19 states have passed ‘take back’ laws that require manufacturers to take back old electronics and pay to recycle them. But manufacturers are challenging these laws. (Photo source: dirkj at Wikimedia Commons)
The City of New York is being sued
by the electronics industry. Samara
Freemark reports it’s over recycling
electronic waste, such as cell phones
and computers:
Transcript
The city of New York is being sued by the electronics industry. Samara Freemark reports it’s over recycling electronic waste such as cell phones and computers:
Electronic waste contains all sorts of hazardous chemicals, but safely recycling it is expensive.
So 19 states have passed ‘take back’ laws that require manufacturers to take back old electronics and pay to recycle them.
Now manufacturers are challenging these laws. Two industry groups have sued New York City. They want the city’s take back law overturned.
Kate Sinding is a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council. That group has joined New York in the suit. She says a decision in the case could have consequences beyond electronics take backs.
“There are a lot of deeper questions that are raised by the lawsuit, including issues of corporate responsibility. If somebody’s going to produce something that has toxic components, what is their ongoing responsibility to deal with that, even after it’s sold into the market?”
Karen Lukacsena owns an aquarium store outside of Pittsburgh. She's recommending that customers filter their tap water. This is because Chloramine, a new chemical more utility companies are using to purify water, kills the fish (and could be toxic to humans, too). (Photo by Katherine Fink)
The way your tap water is disinfected might be changing. Federal regulations to improve water safety are leading water utilities to switch the kind of chemicals they use. But Katherine Fink reports one of those chemicals might do more harm than good:
Transcript
The way your tap water is disinfected might be changing. Federal regulations to improve water safety are leading water utilities to switch the kind of chemicals they use. But Katherine Fink reports one of those chemicals might do more harm than good.
Elmer’s Aquarium has tanks and tanks of fish.
“These are all freshwater; these fish come from all over the world.”
Karen Lukacsena is the Vice President of Elmer’s Aquarium here in a suburb of Pittsburgh.
“Elmer’s has been here for 40 years, and Elmer was my father.”
A lot has changed since Elmer started the business. For instance, there are different products that purify tap water for aquariums:
“Because we don’t really know when someone comes in here what their water’s treated with–whether it’s chlorine or chloramine. And they can always call and check, but to be safe, we just think everyone should go ahead and treat their water.”
Chlorine poisons fish. But if you set water out for a few days, the chlorine will dissipate. Chloramine is different. It’s what you get when you mix chlorine and ammonia. And it does not dissipate. It sticks around.
That’s one reason drinking water providers like it. Paul Zielinski is with Pennsylvania-American Water:
“We don’t see the decay through the distribution system reaching our furthest customers like we do with chlorine; it tends to stay longer in the system and provide a higher disinfectant level, if you will.”
That means even if the water stays in the underground pipes for a long time, chloramine will still be doing the job, disinfecting the water. Until recently, only about one-fifth of water providers used chloramine. Soon, two-thirds of them might be using it. That’s because of new federal rules that take effect in 2012. The Environmental Protection Agency found when organic matter—such as vegetation—mixes with chlorine, it increases the risk of bladder cancer and reproductive problems. So Zielinski says water providers like his are being ordered to limit that risk:
“So one of the ways to do it is obviously to switch from chlorine, which generates these byproducts, to chloramines, which doesn’t.”
But all disinfectants have their downside. For one thing, chloramine corrodes lead and copper pipes. Many water providers add other chemicals to prevent that from happening. But a few years ago, when Washington D.C. switched to chloramine, lead got into the water. Lead is toxic. It can cause learning disabilities. So much lead got into the tap water that researchers believe some young children lost IQ points.
The EPA’s regulatory arm says chloramine’s safe. But an EPA chemist, Susan Richardson, says she’s not so sure:
“Personally, as a private citizen, I would be a little bit concerned myself, and might have a filter on my faucet.”
Richardson’s research found that chloramine also creates byproducts in drinking water. And those byproducts appear even more toxic than the ones created by chlorine:
“I’m really hoping that some of the toxicologists at EPA carry this further to really help us assess that.”
“And in the meantime, we’re going to be drinking this water.”
Susan Pickford is an attorney who doesn’t want her town’s water to be disinfected with chloramine.
“Bathing in it, using it in cooking, and exposing ourselves to huge toxins until the EPA gets around to regulating them.”
