witnesses said...

August 28, 2006

  In Vietnam, protesters in Ho Chi Minh City are pressing to close down or force two steel plants to move away that are emitting manganese dust, carbon monoxide and lubricants at a rate five to 20 times higher than permitted...

  Montana mystery: a contaminated plume of groundwater in a residential neighborhood southwest of downtown Billings is emitting vapors, according to tests conducted by the U.S. EPA last week. The agency said there is no indication of any imminent health risk to home owners and said that it plans to return to the site in the winter for more tests to see if the risk of breathing in contaminants is higher...

August 21, 2006

  In North Carolina, while groundwater tests from around DuPont's Fayetteville Works plant show low levels of ammonium perfluorooctanoate, commonly known as C8, critics continue to attack for the high levels in workers' blood. While the average person might have 5 parts per billion of C8 in his blood, the highest reading in 2005 showed a plant worker with 4,540 ppb, and the average of 64 samples was 504 ppb

  In India, Asbestos-lined ocean liner The Blue Lady arrived in India's Alang port on Tuesday to be scrapped, ending months of efforts by environmentalists to send the ship somewhere else. See this week's Global Inner Cities report for information on ship-breaking, particularly in Bangladesh....

August 14, 2006

  In Tennessee, the Energy Department said last week that it will meet a federally mandated deadline to remove all of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's uranium-loaded cylinders by 2009. Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs Co. -- which is overseeing the transportation of the cylinders to another facility in Piketon, Ohio -- said that there are 650 drums left to be shipped by the end of the calendar year.

  Benin President Boni Yayi asked Nigeria on Saturday if it would keep the price of natural gas deliveries on its pending pipeline stable even if world oil prices fluctuate. The completion date for the pipeline has been pushed back three months to March 2007 because of pricing disagreements, Nigerian Energy Minister Jocelyn Degbe said...

August 7, 2006

  Beyond petroleum? BP signed an agreement last week with lenders in Indonesia yesterday, securing $2.6 billion in financing to pay for a liquefied natural gas plant being constructed in human rights-challenged Papua province... In Alaska, the Department of Transportation said last week that it is investigating whistleblower allegations by BP workers that two safety valves were not working at the time of a large oil leak at the Prudhoe Bay oilfield in March...

July 31, 2006

  Defensive litigation: in Florida, Lockheed Martin's lawyers have filed a motion in Florida's 12th Circuit Court asking more than 300 Tallevast residents who are suing the defense contractor over damages from a plume of toxic waste under their homes to turn over documents showing proof of ownership of their homes, tests for chemicals on their properties and alleged exposure to toxic substances...

  In Russia, Exxon Mobil Corp. admitted last week that it spilled a small amount of oil from its Sakhalin Island project off the Russian coast....

July 24, 2006

  In Washington State, Spokane's Wastewater Management Department Director Dale Arnold told the state Department of Ecology this week that at least 53,000 gallons of raw sewage spilled from storm drains in the city into the Spokane River over a three-day period earlier this month. But the actual amount of sewage could be greater because eyewitnesses reported to the city that they saw what appeared to be sewage debris in the river as early as May...

            Overseas in Indonesia,  Asia Pulp and Paper is desperately deny accusations that it is failing to protect some of Indonesia's most important remaining forests in Riau and Jambi provinces on Sumatra Island where it manages forest concessions .

            U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker told Congress earlier this month that Iraq's government-controlled oil industry is hampering the country's ability to govern itself due to "massive corruption" and "a lot of theft." Oil metering, anyone?

July 17, 2006

  In Australia, documents leaked last week show that Gunns's proposed $1.2 billion pulp mill will initially rely on native forests for up to 80 percent of its pulp wood resource...

  Russia's LUKoil announced on July 11 that it wants to build its first refinery in Turkey. The firm, Russia's biggest oil company, said it would build the $2 billion refinery in the Turkish Black Sea port of Zonguldak...

   Concerns are growing in Chad that money given to the government by Exxon Mobil Corp. in exchange for the rights to develop an oil pipeline in the country is not getting to the nation's poor. For most of this year, Chad's oil wealth has been frozen in London bank accounts after a government dispute with the World Bank...

  In straight domestic EJ news in Texas, DeBerry community members filed a federal lawsuit last month against the Texas Railroad Commission accusing the state oil and natural gas industry regulator of environmental racism and claiming that the agency failed to enforce oil drilling safety regulations in the town. The U.S. EPA recently found the town's groundwater to be contaminated with pollutants such as arsenic, benzene, lead and mercury from local oilfields...

July 10, 2006

            This week, an environmental focus on finance. Advocates note that Wells Fargo has invested millions of dollars in Massey Energy, which they say is destroying Appalachian communities with mountaintop coal removal...

            Macquarie Bank and other investors announced yesterday they would buy Pennsylvania-based Duquesne Light Holdings Inc. for $1.59 billion...

July 3, 2006

  In Delaware, suit has been filed against M.A. Hanna Plastics Group Inc. of Michigan, the Wilmington Economic Development Corp., and two individuals Wednesday to recover $3.7 million for the cleanup of toxins at the former Electric Hose and Rubber site in Wilmington, for buried lead- and arsenic-contaminated waste at the site...

  In Bolivia, Energy Minister Andrez Soliz said last week he would seek criminal charges against former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada and Enron Corp. officials for allegedly cheating the country in a gas pipeline investment deal..

June 26, 2006

  The Guam Environmental Protection Agency received a tip this week that a Harmon Co. facility is in possession of illegal refrigerants. The U.S. EPA is working with Guam regulators to investigating the illegal importation of R-22 refrigerants via the Philippines. R-22 is being phased out of production under the Clean Air Act because it contains levels of chlorine.

   In Sudan, a small British oil company, White Nile Ltd., is slowing edging French oil giant Total SA out of control of the potential 3 million barrels of oil. White Niles secured large tracts of the land from the Southern Sudan government when the company gave the government a 50 percent stake in the operations, in contrast to Total's 10 percent offering to the Sudan's national government. The company will sink the first of 70 wells by November...

June 19, 2006

  In North Carolina, test results from a May lead-poisoning case at the Penrith Townhouses in Durham revealed elevated lead levels in the water of 12 of 51 units sampled, according to Durham County's Environmental Health Director Robert Brown. County and state officials then ordered further tests in homes around the development and found that 11 of the 19 homes sampled had elevated levels of lead in their water...

  In Ohio, EPA cited Lanxess Corp. for air contamination at its Addyston plant last week...

  According to a report called "Ecomafia," Italy lost up to 400,000 metric tons of hazardous waste last year, mostly to crime organizations that processed it more cheaply...

June 12, 2006

    EPA's National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee has a Gulf Coast Hurricanes Work Group, which is now calling for EPA to revise its disaster response procedures to address the needs of "vulnerable populations," which could involve changes to the federal National Response Plan and Superfund National Contingency Plan (NCP). The recommendations, drafted by a work group of the (NEJAC), come as environmentalists are considering lawsuits over the response of EPA and other federal and state agencies to the environmental impacts of the disaster. The full NEJAC panel is scheduled to review the report at its June 20-22 meeting in Washington...

  In Saudi Arabia on June 7, Texas-based Halliburton announced that it's been awarded a multimillion-dollar oilfield services contract by Saudi Aramco. The three-year contract would utilize up to 23 rigs to drill more than 300 wells. Saudi Arabia hopes to expand production capacity to 12.5 million barrels per day by 2009.

June 5, 2006

            Weapons of mass destruction in Indiana - Army contractor Parsons Technology Inc. resumed work last week destroying VX nerve agent at a facility 30 miles north of Terre Haute after workers discovered degraded seals May 18 in a three-way valve in one of Newport Chemical Depot's two reactors. The discovery prompted the shutdown of both reactors used to destroy the chemicals...

            Oops -- the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has proposed fining GeoMechanics Inc. $3,250 for not securing a nuclear gauge with two separate locking devices, which led to its theft from a South Charleston, W Va., parking lot last September

  A powerless nation: New Zealand's government says it will dispatch an electrical engineer to the South Pacific nation of Niue to help restore power to the island, which lost power Tuesday night after a fire broke out at the nation's sole power station...

May 29, 2006

 In Oregon, Portland General Electric's coal-fired power plant in Boardman is finally back operating after a four-month shutdown for repairs to its turbine and generator rotors. The shutdown cost utility customers an additional $46 million in extra power costs. PGE has asked state regulators to track the costs of the replacement power and, at a later date, bill customers - GrEat...

  In Rwanda, regulators will soon begin testing a 5-megawatt power plant next month to determine the technical viability of a proposed gas-to-power generation plant in Lake Kivu. And across the lake is the Democratic Republic of Congo, where despite fighting an election is scheduled for July 31 -- for more, see ICP's Global Inner Cities Reports.

May 22, 2006

  On the housing front, in Colorado 300 residents of the Penwood Place Apartments in Denver had to evacuate last week because of asbestos contamination two to 10 times above safe levels in wall plaster discovered after a fire at the apartment..

Mining: BHP Billiton Ltd. agreed last week  to sell its Tintaya copper mine in Peru to Anglo-Swiss miner Xstra PLC for $860 million..

  In New Mexico, the state Environment Department has accepted Los Alamos National Laboratory's plan to determine the extent of groundwater chromium contamination in Los Alamos County. The Nuclear Security Administration found chromium levels in a monitoring well in December that were more than four times the federal drinking water standard and eight times the state's groundwater standard.

May 15, 2006

  In Kentucky, lawsuits have been filed against two industrial plants for their industrial odors and emissions. The suits target Louisville Gas & Electric, the operator of the coal-fired Cane Run power plant, and the Hexion Specialty Chemicals plant.

  From Brussels, E.U. officials wrote a letter to the German economy minister last month seeking clarification of the deal between Deutsche Bank, German state bank KfW and Russian energy giant Gazprom for a proposed 1 billion Euro natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany. Officials wish to determine whether the deal's details are compatible with E.U. regulations.

 In South Africa, the city of uMhlathuze is suffering from high emissions levels caused by industry, vehicles and biomass burning, according to a new report from the city council's environmental planning department. Buffer zones and ambient air quality limits will have to be introduced, it concluded.

May 8, 2006

   In Delaware, Oil and tar balls began appearing along the Delaware Bay east
of Dover last week, triggering increased spill control efforts in both New Jersey and Delaware. Delaware Department of Natural Resources investigators said the oil might have been spilled or dumped by a ship traveling along the bay's main channel...

 Globally, it's toxic politics: Russia has extended last month's ban on Georgian and Moldovan wines to brandy and sparkling wines, which Russian officials said also contained pesticides and heavy metals. Nothing to do with the Russian-backed breakaway regions of Abkhazia and Transdniester, of course...

May 1, 2006

  In Colorado last week, EPA officials released proposed penalties for Fremont Paving and Redi-Mix, Inc. for spilling 4,000 gallons of oil into Oak Creek in May 2005. EPA's proposed fines are $37,890 for the complaint and $75,000 for a proposed "supplemental environmental project." Hmm...

  In Maryland, Carroll County Health Department and the state Department of the Environment admitted last week that water from a well serving 40 homes in a Finksburg trailer park has tested positive for suspected carcinogen and gasoline additive MTBE. The officials claimed they were unsure of the source of the 20 parts per billion contamination, but they said that it did not come from nearby gas stations or an auto-parts junkyard...

 In Alaska, former NFL running back Larry Csonka, who's now a commentator for the Outdoor Life Network was fined $5,000 by the National Forest Service April 19 for conducting commercial work in a national forest without obtaining a special-use permit. Larry, Larry, quite contrary... 

April 24, 2006

  In Michigan, Muskegon city officials began searching for underground contamination of vinyl chloride at the Beacon Square shopping plaza last week in preparation for the opening of new stores in the shopping center. New stores on vinyl chloride?

  Oil dealings in Brussels: European oil refiner Petroplus said last week that it will buy Belgium-based Petroleum Holdings in a deal that would create the continent's largest independent refiner...

April 17, 2006

  In Tennessee, the cleanup of the K-770 scrap yard in Oak Ridge, a couple miles west of the former K-25 uranium-enrichment plant, will not finish until sometime around the end of the year, according to cleanup officials. The cleanup, which has already hauled away 30,000 tons of radioactive junk from the scrap yard, was supposed to finish several months ago...

  In Missouri, EPA and state Department of Environmental Quality officials began testing chemicals at the former Minton Enterprises facility in Highland last Thursday to determine the extent of contamination at the site. EPA officials estimate the cleanup at the site will cost the government as much as $300,000 and will take months to complete...

April 10, 2006

            Last Tuesday the EPA released test results showing that high lead levels contaminate 14 New Orleans neighborhoods, and that a cancer-causing petroleum constituent is present in a city landfill. The announcement of the presence of the contaminants marks the first time since the start of the seven-month environmental investigation that officials have acknowledged contamination problems in neighborhoods outside of St. Bernard Parish, where a million-gallon oil spill took place...

  In West Virginia, it has now been shown that Massey Energy did not teach miners how to use fire-safety equipment or conduct fire drills at the Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine where two miners died in a January 19 fire...

  In India, 40 survivors of the deadly 1984 Bhopal methyl isocyanate gas leak from a Union Carbide plant completed a 500-mile walk from Bhopal to New Delhi demanding that the government make amends to survivors and to victims -- Union Carbide's leak killed over 3500 people...

April 3, 2006

  In Delaware, from TRI we learn that toxic air pollution rose in 2004, mostly due to the emissions from ERG Energy's Indian River power plant, which accounted for 46 percent of all toxic emissions in the area in 2004...

 In Alaska, the EPA announced on March 27 it has fined Anchorage chemical seller Altex Distributing Inc. $134,000 for not having a risk management plan or notifying emergency officials about thousands of pounds of chlorine and sulfur dioxide stored in the company's Ship Creek yard between May 2003 and Sept. 2005.

March 27, 2006

  In Louisiana, St. Charles Parish Waterworks Director Robert Brou told the Parish Council last week that its east bank water-treatment plant is in such bad shape it could collapse at any time, shutting off water supplies to residents for months...

  In New Mexico it's reported that of 54,029 public comments on El Paso's proposal to drill for coalbed methane in the Valle Vidal watershed, nine have been in support of the plan. Democracy? We'll see.

March 20, 2006

  Science, Sh-mience. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe is demanding information from the  National Science Foundation about the funding and management of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and its managing body, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and the roles they play in "researching, analyzing, and understanding the science of global climate change."

Inhofe has previously called global warming the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people"...

March 13, 2006

  No stick? In New Jersey, testing has found traces of perfluorooctanoic acid in a well owned by Pennsville Township. DuPont Co. has a plant in Deepwater that uses PFOA for making Teflon...

  The Energy Department last week cited the University of Chicago, manager of the federal Argonne National Laboratory, for nuclear safety violations going back to 1999. The job of managing the laboratory opened for bidding earlier this year. Time for a new manager?

  Click here for Robert Bullard's narrative of events in Dickson, Tennessee...

March 6, 2006

  Congressional hype: staff of the U.S. Senate Environment & Public Works Committee have started an investigation of how some EPA regions may be targeting small businesses with their regulations and enforcement. Even Inside EPA notes that the finding of the Small Business Administration's (SBA) ombudsman's office that out of 382 total small business complaints nationwide in FY05, only seven were filed against EPA, compared with 34 against the Internal Revenue Service and 28 against the Food & Drug Administration, according to the office. In FY04, 25 of the 445 complaints filed by small business owners pertained to EPA regulations. And in FY03, out of 412 complaints filed, just 17 were about EPA-related issues.  

February 27, 2006

  Buck-passing in the Big Easy. The federal Environmental Protection Agency is claiming that assessing public health issues in the wake of Hurricane Katrina is not its job (or problem), that only the Centers for Disease Control can do it. But the EPA and its previous head were just slapped down in a court ruling on their claim they did okay in New York after 9/11/01…

February 20, 2006

  In South Carolina,   The state Department of Health and Environmental Control will
finally investigate complaints of air, water and ground contamination in Una, Saxon and Arcadia. The state probe stems from conference calls and in-person meetings-- two community meetings have been held. Organizers said more than 50 people attended the last one. The state now will concentrate on the Freeman Gas & Electric Co. property on Sibley Street. The mostly vacant land contains rows and rows of propane tanks.

  Meanwhile, The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is seeking candidates to join the Environmental Justice Advisory Board. But note – if justice gets in the way of PA-based companies like Sovereign Bank, the law will be bent or changed (see Inner City Press’ Bank Beat for the specifics on Harrisburg’s fast-passed suck-up-to-Sovereign law).

February 13, 2006

 Mercury from Jersey to Nevada: Officials will transfer nearly 3,000 metric tons of mercury in Hillsborough, N.J., to the Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada later this year, it was announced last week.

   In California, technicians claim to have cleaned up about 90 percent of the hazardous waste at March Air Reserve Base using carbon filters, furnaces and gasoline-eating microorganisms. And what of the other ten percent?

February 6, 2006

 In Florida, officials last week accused one Amoco and one Super Stop gas station in Homestead last week of post-Katrina price gouging after they raised gas prices 64 cents per gallon in one day after the hurricane. The stations face a fine of up to $10,000…

 In Indiana, Swiss-based ABB Ltd. claims it will complete demolition of a former electrical components manufacturing plant it owns in Bloomington by the end of this year supposedly cleaning up cancer-causing chemicals at the site.

January 30, 2006

  In Florida, it’s been confirmed that the Tallevast toxic plume from the former American Beryllium Co. plant has reached three different aquifer zones. Environmental Science & Technologies Inc. said the plume is moving more rapidly underground than previously believed

  In South Dakota, efforts continue to get the state permit for GCC Dacotah's Rapid City cement plant rescinded. The concern is that the plant will be allowed to violate air quality standards because the permit requires it to monitor emissions once every five years…

January 23, 2006

  Consensus? The Los Angeles City Council last week approved settlement of lawsuits filed against the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) Master Plan. The plaintiffs in the lawsuits against the LAX Master Plan will drop their state and federal lawsuits, allowing Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) to begin construction on the LAX South Airfield Improvement Project. The settlement requires LAWA to, among other things, (a) discontinue passenger operations at ten narrow-body gates at the rate of two gates per year starting in 2010. This requirement will be in effect until 2020 unless LAX is serving less than 75 million annual passengers or if, through amendments to the Master Plan, LAX has 153 gates or less; and (b) revisit and potentially replace controversial "yellow light" projects, such as
the Manchester Square Ground Transportation Center, with alternative projects that increase airport efficiency and mitigate traffic, noise and pollution. LAWA says it will spend $60 million “on various air quality and environmental justice programs.” We’ll see…

January 17, 2006

  In the same week as the Alito hearings, and discussions of the Supreme Court’s New London takings clause decision, another novel use is proposed for eminent domain: in Alaska, lawmakers introduced a bill last week to use eminent domain to encourage oil and gas drilling by threatening to take land away from developers that are taking too long to begin work on the North Slope and Point Thomson natural gas projects…

  Priorities seemingly backwards: In Utah, Salt Lake City officials will meet with residents to get their input on whether they should use Superfund money to clean up groundwater tainted with PCE. The site is near a culinary well by a reservoir. Officials worry that “the stigma associated with being a Superfund site could affect property values.” So leave it toxic?

January 9, 2006

   In Florida, two kinds of fish caught in the Pensacola Bay system tested above federal health safety levels for PCBs, reflecting that sediment near a proposed Army Corps habitat restoration site is contaminated.

    In Iowa, an agricultural plant that came under scrutiny last year for producing corrosive hydrochloric acid in Jefferson is in fact one of fully 63 power plants, cement makers and other manufacturers in the state that emit the acid, documents have shown. Most have higher smokestacks that release the acid in stronger winds.

   In Massachusetts, courtesy the Cape Cod Times, Army officials are trying to decontaminate soil  tainted with explosives and perchlorate at Camp Edwards by covering it with organic microbes and are experimenting with cranberry wastewater provided by Ocean Spray...

Nuclear medicine, anyone? Inner City Press/Community on the Move's Bronx branch has received a letter from Connecticut-based CardinalHealth, projecting a new “radio-pharmacy” at 2425 Waterbury Avenue in The Bronx.  Triggering the letter is a required application to the NYS DEC, since the proposed site is in a DEC-defined “Environmental Justice Area,” and ICP has been identified by DEC as a “party likely to be interested in this Plan.” Well, yes. We’ve expressed our interest to Cardinal, but have yet to hear back.

January 3, 2006

  The EPA and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality claim that post-Katrina there are no long-term health risks from environmental contamination in southeast Louisiana, with the single exception of an oil spill that is now undergoing cleanup. "In general, the sediments located in areas flooded by the hurricanes in Orleans, St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes are not expected to cause adverse health effects, provided people use common sense and good personal hygiene and safety practices," the agencies’ joint report claims. To reach this conclusion, the EPA for example used more lax state screening standards for arsenic…

December 26, 2005

  In Wisconsin, investigations are mounting into the seeming link between donations from utility executives to Gov. Jim Doyle's campaign and the approval of the sale of the Kewaunee nuclear plant.  Campaign finance records show Wisconsin Public Service Corp and Alliant Energy contributed more than $43,000 to Doyle when a state body was deciding whether to approve selling the plant to Dominion Resources

  Also in Wisconsin, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week proposed a $60,000 fine for the operator of the Point Beach nuclear power plant for altering a federal report three years ago. The NRC also said it was proposing a fine for Nuclear Management Co. for not accurately reporting the result of an emergency preparedness drill at the plant…

December 19, 2005

  From AP via the Rochester D&C of December 14: “In New York, 63 of the 107 neighborhoods with the highest health risk ratings were in Monroe County, according to AP's data. And when mapped, the neighborhoods form a bulls-eye around Kodak Park, Eastman Kodak's sprawling industrial facility. In fact, Kodak Park was one of the three factories across the nation that created potential health risks for nearby residents in 2000,

according to AP's analysis. (The others were Eramet Marietta Inc. in Marietta, Ohio, and Titan Wheel Corp., in Walcott, Iowa, which closed in 2003).” The Green Bay Press-Gazette, also of December 14, reported in more detail:

Total number of blacks in Wisconsin: 300,245 - Number in 10 percent of the most polluted areas: 140,159 -Percentage: 47

Total Hispanics: 192,921 - Hispanics in polluted areas: 87,585 - Percentage: 45

Total Asians: 87,995 - Asians in polluted areas: 26,153 - Percentage: 30

Total whites: 4,681,630 - Whites in polluted areas: 629,426 - Percentage: 13 percent

-- Source: Environmental Protection Agency and 2000 U.S. Census Bureau statistics.

December 12, 2005

  In New Jersey, cleanup workers at Ford Motor Company’s Ringwood site have identified extensive areas where lead solvents, PCBs and other toxics are still present…

  In Michigan, CMS Energy Corp. announced last week it will begin accepting bids for its Palisades nuclear plant and hopes to sell it by 2007. CMS said the company plans to enter into a long-term agreement with the buyer to continue to purchase power from the facility. We’ll see.

  And in Peru, St. Louis-based Doe Run Co. is responsible for lead poisoning of Peruvian children because of its metallurgical complex, experts said last week. Nearly all of the children tested in La Oroya, had lead poisoning, Doe Run and the Ministry of Health reported last year…

December 5, 2005

  In Connecticut, the U.S. EPA has taken over the cleanup of the polluted 7.45-acre Hull Dye property that once contained more than 800 abandoned chemical drums from textile operations. The Derby site has been entangled in investigations of corruption at the state’s Department of Environmental Protection…

  In Kentucky, the state recently spent $5,000 to close an abandoned oil well that leaked oily sludge during heavy rains, threatening the Middle Fork of Newcombe Creek in Elliott County. Oil and gas regulators have identified at least 8,000 similar abandoned wells that may need plugging and reclamation…

November 28, 2005

  This week, we turn north to Canada, where toxic waste left over from a former Royal Canadian Air Force radar base is polluting Northern Ontario's Polar Bear Provincial Park on Hudson Bay. Up to 10,000 rusted metal drums left over from 40 years ago leak chemicals into the ground, contaminating water, and harming polar bears, caribou and rare species of birds…

 Less far north, in upstate New York, General Electric is now planning not to remove the PCBs it put into the Hudson River, but rather to “cap” thousands of cubic yards of the PCBs at the bottom of the river.  This according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration memo sent to U.S. EPA in October. GE released 1.3 million pounds of PCBs into the Hudson during the decades it manufactured capacitors and other components at its Hudson Falls and Fort Edward plants north of Albany. Last month, GE reached a tentative agreement-on-the-cheap with EPA that would require GE to dredge 43 miles of the river, but that plan has yet to be formalized…

November 21, 2005

 More Gulf Coast pollution: an oil tank vessel traveling from Houston to Tampa, Fla., last week spilled about 10,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil off the coast of Port Arthur after debris punctured the barge, the Coast Guard has disclosed...

In Nevada, the EPA has asked BP subsidiary Atlantic Richfield Co. to construct fences and provide security around six square miles of old tailings and waste ponds at the former Anaconda copper mine. Arco said the Bureau of Land Management should pay for fencing and security...

November 14, 2005

Slipshod: In Wisconsin, officials at the Point Beach Nuclear Plant shut down and then restarted a reactor last week after workers discovered peeling paint on the inside of the reactor, according to a report filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission...

          In Connecticut last week, Pfizer accidentally leaked five gallons of industrial chemicals from its Groton facility...

This week we review a welcome new addition to the still-small bibliography of environmental justice books: anthropologist Melissa Checker’s “Polluted Promises: Environmental Racism and the Search for Justice in a Southern Town” (NYU Press 2005). The “Southern Town” in question is Augusta, Georgia, specifically the Hyde Park / Aragon Park neighborhood. The author went to Augusta in the fall of 1998 to volunteer with the Hyde and Aragon Park Improvement Committee (HAPIC), which was combating pollution by ITT-owned Southern Wood Piedmont, pouring PCBs into Rocky Creek. Chapter Five of the book tells the story of three lawsuits, spanning the early 1990s until at the time of the author’s arrival, “resigning themselves to the fact that their lawsuit might never pan out, HAPIC leaders looked to longer-term solutions to their problems” (135). A computer center is set up and other polluters are identified: Thermal Ceramics and Goldberg Brothers scrap metal yard, whose drums of mercury-contaminated debris are pictured on page 182. After much struggle, the scrap yard is cleaned up, leveled and cleaned out. The author concludes “that progress toward social change might be halting or slow, or sometimes might event take a few steps backward, but there is progress if you look for it.” We’re glad the Ms. Checker looked for it, and filed this report.

November 7, 2005

  In Maryland, more than 800 landowners in Carroll County have received letters notifying them that MTBE levels in area wells tested above the state action level. New state laws require officials to notify residents when measuring high levels of the gasoline additive

In New England, Wal-Mart was last week forced agreed to pay a $50,000 fine and equip its trucks with portable generators following an investigation that found the company's trucks idling illegally last year in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

October 31, 2005

In Utah, the International Uranium Corp.'s mill in San Juan Country began receiving truckloads of nuclear waste from Japan last week, raising questions over Utah's ability to regulate foreign nuclear material.

 In Pennsylvania, Hazelton Mayor Lou Barletta says he wants to use dredged material from rivers in Philadelphia, New York and New Jersey to fill used mines and promote development in the region. Others have wisely pointed out that imported dredge could bring unwanted contaminants into the area. Yep...

October 24, 2005

Garbage time. In New Jersey, litigation has begun asserting that the New York Susquehanna & Western Railway Corp. and several other transportation operators have violated a federal ban on open dumping at waste transfer stations.

 In Rhode Island, state investigators discovered this week that more than 80,000 tons of fly ash from a Massachusetts incinerator ended up in a Johnston, R.I., landfill. The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management has said each truckload of solid waste transported from out of state could carry a three-year jail sentence and a $5,000 penalty -- mighty cheap, we think...

October 17, 2005

 Corporate sleaze in South Carolina: DuPont and contractor Fluor are together seeking a $7.5 billion five-year contract to manage the Energy Department's contaminated Savannah River site...

 More sleaze: the proposal to reduce the Toxics Release Inventory reporting requirement to every other year -- moving in the wrong direction. Click here for more.

October 10, 2005

General Electric, while fighting Superfund in court, reached a settlement-on-the-cheap with the EPA last week for its contamination of the Hudson River with polychlorinated biphenyls. The agreement calls on GE to pay the government up to $78 million of the EPA's bill -- which could exceed $700 million.  GE dumped an estimated 1.3 million pounds of PCBs into the river from its plants in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls. Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch has submitted comments against GE’s proposed expansions in Turkey and the Philippines, click here for ICP’s GE Watch.

Beyond preemption: in Congress, Senators Inhofe and Vitterer have used Hurricane Katrina to propose legislation that would give the EPA administrator authority to waive or change any law under EPA's jurisdiction or that applies to any activity in the nation carried out by the agency for up to 18 months....

October 3, 2005

            With Katrina and Rita now passed, the two federal agencies with lead environmental roles, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have released lists of “roadblocks,” including dealing with 22 million tons of debris. None of the wood debris can leave because that might spread Formosan termites, which have infested New Orleans since the mid-1960s, eating away at homes, cables, trees and dock pilings. Open burning is usually against the rules. So is dumping billions of gallons of untreated, contaminated water into Lake Pontchartrain. The EPA has already waived such rules. A bill by Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, chairman of the Senate environment and public works committee, would let the EPA suspend its standards for four months during the Katrina cleanup, with extensions possible for 18 months or more... 

September 26, 2005

            In Colorado, Standard Mine in the Gunnison National Forest has been added to the list of the state's 22 Superfund sites last week. The site, where mining began in 1874, leaks wastewater saturated with metals into the Elk Creek waterway...

            The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources disclosed last week that the amount of out-of-state garbage dumped in Wisconsin landfills has increased by 46 percent since last year...

September 19, 2005

 In West Virginia, dioxin concentrations in the Nitro community center's day-care result in an additional cancer risk of 91 per 1 million children, just below the already-unrealistically-high level requiring a U.S. EPA cleanup of the site, agency officials said in a report released last week.

Also cheesy -- in California, Hilmar Cheese Co. has agreed to negotiate with state environmental officials about a $4 million fine for illegally flushing milky wastewater onto nearby fields for nearly three years at its Turlock manufacturing facility. Water regulators have accused the cheese plant -- which Hilmar says is the world's largest -- of dumping an average of 700,000 gallons of salty wastewater daily onto Merced County fields.

In (and around) the Loop: children playing near a H. Kramer and Co. smelter in Pilsen could suffer from lead poisoning, according to a study released last week. Illinois EPA records show the plant is the largest source of airborne lead in Chicagoland... Speaking of Chicago, click here for ICP’s book review this week, of Steve Bogira’s “Courtroom 302.”

September 12, 2005

In South Carolina, Duke Energy Corp.'s Oconee nuclear power station is operating again after an outage last month resulted in an inspection by Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials. The faulty unit, one of three in the power station, was operating at 18 percent capacity last week...

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D) wrote a letter last week to the state EPA asking why Midwest Generation was not penalized for more than 7,600 documented pollution violations at six coal plants in and around Chicago. See this week’s Inner City Press CRA Report for details on the AG’s father’s motives for passing an anti-foreclosure bill in Illinois’ state legislature...

September 5, 2005

There are, or were, 140 petrochemical plants along the 80 miles of the Mississippi river between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Post-Katrina, with rainbows on the river, the damage has yet to be assessed.  Beyond hydrocarbons, the run-off of pesticides and fertilizers starves the water of oxygen and creates the world's largest "dead zone" off the Louisiana coast. This year, even prior to Katrina, it expanded to an estimated 8,000 square miles.  Going forward, here’s a contact for advocacy: Louisiana Office of Environmental Assessment, Regulation, Box 4314, Baton Rouge, LA 70821-4314 -- fax (225) 219-3582... And, click here for ICP’s Gulf Coast Watch.

August 29, 2005

Right move for the wrong reason -- the Navy asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week to reverse a decision allowing Cove Energy to build a liquefied natural gas terminal in Fall River. The Navy said the project would disrupt the military's torpedo testing in Narragansett Bay...

The dirty cleaners: Cosmed Group Inc., a Rhode Island company that sterilizes medical equipment, will pay a $1.5 million fine for ethylene oxide emissions at five facilities across the nation

Cleanup will begin early next month at the Starmet Corp. Superfund site in West Concord, Massachusetts. The state Department of Environmental Protection hired Utah-based Envirocare to remove more than 3,700 barrels of spent uranium and transport them to a disposal facility near Salt Lake City -- where Wal-Mart is trying to charter a bank, click here for ICP/Fair Finance Watch’s opposition.

August 22, 2005

This, we must link to -- the GAO's report on environmental justice, or the lack thereof. Click here for the whole report in text format; here are some quotes:

"We found that in four phases of drafting three significant clean air rules between fiscal years 2000 and 2004, EPA generally devoted little attention to environmental justice... the economic analyses of the two mobile source rules did not include an analysis of environmental justice.... EPA's capability to identify environmental justice concerns through economic reviews also appears to be limited. More than 10 years have elapsed since the executive order directed federal agencies, to the extent practicable and permitted by law, to identify and address the disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of their programs, policies, and activities. However, EPA apparently does not have sufficient data and modeling techniques to be able to distinguish localized adverse impacts for a specific community." Yep...

August 15, 2005

In Alabama, Morgan County residents are criticizing the state Department of Environmental Management for failing to notify them of benzene contamination leaking from underground storage tanks. ADEM said it has a policy of notifying only families who obtain drinking water from a well...

 In Florida, Lockheed Martin Corp. has completed its own (self-serving) evaluation of the contamination at the former American Beryllium Co. site in Tallevast. The report put the plume of contamination at 131 acres...

August 8, 2005

In New Jersey, there are plans to sue the New York Susquehanna and Western Railway Corp. and several hauling companies over violations of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which bans "open dumping" of polluting waste into the environment.

Meanwhile, in California and also rail-related, questions are growing about the air quality agreement reached in June between Union Pacific, BNSF [formerly Burlington Northern Santa Fe] and the Air Resources Board -- it was done without public participation. Environmental justice, anyone?

August 1, 2005

           

General Electric and the EPA continue to delay in dredging PCBs from the Hudson River. Now the beginning of the clean-up is being pushed back to 2007. GE spewed the carcinogenic PCBs into the Hudson for forty years out of its plants in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls. Reportedly, “negotiations between GE and the EPA bogged down last year when the company sought to limit how much sludge it would remove. A plan on which PCB "hot spots" would be dredged, which was due in March 2004, was held up until February.” It has been suggested that the “EPA should do the cleanup work and pursue the company for triple the cost as allowed under federal Superfund legislation governing the toxic waste removal. The EPA does not expect to take this more aggressive approach, Rosales said. ‘The preference of the agency is to reach an enforcement agreement first, then have the polluter pay for the project,’ he said.”   Especially when it’s GE, he could have added, but didn’t...

July 25, 2005

In New Jersey, inspectors last week found thousands of pounds of the toxic chemical phosphorus pentasulfide during an inspection of a Meadowlands rail yard. After responding to a report of a spill, inspectors discovered more than 80 containers of the deadly substance. The facility is owned by New York Susquehanna & Western Railroad Corporation...

 WMD... in Indiana. Approximately five gallons of wastewater containing remnants of a deadly VX nerve agent leaked at the Newport Chemical Depot last week, though contamination was limited to one room. The Army had been destroying the toxic through a sodium hydroxide reactor when the incident occurred...

July 18, 2005

            Hazardous waste in Western New York: in the town of Porter, opposition to the proposed expansion of Chemical Waste Management's hazardous waste landfill is growing. The state DEC held a public hearing in May 2004; still, it seems that CWM plans to expand in Porter.  As one local put it, "Just because a piece of land was already contaminated, with waste from the Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb, doesn't mean you just keep piling more and more waste there." Yep...

July 11, 2005

            New York State officials last week approved a $451 million plan  to clean up Onondaga Lake, calling on Honeywell International to remove pollution from the lake. Honeywell and its predecessor AlliedSignal Inc. are responsible for much of the mercury and other pollution dumped into the lake by the Allied Chemical plant in Solvay...

In power news, last week the Wisconsin Public Service Corp. and Wisconsin Power and Light Co. sold the Kewaunee nuclear power plant to Richmond, Va.-based Dominion Resources Inc. for $191.5 million -- 13 percent lower than the $220 million expected when the deal was first announced in November 2003. Also, ex- Bank of America CFO Jim Hance has moved to the board of directors of Duke Power.   Oh, Equator Principles...

July 5, 2005

To be watched, closely: this week lawyers for DuPont are slated to meet with the West Virginia Environmental Quality Board to discuss alternations DuPont wants to make to the industrial waste dump in Wood County, WV...

  On July 4, ICP Fair Finance Watch filed  filing comments with regulators in Central America on General Electric’s proposal to buy control of BAC International Bank and export its (subprime) consumer finance to six more countries; ICP noted environmental issues at GE as well -- click here to view a summary the comments.

June 27, 2005

In Alabama, the Anniston Army Depot could pay $1,100 in fines after the state Department of Environmental Management found unlabeled hazardous waste during two surprise inspections last spring, ADEM officials said in a notice of violation issued June 6. All we can ask is -- a barely $1000 fine?

In Tennessee, a settlement to reduce pollution was reached Wednesday between Loudon County residents and environmental groups and Tate & Lyle -- the company that wanted to construct an $80 million corn syrup facility there...

In North Carolina, the state legislature is considering a bill that would transfer a 100-acre DuPont Co. industrial site to the state and then to Swiss-based Ilford Imaging Group. But who would pick up the $7.2 million tab to clean up arsenic and other pollution there? Until next time, for or with more information, contact us.

June 20, 2005

           In New Mexico, the state Environmental Department last week fined fertilizer company Helena Chemical Co. $233,777 for failing to comply with state air quality laws and regulations.

            The Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposes to let a private consortium build a National Enrichment Facility to make fuel for atomic power plants about 200 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. The location is near the town of Eunice, in Lea County, New Mexico....

            In Texas, as part of an agreement with the state Commission on Environmental Quality, Texas Petrochemicals has committed to reduce emissions of 1,3-butadiene by half. High concentrations of the toxic chemical were found around the company's fences, which border people’s backyards. We’ll see... 

June 13, 2005

  In Texas, BP is close to settling most of the civil claims brought by workers injured in the March explosion at its Texas City refinery, attorneys for both sides said last week. The March 23 blast killed 15 people and injured more than 170, many of them seriously...

The Associated Press speculated last week that General Electric may consolidate its nuclear power business in North Carolina in the hope that regulators will allow utilities to build a new generation of power plants, company officials said this week. In 2003, GE Nuclear Energy moved its headquarters from San Jose, Calif., to Wilmington, NC...

June 6, 2005

In federal court in Alabama, McWane Inc. is charged with violating the Clean Water Act by misleading federal regulators about dumping pollutants into Avondale Creek.

 In Minnesota, arsenic, dioxin and other chemicals need to be removed from about 40 homes near the Cass Lake Superfund site, U.S. EPA officials said last week. The chemicals were left by a former wood treatment plant that closed in 1985...

May 31, 2005

Too little, too late: in Montana, EPA chief Steven Johnson said last week it will take five to six years to clean up asbestos contamination in Libby, the site of a former W.R. Grace & Co. vermiculite mine. Current EPA funding for the remediation project is about $17 million per year...

  Outside investors in / controllers of West Virginia: Denver-based Energy Corp. of America said last week it has inked a deal with Black Stone Mineral Co. L.P. of Houston to sell about 7 million shares of term royalty interest in the Appalachian Gas Royalty Trust....

May 23, 2005

    In Kentucky, the state will resume paying $12,500 per month for air monitoring of toxic chemicals in Louisville, officials said last week. The University of Louisville has paid for the program since the state stopped payments almost a year ago.

            In Utah, the EPA sued U.S. Magnesium last week in federal court, alleging that the company has illegally manufactured and dumped PCBs at its site near the Great Salt Lake. Agency officials, who said they would seek the statutory maximum, have called the company the nation's worst polluter.  Oh, there’s others, too... 

May 16, 2005

           In Colorado, the state Public Utilities Commission and the state Office of Consumer Counsel have proposed a $5.6 million fine for Xcel Energy in response to several power outages last summer.

          Right to know? Safety and health records from the Texas City BP refinery that exploded recently will not be made public until the conclusion of a probe by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a federal district court judge ruled last week...

May 9, 2005

Dangerous cargo: More than 10,000 shipments of hazardous materials travel through Columbia, South Carolina each year on the Norfolk Southern railroad, according to company officials. Common chemicals include molten sulfur, anhydrous ammonia and chlorine, all of which could be fatal is spilled in a populated area

 In Kentucky, the Louisville Metro Air Pollution District filed for an administrative hearing last week to seek up to $790,000 in fines from the Louisville Paving plant, which has been cited for 16 air quality violations.

May 2, 2005

  In New Jersey, Exxon Mobil Corp. claimed last week it is waiting for the Army Corps of Engineers to approve its remediation plan before it begins work at an East Greenwich Township site contaminated with PCBs. The company faces fines of $50,000 per day unless it agrees to clean up the site. We’ll see.

In Connecticut, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission is conducting a special inspection of the Millstone Nuclear Power Complex in Waterford after an emergency shutdown and steam release at the plant last week.

April 25, 2005

            In California, tests by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control have detected perchlorate at four times the state drinking water standard in an irrigation well near a Wyle Laboratories plant in Norco. Earlier tests found the chemical in groundwater and two septic tanks on at the plant.

  In Texas, Asarco, which owns an El Paso copper smelter that has contaminated nearby soil, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week for five subsidiaries in an effort to limit asbestos liability. State and city officials said they are worried that the company will attempt a similar tactic to limit its responsibility for lead and arsenic pollution at the smelter site. Apparently Congress’ supposed crackdown on bankruptcy abuse is only directed at consumers, and not polluters...

April 18, 2005

    In California, the J.R. Davis rail yard emitted 25 tons of soot in 2000, equivalent to the amount produced by 90,000 diesel trucks, according to a study by the state Air Resources Board. Since the study, the first of its kind, rail traffic to the facility has increased

            While hardly inner city we are compelled to report that a BP pipeline rupture "misted" 200 acres of tundra with crude oil in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska on April 12. State environmental officials said they do not yet know how much oil spilled.

April 11, 2005

  In California, Valero agreed last week to pay the EPA a $97,940 fine for alleged hazardous materials violations at its Benicia refinery. A June 2003 site inspection revealed the refinery improperly stored sludge from petroleum processing and lacked necessary permits...

In Delaware, a mechanical problem at Premcor's Delaware City Refinery caused significant emissions on the morning of April 6 of sooty black smoke. State Natural Resources and Environmental Control Secretary John Hughes said the release was part of a pattern of violations at the plant that could lead to a "chronic violator" review. We’ll see.

April 4, 2005

            In El Paso, Texas, the City Council voted unanimously last week to sue Asarco to pay for a cleanup of 600 residential yards contaminated with lead and arsenic released by the company's copper smelter.

In Ohio, industrial facilities released 289 million pounds of toxic emissions last year, compared to 290 million the year before, according to a state Environmental Protection Agency report released last week.

  In continued chemical weapons news from Alabama, the Anniston Chemical Disposal Facility successfully burned 1,026 8-inch artillery projectiles and 1,245 gallons of sarin during a test held between March 18 and March 23, officials said last week...

March 28, 2005

            In Indiana, pesticide maker Reilly Industries failed to repair two refrigeration units at its Indianapolis plant, releasing excessive amounts of chlorofluorocarbons, according to a U.S. EPA violation notice made public on March 22... In Massachusetts, ChemGenes Corp. failed to conduct inspections of hazardous waste storage areas, label dates and containers, and provide proper training for employees, the U.S. EPA said last week. The agency has proposed fining the company $225,206 for multiple violations of federal and state laws... \

            In Texas, even before the explosion at BP, BASF Fina Petrochemicals LP entered into an Agreed Order on Wednesday with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, settling complaints about flare emissions at the company's Port Arthur steam cracker. BASF will pay a $1.9 million fine -- hardly enough.

March 21, 2005

  In New Jersey, the EPA will expand its investigation of paint sludge and other chemicals near a Ford toxic waste dump in Ringwood. Residents says that the sludge, which contains heavy metals, benzene and PCBs, has made them sick...

  In New York, a state Supreme Court justice ordered Yonkers last month to repair aging sewer pipes and hookups that have polluted the Bronx River with raw sewage. The town could be subject to fines of up to $1,000 per day if it does not reduce fecal coliform levels in the river to acceptable levels within 15 months...

 In Maryland, Army officials said last week they had neutralized the last 30 gallons of mustard agent at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, which once housed more than 1,600 gallons. Nearby residents said they are still worried about buried munitions at the site, as well as the possibility that chemical residue could leach into groundwater...

March 14, 2005

          In New Jersey, Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp. must remove more than 30,000 drums of waste from a landfill on its Dover Township property or face a state lawsuit, the state DEP commissioner said March 8 in a letter to the company. The site contains waste from Ciba's defunct industrial dye- and resin-making operations...

          In Washington State, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should have required an environmental impact statement before allowing a $31 million pier expansion at the BP Cherry Point Refinery, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said last week, affirming the court's earlier finding.

          In other enviro-legal news, Houston-based Dynegy Midwest Generation was required last week to install $ 500 million worth of pollution control equipment and other improvements at the former Illinois Power Baldwin generating station and four other plants, along with a $ 9 million fine...

  In hypocrisy news, Inner City Press’ BofA Watch report this week is on this irony: while BofA brags about its environmental commitment, with organizations which (wisely) denounce fossil fuel pollution, on March 9, 2005, the following was announced:

Atlas Pipeline Partners, L.P. to Acquire ETC Oklahoma Pipeline for $190 Million
 Atlas Pipeline Partners L.P. (NYSE:APL) (the "Partnership") announces that on March 8, 2005, it entered into an agreement with LG PL, LLC, a Texas limited liability company, and La Grange Acquisition, L.P., a Texas limited partnership, subsidiaries of Energy Transfer Partners L.P. (NYSE:ETP), to acquire all of the outstanding equity interests in ETC Oklahoma Pipeline, Ltd., a Texas limited partnership... ETC Oklahoma Pipeline's principal assets include more than 315 miles of natural gas pipelines located in the Anadarko Basin in western Oklahoma, a natural gas processing facility in Elk City, Oklahoma with total capacity of 130 million cubic feet of gas per day ("mmcf/d") and a 100 mmcf/d gas treatment facility in Prentiss, Oklahoma, collectively referred to as the "Elk City system". Total gas throughput, including approximately 118 mmcf/d processed at the Elk City plant, is currently approximately 262 mmcf/d. Total compression horsepower consists of 21,000 hp at six field stations and 12,000 horsepower within the Elk City facility. The Elk City system gathers and processes gas from more than 300 receipt points representing more than fifty producers and delivers that gas into multiple interstate pipeline systems.
The Partnership has received a commitment from Wachovia Bank, National Association and Fleet National Bank, a Bank of America company, to fully underwrite a new $270 million loan facility. The facility will be comprised of a $225 million 5-year revolving loan and a $45 million 5-year term loan. The loan proceeds will be used to refinance the existing $54 million outstanding on our current $135 million facility and to finance the acquisition of ETC Oklahoma Pipeline.

   We’ve highlighted BofA above, because of its bragging (and because this week’s Wachovia Watch Report focuses on ICP’s ongoing FOIA litigation to unseal the list of subprime lenders assisted).  BofA’s wider environmental record still needs scrutiny...

March 7, 2005

In Oklahoma at the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant, which makes 2,000 pound "bunker buster" penetration bombs, halted production Feb. 8 after 17 workers developed anemia caused by TNT exposure. The closure is the second since August...

  In the U.K. there’s a proposal in the new Environmental Justice Bill to give a right to communities to order an environmental impact assessment of developments such as new factories, roads or waste incineration plants. The U.K.’s Environment Agency in 2003 prosecuted 266 companies and the courts imposed fines on 11 company directors for polluting. The average fine in 1998 was £2,500. It is now estimated to be only £4,000...

In Massachusetts, EPA data shows that a portion of the polluted Housatonic River now undergoing a $45 million cleanup is in danger of recontamination with PCBs discharged by a General Electric plant.

February 28, 2005

  On Memphis, Tennessee’s Presidents Island, Radiological Assistance Consulting and Engineering -- yes, the acronym is “RACE” -- plans to burn low-level radioactive waste from hospitals, research laboratories and nuclear power generators at its plant at 2550 Channel. The four-year-old company very quietly received a construction permit from the local Health Department.  The incinerator should be ready to start this summer, brags company president Bob Applebaum. He claims there will be no danger because of the "very, very small" levels of radiation. Then why the stealth permitting process? The Health Department published a small public notice in The Daily News in September 2002. The permit was issued in February 2003; the company later got an extension when the project was delayed.  And now, they’re gearing up to burn, in the face of opposition. Environmental justice, anyone?

In colder Alaska, the EPA has fined XTO Energy Inc. $139,000 for Clean Water Act violations at the company's two Cook Inlet oil production platforms and its Nikiski processing plant between January 2000 and June 2004. Discharge from the facilities exceeded pollutant limits for treated sanitary and domestic wastewater on at least 24 occasions...