Pickford is fighting plans to use chloramine in her central Pennsylvania town. She says there’s a better way to reduce toxic byproducts, and no one’s talking about it: filtering the water.
“If they could filter, and they can, there is filtration available that would help them filter 70 to 80 percent of those organics out of the source water, then when the chlorine cleans the water, it wouldn’t be creating all these byproducts.”
But better filtration systems are expensive. And utilities say water bills would go up for customers. That’s not popular. So they say it’s a matter of customers deciding how much of a risk they’re willing to take, and how much they’re willing to pay.
A Dow Chemical sign next to a river in Michigan contaminated with dioxin. Homeowners downstream are still waiting for their case against Dow to be heard. (Photo by Vincent Duffy)
The world’s largest chemical company is fighting a lawsuit filed because of dioxin pollution. Rick Pluta reports neighbors downstream from Dow Chemical’s headquarters in Michigan want something to budge in the case:
Transcript
The world’s largest chemical company is fighting a lawsuit filed because of dioxin pollution. Rick Pluta reports neighbors downstream from Dow Chemical’s headquarters in Michigan want something to budge in the case:
A Dow chemical plant near the company’s headquarters in Michigan produced all kinds of products over decades, including Agent Orange. Dioxin polluted the Tittabawassee River and its flood plain. A group of 173 people have sued, after learning their property is contaminated. Many of these people have been involved in this litigation for six years. The courts still have not gotten around to their case. Attorney Theresa Golden took their case to the Michigan Supreme Court.
“The clients obviously are concerned and disappointed that it’s taken us long to get to this point.”
The group wants class action status, so every single homeowner does not have to take on the corporate giant. There are a couple thousand property downstream of this plant. And Dow does not like the idea of potentially having to pay every one of them.
Airborne toxins could be causing health problems for residents near this coal ash spill (seen in the background) in Tennessee. (Photo by Matt Shafer Powell)
A broken dam caused this cement-like sludge to spill into the Emory River in East Tennessee. (Photo by Matt Shafer Powell)
The coal ash sludge could dry out, putting toxic dust into the air. (Photo by Matt Shafer Powell)
The Tennessee Valley Authority has dropped straw and grass seed from helicopters and coated the ash in an acrylic mixture, attempting to keep it from drying out. (Photo by Matt Shafer Powell)
Both The United Mountain Defense (an environmental group) and the Tennessee Valley Authority have started testing for airborne toxins. (Photo by Matt Shafer Powell)
Environmentalists don’t want a lot of new coal-burning power plants to be built. They’re concerned about more greenhouse gases from the plants and environmental damage from mining the coal. Late last year, another concern came to light. For decades a power plant disposed of coal ash in a pond next to it. The dam holding back the coal ash sludge failed. Matt Shafer Powell reports more than a billion gallons of the sludge caused plenty of damage to the soil and water. Now, there’s concern about the air:
Transcript
Environmentalists don’t want a lot of new coal-burning power plants to be built. They’re concerned about more greenhouse gases from the plants and environmental damage from mining the coal. Late last year, another concern came to light. For decades a power plant disposed of coal ash in a pond next to it. The dam holding back the coal ash sludge failed. Matt Shafer Powell reports more than a billion gallons of the sludge caused plenty of damage to the soil and water. Now, there’s concern about the air:
In December, the massive coal ash spill at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant in East Tennessee made people aware of a hazard they’d never really considered before. And no one knows how much of a problem it’s going to be.
“We’re looking across the Emory River.”
Matt Landon is a volunteer for the environmental group United Mountain Defense. These days, he spends a lot of time near the Tennessee Valley Authority’s ash spill site. His double respirator mask, his personal video camera and his vocal criticism of the T.V.A. have all become fixtures here. It was on one of his recent rounds near the Emory River that he saw something that scared him.
“I drove around the bend here on Emory River Road and I witnessed a massive dust storm coming off the entire coal ash disaster site.”
Landon says the dust cloud was about 70-to-80 feet high and about a half mile wide. Coal ash can contain several toxic heavy metals — like arsenic, lead, and mercury. For Landon, the site of this swirling cloud was a sobering and frightening reminder that it wouldn’t take much for the toxic materials contained in the wet cement-like sludge to dry out and become airborne.