February 21, 2005

In Houston opposition continues to grow to Allied Waste Industries, with applied last April for a permit from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to vertically expand the landfill, formerly operated by Browning-Ferris Industries, from 188 to 316 feet, at 5757 Oates Road. Allied Waste spokeswoman Linda Brown refused to comment. "Saturday was the deadline for any filings with the TCEQ, and as of today, we still have not received, although it's a little early yet, the official notification about the contest. So the client is not going to make any comment until such time," Brown said.

  In Michigan, U.S. Steel last week was fined $950,000 for emitting small particles of solids into the air at its Ecorse plant on the Detroit River.

In Delaware, the EPA and the Justice Department have sued the heirs of the former Diamond State Salvage yard in Wilmington to recoup cleanup costs. The suit seeks $18 million for the removal of 100,000 tons of contaminated soil and 4,700 tons of debris.

February 14, 2005

          In Louisiana, a federal judge ruled last week that Chalmette Refining LLC violated the Clean Air Act more than 34 times between 2001 and 2003. The company could eventually be ordered to pay $27,500 per day for each violation...

          Final fall-out: the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority received $23 million last week as reimbursement for the cleanup of PCB-contaminated soil at the Paoli Rail Yard Superfund site. The settlement ended a 19-year-old court fight with American Premier Underwriters Co., the insurance firm formed after the Penn Central railroad went bankrupt...

February 7, 2005

   Amidst the Super Bowl hype, environmental justice: in northwest Jacksonville, “homes, schools and parks were built on closed dumps, which contain ash from incinerators that the city used to burn trash during most of the 20th century. Tests have found soil in those areas containing excessive amounts of heavy metals, usually lead and arsenic, and sometimes dioxins and other industrial chemicals. Cleanup plans now pending with the EPA involve neighborhoods near McCoys Creek, Durkeeville, Royal Terrace and Lonnie Miller Park.” Florida Times-Union, January 11, 2005. In the Super Bowl’s aftermath, will any of these issues be resolved?

  In Pennsylvania, two tanker cars filled with anhydrous hydrogen fluoride -- a caustic concentrated gas that turns into hydrofluoric acid when mixed with water -- ended up in the Allegheny River last week after a train derailment in East Deer.

Not urban, but reflected of slick oil companies: in Alaska, the state Supreme Court last week upheld a lower court ruling that said Conoco Phillips, Exxon Mobil and Forest Oil are not entitled to a "discovery" rate for drilling in North Slope's Midnight Sun reservoir. The oil companies were trying to get millions of dollars in royalty refunds - and they’ll probably try again...

January 31, 2005

 In New Jersey, who’s minding the (environmental) store?   The Perth Amboy plant where three workers died in an explosion on January 25 did not submit a required annual list of hazardous chemicals stored at the facility for the last five year, according to the NJ Environmental Protection Department. The last time the company submitted a report was 1999, when its inventory included acetone, nitrogen, acetylene and petroleum oil...

 In Delaware, thinking of giving aware the store: Natural Resources and Environmental Control Department Secretary John Hughes is considering whether BP is eligible for a Coastal Zone Act permit to build a 2,000-foot liquefied natural gas delivery dock along the Delaware River...

January 24, 2005

In Michigan, CMS Energy Corp. now claims that it would cost the company more than $45 million to clean up toxics at the Bay Harbor development near Petoskey that are a threat to Lake Michigan and the Little Traverse ecosystem. Bleach-like alkaline drainage from cement kiln dust piles was capped with rock and soil when CMS built the resort in the 1990s. Question: why’d ya build it?

In New Jersey, the State Education Department announced on January 18 that it will open a charter school this fall in Camden with an environment-centered curriculum. The Environment Community Opportunity Charter School will open with about 185 students in kindergarten through second grade and will expand in four years to include third and fourth graders.   Great object lesson -- first allow noxious uses that pollute the area, then put in a school on the topic....

January 18, 2005

In Arkansas, but all accounts the EPA should continue monitoring the air quality in El Dorado, where a chemical plant explosion forced the evacuation of 500 residents earlier this month. The Teris LLC warehouse contains magnesium, lithium and other metals...

 In New Jersey, officials closed portions of Ringwood State Park last month after finding dangerous levels of lead, arsenic and other toxic chemicals in an area that was supposedly cleaned up a decade ago. The contaminated area used to be the site of a Ford Motor Co. production plant...

January 10, 2005

In Texas, opponents of a planned $1 billion, 750-megawatt, coal-fired plant in San Antonio have requested a hearing with the state Commission on Environmental Quality. There are concerns that the plant will emit unhealthy levels of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury...

 In Florida, residents who live near a shuttered creosote plant in Hull have sued CSX Corp., the owner of the property. Creosote, which was used to prevent the decay of railroad ties, has contaminated the area and caused decreased property values and health problems...

January 3, 2005

  

The EPA and the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services have now reached settlements with 276 parties, including companies and municipalities in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, to resolves their liability at the Beede Waste Oil Superfund Site in Plaistow, N.H. This is the fourth round of settlements at the 40-acre toxic waste site, which was extensively contaminated from the 1920s until the closing of the facility in 1994. The settlement brings the total number of parties who have settled with the EPA to 1,199, and it brings the total amount of money raised in all four settlements to around $17.3 million.  In this agreement, the EPA offered to settle with individual small-volume contributors based on the amount of hazardous waste the party contributed to Beede. The settlement includes parties who contributed up to 20,000 gallons of hazardous waste to the site, and individual party settlements ranged between $2,000 and $140,000, the EPA said. With this settlement completed, the EPA plans to begin final negotiations for performance of the cleanup with parties identified by the agency as "major" parties, "transporters," "owners/operators," and other generators who have yet to settle their obligations at the site. The Beede site was a waste oil storage and recycling facility from the 1920s through August 1994. Waste oil seeped out of Beede's storage facilities, including an unlined lagoon, and above and underground storage tanks. The site was listed as a federal Superfund site in 1996.

December 27, 2004

  In Georgia, Brenntag Mid-South Inc.'s East Point chemical distribution warehouse suffered a glacial acetic acid leak last week. In Michigan, tests results released this month reveal high levels of dioxin in the Saginaw River, which might delay an Army Corps of Engineers plan to dredge the river of muck to aid navigation. The U.S. EPA and environmental groups want the Army Corps to conduct new assessments and revise its plan.   Holiday spirit speculation: perhaps all the more so, in light of the recently increased public knowledge of dioxin’s effects, via the face and other changes in Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine...  More seriously, or practically, per the Hartford Courant, “a major contributor to the amount of dioxin found in the environment is polyvinyl chloride plastic, better known as PVC, or vinyl. You can recognize PVC by looking at the bottom of certain plastic containers. Any plastic with a triangle containing the number 3 is a PVC product. In fact, PVC makes up 20 percent of all plastics. Many software companies use it to package their products. Some shampoos and facial cleansers also come in PVC bottles. A key ingredient in the production of PVC is chlorine -- 57 percent, to be exact -- and when we burn chlorine products, we get dioxin”...

December 20, 2004

  Mmm, mmm, good? The EPA is investigating Campbell Soup Co. for violations at the company's tomato-processing plant in Stockton, California, Campbell disclosed last week. EPA alleges that the plant exceeded allowable nitrogen oxide emissions over a five-day period in 2002...

In New York State, environmental spending as a percentage of the budget has dropped from 1.6 percent in 2001 to 1.2 percent now, and falling...

 In weapons of mass destruction news, officials at the Pine Bluff Arsenal in Jefferson County, Arkansas are working on a plan to dispose of piles of ash and gallons of brine, following incineration of 3,850 tons of nerve and blister agent weapons in February... Requests are being made to the Department of Homeland Security to ban the production of Compound 1080, a highly toxic poison, a teaspoon of which could kill dozens of humans, that is produced only by Tull Chemical Co. in Oxford, Alabama...

December 13, 2004

  In Texas, officials are now monitoring Houston's air quality following an explosion and fire last week at the Marcus Oil and Chemical plant, which manufactures polyethylene wax... In Sparks, Nevada, Clean Water Act violations at the Kinder Morgan Energy Partners oil storage plant will the company (a mere) $157,500. The EPA says the facility failed to conduct 10 required emergency drills and two oil spill drills over the past five years; the fine assessed, however, makes it just a cost of doing business... A Fond du Lac, Wisconsin judge ruled last week that ECI Special Waste Services Inc. violated environmental laws at least 394 times. The violations for the waste treatment company include inadequate sampling and treatment methods and underreporting of hazardous loads...

December 6, 2004

On brownfields, an editorial in the Buffalo News of Nov. 30 noted that “New York State's recently enacted brownfields legislation received opposition from the Western New York delegation for not meeting the needs of former industrial cities such as Buffalo.... New York State is now trying to significantly reduce the availability of those incentives to local projects. It appears that budgetary concerns arising from a massive allocation of tax credits for a single project in Manhattan have forced the state to come up with ways to limit the availability of these incentives.”  And that’s not even mentioning the proposed boondoggle of tax benefits to the proposed re-developers of the Bronx Terminal Market...

A sample brownfield, in Maine (as reported in the Bank Beat Report, ICP has challenged a merger application between Maine-based Banknorth and Toronto Dominion, so why not) -- “The Goodall Mill complex on the bank of the Mousam River in Sanford, Maine has sat largely vacant for years. The Maine DEP has been monitoring areas of the mill complex since a sulfuric acid spill in the early 1990s at the former International Woolen Co. Inc.. Testing uncovered oil discharges, discarded fluorescent lighting ballasts containing PCBs, the presence of heavy metals in discharge water and solvents in the ground water.  Now attempt are afoot to redevelop it, responsibly.  We’ll be watching...

November 29, 2004

In New Jersey, Mickey “Van Dunk, 34, still lives in Upper Ringwood, in the same area where he grew up and sometimes played with other kids on the mounds of industrial junk - the tons of lead-based paints, solvents and other discarded materials Ford Motor Co. regularly dumped very close to his home... Now, 17 surgeries later, with massive infected chunks of Mickey's body removed, Linda Van Dunk cleanses the wounds, tends the scars and soothes the spirit of her husband, whose condition has led to facial disfigurement and loss of function in the most private areas of his body... The EPA's project director Joe Gowers says EPA and Ford agreed to meet again with residents and their attorneys next month about the cleanup.”  This outrageous news courtesy of the Thanksgiving Day edition of the Bergen Record...

 And from Inner Asia, over the BBC: “An oil spill will cost the PetroKazakhstan Kumkol Resources (formerly Hurricane Kumkol Munay, a subsidiary of Canada's PetroKazakhstan) joint-stock company 268.8m tenge (2.067 million dollars, the current exchange rate is 130 tenge to the dollar), the figure demanded under a lawsuit the Kyzylorda Region environmental protection department has filed against the company. Two more lawsuits have been filed, demanding that a total of 6m (tenge, over 46,153 dollars) be paid. The court has ordered the joint-stock company to pay this money for discharging toxic waste over the limit.”

November 22, 2004

In Georgia, the revolving hazardous waste trust fund “was established by the Legislature 12 years ago to clean up toxic waste sites that pose a direct threat to the environment or public health. It was also intended to reimburse cities and counties that have undertaken such cleanups. But in recent years, as the economy slumped and tax revenues shrank, the governor and state lawmakers have repeatedly raided the trust fund to use the money for other purposes, a practice that has left many financially strapped local communities holding the bag. About 50 hazardous waste sites around the state are slated for immediate cleanup using money from the trust fund. But as a consequence of the budgetary sleight-of-hand, work at eight sites has been stopped and at 26 other projects has been delayed indefinitely. Dozens of cities and counties are waiting for money to help pay for $11 million in cleanups, but only $1.2 million will be reimbursed because the trust fund has mostly been drained. In the past two years, more than $20 million has been diverted from the fund, and there's a $162 million gap between what will be collected in fees and the amount needed to finish work that's already under way. In the meantime, a toxic stew of chemicals endangers water supplies and poisons the soil all over the state. One in every six Georgians lives within two miles of a leaking landfill that is contaminating the groundwater around it.”  And guess in which communities this is most frequent...

November 15, 2004

            The World Health Organization cited Riverside County, California, as the fourth-worst polluted area in the world for small particulate air pollution behind Indonesia, Thailand and India. Mira Loma, which has been usurped in the last 15 years by warehouses, is arguably the worst in Riverside County.  In the early '90s is when there was a rapid increase in Mira Loma in warehousing because the county fast-tracked all the construction of these warehouses without having to go through each issue with regards to the environment," said Mira Loma resident Betty Anderson, who has been combating warehouse developers in the area for more than a decade. Anderson, along with a slew of other residents, blame the warehousing industry and their hundreds of diesel trucks for the deteriorating air quality. She said the devastating effects the pollution has had on the community are irreversible and unforgivable. Look up on the train tracks on that bridge," Anderson said referring to the railroad bridge just north of Van Buren Boulevard on Etiwanda Avenue. The underside of this bridge is completely black from the smoke of the diesel trucks. . . . I'm sure you can get some sort of cleanser to clean that, but clean that out of the lungs of our kids. You can't do that." USC recently finished a 10-year study in the area, tracking about 500 children's respiratory health as they progressed from adolescence to adulthood. Mira Loma is one of the highest reporting areas in the country in violation of the federal and state air quality standards," said Ed Avol, one of the co-investigators of the study and a professor in the Keck School of Medicine at USC. The children do in fact have more symptoms and respiratory problems and slower rates of [lung] growth." Avol said typically lungs fully develop by the late teenage years and early 20s, further mentioning the study concluded that Mira Loma children have stunted lung growth that decreases their capacity to breath and usually leads to respiratory complications. They don't have as healthy life outlooks as their peers who might grow up in cleaner communities," he said. The fact that these children have slower growing lungs raises the question: Do they ever catch up?"  Good question...

November 8, 2004

Clean water in the inner city?  A court order may somewhat protect the Bronx River from raw sewage from Yonkers, from pipes that were illegally connected to the city's storm-water drainage system. New York State Supreme Court Justice Francis Nicolai ordered the city in a decision made public last week to come up with a plan to stop the discharge. State testing in June 2003 showed fecal coli form bacteria levels at 16 million per 100 milliliters at a flow rate of two gallons per minute. Similar suits against the Bronx Zoo and New York Botanical Garden were settled, including for the canoe portage paths now in place.  But is the water clean yet?  Nope...

November 1, 2004

From the annual meeting in Pittsburgh of the Society of Environmental Journalists, in late October: a Carnegie Mellon professor of architecture, Vivian Loftness, linked issues of great importance to people of color, like urban planning and transportation problems, to environmentalists’ concerns over suburban sprawl. Sprawl, she said, was a "car-centric" form of urban planning that often leaves the poor "without access to modern amenities -- commercial, residential and educational settings."

  October 29 at the Center for Architecture in Manhattan, several long-time planners pointed to the environmental justice movement as being the hopeful way forward, the successor to earlier movements around housing and community development.  Here’s hoping...

October 25, 2004

  Plutonium in upstate New York: in Niagara County, in a landfill owned by Waste Management Inc., the following have recently been found: plutonium-239, plutonium-240, radium-226, thorium-230, strontium-90, actinium-227, uranium 233/234, uranium 235/236 and uranium-238. Both the plutonium and strontium are linked to atomic bomb research conducted at the University of Rochester.  Weapons of mass destruction.... According to the Rochester D&C, artifacts of darker UR experiments - some injecting unwitting patients at Strong Memorial Hospital with plutonium - were apparently also buried there. Finding radioactive metals at the UR Burial Area - a site supposedly long ago cleaned up - has sounded a major chord of concern in Niagara County. To the west just more than a mile is the Niagara River, to the north, Lake Ontario. It was a sign to many that the federal government has not adequately investigated radiation at the former military site known as the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works. Part of the old ordnance works site, once 7,500 acres, is still in federal hands. Included is the 191-acre Niagara Falls Storage Site, one of about 20 former U.S. military installations contaminated with bomb-related radioactive waste. Buried there is 22,000 tons of radioactive waste, including one-third of the world's supply of mined uranium. For the record, the UR burial area is on a portion of a 710-acre landfill now owned by the "CWM Chemical Services LLC" subsidiary of Waste Management Inc....

October 18, 2004

In Colorado, a consent decree filed last week in federal court requires New Jersey-based ASARCO Inc. to remediate 100 lead and arsenic-contaminated residential properties near its now shuttered Denver-area smelters. Also in Colorado, officials now say they’ll demolish a former plutonium processing plant near Denver using a manual technique, after officials said last week the facility cannot be cleaned enough to allow for a detonation. The 300,000-square-foot building at Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant was shut down in 1989 and scheduled to be demolished as part of a $7 billion project.  Kaiser Hill says it will manually demolish the vault and remove the radioactive waste before dismantling the rest of the building...

 In Kentucky, polluters including General Electric and LG&E Energy have submitted letters of complaint about a proposed air pollution control plan for the Louisville area they say would be too expensive and strict.

October 11, 2004

In Western New York, opposition continues to grow to the planned sewage treatment plant on Syracuse's South Side. There’s be an event on October 12 at Syracuse University's Hendricks Chapel -- note, however, that Syracuse University recently sold its naming rights and stadium advertising space to Citizens Bank, accused this summer by groups from the East Coast to Cleveland with redlining and involvement in predatory lending, click here for more...

  Moving from reporting to advocacy, Inner City Press / Community on the Move’s recent complaint that the draft EIS scope for the proposed give-away of the Bronx Terminal Market to Steven Ross’ Related Companies did not even mention environmental justice has resulted a new Section 22 in the final scope, mailed out October 8: “an analysis will be performed that considers the potential for disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of the project on minority or low-income populations... If disproportionate impacts are identified, discuss appropriate avoidance measures, mitigation measures and enhancements for the affected population.” We’ll see...

October 4, 2004

In Ohio, District Judge Alegon L. Marbley of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio granted class-action status last week to a 2003 lawsuit alleging that Honeywell-Grimes and Siemens Energy and Automation contaminated private wells in Champaign County with cancer-causing PCE and TCE...

September 27, 2004

   The Ohio Environmental Council last week released its list of the most mercury polluted waters in the state. At the top of the list is the Grand River in Ashtabula County, where the fish contain five times the safe limit for mercury for women and children

  In La-La Land, approval of a 115-acre Long Beach port expansion was based on underestimates of air pollution, South Coast Air Quality Management District officials said last week. The agency had expressed similar concerns in a letter last October, but the Long Beach port commissioners approved the expansion anyway.

September 20, 2004

In Illinois, Governor Rod Blagojevich has asked the operators of the state's 12 remaining medical-waste incinerators five of which are near Chicago, to shut down the facilities.  We’ll see...

  WMD found -- in Utah, Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility officials recently disposed of a VX nerve agent spray tank last weekend, marking the halfway point for the clean up of 13,616 tons of nerve and blister chemicals stored at the site in Tooele County...

September 13, 2004

In California, Pacific Gas & Electric and the state Department of Toxic Substances Control now claim that they will expedite cleanup of chromium 6 groundwater contamination headed toward the Colorado River. Experts opine that low river water levels accelerates the transport of the chemical...

 In Maryland, Harford County City Council voted last week to enforce a six-month moratorium on new gas station construction, giving the county time to consider adopting regulations that would help combat MTBE groundwater contamination, which has already affected more than 150 wells in the Upper Crossroads area.

September 6, 2004

  In Missouri last week, Sigma-Aldrich Corp. and the EPA reached a slap-on-the-wrist settlement agreement requiring the company to pay only $180,000 in fines for failing to maintain records and equipment, as well as repair industrial refrigeration appliances that use ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons...

  In Texas, electricity consumers have filed nearly 35,000 complaints with the Public Utility Commission since deregulation started 31 months ago. Complaints range from unwittingly being switched to different providers to charges that the PUC is to lax penalizing companies for violations. Yep...

August 30, 2004

  In Indiana, eight companies, including U.S. Steel and Dupont Co., have agreed to pay $56 million to clean up a stretch of the Grand Calumet River polluted with lead, mercury and PCBs -- too little too late comes to mind...

  In Texas, the EPA is investigating possible cleanup solutions at an abandoned tanning plant in Fort Worth. Chromium, Cadmium, naphtha and acetone have been found on the site during previous inspections

  EJ machinations: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission published a disingenuous EJ policy statement in the Federal Register on August 24. As if written by the Nuclear Energy Institute, it states that the EJ executive order (E.O. 12898) did not establish new substantive or procedural requirements or create any new right or benefit. Only the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act, said the NRC, not the executive order, obligates the NRC to consider environmental justice-related issues. The goal of the policy statement is to allow the NRC to refuse to consider legal challenges regarding issues of racial discrimination, fairness, and economic equity in its licensing hearings. We'll see... 

August 23, 2004

  Where do all the tires go? In New York State, the state Department of Environmental Conservation is using money from a dedicated fund to clean up a dump site in West Monroe that is estimated to contain up to 20 million discarded tires... In western New York by Niagara Falls, the DEC is considering an application by NFB Carbon, which says its new recipe for silicon carbide won't produce enough pollutants to need any controls. It has been calculated only on paper so far. NFB Carbon wants the state to consider its proposal so minor that the EJ regulations don't apply. "What they're asking us to do is just transfer the permit," said the DEC's regional engineer Daniel David. Well, no.

  Karma goes unmentioned: San Bernardino, California will receive $69 million from state and federal authorities to clean up contamination at Camp Ono, a former weapons- and truck-cleaning facility temporarily used as a prisoner of war camp during World War II. The facility is contaminated with tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene...

August 16, 2004

  In Virginia, officials last week found more fish kills of the Atlantic croaker off the Eastern Shore. Scientists still do not know why at least a million of the fish have died off the Delaware, Maryland and Virginia coasts since late July...

  In Nebraska, the EPA will solicit public comments until Sept. 15 on its plan to clean lead-contaminated soil near the former Asarco lead refinery in Omaha...In Alabama, the Army may resume removing scrap ordnance from Fort McClellan, the state Department of Environmental Management said last week. The agency had stopped the cleanup in November 2003, when the workers found a vial of chemical agent at the fort's former chemical weapons training site...

  In California, Pacoima residents peppered environmental regulators with questions on August 7 about the cleanup of contaminated soil and groundwater at a former Price Pfister faucet plant during a legislative hearing. The Price Pfister property was recently purchased by a national developer with plans to build a Lowe's Home Improvement store on the site.... Improvement?

August 9, 2004

  Revolving door: in Connecticut it emerged last week that the chief lawyer for enforcement and compliance at the state Department of Environmental Protection, Paul Balavender, will leave the agency to work for O&G Industries, a construction company he helped to regulate... In Alabama, the Army must halt cleanup of unexploded ordnance at McClellan Air Force Base for allegedly violating hazardous waste rules last month at Longleaf National Wildlife Refuge, the state Department of Environmental Management stated in an administrative order last week. 

August 2, 2004

In Indiana, at least 32 residents near a Superfund site in Elkhart were exposed to trichloroethyle in drinking water, and about 24 people were exposed to potentially hazardous levels of carbon tetrachloride, according to a report issued last week by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Officials will solicit public comments on the report at a meeting Aug. 3...

In California, toxic chemical levels at Santa Susana Field Laboratory are worse than previously thought and include higher levels of radioactive tritium and industrial solvent TCE, according to a report issued last month.

July 26, 2004

In Alaska, surprise inspections on Anchorage and Mat-Su construction sites earlier this month resulted in 11 citations against builders for Clean Water Act violations, totaling up to $98,000... Protest is growing in Gary, Indiana, accusing the state Department of Environmental Management of environmental racism for issuing a permit for a medical-waste processing plant in predominantly African-American Gary while moving the agency's regional office to Merrillville...

In Delaware, the EPA is cracking down on a June 29 order for the Lewes sewage treatment plant to meet Clean Water Act requirements. A state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control officials said Tuesday they are asking for a new permit for the plant... Meanwhile, the EPA is shipping two trucks full of unwanted chemicals from the closed Matachem, Delaware, chemical factory near Delaware City to Mexico...

July 19, 2004

  In Arizona, the EPA filed a lawsuit this month against Phoenix-area Unidynamics-Phoenix, Inc. and parent company Crane Co. The agency alleges the companies failed to follow federal cleanup orders for a former defense site at the Phoenix-Goodyear Airport and is asking for a $2.8 million Superfund reimbursement and up to an additional $27 million in damages

  In Massachusetts, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said last week it would give PG&E National Energy Group Inc. 60 days to revise the company's plan for funding a $85 million cleanup of its Salem Harbor coal and oil burning power plant. The plan likely would require customers to pay...

   Oil and human rights, from last week’s Senate hearings: ExxonMobil, Amerada Hess and Marathon Oil contributed to a culture of corruption in Equatorial Guinea. The report cited millions of dollars of payments that the companies made to Brig. Gen. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and his cronies over the years to lease property and fund the education of the children of the ruling elite. In terms of banking and money laundering, Equatorial Guinea was Riggs Bank's largest client, with deposits reaching as much as $700 million, or more than 10% of the bank's assets...

July 12, 2004

  EJ eyes are on Massachusetts Senate bill 2418, which authorizes the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs to maintain its environmental justice program... In California, public comments is open through July 22 on a proposed ChevronTexaco cogeneration power plant in San Ramon. A public hearing is scheduled for July 20...

  An Inner City Press reader in the Twin Cities alerts us to this man-bites-dog story, in which ExxonMobil is resisting the taking of polluted land it owns and its development as housing, ostensibly from concern for future residents. Hmm... Keep those stories coming. 

July 5, 2004

  In Tennessee, the state fund for cleanups of underground gasoline storage tanks will have a deficit of $20.6 million in the next fiscal year and of $120 million by 2012, fund officials said last week... In Arizona, the EPA has awarded a $400,000 brownfields program grant to Phoenix for remediation analysis of sites within 100 feet of the city's proposed light-rail lone, city officials announced recently.

June 28, 2004

  In California, the bankrupt Keysor-Century Corp. in Santa Clarita agreed last week to pay a $4.3 million penalty for dumping toxins into a nearby river. The plastics company also admitted to lying about worker safety..  In Maryland, officials found exceptionally high levels of MTBE in groundwater near an Exxon gas station in Harford County, the Maryland Department of the Environment confirmed this week. Well testing uncovered concentrations of MTBE 1,300 times the U.S. EPA's acceptable level of 20 parts per billion, making the contamination some of the worst the state has seen

June 21, 2004

  In New Mexico, test samples showed PCB contamination in the Rio Grande River, including tributaries in northern New Mexico, according to a study issued last week by the state Environment Department and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

  In Halfmoon, NY, the EPA will host a public meeting June 23 to solicit comments on the agency's proposal to designate a PCB dewatering site in the town...

  In Alabama, Judge U.W. Clemon of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama approved Monday a payment structure for personal injury compensation checks for Tolbert PCB case plaintiffs. 

June 14, 2004

   In Grand Island, Nebraska, five 50-gallon barrels of 1,1-dichloroethylene and TCE may have caused a long plume of contamination under Island Utilities director Gary Mader admitted last week...

   Good base commander: ChevronTexaco and Australian firm BHP Billiton have proposed separately building a liquefied natural gas terminal on or off the coast near Camp Pendleton -- and Base commander Maj. Gen. W.G. Bowdon said in a letter last month to state officials that he is "unequivocally opposed" to the proposals. The site is the last major undeveloped property along the coastline in the state...

June 7, 2004

Things that should be known: in Texas, the Pantex nuclear weapons plant near Amarillo had an hour-long blackout on May 19. A plant spokesman said last week that causes for the blackout were still unknown .. Also in Texas, the state Commission on Environmental Quality is considering a plan to host a public hearing for a proposed air emissions permit renewal by Asarco copper smelter in El Paso. Asarco is trying to persuade the commission to cancel the hearing. Last week, the El Paso City Council approved a proposal to take no action on Asarco's request on the hearing, a vote that conflicts with Mayor Joe Wardy's stance on the issue.

June 1, 2004

  Mistake on the lake? Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District's announcement this month that it dumped 1.5 billion gallons of untreated waste into Lake Michigan was the most raw sewage dumping of all sewer systems along the lake, according to data released last week by the state Department of Natural Resources. The Milwaukee district dumped more than it previously stated, according to the sewer system spokesman last week

   In Alabama, Federal prosecutors indicted pipe maker McWane Inc. and four employees on 25 counts last week, including violation of the Clean Water Act and providing false statements to the U.S. EPA. Officials said the company contaminated Avondale Creek near the McWane Cast Iron Pipe plant in North Birmingham

  It never ends: in West Virginia, the trial has begun in the lawsuit against Massey Energy's plan to open a $1.3 billion coal mine, which has dried up water from private drinking wells.

May 24, 2004

  In West Virginia, Judge Michael Thornsbury of the Mingo County Circuit Court is beginning hearing oral arguments this week in a lawsuit filed by Mingo County residents alleging Massey Energy Co. contaminated drinking water through its coal mining operations ...

  In Tennessee, a radioactive spill of strontium-90 contaminated four roads near Oak Ridge last week. DOE said Tuesday it will upgrade its investigation of the spill to Type B, the agency's second highest investigation, and expects to complete the review in June  .

May 17, 2004

Surprise, surprise: in Texas, children who live close to the Asarco smelter in El Paso are more likely to have elevated lead levels in their blood, according to a study issued last week by the state Department of Health Study....Who knew, right?

  In Indianapolis, a plant owned by Chemcentral Corp. spilled about 15,000 gallons of acetone and toluene on May 10... A federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota indicted owners and employees of Prime Plating on May 11 on charges of illegally dumping untreated wastewater..

May 10, 2004

  In Texas, the state Commission on Environmental Quality said last week it will host a public hearing during the next few months on the effects of approving a state permit renewal for the Asarco smelter in El Paso, which emits 13.7 tons of lead annually

In New Hampshire, the EPA plans to remove up to 550,000 gallons of plasticizers and Varsol by Dec. 31 from a Superfund site in Troy, where the chemicals are buried under a former textile mill that produced them, officials said last week... 

May 3, 2004

  Monsanto is lobbying to receive federal approval for the company's genetically modified alfalfa, which resists the company's herbicide Roundup...

   In Delaware, the EPA is quietly soliciting public comments through May 21 on the agency's $9.3 billion proposal to burn up to 1.3 million gallons of chemicals at the former Metachem Products plant near Delaware City ..

April 26, 2004

   This week, the midwest (in keeping with the Federal Reserve's April 23 public hearing in Chicago on Bank One - JP Morgan Chase) -- in Indiana, the Gary-Chicago International Airport released an environmental impact study last week on a proposed expansion project. The report raised concerns about hazardous materials and harm to wetlands and threatened species, according to airport administrators... A bit north in Illinois, Waukegan city officials rejected a proposal last week to dump PCB-contaminated dredged material from Waukegan Harbor in the Yeoman Creek landfill... We're on the move and we're watching. Click here for a mixed review of a nice Riverwalk in the Bronx Zoo, ironically sponsored by Mitsubishi, and click here for a question of why environmental campaigns have laid off Citigroup, despite its backsliding, even on the Equator Principles...

April 19, 2004

   In substantive (e.g., shut-down) environmental justice news, in Indiana, Wishard Memorial Hospital will close its medical waste incinerator by April 30 because the facility repeatedly violated federal limits for dioxin emissions, hospital officials announced last week

  In procedural EJ news, numerous pollutants in the Four Corners community in St. Mary Parish show that the EPA should study pollution in context with community issues rather than studying chemicals individually, according to a report from the Environmental Justice Advisory Council

  In Ohio, the NRC has cited FirstEnergy Corp. with three violations of "low to moderate safety significance" at the Perry nuclear power plant and 18 "noncited" violations of failing to comply with federal or plant maintenance rules ...

April 12, 2004

  In Delaware, the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control said last week that it has fined four state businesses for air pollution or permit violations, with the largest fine posted to Hardcore Composites LLC. The other companies are Contractor Materials LLC, American Minerals and Coastal Coatings Inc.

  In Alabama, Anniston Army Depot's chemical weapons incinerator may continue limited burning of rockets full of GB nerve agent following retests that showed that the facility can remove PCBs from its emissions, U.S. EPA said on April 7

  Drugs and toxins: in Riverside, California last week, the EPA began cleanup of a Riverside home that officials said was a major methamphetamine lab and was contaminated with deadly red phosphorus...

April 5, 2004

  In Texas, TXU Gas failed to tell the state about known faulty polyethylene pipes for more than 30 years, according to state Railroad Commission records. The commission is scheduled to decide by May 25 whether the utility should be reimbursed for a $130 million removal of the pipes, which caused eight fires and explosions from gas leaks

  In Utah, it is reported that Calpine Corp.'s proposed 1,100-megawatt power plant in Provo will emit the most dangerous fine particulates known as PM2.5

  In California, GenCorp Inc. has agreed to pay $1.2 million for violations cited during hazardous waste inspections at its Aerojet rocket propulsion facility in Rancho Cordova, according to a statement issued last week by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control.

March 29, 2004

   In Westchester County, the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation ruled last week that Atlantic Richfield Co. is responsible for a $62.8 million cleanup of PCBs from the Hastings-on-Hudson waterfront. ARCO's predecessor, the Anaconda Cable & Wire Co., made copper wires at the site

   In Fall River, Rhode Island last week, a loose seal on a tanker forced a spill of caustic sodium hydroxide, sending a person to the hospital for chemical-burn treatment

   Tip of the iceberg news from West Virginia: Monsanto and Pharmacia agreed last week to a new review of dioxin contamination of the Kanawha River

Nuclear Tennessee: The revised design for a uranium storehouse at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge may cost $25 million more than expected, according to an audit released last week by the Energy Department's inspector general...

March 22, 2004

  In Texas, tests results of soil samples in South El Paso showed high arsenic levels at three properties and high lead levels at 46 sites, the U.S. EPA has said...

  In Kentucky, levels of carcinogenic air pollutant 1,3-butadiene have been increasing about 35 percent annually since June 2000, according to a study released Tuesday by the University of Louisville. The study found that three companies were sources, with American Synthetic Rubber Co. emitting the most... 

March 15, 2004

  In Delaware, the Army will host two public meetings this month to review a plan to treat waste liquid from VX nerve agent transported from an Army facility in Indiana. A DuPont treatment plant near Deepwater would treat the waste and dispose it in the Delaware River. The nervy proposal would impact New Jersey as well...

  In Texas, a Pasadena insecticide warehouse that caught on fire last week may have had more active ingredients than its permit lists. State air quality officials said the chemicals stored at the facility release toxic fumes when burned.

March 8, 2004

  In Arizona, workers at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station discovered a boric-acid leak last week. Plant operators claimed that the leak does not pose a health threat. Yeah -- boric acid is great for you...

  The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is accepting comments about a proposed coal-fired power plant near Waco. The commission is reviewing the operator's application for a state air pollution permit

  The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection issued a permit made public on March 3 that would allow GenPower LLC to emit more than 19 million pounds of air pollution annually from its proposed power plant near Morgantown 

March 1, 2004

  EPA white-wash: an abandoned dump in Houston's Acres Homes neighborhood poses no danger to health or the environment, according to a recent pronouncement by the EPA. The agency didn't address whether residents had been exposed to toxic chemicals in the past...

   DEC asphalt cap: the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation is considering "capping" chemically contaminated soil at BASF's 90-acre site in Rensselaer with four inches of asphalt, rather than cleaning it up. Bad example for industry...

  Eureka? Not... In Eureka, California, police last week began examining last week how someone might have stolen and leaked to the media confidential e-mails related to a fraud lawsuit against Pacific Lumber. The lawsuit alleges that Pacific Lumber gave false information about landslides and withheld data to secure logging permits. Sound like they're investigation the wrong thing...

February 23, 2004

In Texas, the state issued $1.7 million in fines against Citgo for exceeding pollution limits at two Corpus Christi sulfur recovery plants. The fines are the second largest penalty against an in-state company...

  Ah, the revolving door: Colorado Gov. Bill Owens' chief of staff announced last week he will become the top state lobbyist for Xcel Energy Inc. Roy Palmer's move comes as Xcel seeks air pollution permits from the state to build a coal-fired power plant in Pueblo...

February 16, 2004

In New Mexico, local groups have reviewed data from an environmental contractor showing Intel Corp. released air pollutants at its Rio Rancho plant. Intel said it would like to review the Corrales Task Force's allegations -- make that, sweep them under the rug...

In Indiana, workers found 240 barrels of unknown substances, at least some of which are hazardous, at a former barrel and drum company site in Harrison County. On Monday, county commissioners voted to provide $165,000 to hire a contractor to examine the barrels' contents. Also in Indiana (and wacky) State officials said Tuesday they plan to revise a permit identifying wind conditions during which the Army can burn buildings at the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant. The Army plans to burn 327 buildings over the next five years because it would be unsafe for humans to remove the asbestos in the buildings...  

February 9, 2004

In California, instead of imposing a $571,000 fine on AKT Development for allowing dirt and chemicals to run off a construction site, state regulators will ask Attorney General Bill Lockyer (D) to sue the company's owner, Angelo Tsakopoulos. The fine would have been a record for the Central Valley Regional Water Control Board, which has jurisdiction over runoff from the site Also re AG Lockyer, we're proud to report that his office, in a recent letter to the Federal Reserve, said that Bank of America and its subsidiaries are contributing to predatory lending problems in California by packaging subprime loans for sale on Wall Street. Inner City / Fair Finance Watch has been saying that for while, and will pursue it until it's cleaned up....

In Illinois, complex and fraudulent transactions by Peoples Gas led to record heating bills during the winter of 2000-01. The company sold gas intended for customers to its parent company and Enron Corp. subsidiaries, forcing the purchase of gas for homes on the more expensive spot market... 

February 2, 2004

In West Virginia, a spill from a Massey Energy Inc. plant on January 26 in Logan County discolored about 1 1/2 miles of Rum Creek and emptied into the Guyandotte River. The spill is at least the third violation in nine months for Massey...

Fun, fun, fun: in Tennessee, officials suspended four managers at the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant and warned a fifth in an investigation of a hazing ritual in which employees reportedly throw new recruits into an ice-condenser safety system. A T-shirt commemorating the practice is available in the plant's co-op store...

January 26, 2004

  In upstate New York, the Rensselaer City Council on Jan. 21 voted to file a suit under the Federal Solid Waste Disposal Act against BASF Corp. for failing to clean up a former facility. State officials estimate the cost of cleaning up the most-polluted 41-acres of the site at $13.2 million...

January 20, 2004

  Dirty deal-making: in Delaware: Motiva Enterprises has agreed to sell its Delaware City oil refinery for over $1 billion to Premcor Refining Group Inc. A 2001 accident in the plant killed one man and resulted in almost $40 million in fines and damage settlements...

  WMD in New Jersey: many now question a plan by the Army to treat 1,600 tons of the nerve agent VX at a facility in Deepwater and dump the resulting waste into the Delaware River. Army officials said other options are too expensive...

  In Alabama, State Department of Environmental Management workers pulled two empty 55-gallon drums of "indeterminate origin" last week from Choccolocco Creek. The cleanup follows last year's discovery of drums, some with hazardous materials labels, in the creek... 

January 12, 2004

  Fall-out: in Alabama, 17,000 people will get blood tests to determine who will receive money in the settlement against Monsanto for polluting parts of the Anniston area
with PCBs....

Spot-light on Waukegan, Illinois: during the 1960s, over 30,000 people were employed in Waukegan factories, making products such as drywall, roofing shingles and boat engines. A succession of plant closings, bankruptcies and mergers left that lakefront workforce at just 300. The legacy of many of the shuttered businesses remains in the form of heavily polluted sites and silt lining the harbor bottom-the result of decades of unregulated disposal of solvents, oil and other industrial waste that's suspected of causing cancer, birth defects and other illnesses. City estimates of lakefront clean-up costs range from $62.5 million to $105 million. Major cleanup is needed at a former coke plant and a shuttered Outboard Marine factory. We'll see...

January 5, 2004

   This week (and coming year), from the border: In Ciudad Juarez, air pollution generated by trucks that transport goods destined for the United States under NAFTA has contributed to the hospitalization of thousands of children and the deaths of hundreds of others between 1997 and 2001 from respiratory illnesses, according to a recent study by the NAFTA-created Commission for Environmental Cooperation. In Nogales, Ariz., a bi-national waste treatment plant is spewing millions of gallons of contaminated water daily into a wash that feeds into the Santa Cruz River. The plant is unable to adequately treat the overload of industrial and household waste from neighboring Nogales, Mexico, where industry has mushroomed and the population has doubled under NAFTA. Cancer and lupus rates are unusually high in Nogales, Ariz.,

   And that's not even mentioning (yet) the abandoned battery recycling plant in Tijuana, Metales y Derivados, nor the NAFTA tribunal's ruling in favor of Delaware-based Metalclad...

December 29, 2003

   In Tennessee, workers recently finished defueling the Tower Shielding Reactor II, clearing the way for cleanup of the Cold War-era site. Originally used for experiments with nuclear-powered airplanes, the site ceased operations in 1992... Happy holidays.

December 22, 2003

  In Louisiana earlier this month, a jury awarded about 16,000 Bogalusa-area
residents $92 million in a lawsuit against Gaylord Chemical Co. for a tank car explosion in 1995. The tank car contained the toxic substance nitrogen tetroxide...

December 15, 2003

   In Alabama, the Anniston-Calhoun County Joint Powers Authority will soon choose between two Denver-based contractors for a $48.5 million cleanup of unexploded ordnance at a former military site at Fort McClellan. It is estimated the cleanup will take five years to remove ordinance, munitions and other dangerous materials

  In Michigan, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Dow Chemical Co. have filed a complaint alleging the company is delaying the case by seeking background information on the plaintiffs, who number over 300. The suit alleges Dow is responsible for dioxin contamination on the Tittabawassee River 

December 8, 2003

  In Alabama, attorneys suing Monsanto for PCB contamination held a drive last week in Anniston to sign up more people for a second class action lawsuit against the chemical manufacturer. Monsanto and Solutia, which purchased the property where PCBs were made, settled a previous suit with over 25,000 claimants

  In Delaware, Officials at Motiva Enterprises said the company will delay plans for a rezoning review to build a new dredge soil disposal site near Tybouts Corner. A company spokesman said planners needed more time to research storm water management... Also in Delaware, ICP's Constitutional challenge to the Del. Freedom of Information Act's "citizens-only" provision is proceeding, having been assigned to Judge Joseph Farnan, is now described on FirstAmendmentCenter.org (click here to view); a editorial in the Wilmington News-Journal of December 4, 2003, "Our View: Change the State's Open Records Statute So It Applies to All," recounts ICP's "federal lawsuit asserting Delaware's open-records law is unconstitutional because it refuses access to non-residents," then opines that the "exclusion is silly and probably unconstitutional. The General Assembly should attend to this when it returns to session next month." We'll see.

December 1, 2003

   On November 20, Delaware governor Ruth Ann Minner announced that Delaware will join a lawsuit against the EPA over changes to the New Source Review provision of the Clean Air Act.... FYI, Inner City Press on Nov. 24 filed suit against Gov. Minner, and the state's Attorney General, for enforcing an unconstitutional provision of Delaware's Freedom of Information Act, limiting the right to documents to residents of the state. Click here for the Wilmington News-Journal's article (also onsite here). 

November 24, 2003

   Last week in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, state officials let it be known that sites in the Durrs neighborhood are contaminated with arsenic, barium, copper and dioxin. Now what?

   In Indiana, the Army announced a suspension of the destruction of VX nerve gas from the Newport Chemical Depot 30 miles north of Terre Hautte. Local residents complained when a subcontractor announced plans to dump treated waste from the project into the sewer system...

  In Hawaii, former Gov. Benjamin Cayetano (D), who during his tenure ordered an investigation into accusations of tax fraud by ChevronTexaco, said last week the state should not have selected the law firm Winston & Strong of Chicago because of a conflict of interest. He said he was unaware at the time that the law firm had worked for the predecessors of the company...

November 17, 2003

I  n Indiana last week, the Army scheduled a meeting in Newport to modify permits for a chemical weapons disposal project. Officials say they need more time to dispose of VX nerve gas from the Newport Chemical Depot

  In California, a lumber company charged with fraud is financing the recall campaign against the county district attorney who filed the charges. Pacific Lumber Co. paid professional signature-gatherers up to $8 per signature to ensure the recall of Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos makes the March 2004 ballot

   "There ought to be a law" -- hey, maybe there is: check out this new ICP map, which addresses state laws and efforts to preempt them -- click here to view and use...

November 10, 2003

  In Massachusetts, a recent study of soil at Boston playgrounds found 18 of 76 surveyed had traces of arsenic from pressure-treated wood. The study found 10 playgrounds with arsenic concentrations at dangerous levels...

   In Connecticut, About 1,500 gallons of an airplane de-icing chemical spilled from a truck Nov. 1 at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks. Officials continued to assess how much propylene glycol entered waterways...

November 3, 2003

  In Delaware in late October, the state fined refinery owner Motiva Enterprises $120,000 for a May 4 chemical spill. Officials estimate 25,000 gallons of sulfuric acid and 15,000 gallons of gasoline compounds spilled from a tank in an accident investigators traced to broken equipment and safety lapses

  In Rhode Island Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp. and Organic Dyestuffs Corp. were recently ordered to contribute to a Superfund cleanup by a retirement home...

October 27, 2003

   In Connecticut, the state sued the owners of a Manchester plant on October 15, alleging the company illegally built piping to discharge untreated materials into sanitary sewers. The company, Printed Circuits Inc., is a subsidiary of Tyco International. Corporate sleaze -- Tyco before the fall bought a predatory lender, too -- intertwined with environmental degradation, then... 

October 20, 2003

  In the Dominican Republic, a powder often used as an antiperspirant / deodorant has poisoned four children, according to the Health Department. The government has warned people not to use the powder, called Litargirio, which contains 80 percent lead...

  Backtracking: in Tennessee on October 14, a state official claimed he misspoke the previous week when he said half of the state's ground water is contaminated. State Solid Waste Director Mike Apple now says it is "impossible" to tell how many of the state's wells and springs contain pollutants or bacteria because testing has been done on only a small number of wells and springs...

October 13, 2003

   "WMD" found -- in Tennessee, the TVA-owned Watts Barr Nuclear Plant will soon become the only commercial nuclear station to produce both civilian energy and tritium, a hydrogen isotope used in thermonuclear weapons.

  Note: this week's Inner City Press Bronx Report ruminates on, among other things, environmental justice -- click here to view...

October 6, 2003

   Corporate polluters: in Kentucky, state hearing officer Janet Thompson recommended on September 29 that a Dynergy gas-fired power plant suspend operations until the state can accurately determine the amount of air pollution created by the plant... In New Mexico, the state Environment Department said Sept. 29 that Intel Corp. failed 10 times to report emissions during the shut down of anti-pollution equipment at a facility in Rio Rancho... In Alabama, it just doesn't stop: the Army and Anniston Water Works and Sewer Board agreed last week to split the cost of construction of a $3.2 million water treatment system that would remove trichlorethylene from Coldwater Springs. The Army used TCE to degrease metal at a nearby depot, and the chemical seeped into
groundwater...

September 29, 2003

  That's what education's for: two former University of Florida students announced Sept. 22 they intend to sue the school for dumping into a nearby landfill cancer-causing chemicals including benzene and radionucleides.. It just gets worse: last week in Alabama, workers discovered two leaking chemical rockets at the Anniston Army Depot. Depot officials detected a 0.000117 milligrams per cubic meter concentration of nerve agent during a routine check on the chemical weapons

  A (Colorado) civil action: former employee of a Redfield Rifle Scopes plant in southeast Denver testified that his boss told him to dump 55-gallon drums of industrial waste on land east of the plant. Albert Losasso's testimony came last week during a trial of a class-action lawsuit filed by 2,000 property owners near the plant...

September 22, 2003

   The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality sent a violation notice to Kinder Morgan Energy Partners Inc. earlier this month informing the energy company to expect a fine of $25,000 for a pipeline that burst near Tucson on July 30. Officials said the 10,000-gallon spill contaminated air, soil and water in the area, but they have not yet determined the extent of the damage. ICP note: but something they determined the (low-ball) price of the fine...

  Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant officials plan to move 1,019 spent nuclear fuel rods from the plant to an onsite facility containing 43 concrete and steel casks in early 2004. The company started making practice runs of the transfer Aug. 25...

September 15, 2003

   In Washington State, opposition is growing to a proposed pollution permit for a Kimberly-Clark paper mill near Everett. The new permit would allow the plant to release more pollutants into Puget Sound... In Louisiana, the five state Public Service Commissioners met last week to discuss a legislative auditor's office report that accuses the board of acting as a "rubber-stamp agency for gas rate requests by power companies" and operating "under ethical standards that raised questions about undue corporate influence on its staff and commissioners." Louisiana, according to editorials n the local press, is the only state where it is not illegal for state regulators to accept meals and
gifts from the companies they are regulating. Following the meeting, The state Public Service Commission claimed it will reform its operations, after a report from the state legislative auditor accused the board of "doing a poor job regulating power companies." Officials said they would consider changing PSC's rules -- but all they've issues is a new policy that would require utility companies to disclose when and how much they have paid for meals for PSC officials....