When Landon walks up to Diana Anderson’s house on the Emory River, her shih-tzus go nuts. And no wonder. Here’s this tall, lanky guy in a double-respirator mask headed their way.
Anderson has lived here for forty years now, just downwind from the plant. And she never worried about it. But since the spill, she’s begun to notice changes in her health.
“My sinuses are irritated, I have a raspy throat, and I do a lot of coughing and my head hurts and I feel very, very, very fatigued.”
Anderson has volunteered to let Matt Landon test the air near her home. So, the two head to her kitchen sink, where they wash and prepare Pyrex dishes.
They’ll set the dishes out on Anderson’s back porch to collect dust. After a while, Landon will send the dust samples off to a lab to find out what’s in the air.
The T.V.A. is also testing the air, with help from the state of Tennessee and the E.P.A. T.V.A. Spokesman Gil Francis says they’ve already collected more than 10-thousand air samples.
“We’re taking samples 24/7, the samples are coming back that the air quality is meeting the National Air Ambient Standards and we’re going to continue to work hard to make sure that’s what the case is going forward.”
That might be easier said than done. Francis says the T.V.A. has done a lot to keep the ash from drying out and blowing around. They’ve dropped straw and grass seed from helicopters and coated the ash in an acrylic mixture. But Steven Smith of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy says nobody really knows what it’s going to take to clean this mess up. Or how the people who live downwind will be affected.
“There are still a lot of unknowns about this. We’ve never had an ash spill this size and I think people ought to err on the side of caution.”
If there’s one bit of consolation for the people living near the Kingston coal ash spill, it’s this: the National Weather Service says that during the summer months this region is among the least windy and most humid in the country.
For the Environment Report, I’m Matt Shafer Powell.
Mock evidence of radiological material to make a dirty bomb gives trainees an idea of the kind of materials they might find in a terrorist operation. (Photo by Lester Graham)
A lab mocked up to resemble a terrorist operation making sarin nerve agent. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Environmental Protection Agency response vehicles include equipment to detect all sorts of material that might be released by terrorists. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Since 9/11, emergency responders have been practicing for new kinds of emergencies. In addition to fires and hazardous materials spills, emergency personnel have been training to deal with terrorist attacks. Recently, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham was allowed behind the scenes in a terrorism attack training exercise:
Transcript
Since 9/11, emergency responders have been practicing for new kinds of emergencies. In
addition to fires and hazardous materials spills, emergency personnel have been training
to deal with terrorist attacks. Recently, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester
Graham was allowed behind the scenes in a terrorism attack training exercise:
(coughing)
These two men are the victims of some kind of biological toxin. They were investigating
an abandoned rental truck and now they’re writhing on the ground after a package
spewed some kind of liquid.
(chatter between mock victims) “You alright, man?” “What was that?” “I don’t know
what that was. It hurts.”
These guys are acting. They’re part of a huge training exercise put on by the
Environmental Protection Agency. Dozens of firefighters, emergency medical personnel,
EPA investigators, the FBI and people in t-shirts identifying themselves with acronyms
for agencies most of us have never heard of. They’re all working through a couple of
scenarios. So far today, they’ve discovered radioactive material to make dirty bombs and
some kind of lab set up to make a chemical like sarin nerve gas… and then there’s the
rental truck which is loaded with nasty chemicals.
Mark Durno is the U.S. EPA’s On-Scene Coordinator…
“We have some very distinct objectives with this exercise. One is to practice responding
to unusual situations that might involve weapons of mass destruction. In this particular
exercise, we’re practicing chemical agent and radiological agent response.”
There are lots of new things to learn. Coordination between agencies… and new
techniques. In this exercise, Detroit city departments are learning to work with federal
agencies. Melvin Green is with the Fire Department’s Emergency Medical Services. He
says this exercise is good. He’d rather see his medical technicians make mistakes here
than during a real emergency… where his worst fears might be realized.
“I would have to say that, you know, them become casualties, that’s probably my biggest
fear. This is why we want to educate them on—and this is why the exercise is so
important. We want to educate them on the possibilities. Keeping our people safe
reduces casualties.”
That’s because if the emergency medical personnel are hurt… fewer people will be
treated.
The idea of a terrorist attack with radiological or biological agents is the kind of
nightmarish scenario that no one really wants to think about… but it’s something
emergency responders HAVE to think about.