September 8, 2003

  Mustard gas in Maryland: the elimination of the chemical agent stockpile at Aberdeen Proving Ground is running about six months behind schedule, project officials told the facility's environmental oversight panel recently. Project officials said no mustard
agent has been destroyed since a carbon filter drum overheated and began smoking...

  In Delaware, EPA officials have started looking into new ways to clean up contaminated soil at the site of an abandoned chemical plant near Delaware City, after estimates that the effort could cost up to $125 million. Officials are considering a technique that would insert vapors into the ground that would break down the toxic chemicals and would cost between $10 million to $20 million...

September 1, 2003

    What can be done, when a cash-strapped city is itself the source of pollution? Consider this:

Reading, Pa. officials are hoping fines for illegal discharges into the Schuylkill River from the city sewage treatment plant on Fritz's Island will be much less than a previous estimate of $ 20 million. "We've been talking in the $ 1 million range among ourselves," said Public Works Director Charles M. Jones. Jones said he believes federal and state officials understand Reading can't handle $ 20 million in fines. "It would break the city," Jones said.

       ICP note: But what about the city's residents?  "The repeated discharges over several years exceeded the limits for various chemicals and other substances used or produced at the plant"...

August 25, 2003

  In North Carolina's Gaston County, officials said Aug. 18 that an area south of Cherryville may have 1,500 wells that contain unsafe arsenic levels. The county will conduct additional tests of the wells to determine specifically which areas have arsenic contamination

  In Rhode Island, the EPA could soon release a permit regulating water intake and discharge at the Brayton Point power plant in Somerset. Many say that the plant, which takes in about 1 billion gallons of water from Mount Hope Bay each day, has severely damaged the bay's fish population...

  The University of California agreed last week to pay $1 million to a whistleblower at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Laboratory officials fired Glenn Walp, the facility's former head of the Office of Security Inquiries, after he reported several cases of mismanagement, security breaches and fraud...

August 18, 2003

  Back to basics: in South Carolina, a Nuclear Regulatory official is visiting the H.B. Robinson nuclear plant near Hartsville to determine how others overlooked radioactive contamination on a container shipped to the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant in North Carolina. Shearon Harris employees discovered a surface radiation exceeding federal standards on a shipping container that arrived at the plant July 29. How, indeed...

   In non-blackout energy news, officials at the Houston-based Entergy-Koch said Aug. 12 that the company may have reported inaccurate data on natural gas prices to price index publishers. But company officials claimed they are not aware of intentional efforts by employees to manipulate energy prices. Hmm.. 

August 11, 2003

  In Colorado, tests for plutonium have revealed elevated levels of lead in the soil near Canon City. Area residents, who last year asked the state to investigate claims that a nearby Cotter Uranium Mill burned plutonium, are now blaming the mill
for the high lead levels...

  In Louisiana, the state Department of Environmental Quality announced on August 5 that it may consider closer monitoring of three hydrocarbons emitted by the petrochemical industry in the Baton Rouge area. DEQ Secretary Bob Hannah said the department might propose emissions limits on propylene, ethylene and butadiene, all of which might be responsible for localized ozone explosions...

August 4, 2003

   At the cusp of corporate fraud and the environment, two Nevada-based electric utilities have asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to backdate the revocation of Enron Corp.'s authority to sell power. The commission revoked Enron's authority to sell power on wholesale markets June 25, but the companies argued the ruling is meaningless unless it is effective in 2000, when Enron allegedly first started defrauding energy customers...

  In South Carolina U.S. District Judge Matthew Perry has ordered Gaston Copper Recycling Corp. to pay $2.34 million in fines for polluting a Lexington County waterway. The company's plant, which closed in 1995, discharged mercury, lead, copper and cadmium into Boggy Branch... 

July 28, 2003

In Colorado, the U.S. EPA fined 12 construction companies almost $1 million last week for not adequately managing storm water runoff on their construction projects. EPA officials said the agency issued the fines for not eliminating pollution from storm water, not having a proper storm water management plan or not having one at all...

Got the bunny inside? Only if you're alive -- in North Carolina, Federal and state regulators have finalized plans with Duracell to clean up chemical contamination at the company's Lexington battery plant...

Some neat-o news we like: PhillyCarShare, a nonprofit car rental organization, says it will expand its services to Philadelphia's low-income neighborhoods. The organization plans to add 44 cars to its 10-vehicle fleet of hatchbacks and energy-efficient automobiles, under the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Program...

July 21, 2003

   Guaranteed returns? The South Carolina Public Service Commission gave Duke Power 30 days from July 15 to explain why the regulatory utility was $41 million over its target profit rate during a 12-month period ending March 31. Duke Power earned a 14.25 percent return on what it invested in power plants and equipment -- 2 percentage points higher than the target rate. Both state and Duke Power officials said the higher profits are most likely due to the cold winter pushing up heating bills and the company's electricity sales to other utilities...

  Come again? The Alabama state Department of Environmental Management is close to making a decision on whether it will allow the incineration of chemical weapons at the Anniston Army Depot, agency officials said last week. State officials said they have not discovered any problems with the Army's proposal. Yeah, right...   

July 14, 2003

   In Pennsylvania, the Limerick nuclear power plant will begin taking wastewater from a coal mine in Schuylkill County and limiting the water it relies on from Point Pleasant on the Delaware River, said Delaware Basin Commissioner Cathleen Meyers. (Philadelphia Inquirer, July 7 -- we invited a limerick on this topic).

   In Kentucky, OxyVinyls and DuPont Dow Elastomers, two chemical plants in Louisville, submitted to the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District vehement opposition to a recent study showing that concentrations of toxic pollutants in the air around Louisville greatly exceed levels the EPA considers safe. In Nebraska, Lincoln County District Judge Donald Rowlands has ordered Sutherland Ethanol Co. to pay $780,000 for dumping ethanol byproducts on farmland near the plant several dozen times in 2001...

   The Dallas Morning News of June 15, 2003, predicted that "this summer, the agency will release results of a massive study of birth defects and childhood leukemia at the Marine Corps' Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, where TCE and PCE are thought to have leaked into well water for at least 17 years. A preliminary study found a relationship between certain types of fetal deaths and defects, and mothers' exposures to the water while pregnant on base."  And now, an alert from a reader: "I noticed that Inner City Press previously carried some articles on the contaminated drinking water at Camp Lejeune. ATSDR's report on the survey they conducted of former residents of these affected housing areas and the adverse affects on their children will be made public on 16 July 2003. My daughter Jane was conceived while we lived in the affected housing, she was diagnosed with leukemia when she was 6 and she succumbed to her disease when she was 9."  Words are not adequate...

July 7, 2003

   Nice move: we're referring to arguments directed last week to an administrative law judge in Florida, to reverse an agreement signed by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Tropicana Products in March 2002. The consent order allows Tropicana to pay a pre-arranged fine of $10,000 every time it fails to meet state and federal water pollution standards....

  The Supreme Court punted on the Nike case, which raised the question of when and how court can compare a corporation's claims to its actual practices. Last week ICP's Fair Finance Watch raised a somewhat similar question to the Federal Reserve Board, with regard to a bank, Crédit Agricole ("CA"). CA recently acquired Crédit Lyonnais, which has been a funder of the questioned Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline project. [For community lending issues, see this week's ICP CRA Report.]

June 30, 2003

   In Texas on June 25, more than 500 residents of Port Arthur filed a lawsuit against six refineries and chemical plants alleging pollution from the plants led to health problems. The suit names as defendants Premcor Refining, BASF Corp., Atofina Petrochemicals, Chevron Phillips Chemical Co., Huntsman Petrochemicals and Motiva Enterprises....

  In Georgia, U.S. District Judge Jack Camp has denied a motion by Georgia Power to dismiss a suit filed by environmental watchdogs that contends the company overstepped federal pollution regulations. This is the same judge who has to date accepted Citigroup's bogus predatory lending settlement-on-the-cheap with the Federal Trade Commission, without either requesting or considering comments from consumers and consumer organizations opposing the cheap settlement, which does not reform CitiFinancial's practices...

June 23, 2003

   This week: a link and a thought. We're much taken by a report issued in London last week, regarding both the environmental and human rights harms caused by prawn (shrimp) farming, worldwide. View it here. Then, the thought, such as it is: what falls under the rubric of environmental justice in the United States is the U.S. versions of human rights (civil rights, anti-discrimination) as it relates to the environment and health. Also of interest (at least to us) is the United Nations' "Global Compact" having (separate) "Environment" and "Human Right" principles, and primarily-environment organizations reference from time to time to human rights, most recently as the so-called "social" principles included in "Equator Principles" that ten multinational banks recently (and loudly) signed on to. We're skeptical -- click here, Report of June 23 re Royal Bank of Scotland and its Equator Principles claims -- but always looking for connections...

Okay: in Arizona, the EPA removed 200 drums of toxic waste from Electro Treatment's abandoned industrial site on June 18, including more than 3,000 gallons of acid sludge. EPA officials say they will continue to test the area for further contamination... 

June 16, 2003

Citigroup Venture Capital has been exposed as the largest shareholder, with a 75% stake, in Mincorp Acquisition Corp., whose mining operation at Quecreek last year unleashing a torrent of water that trapped miners 245 feet underground. Citigroup (and its various environmental partners) have been very quiet about this one... It's not "project finance" -- it's a direct investment. Developing...

    In Wisconsin, the Department of Justice filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit earlier this month against the City of South Milwaukee for environmental violations over the last five years from its hauled and industrial waste program. The lawsuit also asks for an injunction to stop from city from taking any more hauled industrial waste... A bit too easy: in Philadelphia, Temple University has avoided a $285,000 U.S. EPA fine by disclosing violations at 10 of its campuses. Schools can avoid paying millions of dollars in fines by reporting environmental regulatory violations directly to the U.S. EPA,
agency officials blithely said last week....

June 9, 2003

  In New York on June 3, General Electric continued its campaign to buy its way out of the environmental harms it has caused and continues to cause, this time by signing consent order to pay an $850,000 fine toward cleanup of the Mohawk Tire site. This supposedly is a remedy for GE dumping pollutants into the Hudson River for two years -- far too cheap, and far too little nexus, we'd say... In Tennessee, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry claimed last week that uranium released from the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge does not constitute a health risk to nearby residents.... In Delaware, environmental advocates argued June 2 to the state Coastal Zone Industrial Control Board that Sunoco should not receive a state permit to build a $25 million refinery without allowing for public comment; the permit, they say (correctly in our view), would increase pollution in the Coastal Zone..

June 2, 2003

   Arriving in New York harbor last week was a ship carrying 290 metric tons of toxic mercury-laden waste an assortment of waste glass contaminated with mercury, effluent sludge, broken thermometers and metallic mercury -- is destined for Hellertown, Pennsylvania where it is expected to be recycled by Bethlehem Apparatus, Co. Under an agreement with the local authorities, the mercury waste was collected from a thermometer factory owned by the UNILEVER subsidiary, Hindustan Lever Limited, located in the town of Kodaikanal, state of Tamil Nadu, India. UNILEVER has already been found guilty of exploiting lax environmental regulations and cheap labor in countries like India," said Richard Gutierrez of the Basel Action Network. "We call on them to rectify their mistake by putting a decisive end to the mercury death spiral." We'll see...

May 26, 2003

    Ah, voluntarism in Delaware: Gov. Ruth Ann Minner asked all state manufacturers on May 20 to participate in the "Principles of Responsible Industry in Delaware," a voluntary program that encourages companies to exceed environmental standards. Those
who participate could enjoy speedier permit reviewing proceedings, as well as "awards from communities recognizing their efforts"...

  In Alaska, Unocal Corp. announced May 9 that it would pay $370,000 in fines for Clean Water Act violations at its Cook Inlet operations. Unocal told the U.S. EPA that it had violated acceptable discharge limits "dozens of times" over the last five years...

May 19, 2003

   In Massachusetts, Cape Cod Community College President Kathleen Schatzberg turned down a $100,000 grant from Cape Wind Associates that would have allowed the hiring of a director for the school's proposed energy technician program. Schatzberg told the Boston Globe that she declined the offer after listening to a variety of complaints from area activists who opposed the creation of the an offshore wind farm -- to be built by Cape Wind -- in Nantucket Sound. It's good to have principles -- it's smarter, too, at least in the long run...

May 12, 2003

   What a way to balance the budget: under legislation proposed in Michigan, the state would start charging fees to permit the release controlled amounts of pollution into the state's water. According to the Detroit Free-Press (5/2), the proposal is an effort by Gov. Granholm to alleviate the state budget crisis

   In North Carolina, more than 1,500 fish began dying May 3 from an unknown organic poison dumped in Grape Greek. The EPA has intervened in the case on the request of state Department of Water Quality officials, who have ruled out a natural cause of death. The incident mirrors a similar occurrence April 22 when officials discovered roughly the same number and type of fish dead in nearby Core Creek.... 

May 5, 2003

    Texas-based energy producer Dynegy announced on April 23 that it will pay electricity provider Southern Co. $155 million to terminate three power contracts. Dynegy will collect $96 million in collateral along with the cancellation of $1.7 billion in payments owed to Southern over the next 30 years. Dynegy-related, Citigroup on May 2 disclosed that it is in talks with U.S. securities and bank regulators about a previous transaction with power company Dynegy Inc. Last September, without admitting or denying wrongdoing, Dynegy agreed to pay the government $3 million to settle charges of improper accounting related to "Project Alpha." Citigroup helped create Alpha, which helped Dynegy artificially boost operating cash flow by $300 million. "As part of Citigroup's discussions with the SEC and bank regulators relating to certain of its transactions with Enron, Citigroup is also involved in substantive discussions with the SEC and bank regulators regarding one of its transactions with Dynegy," Citigroup said in its quarterly report filed with the SEC. The "bank regulators," one would think, include the Federal Reserve... 

April 28, 2003

   In connection with Inner City Press' just-launched GE Watch, we offer this update on GE's longstanding pollution of the Hudson River -- and attempts to get the Superfund law, CERCLA, declared unconstitutional. The EPA has proposed a $460 million project to dredge 2.65 million cubic yards of PCB-poisoned sediment along a 40-mile stretch of the Hudson River, with GE (the polluter) paying. GE sued; on April 1, U.S. District Judge John D. Bates ruled that his court has no jurisdiction to hear GE's complaint because Section 113(h) of CERCLA provides that an accused company cannot obtain pre-enforcement judicial review of EPA orders or response actions with respect to a contaminated site except in five explicitly enumerated circumstances, not applicable here. GE then filed a one-page "notice of intent to appeal" with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. GE representative Joan Gerhardt said that GE thinks "a government agency should not be permitted in nonemergency situations to order environmental-remediation projects of unlimited scope and duration without the opportunity to get timely review by an impartial court." See also this report, regarding GE's continuing involvement with the controversial (human rights violation-tarnished) Dabhol power project in Maharashtra state, India.

April 21, 2003

   Speaking of weapons of mass destruction, the Cleveland Plain Dealer of April 15 reported on requests to Army officials to work with Ohio residents in order to mitigate concerns about its plan to begin disposing of hydrolysate, a chemical nerve agent, in Jefferson Township. The agent, currently stored in Newport, Ind., must be destroyed by 2007 under a chemical weapons treaty...

   More detailed, including on EJ: The hydrolysate will be shipped by truck to Perma-Fix, which will use a biodegrading process to further clean the product before it is released to the city of Dayton waste treatment plant and finally into the Great Miami River. The company plans to start receiving the hydrolysate in July. While Newport, Ind., has a poverty level of 9 percent and few to no black residents, Drexel has a 33 percent poverty level and is 35 percent black. An administrative complaint has been filed...  

April 14, 2003

   Because it seems timely, we're on the (U.S.) energy beat this week. In Nevada, a state investigation of gas prices earlier this month found "no evidence of illegal manipulation of energy markets," according to state Attorney General Brian Sandoval said last week,, adding that all 13 oil companies the state asked to justify high prices gave "satisfactory responses." Satisfactory to whom?
In Colorado, a state Senate committee is considering a bill that would require Xcel Energy to generate about 7 percent of its power from renewable energy by 2005. Two similar bills in the past year have failed...

   And in Minnesota, even if officials shut down the Prairie Island nuclear plant in Red Wing, they would not finish removing the site's radioactive waste -- stored in casks and an indoor pool -- until 2038 at the earliest and possibly not until 2062, according to documents from federal regulators and, yes, Xcel Energy, the plant's owner. The state Legislature has been debating whether to allow additional storage of nuclear waste at the site or shut it down in 2007....

April 7, 2003

   Getting off easy: U.S. Steel announced March 31 that it would settle for "substantially less" than $50 million a $250 million asbestos verdict a jury made last week in the suit of a 70-year-old man who worked at the company's Gary plant for 31 years. Neither the victim's attorney nor the company would disclose the exact size of the settlement...

   The Syracuse Post-Standard of April 1, editorializing on the NYS DEC's new environmental justice policy, notes that it "might come too late to help residents of Syracuse's South Side, who have been fighting plans to build a regional sewage treatment plant at Midland Avenue and Oxford and Blaine streets. Many residents said they were not informed of plans for the plant until they were already under review."

March 31, 2003

   Middle-of-the-road EJ reg: New York regulators have finalized new guidelines to, in their words, require an extra environmental review for projects planned for low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. "We're trying to promote greater involvement of minority and low-income communities," said DEC Commissioner Erin Crotty. We'll see... 

March 24, 2003

   New York State's environmental commissioner announced on March 18 that 26,000 acres in the Finger Lakes region would be available for oil and gas development leases. The land, which is near the recently discovered Trenton-Black River gas formation, includes 18 reforestation areas, two multiple use areas and a wildlife management area...

   Cross-border cooperation? Last week, the Canadian government rejected a U.S. EPA request that it take sediment samples to test for heavy metals upstream of a Canadian smelter across the Washington border. EPA officials said they had hoped to compare the data with downstream tests for a possible Superfund cleanup of Lake Roosevelt. A Jan. 17 letter from a Canadian official rejected the request as outside the normal range of cooperation and at risk of leading to the country taking liability for cleanup costs...

March 17, 2003

  In Texas, legislation was introduced on March 12 that would require air monitors on schools within two miles of large industrial facilities. The proposal responds to a study which found that two-thirds of the state's chemical and refining industry emits toxic pollution within two miles of a school..

   An Indiana study finds that the blood of mothers and their newborn babies often contains levels of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), a persistent organic pollutant. The study found Indiana women to test 20 times higher for PDBEs -- a common chemical flame retardant -- than women tested in Sweden and Norway...

March 10, 2003

    Delaware on the cheap, one in a series: Motiva Enterprises and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration reached a settlement for safety violations in the July 2001 explosion and fire at the Delaware City refinery, OSHA said Monday. Motiva agreed to pay $175,000-- about one third of the original fines levied -- and promised to properly maintain and inspect its above-ground storage tanks...    In Louisiana, the EPA has classified Baton Rogue's air quality as "severe," a step up from its previous "serious" classification in a settlement filed in late February in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals...

March 3, 2003

     In Oklahoma, Gov. Brad Henry on Feb. 24 announced that he is "seriously
considering" suing the federal government if Congress does not take action in the next six months toward the cleanup of mining waste at the Tar Creek Superfund site. He said that after 25 years of study, it is time for the federal government to declare the site is its responsibility and begin cleanup...

February 24, 2003

    In Michigan, Ford Motor Co. agreed last week to pay a (cheap) $244,000 fine to settle a U.S. EPA hazardous waste complaint. The complaint, which included citations against the company for not monitoring leaks from its vehicle-painting equipment, targeted 14 plants...

    In South Carolina, state House budget subcommittee proposal would cut funding for cleanup of a Sumter County hazardous waste landfill....

   In North Carolina last week, FBI agents met with four state Utilities Commission officials last week as part of a grand jury investigation into accounting practices at Duke Power. Duke Energy Corp. said earlier this week that the jury had subpoenaed documents about its 1998-2000 accounting practices. Developing...

    ICP' is "on the road" -- see our Global Inner Cities report for comments we've just filed in a dozen African nations, opposing HSBC's proposals there, including the "export" of Household's practices, and an acquisition of 40% of the shares of Equator Bank; this is not unrelated to environmental issues, as you might imagine...

February 17, 2003

     The Delaware Department of Natural Resources has designated 25 square miles of the Delaware River as "chronically toxic" in the latest edition of a report required every two years. The designation, based on laboratory studies that found pollution levels high enough to kill or harm wildlife, could precipitate tougher federal restrictions and cleanup plans

     Also in Delaware, Motiva Enterprises has asked the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control for a three to six month delay for starting its new sulfur dioxide "scrubbers" at its Delaware City refinery. The company said it needs permit approvals by July 31...

February 10, 2003

   In Indiana, the state legislature is considering a bill to give state regulators the authority to oversee mergers by utility companies, allowing them to levy fines of up to
$15,000 if companies fail to comply with state laws and regulations. Most consumer groups oppose the bill, saying it would let the electric and gas utilities automatically raise rates to pay for required environmental improvements...

  In straight-EJ news, a Connecticut house committee held a public hearing on Feb. 4 to discuss a bill that would require several state entities to develop an "environmental justice" action plan to identify and address the health and environmental effects of programs on minority and low-income populations. Witnesses at the hearing said the state's pollution sources are disproportionately high in communities of color...

February 3, 2003

     This week: El Paso (the place and company), and documents: the El Paso Times sued the U.S. EPA last week in an effort to get more details and specific locations from soil contamination tests the agency conducted in west-central El Paso. The agency has released some information from the tests but has not provided any information linking the results to specific addresses, saying it would be an invasion of privacy. The newspaper was denied a Freedom of Information Act request for the information

    El Paso Corp. executives and state officials investigating California's 2000-01 energy crisis reached an agreement regarding El Paso documents in an out-of-court settlement. California had subpoenaed documents from El Paso. In the settlement, the state withdrew its subpoena in exchange for El Paso's voluntary agreement to hand over some company documents...  

January 27, 2003

    In Delaware, the Motiva Enterprises refinery plan to convert air pollution into wastewater has given rise to requests to Governor Minner to release all public records on the issue. Many say that Motiva's design would violate an earlier agreement to recycle the scrubbing chemicals; a Motiva spokesman claim the revised approach would produce cleaner air... Also in Delaware, two bills to be introduced this month in the General Assembly would somewhat fortify the government's ability to punish polluters. Under the proposed legislation, chronic violators of clean air and water laws would have to submit their environmental practices to annual audits, and the companies' highest in-state executives would have to sign off that the company was complying with environmental regulations. The legislation would also allow the Department of Natural Resources to triple fines on repeat environmental offenders...

     In Washington State, Olympic Pipe Line and Shell Pipeline agreed to increase pipeline inspections in a federal consent the companies filed Jan. 17 in U.S. District Court in Seattle. The agreement comes out of a criminal plea deal and settlement reached last month among the two companies, the state, federal prosecutors and the U.S. EPA involving a fatal pipeline explosion in Bellingham in June 1999...   

January 21, 2003

    We'll devote this week's Report to, of all things, a book review. Island Press has recently published a tome subtitled "Blueprint for a New Environmentalism," by NRDC's Allen Hershkowitz. Holding our noses we sought it out, and here is our review. But first, some background: many residents of the South Bronx remember the haughty promises with which a paper mill was proposed for the Harlem River Yards in the early 1990s. When the developers tried to hide behind their community sponsor -- which many here knew, even then, was corrupt -- it did not bode well. When grassroots environmental groups questioned truck traffic and other nitty-gritty issues, NRDC responded with a trump card. It had all been planned by one Allen Hershkowitz: that was supposed to resolve the matter. He'd been in the New York Times, for God's sake. He must be an expert.

   Well, the paper mill was never built. A state investigation of NRDC's "community partner" has resulted in the ouster of its management. And now -- the book! We generally eschew ad hominem arguments -- but what would a book review be without them? The same arrogance noted in Mr. Hershkowitz during his days in The Bronx (his nights, unsurprisingly, were spent far far away) can be found in the acid-free recycled pages of this book. One might wonder how 268 such pages could be devoted to a project that was never built. The answer, you'd think, would be to analyze why the plan failed. But as to Bronx issues -- and that word is half of the title -- the book is not only inaccurate, it's positively insulting. Mr. Hershokowitz ignores the recent history of the Harlem River Yards, which just prior to Hershkowitz's discovery of The Bronx had been leased to the politically-connected Galesi Group for 99 years. Many in the South Bronx saw the paper mill plan as simply a green-wash for the Galesi lease. Yet in Mr. Hershkowitz' book, Galesi and his Group are mentioned only once.

    Rather, Hershkowitz' focus is on accusing all local detractors of extortion. He uses a fancy word for it -- baksheesh, see page 171, in a chapter grandly titled "Clearing the Social Market." In a plea for street cred, Hershkowitz allows that "I myself have experienced physical intimidation, ethnic slurs, requests for payment, and abusive language." Sounds like a Tijuana day-trip Tijuana gone wrong. Hershkowitz writes -- and footnotes! -- that:

"One person who claimed to head a local group, and whose request for seventy thousand dollars from me -- to 'take care of the problems' her group was planning to cause our project -- was rejected, wound up turning from a project supporter to claiming at a public hearing that building the BCPC would 'violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Genocide [sic]."

    Thereupon, Hershkowitz cuts to a footnote, correcting the name of the Convention, mentioning his ancestors' Holocaust pedigree, and concluding: "I refrain from providing the date, place, and nature of the hearing where this remark was made to assure that this person cannot be identified." We'll refrain from insert a "sic" after the word "assure" -- even in The Bronx, it's "ensure" -- but note that these hearings were transcribed, even in Tijuana / The Bronx.

   A similarly inept veiling occurs on page 237, where Hershkowitz says he "simply asked an official at a philanthropic foundation that had supported the CDC for a few years what she thought. But the management of Banana Kelly had recently changed, and the foundation official didn't understand how unreliable a manager the CDC's new executive director would turn out to be. None of us did. And, of course, at the time I had no idea that the project I was launching would become as large as it did."

    But just how large did it become? (The anonymous "foundation executive," by the way, is Anita Miller). How large did it become? Well, large enough, despite the fact that nothing was ever built, to justify this acid-free book. And that's plenty large enough for Mr. Hershkowitz.

    More broadly, Hershkowitz largely praises the good will of the investment banking "community," while portraying the people who live in the area he deigned to try to help as malaproping extortionists. There is a need for partnership -- but when only the suit-and-tie side the equation can turn from the failed relationship and write a self-serving book about it, that ain't no partnership at all.

January 6, 2003

   In Montana, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled on Dec. 19 that the U.S. EPA made the correct decision to begin cleaning up the asbestos contamination in Libby near a former W.R. Grace and Co. vermiculite mine that is blamed for hundreds of deaths. Grace had said the cleanup was unjustified. Great company, that...

     But here's some better news: Antioch New England Graduate School is now offering a degree program in "Environmental Advocacy and Organizing. The inaugural class has ten students, including Simeon Afouda, a 46-year-old Fulbright scholar from Benin. Afouda says the 200 organizations in Benin are all focused on preserving the environment. "What is lacking is to put pressure on decision-makers to make the right laws. So I will go back to Benin to help groups organize better and achieve their goals," he says. Hats off... 

December 30, 2002

    In this holiday-week report, we'll limit ourselves to pointing to news of the state of Indiana's attempted implementation of environmental justice -- click here for the Indianapolis Star's article, and here for the Associated Press' view, via WISH television.

   Okay, we can't resist: the bank HSBC, in a response submitted to federal and state regulators on Dec. 23, HSBC acknowledges providing funding for the Three Gorges Dam, a project from which numerous other institutions have stepped back, due to environmental and social concerns. HSBC does not even attempt to explain how its decision to go forward is not inconsistent with the environmental and ethical standards (from 1998) that it claims; apparently its desire to "assist[] long-standing corporate customers of the Group" -- like Sani Abacha -- trumps any and all of the environmental and ethical standards it claims.

December 23, 2002

    In Connecticut, Millstone Nuclear Power Complex officials told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week that the Waterford plant expects to begin storing spent fuel on site by 2004 until the Yucca Mountain storage facility is open. Yucca Mountain is expected to open by 2010 at the earliest, federal officials have said ..

    In Idaho, the state Department of Water Resources decided last week not to ban new water permits from the Rathdrum-Spokane Aquifer along the Idaho-Washington border. Instead, the DWR will create a "groundwater management area" over the Idaho portion of the aquifer. Washington has not issued new permits from the aquifer since 1994, and no one knows how much water the aquifer holds Regaring more Idaho hijinks, click here. Happy holidays.

December 16, 2002

   In Maryland, residents of a neighborhood near Erachem Comilog Inc., which has disposed its treated wastewater into waterways for more than 30 years, want the state Department of the Environment to block renewal of the company's permit...

    A Labor Department panel ruled on Nov. 13 that the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico retaliated against whistleblower Joe Gutierrez. Gutierrez, an auditor, filed a complaint against the lab in 1997 after he publicized documents showing the lab lied about airborne radioactive materials...

    In new-school motivational technique, the Iowa State Department of Natural Resources director Jeff Vonk encouraged employees to participate in the "Step Outside"
program, which allows workers to watch birds, shoot guns and hike during work hours to boost morale and raise awareness of residents' concerns. Hmm.

December 9, 2002

     In South Carolina, the federal cleanup of the 45-acre Tin Products site in Lexington County is almost complete, three years after a chemical spill killed thousands of fish and ruined the water supply. But cleanup projects at two other South Carolina sites are moving slower. The cleanup of the 21-acre Cardinal Cos. former chemical plant could be completed by spring, and state officials are still trying to determine what biological compounds can be used to clean up contaminated Red Bank drinking water wells

     In other things-which-need-to-be-cleaned-up news, in California, Pacific Gas & Electric contributed $800,000 to the No on Proposition D campaign that was not disclosed until after the election, city records have shown. The campaign, funded nearly exclusively by PG&E, raised $2.7 million to defeat a measure that would have allowed the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to take responsibility for securing electricity supplies for the city...

December 2, 2002

   In Michigan, residents near the Lange and Revere Street canals in St. Clair Shores want the U.S. EPA to dredge PCB-contaminated sediment up to Lake St. Clair, saying PCB levels as high as 9.9 parts per million could remain once the original dredging is completed.

   In California, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority passed a resolution last week that requires the Municipal Railway to buy 80 new alternative-fuel buses and bans spending on conventional diesel buses

  In Texas, the Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority board voted last week to switch the agency's 1,400 buses to the cleaner-burning ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel. The transit authority also voted to equip 543 of the buses with a kit that
recirculates exhaust gases through the engine.

     An EJ-related film you may want to see: "Green," by Austin, Texas-based Two Birds Films, regarding Louisiana's Cancer Alley running from Baton Rouge to New Orleans.

November 25, 2002

     Back on the beat: in New Mexico, the FBI and the Department of Energy are investigating whether millions of dollars worth of equipment is missing or stolen from the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The investigation stems from a leaked memo from the lab's financial officer saying neither the lab nor the DOE can accept $1.3 million in unaccounted property...

    In Ohio, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and FirstEnergy Corp. face a barrage of criticism for their failure to uncover problems leading to the rust hole in the lid of the Davis-Besse nuclear reactor...

November 18, 2002

    This is an experiment in a "themed" issue: we will return to broader coverage in the coming weeks. But on November 14, the London-based banking giant HSBC, chaired by "Sir" John Bond, announced it wants to buy the scandal-plagued predatory lender Household International, for $14.2 billion. Household charges interest rates over 20% on home equity loans, and nearly as high on first mortgage loans. Household mails out misleading "live checks" offering high-rate consumer loans, which it then seeks to convert into liens against the unsuspecting borrowers' homes. For these reasons, ICP is opposing, here, there and everywhere, HSBC's proposal. See, e.g., the Wall Street Journal of Nov. 15, 2002: this "consumer advocate already has issued a warning to Sir John... Inner City Press/Community on the Move and the Fair Finance Watch, a consumer organization based in the Bronx, N.Y., said the group intends to protest the deal." They got that right...

   ICP has today filed comments all over -- New York Banking Department, other states, federal regulators, and even overseas. Among the issues raised: lack of environmental and social standards. For (environmental) example, the Independent (London) of Feb. 22, 2002, reported that HSBC "is co-financing Alstom in its production of turbines for the Yangtze dam, a project that will inflict appalling ecological damage on one of the rivers the money is meant to be targeting." Click here for more information and updates. Until next time, for or with more information, contact us.

November 11, 2002

    In California, the Shell refinery in Martinez will pay the Bay Area Air Quality Management District $510,000 for the release of chemicals on three occasions in October and December 2001. A catalytic cracking unit caused the releases of oily soot, according to a Shell spokeswoman said...

   In Oregon, previous operators and current owners of the former View-Master toy manufacturing plant site in Beaverton will help fund a $3.5 million groundwater cleanup. A 1998 investigation revealed dangerously high levels of trichloroethylene (TCE) in the well supplying drinking water to the plant. The plant's operators, including former operator Mattel, began dumping waste containing TCE on the ground in 1951 when the plant began operating ...

   In the District of Columbia, a contractor found elevated levels of airborne asbestos in a mechanical room and the cafeteria of the Department of Interior on November 1, causing officials to send 2,300 employees home...

November 4, 2002

     The NYC Department of Environmental Conservation said last week that developers of a planned $2.2 billion "entertainment center" in Central New York may need to clean up contaminated soil on the proposed site before beginning construction. Pyramid Cos.'s Destiny USA plans center around expanding the current Syracuse-area Carousel Center mall to encompass 3 million square feet. But state officials say Pyramid must remove or avoid building around soil contaminated with toxic solvents that is currently sealed in a 1-acre tomb under part of the parking lot. Pyramid buried the toxic soil with state approval in 1990. The contamination stems from solvents used in the dry-cleaning industry including trichloroethylene, toluene, acetone and vinyl chloride.

     In Connecticut, the soil of at least 19 commercial properties in Stratford have a combination of lead, asbestos and either PCBs or copper, according to a U.S. EPA report released last week. The report is part of a $108 million Superfund cleanup to rid the town of contaminated soil from a former Raymark plant.

October 28, 2002

    In California, Shell Oil was hit last week with $405,000 in fines and $270,000 to improve air quality in Martinez and Central County. Shell "apologized" for releasing oily soot over Martinez on two occasions in October 2001...

   Bigger picture: from last week's "Air of Injustice" report by the EJCC: "Stop Exploration for Fossil Fuels -- presently known fossil fuel reserves will last far into the future. Fossil fuel exploration destroys unique cultures and valuable ecosystems. Exploration should be halted, as it is no longer worth the cost. We should instead invest in renewable energy sources."

October 14, 2002

    In Arizona, residents of a neighborhood near downtown Phoenix voiced their concern on last week about an upcoming Maricopa County decision that would allow Innovative Waste Utilization to process more than 10 times its current levels of hazardous waste. The county will decide on Oct. 17 whether to issue the permit for the increase...

   In Delaware, the state government and the DuPont Co. agreed to clean up about 15 acres of contaminated byproducts along the Delaware River near DuPont's Edge Moor pigments plant. Until last year, the company had hoped to sell the soil-like byproducts as a soil substitute called, in an Orwellian touch, "Iron Rich" -- but its plans were sidetracked once the U.S. EPA found the byproducts to contain unsafe levels of dioxin...

     In Utah, EG&G Defense Materials relaxed safety procedures at the Deseret Chemical Depot in July before two workers were exposed to the nerve agent GB, according a report by the Army. The report also charges the Maryland-based company with committing a series of mistakes and safety violations that left the men exposed to the chemical after the incident...

October 7, 2002

    Brownfield action: in Nevada, the cleanup of more than 2,000 acres of contaminated land overlooking the Las Vegas Wash could take up to 10 years, the project manager said last week. LandWell Co. wants to eventually build houses on the land, but it first has to help clean up waste left over from 45 years of chemical manufacturing in the area...

    In Alaska, the state Department of Environmental Conservation recently released a computer-generated map that shows polluted spots along the Kenai River, one of the first tangible results of a four-month review of the state's treatment of environmental problems near the river. Many have criticized the DEP for taking too long to address the river's problems...

September 30, 2002

   In California, a federal judge ruled last week that ExxonMobil must pay $4.7 million in fines to state and federal governments for an oil spill in the Santa Clara River...

   In Connecticut, levels of mercury remain high in Danbury, despite a half-century old ban on its use in hatmaking. Wesleyan University scientists have found mercury levels as high as 67,000 parts per billion at the site of a former hat factory -- more than three times the state standard for cleanup in residential areas. Danbury wants state money to clean up soil around former hat factories, which dumped mercury into the Housatonic River for more than 150 years...

August 26, 2002

   In Colorado, the EPA continues to express concerns about high solvent levels and seepage outside the contained area at the Lowry Landfill Superfund site in Denver. In a draft progress report released on August 19, the EPA said it found solvents at levels thousands of times above health limits migrating outside the 480-acre site...

   In Louisiana, New Sarpy's Orion Refining Corp. released more than 500 pounds of sulfur dioxide 82 times during a two-year span, behavior the EPA said was "excessive" in a July 23 letter to the company. But the EPA has not issued a penalty... 

August 5, 2002

    In Missouri, the U.S. Energy Department last week finished disposing of hazardous material at an old Army ordnance plant 30 miles west of St. Louis. . After 16 years and $352 million, the DOE relocated the waste from the Weldon Spring plant to a seven-story high mound of rock, clay, soil and liners to prevent contamination... Meanwhile, ABC News Nightline last week profiled the "campus" in McAlester, Oklahoma where virtually all non-nuclear bombs used by the Defense Department are made. The bombs are stored in what are called igloos; the names of the line workers weren't used, but still...

   At last week's meeting of the International Association of Official Human Rights Agencies in New Orleans, Beverly Wright of Xavier University stated, among other things, that "the struggle for environmental justice is global. The scenes are the same around the world... .Environmental racism is a human rights violation."   

July 22, 2002

    In a recent report, the General Accounting Office (GAO) looks at 15 facilities -- nine nonhazardous waste-related sites, three hazardous waste disposal sites, two chemical plants and one
concrete plant -- in nine locations and asked them to provide information on jobs and other contributions they had provided to their surrounding communities. The number of full-time jobs ranged from four to 103 per facility, with nine sites having 25 jobs or less. Salaries ranged from about $15,000 to $80,000 per year, the GAO said. For fully four of the facilities, officials had overestimated job creation. For instance, Michigan's Genesee Power Station early on had predicted creation of 30 jobs, but only 25 were provided; ExxonMobil estimated it would provide 50 jobs in Louisiana but only ended up with 40; Natural Resources Recovery estimated between 15 and 40, also in Louisiana, but only came through with six; and Safety-Kleen Inc. estimated 55 jobs in California but only provided 22, according to the GAO. Moreover, the agency found, jobs at some of the facilities dwindled over time. A New York fertilizer facility had 80
jobs in 1993 but just 39 in 2002...

    The GAO Report (02-479) is called "Community Investment: Report of Selected Facilities" and is available (in PDF format) here.  Its implications in one community, in terms of "contributions," is reviewed in this week's Inner City Press Bronx Report.

July 1, 2002

   In Connecticut, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on June 25 fined the owner of the Millstone nuclear plant for violating regulations and losing two fuel rods at the plant. The NRC fined Dominion Resources $288,000 for losing the two rods, which were once feared stolen but now believed to have been disposed of with other radioactive waste...

    In Ohio The Cuyahoga River still has dangerous levels of E. coli and salmonella, according to ongoing research by the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Park Service. The agencies are conducting DNA testing of water quality and blame sewage from overflowing Akron sewers for the pollution...

June 24, 2002

   In Knoxville, Tennessee, criminal and regulatory investigations are looming for the city over its demolition of the Coster Shop and the alleged dispersal of contaminated soil into the Phillip Reagan sinkhole. The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation's Division of Superfund has found the same black soil and oily smell from the Coster Shop at several sites, including the sinkhole. The soil is contaminated with lead, arsenic and PCBs and, under the signed contract between the city and Burnett Demolition & Salvage Co., was not supposed to be removed from the Coster site...

   Just outside Chicago, the Illinois EPA told Commonwealth Edison and Oak Park officials on June 19 that they had 60 days to formalize a plan to complete the cleanup of Barrie Park, a former manufactured gas plant in Oak Park. Illinois EPA spokeswoman Maggie Carson said if the groups have not reached an agreement by August, the case may go before the state attorney general to decide whether Com Ed is violating state law...

June 3, 2002

    In California, San Diego-based Sempra Energy last week sued the state Department of Water Resources to prevent it from canceling the utility's $6.6 billion power-supply contract. DWR said in April that it may cancel Sempra's contract after it discovered the utility planned to buy electricity from plants other than the Bakersfield plant specified in the contract ... If Sempra had decided to build its new natural gas-fired power plant in southern California, state and local authorities would have required the company to comply with stringent air quality regulations. Company officials would also have had to complete detailed environmental impact statements. So Sempra decided to build the plant just over the border in Mexico instead. The new plant, Termoeléctrica de Mexicali, is but a small part of the company's plan to dominate natural gas distribution and electricity generation throughout Southern California and Northern Mexico. In this excerpt from Greenpeace report "Terra Sempra" (via the excellent CorpWatch), J.P. Ross takes a look at how Sempra is dodging US environmental laws by building power plants in Mexico and shipping the electricity back to California.

    In Tennessee, high levels of diesel fuel have contaminated a South Knoxville sinkhole and nearby stream according to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. Ten soil samples in the sinkhole registered petroleum levels up to 18 times the allowable amount. The TDEC's Superfund Division is investigating reports that soil from the city's contaminated Coster Shop may have been dumped in the sinkhole...

May 20, 2002

    In Alabama, employees at the Anniston Army Depot found two rockets leaking deadly nerve agent last week, bringing the total number of leaking rockets to 733. The Army is continuing to study groundwater contamination surrounding the depot to determine if tricholorethylene in Coldwater Springs is coming from the depot's groundwater pollution... In Memphis, environmental activist Rita Harris is assisting neighbors of North Memphis chemical plants to conduct their own testing. Enenco Inc., at 3018 Bell Ave., had the highest toxic air emissions in the North Memphis area, discharging 320,580 pounds in 1999. The next-highest releases came from Southern Cotton Oil, 2782 Chelsea, which reported air emissions of 280,000 pounds....

April 29, 2002

   In New Jersey, a retired DuPont employee testified at a civil trial on April 23 that he helped bury more than 200 55-gallon drums containing toxic material at the company's plant in Pompton Lakes. Approximately 1,600 residents are suing DuPont for contaminating the water, air and soil during its nine-decade tenure in New Jersey. DuPont moved its operations to Mexico in 1994...

   In Knoxville, Tennessee, contaminated fill dirt that a demolition company dumped into a sinkhole has ruined the water supply for some 50 homes. The Tennessee attorney general's office and the state Department of Environment and Conservation are investigating the contamination...

   In Minnesota, the state attorney general's office on April 22 charged an Anoka scrap dealer with illegally disposing of PCBs in a Wright County landfill. The criminal complaint charges Schwartzman Co. Inc. with two felony counts of knowingly sending several hundred tons of shredded material contaminated with PCBs to the landfill...

   In Michigan, Macomb County Circuit Judge Deborah A. Servitto slapped a $36 million fine -- the largest environmental fine imposed to date in Michigan -- on two Detroit contractors and four family members who run 10 companies for illegally dumping construction waste in Macomb, Wayne and Barry counties...

April 22, 2002

   In Rhode Island last week, the EPA confirmed studies done last year by the state Health Department that 17 private wells in Coventry are contaminated with beryllium. Because the pollution's source is still "unknown," the EPA is preparing to analyze samples from the Global Waste Recycling site to determine if it is responsible...

    In Michigan, two unrelated oil spills in the last week contaminated 27 miles of the Rogue River from Detroit to Downriver, dumping an excess of 10,000 gallons of oil and spurring a criminal investigation. Crews expect to have the majority of the cleanup complete by Friday and are sampling the oil...

March 25, 2002

    In Chicago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants to test a former Nike missile site on Chicago's south lakefront to see if underground tanks left from the Cold War are leaking fuel. Crews will begin digging next month at Promontory Point and may begin work at two other sites this year.

   In Connecticut, U.S. District Court Judge Alan Nevas last week blocked local challenges to a fuel storage agreement for the Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant Monday, preventing Haddam residents from challenging the location of the complex. The company wants to move spent fuel rods from a storage pool into large, steel-reinforced concrete canisters stored on a concrete pad 

March 4, 2002

     Colorado as dumping ground: a New Jersey Superfund site will send more than 450,000 tons of thorium-contaminated soil to a Fremont County, Colorado uranium mill.
Cotter Corp. also hopes to receive up to 47,000 tons of radioactive tungsten tailings from a Long Island Superfund site. Local residents opposed a similar plan two years ago, and are expected to protest this plan as well

   In Texas, criticism is growing of BNP Petroleum Corp.'s federal permit to drill on Padre Island National Seashore. The permit allows extensive drilling over the next several years.

   In Delaware, Delaware warned people not to eat fish from Shellpot Creek after the state detected high levels of PCBs in the waterway. Fish tissue samples from the creek had 284 to 1,470 parts per billion of PCBs. The creek joins 20 other waterways or ponds in the state with fish consumption warnings...

February 25, 2002

    According to the Charlotte Observer of February 21, a recent study that looks 20 years ahead shows Charlotte-Mecklenberg can meet federal clean-air standards, allowing the area to qualify for federal highway funds. State officials and federal regulators will make a final determination this spring, but a late filing means the area's transportation funding could be delayed for a few weeks  We at Inner City Press doubt it - click here for ICP's recent travelogue to Charlotte...

    In Delaware, the EPA is taking control of Metachem Products' $17 million Superfund project, writing the company last week saying the agency could not justify further cleanup delays. Over 6.7 million pounds of toxic chlorinated benzene chemicals were released at the 46-acre site. Much of this pollution still remains. (Click here for ICP's intermittent Delaware community reinvestment coverage).

    Not urban, but corporate: in Missouri, Cargill Pork Inc. will pay a $1 million fine for costs associated with its illegal dumping of hog waste near Martinsburg that contaminated part of the Loutre River and killed 53,000 fish, officials said Tuesday. A federal grand jury indicted Duane Connor, a former manager of the hog farm, for violating the Clean Water Act and making false statements, the U.S. attorney's office said  

February 11, 2002

   In New Jersey, the state Department of Environmental Protection has released a vague environmental justice rule, which directs businesses applying for an operating permit to have their plans evaluated by a computer model that correlates census figures and pollution data. There are few standards, however. The requirement is that if the analysis shows a potential environmental-equity issue, the business should participate in a community-outreach program that gives residents an opportunity for input. The DEP says it would make a final decision to approve the permit based on whether the business had made a "good faith" effort to engage the residents in the process. Note: this is like the Community Reinvestment Act pre-1994: pure process, with no substantive standards.

    In Indiana, U.S. Steel's Gary Works claims it will correct its ongoing pollution problem by adding bacteria to the 30 million gallons of water it releases daily. The added bacteria, it says, will combat the Carbonaceous Biological Oxygen Demand, or CBOD, that was consuming oxygen in the Grand Calumet River when Gary Works discharges water...

    Frightening report from Knoxville, TN: Prosecutors are still deciding whether or not to charge Dr. Edward Tyczkowski, owner of the Flura Company, for the chemical contamination at his chemical research property adjacent to the French Broad River. EPA officials have discovered "compounds relating to warfare agents and weapons of mass destruction" and unmarked cylinders at the Superfund site. Various chemical companies have owned the site in its 43-year history...

    In Michigan, engineering consultants have identified two high concentrations of sodium chloride in underground soil around an abandoned truck stop near Hartland Township's waste water treatment plant that may be contributing to elevated sodium chloride levels. The high levels have prevented the township from expanding the plant's capacity. An old, private lagoon waste water treatment facility run by the owners of the former truck stop had a history of high sodium chloride levels...

February 4, 2002

   In Connecticut, the state Department of Environmental Protection last week fined construction company O&G Industries Inc. $475,000 for widespread environmental violations at its plants in five Connecticut communities. DEP staff found violations of water and air quality laws and wetlands regulations, including the formation of cement on storm water basins.

   In the run-up to the EPA's Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force meeting in St. Louis Feb. 7-8, Louisiana officials are pressing for action on the oxygen-depleted dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Last year, the dead zone off the Louisiana coast averaged 8,000 square miles -- about the size of Massachusetts...

     In Indiana, Alcoa Inc. agreed last week to pay $550,000 to settle a federal lawsuit, avoiding a trial over a 1999 complaint alleging the aluminum manufacturer's aerospace products plant violated water pollution standards. The EPA alleged that the Lafayette plant contaminated Elliott Ditch by releasing wastewater that violated regulatory limits on polychlorinated biphenyls and other pollutants...

January 7, 2002

     In Utah, Texaco will pay nearly $300,000 to settle charges claiming it violated the Clean Air Act and federal community right-to-know statutes at a gas plant on the Navajo Reservation. The EPA says Texaco failed to monitor or file reports on equipment leaks and didn't properly operate a gas flare near Aneth, Utah.