During this day-long exercise… these trainees are upbeat, they’re confident in their
response. They feel they’ve come a long way in the nearly three years since 9/11.
But other emergency service experts are not quite as upbeat. Just 40 miles from this
training exercise… at the University of Michigan Hospital’s Department of Emergency
Medicine, Administrator Peter Forster says there are weaknesses in preparedness for
terrorist attacks.
“We’ve made a lot of progress from where we were, but we’ve got a long ways to go.”
Forster says when victims start showing up at the hospital emergency rooms…. there will
be bottle-necks…
“Most emergency preparedness activities have been geared toward local events with
relatively small numbers of victims. When we start talking about hundreds of people or
thousands of people injured or hurt, or exposed to some toxic or contagious substance,
then I think the health system would have a significantly difficult time expanding to meet
that requirement, regardless of how much, uh, how well we’re trained or how prepared
we are. We don’t really have the capacity on the health care side to manage a significant
influx of patients.”
Forster says plans to set up emergency medical facilities in auditoriums, school gyms,
and maybe even hotel rooms need to be completed… arrangements made… and supplies
stockpiled.
(sound up of training exercise, generators, etc.)
Meanwhile, back in Detroit… investigators are putting on bulky chemical protection
suits—the ones that look like big space suits…blue, yellow, olive, with teal-colored
gloves and orange boots… you’d think of circus colors if the subject matter weren’t so
serious. After examining the mock lab, spending about an hour in the sweltering suits,
they come out for decontamination before their air tanks run out. The local agencies help
with decontamination… spraying and scrubbing the suits down.
(sound: beeping, scrubbing)
The training site has all the sights and sounds of a real emergency. Lots of emergency
vehicles… the noise of generators and the smell of diesel. But it’s fairly relaxed. There’s
none of the tension, none of the urgency of a real emergency.
The U.S. EPA’s On-Scene Coordinator, Mark Durno, says there are some things you
can’t bring to a drill…
“You can never simulate the adrenaline and the potential panic that’s associated with a
real event, especially when you hear the words ‘chemical’ and ‘radiological’ agent.
However, we can practice those little tools that we’re going to need to be absolutely
proficient at to ensure that when the panic hits, we’re ready to roll without any
hesitation.”
The days’ training has turned up a few glitches. Communication between agencies is
still a problem. Emergency radio frequencies need to be sorted out and coordinated. And
there are still some major gaps in preparedness that are not part of this training… such as
the emergency room capacity problem. But one of the bigger issues is money. Federal
money has been promised to local governments… but it’s been very slow in coming.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
A new study finds PCBs in fish appear to have an effect on the reproduction of men who eat the fish. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Computers and computer equipment, such as these keyboards, are often thrown in the trash when they break or become obsolete. Efforts are underway to find a safe and effective method for recycling the growing electronic waste stream.
As older computers become obsolete, we’re faced with a dilemma: what to do with the out-of-date equipment? The problem will only grow as personal computers become a stock item in more and more households. But so far, the manufacturers, the recycling industry, and the government don’t have a plan in place to deal with the old equipment. That’s a problem because some of that equipment contains lead, mercury, and other toxic materials that can cause damage to the environment and people’s health. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has more:
Computers and computer equipment, such as these keyboards, are often thrown in the trash when they break or become obsolete. Efforts are underway to find a safe and effective method for recycling the growing electronic waste stream. Photo by Mark Brush.
The U.S. is trying to figure out what to do with tens-of-millions of computers and monitors that go bad or become obsolete each year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has details:
Pesticides are designed to kill pests – and so – by their nature are toxic substances. They wouldn’t work otherwise. While that poisonous nature is useful for certain jobs… most people would probably hesitate before knowingly taking the chemicals into their bodies. But the Environmental Protection Agency is now looking at the issue of testing pesticides on humans. As bad as that may sound, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Greg Dahlmann reports there are some people saying it’s what we need:
As the weather gets warmer, migratory birds head north from
their winter homes and fly through the Midwest to nesting sites in the
Great Lakes Region. Along their journey, rivers like the Illinois
provide
habitat, food, and shelter for the birds. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports on one small research station on the
Illinois River that tracks these birds to learn more about the
environment
we live in:
19 states have passed ‘take back’ laws that require manufacturers to take back old electronics and pay to recycle them. But manufacturers are challenging these laws. (Photo source: dirkj at Wikimedia Commons)