    In Colorado, the Denver Post of Jan. 2 editorialized that "[t]he proposed Shattuck settlement lets the property owner, a Citigroup unit, off the hook too lightly... The public has until mid-January to comment on the settlement... If enriched uranium or other highly radioactive materials are found at the site, the settlement says Shattuck will pay more of the clean-up's costs... These provisions must be iron-clad; taxpayers must not suffer if Shattuck was wrong about what's at the site."

    In upstate New York, 1 43-car CSX freight train carrying the hazardous chemicals acetone and methylene chloride derailed on Dec. 23 in Charlotte, NY... Also, the state's Environmental Justice Advisory Group, formed in 1998, has finally issued a report and recommendations. The NYS DEC will be accepting comments until February 22, 2002 -- click here to access the report, regarding which we may report in more detail in coming weeks.

December 31, 2001

    We turn, for now, from Camden, N.J. to Mount Vernon, N.Y. This town, just north of The Bronx, is proposed to be the terminus of Columbia Gas' so-called Millennium Pipeline, with the Federal Energy Regulatory Agency approved on December 19. The pipeline is slated to end in Mount Vernon, at a connection with the Consolidated Edison distribution system. Local officials says that the line is far too close to an elementary school, two firehouses, residential housing, a community center and a hospital. Members of the Mount Vernon City Council, have called the placement of the pipeline environmental racism, because more than half of the city's residents are members of minority groups, according to United States census figures. Mount Vernon is the most densely populated city in Westchester County, with more than 70,000 people within 2.4 square miles. FERC has given the city of Mount Vernon and Columbia Gas Transmission Corporation 60 days to work together to find an alternative route for the final two miles of the pipeline into Mount Vernon. But local residents have vowed to continue to oppose the overall plan...

December 24, 2001

    In some year-end bad EJ news, the Third Circuit on December 17 ruled against South Camden Citizens in Action, holding that Section 1983 cannot be used to enforce a federal regulation "unless the interest already is implicit in the statute authorizing the regulation." South Camden Citizens in Action v. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, No. 01-2639. And so, let the cement dust flow, in this community of color that already suffers from the effects of a sewage treatment plant, a trash-to-steam plant and numerous toxic waste sites. From that concrete to this arcane: a three-judge panel has ruled that Judge Orlofsky erred by relying on a 3rd Circuit decision, Powell v. Ridge, that was overruled by Sandoval. But a dissenting judge said the majority was engaging in "analytical alchemy" and that its decision would effectively overturn controlling 3rd Circuit precedent - something only the court sitting en banc is allowed to do.

   U.S. Circuit Judge Theodore A. McKee said Sandoval had overruled only a portion of Powell and that he would have upheld Orlofsky because his decision was correctly based on the holding in Powell that survived. The Powell majority stated: "Once a plaintiff has identified a federal right that has allegedly been violated, there arises a 'rebuttable presumption that the right is enforceable under Section 1983." Just for the record, the following submitted amicus briefs supporting the defendants: the Chamber of Commerce of the United States; the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; the South Jersey Port Corp.; the National Association of Manufacturers; the American Chemistry Council; the Chemistry Industry Council of New Jersey; the Washington Legal Foundation; the National Black Chamber of Commerce; the Allied Educational Foundation; and the American Road & Transportation Builders Association. We'll be back in 2000. Happy holidays.

November 26, 2001

   Good news for clean air: on November 20, the New York State Court of Appeals let stand a decision requiring the state Power Authority to test its new electricity generators, including four in the South Bronx, for emissions of "fine particulate matter." The test must be completed by January 31, 2002. The Power Authority had sought to evade environmental review, by keeping the capacity of each site just below the 80-megawatt threshold that triggers review. And now that review has been ordered, the NYPA has apparently already engaged in pre-judgment. Agency spokesman Mike Petralia proclaimed, "We believe the review will demonstrate that these plants... operated without any adverse environmental impacts, and will continue to do so." We'll see...

    Inner city North Dakota: the EPA has informed the N.D. Health Department that the federal agency will take over the cleanup efforts at the contaminated site of the former Camelot Cleaners dry-cleaning business in West Fargo. The state has said it has no money for the cleanup...

    Remember Buffalo Creek? The West Virginia Surface Mine Board last week upheld a $45,000 fine against Massey Energy for an "illegal impoundment" in a Boone County creek. The company was cited for putting refuse in the impoundment without building proper drainage control systems on the Jake Gore Creek near Van, West VA. Also in West Virginia, Dupont, after being sued, has agreed to halve emissions of ammonium perfluorooctanoate (C8) -- an unregulated toxic chemical -- that has polluted water near its Wood County plant....

     Scalia fall-out in Louisiana: A federal district court has dismissed a lawsuit against the town of Folsom, Louisiana, ruling that the plaintiffs who charge that a sewer plant is ruining their property have no legal standing because the state already has fined the town over the issue. This is cold comfort to Beryl and Fred Lockett, who say that untreated sewage from the plant flows through a ravine and crosses their property on its way to a local river. If this is not direct harm, what is?

November 5, 2001

   More S11 fallout: the state of Illinois announced on October 30 that it will place a hold on all applications for new and renewal permits for hauling hazardous materials while federal officials draft a plan for enforcing a new anti-terrorism law. Although the state will continue to send permit applications to the federal government for background checks, none will be granted until Department of Justice officials give their approval. On September 19, EPA Administrator Christie Whitman announced that the EPA will work with the FBI and the largest water utilities in the country to cross-check employee records and the terrorist watch list...

   In EJ news: an environmental justice complaint has been filed regarding disparities in waterway clean ups in Indianapolis. (Indianapolis Star, October 31, 2001).

   In Maine, the state Department of Environmental Protection has fined Biddeford-based Sermatech International Inc. $42,000 for dumping hazardous waste. Inspections found chromium-contaminated waste in four locations...

October 29, 2001

   Even the playgrounds: in western New York, the Pittsford Central School District last week closed two playgrounds which have been contaminated with high levels of arsenic. The arsenic is suspected of having leaked from pressure-treated wooden playground equipment treated with chromated copper arsenic...

    Annals of "justice" -- Libby, Montana, residents sickened by exposure to asbestos from a W.R. Grace vermiculite mine now stand to receive as little as $400 through the company's bankruptcy proceedings....

    "More acidic than orange juice:" a report issued last week shows that pollution from a coal-burning plant in Bow, New Hampshire, may have caused acid rain to fall on nearby waterways.

   Gone fishin' -- in the Mississippi Delta, hundreds of signs will now be posted at boat ramps and fishing locations to warn of DDT and Toxaphene contamination.

October 22, 2001

    On October 18, the UCLA Institute of the Environment issued a report documenting that while Latinos are 44% of Los Angeles County's population, they make up 60% of the residents within a half-mile of the top 100 sources of toxic air contaminants in the county. The study attributed this to income disparities...

    In Augusta, Georgia, the state Environmental Protection Division has found that four dry cleaners leaked PCE into the ground, contaminating six drinking water wells. PCE, or tetrachloroethlene, was detected in the wells in Nov. 1999 at levels as high as 9.8 parts per billion, well above the federal standard of 5 parts per billion...

    The next law school clinic on industry's hit-list for funding reduction is the University of Pittsburgh's Environmental Law Clinic, under fire for representing opponents of the Mon-Fayette Expressway and logging in the Allegheny National Forest. The message apparently is: we want you to learn the law, but not to use it for a better environment...

October 15, 2001

    In Connecticut, the state Resources Recovery Authority (CRRA) has sued former Hartford health director Mark Mitchell, saying he violated a contract by publicly saying the Hartford landfill posed health risks for residents. At a public hearing held by the state Department of Environmental Protection last year, Mitchell testified that the landfill posed a health risk to residents, which contradicted what he had concluded in a 1997 study that CRRA had paid him to do. At the hearing, Mitchell said that, given the reconfiguration of the ash section at the landfill, toxins in the ash could be hazardous to people living and working nearby. (Hartford Courant, 10/11/01).

     The question: can an agency buy a permanent positive opinion? Can it sue an expert it had previous paid to front for it, or force the expert to remain quiet? CRRA's recourse was that other agencies would be less likely to hire Mitchell. This suit raises questions about CRRA's commitment to public heath, to say nothing of public participation. EPA, take note...

   Also, in Texas, intentionally-incorrect test results supplied by a Richardson-based laboratory threatened thousands of toxic cleanup projects around the country, federal investigators say. Prosecutors against Intertek Testing Services Environmental Laboratories say a "lust for profits" led eight lab managers and chemists to falsify test results in order to complete lucrative government contracts more quickly...

    In Tacoma, the EPA's proposal to leave a pile of hazardous waste buried beneath Tacoma's Middle Waterway is being protested. Over 10,000 cubic yards of sediment contaminated primarily by potentially cancerous polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons lie a few feet under the waterway...

    In Ohio, Cleveland has ordered a contractor to remove crushed slag installed as a base for the 9,000-foot runway being constructed at Hopkins International Airport. The city and state environmental agencies are convinced the slag is the source of a milky white, sulfuric runoff that has threatened the Abram Creek and Rocky River...

September 24, 2001

    On September 25, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear oral argument in South Camden Citizens in Action v. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, 145 F. Supp. 2d 446, sup. opin. 145 F. Supp. 2d 505 (D.N.J. 2001). The Third Circuit already vacated the injunction issued by District Judge Stephen Orlofsky, pending appeal. After the U.S. Supreme Court found in Alexander v. Sandoval, 121 S.Ct. 1511, 149 L.Ed.2d 527 (2001), that there was no private cause of action under Title VI, Judge Orlofsky held that the EPA's disparate-impact regulations could be enforced pursuant to §1983 of the Civil Rights Act. The threshold question for the Third Circuit will be to determine whether the plaintiffs' action may be grounded on §1983. If it so finds, the court will then need to address whether the DEP complied with the EPA's disparate-impact regulations in its permitting decision. Here's hoping...

      Bronx, N.Y.-based Parker Environmental Management Group was indicted last week on 19 counts of violating the Clean Air Act, Superfund, and other federal laws, primarily for illegal asbestos removal and dumping. For ongoing Bronx-based reports on the aftermath of the September 11 plane-bombing of the World Trade Center, click here. 

September 17, 2001

    Following the September 11 plane-bombing of the World Trade Center and the U.S. Pentagon, it is likely (and to some degree understandable) that issues of environmental justice and civil rights within the United States will take a back seat for the foreseeable future. Most countries in the world have suffered the bombing of cities and civilian casualties -- but this has, gratefully, been rare in the United States. President Bush has said that responding to the attacks will become the focus of his administration. And today's reopening of the stock markets (and of professional baseball, et al.) exemplify the efforts that will be made to show that life in the U.S. goes on. This is understandable, appropriate, laudable.

    Environmental justice advocates have shown, and will undoubtedly show, restraint. Environmental-per-se organizations may be going too far. Counter Punch has obtained, and sharply criticizes, an internal Sierra Club memo stating that "we are taking other steps to prevent the Sierra Club from being perceived as controversial during this crisis. For now we are going to stop aggressively pushing our agenda...". Counter Punch concludes: " What nonsense! Principles are never more important than when it is inconvenient or dangerous to stand up for them."

    Of some relevance, if only by analogy, to the environmental justice crossroads we are at, in Europe the economic justice network Attac issued a press release condemning the plane- bombings "in the firmest possible terms, particularly because terrorism has always been used to suppress and suspend democratic freedoms. This crime... confus[es] a people with a state, and massacring thousands of innocent people." Later in the week, ATTAC confirmed that it would not cancel its next planned protest, stating that "we understand the shock in the U.S.... But, in Europe and the rest of the world, we are not in a state of shock. Life goes on -- and we see no reason to change our analysis or our actions."

    In the low-income communities of color in the United States, is there a reason to change analysis or actions? Fundamentally, no. But there is a wider picture, there is work to be done, assistance to be rendered, perspectives to be articulated. Here's one: the United States has an unprecedented level of personal and political freedom. The right to petition the government for redress of grievances. The First Amendment. Freedom of the press. There's a need for moral leadership, at the national, regional and neighborhood level. In light of the loss of life, the pervasive and reinforced sense of powerlessness and frailty, the urge to retaliate -- to defend -- is widely shared. But if the response includes killing uninvolved civilians, how would it be qualitatively different than the September 11 plane bombing?

     We'll close with this report from the South Bronx, ten miles from the World Trade Center: over the weekend of September 15-16, there was a police presence maintained in front of a mosque on 189th Street and Belmont Avenue in The Bronx. Members of this mosque visited Christian churches in the neighborhood, to explain that their theology did and does not justify or support acts like the plane-bombing of the World Trade Center. A candlelight vigil through the neighborhood was held on September 14; the candle were left burning in D'Aurea Murphy park at 184th Street and Arthur Avenue.

    Environmental justice groups, neighborhood-based organizations generally, are (micro-) social institutions, with a form of soap box. There's a need for moral leadership, including at the neighborhood level. Let us try to rise to the challenge, while remaining vigilant on the issues we have been, and will continue, working on...

September 10, 2001

   In New York City, a Staten Island trash hauler has been indicted for allegedly illegally dumping construction and demolition debris. Charges against Robert Grillo and his 20 Station Avenue Corp. include three counts of disposing of more than 10 cubic yards of solid waste at an unpermitted facility. The state said the company illegally dumped garbage in vacant lots on at least three occasions.

   In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is ordering the cleanup of 200,000 whole tires and 100,000 shredded tires from northeast Philadelphia. The state said All State Tire Recycling must clear the tires it allegedly abandoned by Oct. 31 under a judge's order.

   In East St. Louis, the EPA announced last week that it will clean up about 100 lead-contaminated properties. More homes and businesses could be added to the list after additional testing. The lead came from old factories and industrial facilities in the area.   

September 4, 2001

   The federal Environmental Protection Agency now views itself as "the only game in town" for environmental justice, following the Supreme Court's April 2001 decision in Alexander v. Sandoval. This according to EPA attorney Gail Ginsberg, who has been appointed to head the EPA's new EJ task force. As of August 10, 2001, the EPA had 64 environmental justice complaints pending. Twenty-two of those have been accepted for investigation and 42 are under review for possible investigation. Ms. Ginsberg has been quoted that after the Sandoval decision the EPA "expected we'd see a lot more complaints, and maybe we will, but so far that hasn't happened." But the EPA has issued only one substantive EJ decision in the past eight years, dismissing a complaint from Michigan and allowing a steel recycling plant to go forward. If this process is "the only game in town," it's a company town...

    Here's a recent EJ complaint to the EPA: residents of Missouri's Washington County have challenged the Missouri Division of Geology and Land Survey permitting of a 170-acre landfill to be built by WaCo Landholding Inc. Residents claim that leakage from the site would seep through porous rock beneath the landfill and eventually poison an aquifer that supplies nearby residents with well water. The regional EPA's Althea Moses states that "one of the things we'll be looking at are the demographics of the area to find out if there is a disparity of environmental impact that might be a violation of environmental justice." We'll see...

August 20, 2001

   What goes around, comes around: earlier this month, Magnesium Corporation of America filed for bankruptcy in New York. The company, a unit of New York-based Renco Metals Inc., has been one of the nation's worst polluters and is reportedly the target of a federal investigation...

   If they don't vote right, fire 'em: in California, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District's governing board voted to fire two board members in closed session meetings, a violation of state law. The dismissal came just before the board considered two controversial cases in which the two members had sided with environmentalists...

August 13, 2001

   In Washington, D.C., a BP Amoco station in the Southeast neighborhood of Fort Dupont leaked 1,400 gallons of gasoline between April and June, 2001. Fourteen families have been evacuated from their homes, and have been stayed in a hotel for the past seven weeks. Last week, Mayor Anthony Williams finally met with the families, and declaimed that "if the spill had happened in an affluent neighborhood, BP Amoco would have treated the residents better. 'It's clear this is a case of environmental justice,' Williams said." While we agree, we note that if the evacuated families had been from another section of the District -- say, Georgetown or Woodley Park -- Mayor Williams would have met with them sooner than seven weeks after they were driven from their homes. Developing...

    In Seattle, the EPA has fined Philip Services Corp. (a/k/a Burlington Environmental Inc.) more than $1 million for allegedly violating environmental rules at its four toxic waste storage facilities, and for failing to properly monitor ground-water contamination in Seattle's Georgetown neighborhood....

August 6, 2001

   In Connecticut, legislators will try again to impose stricter pollution standards on the state's aging power plants. Their last attempt was vetoed by Governor John Rowland, and too view legislators stuck around to even hold a vote on overriding Gov. Rowland's veto...

   Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn has rejected Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman's demand for cities to have a say in air quality regulation in southern Nevada. Guinn recently upheld his decision to transfer regulatory authority to the Clark County Commission..

    In Ohio, environmental enforcement actions by the state Attorney General's office have declined precipitously. The AG's office collected only $3 million in fines from polluters last year, the lowest amount in seven years. Efforts were hampered by a lack of attorneys in the office. There were 17 vacancies in the environmental enforcement division. It's all about priorities...

July 23, 2001

      First some news, then some spin. In Chelmsford, Massachusetts, the EPA is seeking $3.5 million from nine companies and three individuals to clean up an illegal toxic waste dump contains cancer-causing chemicals used as paint solvents in the manufacture of plastics. The dumping went on so long that cleanup costs could exceed $30 million...

    In "legal" toxic waste dumping news, a recent report on the proposal to bury nuclear waste under Yucca Mountain in Nevada estimates that Clark County, NV (which includes Las Vegas) would have to spend more then $1 billion on emergency preparedness training, if the plan goes forward. We speculate about a nuclear waste tax on the gaming industry, or a new casino being built on the Nevada Test Site (which the U.S. apparently pays Wackenhut, a company active in the private prison industry, to guard...).

    In Alaska oil news, an investigation has begun into allegations that fire suppression systems and certain valves at a BP Prudhoe Bay oil field have not been inspected -- this would violate BP's criminal probation for illegal dumping of toxic waste at the Endicott oil field in the 1990s... Also, in a project funded by the long-named "Exxon Valdez Oil Spill State/Federal Trustee Council," surveys have been conducted of beaches around Prince William Sound for oil from the Exxon Valdez spill. To date, the survey has found oil seven to eight times more often than expected, scientists said. About 450 of 4,428 pits dug contained surface or subsurface oil...

   The spin: In Massachusetts, lobbying has begun against the state Office of Environmental Affairs' new environmental justice policy (the announcement of which was covered in previous Reports, below). The Worcester Telegram & Gazette editorialized against the EJ policy on July 17, and quoted the president of the local Chamber of Commerce that "the current level of environmental monitoring and review, by municipalities and the state, is already extensive." The same editorial reports that Worcester has more than 200 contaminated sites that make up about a quarter of the city's 2,000 acres of industrially zoned property. That was some extensive review process, no?

July 16, 2001

    First the news, then the spin: in New York State, the Pataki administration last week finally released a long-withheld report, which discloses three additional state Superfund sites and 17 other PCB-contaminated areas in the Upper Hudson River Valley. The report was released immediately before residents of Glen Falls held a press conference, on the way their community has been polluted by General Electric, and capacitator GE left in their neighborhood... In neighboring New Jersey, requests have been made to Christie Whitman's fill-in, Gov. Donald DiFrancesco, not to sign a bill approved by the state legislature which would put a four-year limit on New Jersey's ability to seek compensation from polluters. Note: under such a law, GE (at least as to Glen Falls, N.Y.) would be scot free...

    In enforcement news, the EPA last week sued AK Steel for a pattern of Clean Air and Clean Water Act violations at its Middletown, Ohio plant. The company has responded that it would rather lay off 2,000 workers at the plant than install the required pollution-control equipment... In Pennsylvania, the EPA EPA has cited S.H. Bell Co. for operating an iron ore and minerals handling facility on the Ohio River without obtaining 21 operating and four installation permits despite being considered a major source of airborne particle pollution...

  Now, the spin: at a conference last week at George Washington University Law School, a panel discussed the prospects for environmental justice litigation following the Supreme Court's decision earlier this year in Alexander v. Sandoval, which problematized (to put it mildly) private causes of action for disparate impact discrimination. Participants emphasized that actions under Section 1983 are still possible, citing the ongoing Camden case for that proposition. One advocate opined that "Sandoval is only a bump in the road." But an obstacle only becomes, in retrospect, a "bump" -- if one keeps pressing forward...

July 9, 2001

    Wise use? In Bronx County, New York, an 18-hole golf course is being built, on top of the Ferry Point landfill. The state Department of Environmental Protection has detected elevated levels of methane gas, and has now installed a trench of gravel around the perimeter, for "ventilation." Otherwise, apparently, a golfer who lights a cigarette (or cigar) -- might burst into methane-fueled flame. There's talk of expanding the course from 18 holes to 27, and of taking over current parkland to do so. We ask again: wise use?

    Also in New York, the DEP disclosed that it will be years before the Hoosick River recovers from the 2,000 gallon acidic copper sulfate spill that emanated from the Oak-Mitsui plant in Hoosick Falls last week... In Calhoun County, Alabama, residents who live near the Army's $1 billion chemical weapons incinerator say they are "profoundly" worried about the federal government's preparedness for a possible accident at the facility, which is scheduled to open next year... In Louisiana, the state has put the cleanup of three abandoned oilfield waste pits on hold because the chief investigator has taken a new job. Thomas Neumeier, the state environmental impact specialist handling the project, has taken a job with -- guess who -- Halliburton Co.... In South Texas, a leak in an Army landfill could threaten the drinking water supply of about 1.5 million people. Hundreds of gallons of trichloroethene leaked at the Camp Bullis reservation, and could make their way into the Edwards Aquifer...

July 2, 2001

    Our focus this week: Pennsylvania. In Allegheny County, an ordinance that would prevent companies from building new plants if they have violated air pollution permits within one year has bipartisan support, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (6/25). Statewide, the PA Department of Environmental Protection has accepted recommendations from the Environmental Justice Work Group it established in 1999. The recommendations, almost entirely procedural, include: putting official documents like public notices and permit information in a language understood by the community to be affected; including a 10-step procedure in DEP's permitting process for certain activities in minority and low-income communities, like enhanced public participation; and, somewhat more substantively, ensuring minority and low-income communities receive the same frequency of inspections and assessment of fines as other communities...

     Residents of South Denver are protesting the EPA's closed-door negotiations with Citigroup, which owns the Shattuck Superfund site. As reported in the Denver Post (6/28), "they don't like the idea of Shattuck and Citigroup being released from all future liability without getting a say in the decision. Citigroup was one of the top campaign contributors to President Bush (and Democratic candidate Al Gore). And EPA chief Whitman has family financial ties to the company" (reported on in earlier this year, in ICP's CitiWatch Report).

   Three other notes: in New York, a report was released on June 21 showing that General Electric's contamination of the Hudson River with PCBs damaged commercial and recreational fishing for decades. The study could force GE to pay even more than the estimated $460 million price tag the EPA says is necessary to dredge the river, according to the Albany Times-Union (6/22).  Also in New York (and Pennsylvania), in corporate crime news:  a truck illegally filled with medical waste, originating from a Bronx transfer station run by Waste Management, was stopped and impounded by Pennsylvania officials. (Click here to view the PA Department of Environmental Protection's press release). What will the ramifications for Waste Management be?  In Delaware, the state House has passed a bill that would require the state to notify the public about environmental spills and chronic polluters. The bill has already been approved by the state Senate...

June 25, 2001

   In Camden, N.J. last week, the St. Lawrence Cement Company began grinding a 112,000 ton mountain of slag into powder for cement. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the injunction that had been entered in April by District Judge Stephen Orlofsky. At some point, the Third Circuit will rule on the underlying case. But the harm, in a neighborhood already home to two Superfund sites, has begun...

   In Southern California, plans for a power plant on land previously set aside as a state park have been cancelled. La Jolla Energy Development Inc. informed the state Energy Commission on June 21 that it is withdrawing its application for fast-track approval of the 53-megawatt plant and "will not pursue the Baldwin [Hills] facility in the future." Over 1,000 people had shown up at a public hearing on June 18, opposing the plan. The neighborhood is over three-quarters African-American...

June 11, 2001

   While the Camden, N.J. case has become ground-zero, legally, for environmental justice claims, local residents in southeast Phoenix have pushed forward, documenting the concentration of toxic uses in their neighborhoods, and filing a lawsuit against the city of Phoenix, accusing officials of environmental racism by using zoning decisions and tax credits to turn their community into a "toxic dumping ground."

   In California, notice of intent to sue the contractors hired by the Navy to clean up Hunters Point Naval Shipyard has been filed: the contractors failed to notify residents and workers of the discovery of a radioactive sandblast grit in an excavation pit, in violation of Proposition 65...

      The EPA, in one recent positive move, has fined Wal-Mart $1 million, settling allegations that Wal-Mart violated the Clean Water Act with dirt discharges while building 17 stores in Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas... To Wal-Mart, this is just a cost of doing business...

June 4, 2001

   Another dubious "first" for the South Bronx: of the ten new electricity-generating turbines being fast-tracked by the New York State Power Authority, the first was opened on June 1: in Port Morris in the South Bronx. As previously reported, the NYPA designed the turbines just below the capacity that would trigger environmental review. Once again, sadly, the South Bronx is the place where a questionable use can most quickly be sited and built...

   In more positive news: in Massachusetts, an innovative proposal's been made to add low- and moderate-income communities of color to a 1975 law's definition of (and protections for) "critical environmental areas" requiring special review. The proposal would amend the 1975 statute requiring state environmental agencies to give special protection to areas considered critical because of a wetland, an aquifer, or a habitat of an endangered species. Massachusetts' Executive Office of Environmental Affairs and the state Department of Public Health would have 120 days to draft regulations similar to those in place for the areas of "critical environmental concern." Neat...

    In Los Angeles, a community coalition in the Figeroa Corridor area has reached an agreement with the proposed developers of two hotels next to the Staples Center. The agreement provides for, among other things, more than $1 million for the creation or improvement of parks within a mile of the project, with community input; inclusion of a one-acre public plaza and other public open space; and at least 70 percent of the estimated 5,500 permanent jobs to be created by the project, including those offered by tenants, would pay a living wage or better. Those are defined as paying $7.72 an hour with benefits or $8.97 without, or covered by collective bargaining agreement. The deal also calls on the developer to notify the coalition 45 days before signing tenant lease agreements. To conclude, as we began, with the South Bronx: here, a mall financed by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) has signed a lease with Rent-A-Center, the high-cost furniture and appliance business. See Inner City Press Bronx Reports throughout April and May. Forty-five days notice sure would have been nice... So, hat's off, L.A. and Massachusetts...

May 29, 2001

   On May 22, the EPA formally delayed until at least February 2002 a new standard for arsenic in drinking water, and a system for reporting the presence of arsenic in water to affected communities. Congress had mandated a final arsenic rule by June 22, 2001; EPA cites to its supposedly exclusive authority to establish effective dates. The confidence of environmentalists -- urban, rural and otherwise -- in the EPA continues to decline...

   In California, a recent poll reveals that 70% of respondent voters, and 86% of Latino voters, agree with the statement that "Government officials are more likely to allow companies that cause pollution to operate in low-income and minority neighborhoods than in high-income and predominantly white neighborhoods." Senor Bush! Estas perdiendo votos!

May 21, 2001

    This week: Detroit, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.

    A study reported in the Detroit News of May 17, based on blood screening in 1998, has found that "17.5 percent of the children tested by [Detroit's] Health Department had elevated lead levels. Half of those children identified live in 37 percent of the city's ZIP codes." The rate in all Detroit zip codes was higher than the national average; in some Detroit neighborhoods, it's ten times the national average. The response to date has been less, rather than more, interest on the part of government agencies: "In Detroit, the number of children under the age of 6 tested for lead poisoning dropped from 26,790 in 1998 to 24,417 last year." ICP is pursuing a full copy of the study (which included review of Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Mobile, Ala., Baltimore, Boston and St. Louis); we will have more on this.

   In South Africa, the Anti- Incineration Alliance, a coalition of environmental groups in Western Cape province, are calling for a moratorium on the permitting of new incinerators. The Denel Corporation, South Africa's largest private arms manufacturer, has applied to build a waste incinerator between two low-income communities: "Mitchells Plein, a mixed race or so-called colored community, and Khayelitsha, a black community that is home to about 600,000 people." The government of Western Cape province has not announced whether it will approve the permit. The movement on these issues, as on the other issues in which Inner City Press is involved, is global: "In the United States, more than 280 incinerator proposals have been defeated or abandoned since 1985 because of public opposition. In France, authorities have closed down three municipal waste incinerators in Lille because high concentrations of dioxins were found in locally produced cow's milk. Turkey's environment minister decreed in 1999 that all waste incinerators would be phased out."

    Friends of the Earth Scotland reports, in a May 17 release, that "research in England demonstrates that 82 percent of carcinogen emissions are in the most deprived 20 percent of wards, and families with household income below 5000 pounds annually are twice as likely to live near to a polluting factory than those with an income above 60,000 pounds," then notes that a similar study has yet to be done in Scotland...Until next time, for or with more information, contact us.

May 14, 2001

       This week: litigation news, from Anniston, Alabama: Monsanto recently settled claims that PCB contamination for which it was responsible had increased the cancer risks of residents of a predominantly African American neighborhood in Anniston. What brought the case, Owens v. Monsanto Co., CV96-J-0440-E, to the attention of the national (legal) press was that Monsanto has rejected a mediator's suggestion of $40 million, which was the precise sum it later settled for. This is from the National Law Journal: "Because it declined to settle during mediation, Monsanto will have to pay an additional $ 2.7 million to the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs, 1,596 former and current residents of Anniston, Ala., sued Monsanto in 1996, claiming that PCBs deposited by the company from 1935 until 1972 had polluted their neighborhood, causing permanent property damage and personal injuries. PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, manufactured at Monsanto's Anniston plant used to be components in insulation. The plaintiffs claimed that PCB exposure had caused a variety of illnesses, including skin rash, cancer, liver damage, nervous system damage, hyperactivity and attention deficit disorders in children. During the Easter trial recess, on April 13, Monsanto informed plaintiffs' counsel it wished to reopen settlement talks. An agreement was reached the next day and approved the following Saturday, April 21, by plaintiffs at a meeting in Anniston's Bethel Missionary Baptist Church." There is a need for more of this type of aggressive, grassroots litigation, in (polluted) communities around the country...

May 7, 2001

     We've received a number of requests this week to explain more fully what the Supreme Court's decision in Alexander v. Sandoval, 99-1908, may mean for disparate impact environmental justice cases. Rather than go through, for now, the whole legal exegesis, the reaction of the U.S. District Court judge in the current E.J. case, South Camden Citizens in Action v. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, is telling. Mere hours after the Alexander v. Sandoval decision was handed down on April 24, District Judge Stephen Orlofsky called the lawyers in South Camden, and asked for brief on whether the injunctions he'd used five days before should continue, in light of the new Supreme Court precedent. The plaintiffs are arguing that the stay be continued, under the five-prong test of says the case for intent is a strong one based on a five-factor test of Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U.S. 252 (1977) (whether a proposal bears more heavily on one race than another; historical background of the government action at issue; sequences of events that resulted in the challenged proposal; procedural and substantive departures in making a decision; and the legislative or administrative history of the action). We'll be continuing to follow this one...

      In more positive news, the University of California at Santa Cruz has issued a detailed study, rebutting the argument that toxic uses weren't directed at communities of color, but rather that property values (and demographics) changed after toxic uses moved in. The study, "Racial/Ethnic Inequality in Environmental Hazard Exposure in Metropolitan Los Angeles," tracks the arrival of all high-capacity toxic storage and disposal facilities (TSDFs) in Los Angeles County against changing neighborhood demographics over the 1970, 1980, and 1990 census surveys. The study's statistical analysis confirms that the racial/ethnic makeup of a neighborhood mattered in the timing of a TSDF siting. The study concludes with a call for greater enforcement of the spirit (and laws, such as they are) of environmental justice. Good work!

April 30, 2001

    The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision last week in Alexander v. Sandoval, upholding Alabama's English-Only requirement for drivers' licenses, will make environmental justice suits using Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 more difficult, particularly against non-governmental actors who have received federal funds. The chief counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation crowed that the ruling "basically strikes down the entire environmental justice movement." (Legal Intelligencer, April 25). The government agencies which grant the permits and other approvals can still be sued, for systemic discrimination, under the Civil Rights Act of 1871. But suits against "private," federally funded entities, using the disparate impact theory, will be more difficult, to say the least. Brainstorming, and new strategies, are needed...

    On April 25, environmental advocates rallied in front of the Swiss Consulate in midtown Manhattan, protesting the plans of St. Lawrence Cement, a Canadian subsidiary of Zurich-based Holderbank, to build a facility near the Hudson River in Greenport, N.Y. on the border of the city of Hudson. "The plant would have a smokestack forty stories tall, and a two-mile conveyer belt system leading to the river where 800-foot barges would be loaded for trips down to New York City. The plant's main fuel would be coal, a fuel that is illegal in environmentally conscious Switzerland." The current administration, of course, says that environmental regulations are "too expensive" for the U.S. economy...

April 23, 2001

     From Portland, Oregon, there's positive environmental and "convergence" news this week: a joint lawsuit by environmental groups and a labor union, against Oregon Steel Mills for 55 violations of the Clean Air Act in the last five years. The plaintiffs include the United Steelworkers of America (which has been striking Oregon Steel's Pueblo, Colorado plant for three years), the Environmental Justice Action Group and the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment, one of the first, and most cutting-edge, "Teamsters and Turtles" coalitions around. Oregon Steel, predictably, denounced the plaintiffs -- but doesn't seem to dispute that it's been violating the Clean Air Act. Developing...

     Meanwhile, EPA Administrator Christie Whitman last week announced various Earth Day awards. She didn't comment on the brewing conflict of interest scandals surrounding the environmental record of her husband's employer, Citigroup. As the Denver Post's Mike Soraghan reported last month, when "Whitman makes decisions on Denver's most notorious Superfund site, the Shattuck Chemical Co., her choices might also affect her family finances. Her husband, John Whitman, is managing partner of a venture capital firm spun off and backed by Citigroup, the banking giant that owns Shattuck. The company's south Denver location is a Superfund site where EPA officials are deciding how they should remove tons of radioactive waste encased in concrete... John Whitman worked for Citigroup from 1972 to 1987, and still has as much as $ 250,000 in stock in the company... John Whitman is now a managing partner of Sycamore Ventures. Last year, John Whitman got a bonus of unspecified size from Citigroup for past work. The EPA says it's not a conflict, because Christine Whitman doesn't have a direct hand in local Superfund decisions."

      But it's not that simple. Earlier this month, EPA investigator Hugh Kaufman filed a 'whistle-blower' complaint with the Department of Labor, stating that Whitman "has bad-mouthed him to key members of Congress" and that "her decisions may have been influenced by her husband's close corporate ties to Citigroup, owner of the Shattuck Chemical Co. site in south Denver where a toxic-waste cleanup is planned."

April 9, 2001

    In Corpus Christi, Texas, state environmental agencies have declared two long-closed landfills safe. Local residents disagree, noting that the agencies failed to conduct ground water testing, and did not bore 25 feet below the surface. Bill Rhotenberry, Superfund site assessment manager for the Texas EPA, said: "Four agencies investigated this matter -- the Texas Department of Health, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, and the state EPA, as well as an independent contractor -- and no cause for concern was found, either last year or during the many historical tests conducted through the decades." But more than 300 people in the neighborhood have suffered illnesses ranging from various forms of cancer to leukemia to multiple miscarriages and hysterectomies for women in their early 20s, at as much as twice the expected incident rate. Residents want the sites put on the Superfund National Priority List for remediation funding.

    In Savannah, Georgia, residents are calling on Southern Co., the parent of Savannah Electric and Georgia Power, to clean up its act. Recent Toxic Release Inventory data shows Southern's plants emitted 87 million pounds of pollution into the air in 1998. Additionally, mercury emitted by the power plants has entered the water and ends up in fish. There are 45 Georgia-wide advisories urging people to limit their intake of certain kinds of fish because of mercury poisoning. A campaign is beginning...

April 2, 2001

   We turn global this week -- but find, not surprisingly, toxic waste from the United States and the United Kingdom.

    From 1978 to 1996, Britain's Thor Chemical operated a mercury "reprocessing" plant, on Cato Ridge in South Africa's Kwazulu-Natal province. Thor's plant took in tons of toxic waste from American and European companies, including American Cyanamid and Borden Chemicals. In 1996, the Mandela regime closed the plant down: at least two workers had died of mercury poisoning, and mercury had been found in the Umgeni River -- as early as 1988. The families of the dead workers sued in British courts in 1998, and eventually won $2 million. More recently, twenty alive-but-poisoned workers have sued, and won a mere $400,000, to be split twenty ways. Thor Chemical has taken on a new name, in South Africa: "Geurnica Chemicals." (Isn't that, you ask, the name of the Spanish town bombed by Franco, memorialized in Picasso's painting? Yes...).

    The call, now, is for the companies that sent the toxic waste to South Africa to take it back. Borden Chemicals' response? "It is really something best addressed by Thor Chemicals or the South African government." (Credit: Danielle Knight of Inter-Press Service).

    Less dramatic, but scarcely more democratic, Sunlaw Energy Partners, the proposer of the massive electrical plant in South Gate, California (see last week's Report, below) have not, despite losing the referendum, withdrawn their application. Sunlaw's flacks, at Hill and Knowlton (famous of late for their "intelligence work" on and against the anti-corporate globalization movement) say that the company is keeping the application pending only in order to "keep its options open." Local activists suspect that the company is simply waiting for the boiling pot of "energy crisis" to get a bit hotter, to revive the application...

March 26, 2001

    Residents of South Gate, by Los Angeles' Interstate 710, voted down a proposal for a power plant in their community earlier this month. This despite the power plant's proposed owners' campaign to procure a positive vote: the company spent an estimated $150,000 on a Christmas parade float for the town, a Cinco de Mayo festival and a mailing of candles to all city residents (implying that without this plant, they'd have no electricity). But even the South Coast Air Quality Management Board, which had approved the plan, estimated that the plant would emit 56 tons of oxides of nitrogen, 17 tons of carbon monoxide, 24 tons of volatile organic compounds and 287 tons of particulate matter -- each year...

March 12, 2001

    Focus on brownfields -- momentum builds, while lobbyists hover. Earlier this month, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee took testimony on the brownfields bill introduced by Senate Superfund subcommittee Chairman Lincoln Chafee (R-RI). At that time, the bill already had 34 sponsors from both parties. The House is working on a similar bill introduced this month by Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY). Among other things, the bills provide that prospective purchasers and contiguous property owners are not responsible for paying cleanup costs. It would preclude the EPA from taking an action on a site being addressed by a state cleanup program unless there is an "imminent and substantial endangerment" to public health or the environment. The bill would authorize $150 million annually for state and local governments to assess and clean up sites and give an addition $50 million per year to state brownfield programs. One of the fights taking place is around the definition of "imminent and substantial endangerment" (see above).

   Also last week, Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening announced that his administration will create a "Commission on Environmental Justice and Sustainable Communities." In an interview, Glendening said: "All across the country there are certain communities that have . . . health-threatening impacts" and that "can't go out and hire $ 100,000-a-year lawyers to defend them. We've got to give them a voice." Glendening referred to Prince George's County's plan to put a trash transfer station near historically black Bowie State University (reported below) as the type of project the proposed Commission would review...     

March 5, 2001

      On February 12, 2001, residents of Camden, New Jersey filed suit in federal District Court, seeking review of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's grant of permits for the $60 million St. Lawrence Cement Company plant in Camden's Waterfront South section. The complaint states that the census tract that the plaintiffs live in has a population that is 81 percent African American and 12 percent Latino. It's explicitly an environmental justice case, asserting violations of Title VI of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, of 42 U.S.C. 1983 and of the Fair Housing Act. The complaint also cites EPA's Title VI regulations, 40 CFR 7.90, requiring a recipient of federal funds to provide a procedure for hearing grievances arising from violations of the regulations. In October 2000, the plaintiffs requested a grievance hearing with the DEP pursuant to the Title VI regulations; the DEP never responded.

February 26, 2001

   In Prince George's County, Maryland, students at Bowie State University, a historically black college, are protesting a planned waste transfer station a quarter-mile from their campus. The proposed transfer station would compress up to 1,400 tons of trash each day, then load it onto 23 to 72 trailers for transport to a landfill in Virginia. The permit application was filed with the Maryland Department of the Environment in July 2000, but the student say they only learned of the plan, and its impact, in November 2000...

     In California, a new plan that auto makers begin selling electric cars is being criticized as having been formulated without input from low-income communities of color, as required by the state's environmental justice law, signed by the governor two years ago. Alan Lloyd, chairman of the state Air Resources Board, quickly denied that the agency had violated the state's EJ law. "We take that requirement seriously," he said, adding: "I would be the first to admit that it's not enough if local communities don't know what we're doing and don't get the opportunity to participate."

February 12, 2001

  Dayton, Ohio: The EPA held a public meeting on February 7, at Stebbins High School in Old North Dayton, on its proposal to stop removing the hazardous waste that's been found in the Valleycrest Landfill. The area was used as a dump from the 1940s into the mid-1980s, by companies including Cargill. Environmental investigations that began in the early 1990s revealed a number of industrial chemicals that are leaking into the ground water below the site and to neighboring properties. The landfill sits between two of Dayton's well fields, which supply drinking water to nearly 400,000 people in the area.

    Companies that sent waste to the landfill, which is not classified to accept hazardous waste, include GM, NCR, Peerless Transport, Cargill, Dayton Walther, Standard Register and Duriron. In 1995 those companies formed the Valleycrest Landfill Removal Action Coalition. In 1998 that group reached an agreement with the EPA to pay for any cleanup of the landfill. The U.S. EPA began removing drums of hazardous waste from the 102-acre property. They have removed nearly 23,000 drums to date. Two months ago the Valleycrest Landfill Removal Action Coalition. asked to amend the agreement. Now, the EPA proposes to stop removing any further waste. Steve Renninger of the EPA said the agency is proposing that it not continue with removal in other areas of the landfill. Future drums found will be buried on site until future cleanup can occur, a process that could be three to seven years. Great planning, no?

February 5, 2001

   Focus on Vieques: Residents of this island, part of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, are raising concerns about the U.S. military's use of depleted uranium ("DU") ammunition in a firing range located next to a civilian area. The U.S. Navy admitted that it had used DU ammunition in Vieques in a May 10, 1999, response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Military Toxics Project. stating that it fired DU rounds in Vieques in February 1999-- "only," the Navy claims "263 airplane-fired, low-caliber rounds." Military scientist Doug Rokke, during a recent visit to Vieques, said 263 rounds is "not even a burst of automatic gunfire. The A-10 Warthog attack plane, which fires DU ammunition, can fire three to four thousand rounds per minute." According to a study by the Puerto Rico Health Department, the cancer rate in Vieques is 26.9 percent above Puerto Rico's average. DU consists mostly of uranium 238 (U238), a by-product of uranium enrichment, the process through which uranium 235 (U235) is separated from the uranium ore. Both isotopes are radioactive, but unlike U235, U238 is useless for nuclear bombs or nuclear power. It is simply radioactive waste and it will remain radioactive for 4.5 billion years. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimated in 1991 that there must be one million pounds of this material in the United States.

      The U.S. government has decided to dispose of this radioactive waste by selling it as ammunition. DU is an "ideal" material for bullets, since it is 70 percent more dense than lead, and is extremely susceptible to friction. Violent impacts can make it reach temperatures in the thousands of degrees Fahrenheit in a fraction of a second. For these reasons, a DU bullet can pierce a tank's armor. "These bullets are not coated or tipped with this material. They are pure, solid DU," says Rokke, who calls the use of DU ammunition "a crime against God and humanity." Rokke, who once directed the Pentagon's Depleted Uranium Project, now sees a pattern of environmental racism in the Pentagon's decision to test DU in Vieques and in the Japanese island of Okinawa. "The U.S. Defense Department's policy is racist and discriminatory, contrary to the principle of environmental justice. We have the cases of Vieques and Okinawa, where DU ammunition has been experimented with. These are not isolated events, or errors or chance. These are planned actions to test and later use this highly polluting ammunition in Kosovo and the Persian Gulf." According to Physicians for Social Responsibility, in the 1999 NATO war against Yugoslavia, U.S. tanks fired 14,000 high-caliber DU rounds, while planes fired 940,000 smaller caliber DU bullets. U.S. armed forces are not the only ones to use DU ammunition. Authorized arms dealers sell them to 16 countries, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Taiwan..

January 29, 2001

    Atlanta: environmental justice issues are being raised, in opposition to the Federal Aviation Administration's review of a planned new runway at Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport. A new study has found a 9,000-foot fifth runway would add noise, ground-level traffic and pollution. James Fason of the county's environmental and community development department, said the group is considering a class-action lawsuit. Fason said the county's 18-month study predicts traffic jams caused by construction and increased noise once the runway is open, lowering property values. The report also suggests the noise pollution would be disproportionately felt in minority communities, creating environmental justice arguments that could be considered by the FAA. The FAA is planning to hold a public hearing on its draft Environmental Impact Statement Jan. 30 in College Park.

     In corporate (connection) news, Allied Waste Industries Inc., the No. 2 U.S. trash hauler, recently added UBS Warburg to the group that sold $600 million of its junk bonds, replacing Credit Suisse. While CSFB was the lead arranger for the Scottsdale, Arizona- based company, it shared the work with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Salomon Smith Barney Inc. and Deutsche Bank AG. Chase, Salomon and DLJ were lead managers in Allied Waste bond issues in January 2000 and February 1999; Deutsche Bank was not. "A company like Allied Waste has many investment banking relationships and only select opportunities to finance and pay their bankers back with business," said Chris Towle, who owns Allied Waste bonds among the $10 billion of assets he helps manage at Lord Abbett & Co. ..

January 16, 2001

    A just-released study of environmental risks in Massachusetts communities provides new statistical evidence that pollution and toxins are disproportionately steered to low income communities of color. The Northeastern University report assigns points for various uses: 25 for a Superfund site and five for a piles of used tires, for example. It concludes, among other things, that for people who live in a community that is at least 25 percent minority, there are five times as many pounds of chemical emissions from industrial facilities than communities with less than five percent minorities. One of the articles reviewing the new study cites a 1984 report by Cerrell Associates for the California Waste Management Board, which "openly recommended that polluting industries locate hazardous waste facilities in 'lower socio-economic neighborhoods' because the communities had a much lower likelihood to offer political resistance. (We're still looking for a copy of that 1984 report, by the way). This type of analysis has since gone "underground," but it's still be practiced, in communities around the country and around the world.

    For example -- in New York, the state DEC has rubber stamped the ten planned waterfront power generators, two of which are slated for the South Bronx, two for Williamsburgh, Brooklyn, and NONE for Manhattan. New York Power Authority Chairman Clarence Rappleyea said proudly: "This is a two-year process, and we're squeezing it into a couple of months." Any power plant generating over 80 megawatts requires a full environmental review. These planned generators will generate -- you guess it -- 79.9 megawatts. While other elected officials prepare to sue, the Bronx Borough President, as usual, hints at how he can be satisfied (using precisely that word): "I want to see some proof on those emissions, I want to see reports from other municipalities where these generators have been tested, and then I'll be satisfied." Then again, it's not only elected officials, but also affected residents, who can sue...

    In West Dallas, the lead smelter smokestack on the southeast corner of Westmoreland Road and Singleton Boulevard is now, finally, being demolished. The work will take weeks. The Dallas Morning News was appropriately poetic, reporting that "Workers on a floating scaffold - a movable rig now positioned at the top, 300 feet above the ground - will assault the structure with jackhammers and torches, taking it down section by section." And the beat goes on...

January 1, 2001

     What will be the approach of the administration taking power in Washington to environmental issues? One predictor is a "briefing" meeting that Bush received, in May 1999, from a group of conservative, "free-market" think tanks, including the Reason Public Policy Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Political Economy Research Center. These groups pitched him on the (discredited) idea that market forces, by themselves, can protect the environment more effectively than government regulation. The ideas discussed included allowing ranchers to sell their federal grazing permits to environmentalists who want to retire public land from grazing; and letting environmentalists bid on federal timber sales to protect trees from logging. "Let those who care about the environment pay for it," is the slogan. But how would this play out in lower-income neighborhoods? Is it reasonable to expect, for example, the residents of the South Bronx to have bought the land on which Bronx Lebanon Hospital built a medical waste incinerator, five blocks from a housing project? The $1 dollar a year lease the Francesco Galesi received, from the Pataki administration, for the Bronx' Harlem River Yards -- that, we could afford. But the price was low due to political influence, which is sadly lacking in communities like the South Bronx.

     Christie Whitman now moves from New Jersey to Washington, to head up the EPA. She claims, despite having dramatically reduced fines to polluters, to have improved the Garden State's environment. Her approach to environmental justice, including pending and to-be-filed complaints under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, will become known, early in 2001. And we'll be watching, and reporting in this space...  For or with more information, contact us.

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