Tag: epa

More Scrap Tires Reused

  • A variety of products using crumb rubber, which is manufactured from scrap tires. (Photo courtesy of Liberty Tire)

Americans get rid of almost 300 million scrap tires every year.
Historically, a lot of used tires have ended up at the bottom of
ravines or in huge tire piles. These piles have created eyesores,
toxic fire traps and places for mosquitoes to breed. But Ann Murray
reports that the days of widespread illegal dumping and monster tire
piles are waning:

Transcript

Americans get rid of almost 300 million scrap tires every year.
Historically, a lot of used tires have ended up at the bottom of
ravines or in huge tire piles. These piles have created eyesores,
toxic fire traps and places for mosquitoes to breed. But Ann Murray
reports that the days of widespread illegal dumping and monster tire
piles are waning:


Michelle Dunn is making her way through shoulder high knotweed to
show me an urban tire dump:


“This is the start of the tires. They’re all entwined in here.”


About 300 tires have been chucked over the hill in this quiet
Pittsburgh neighborhood. Dunn’s with a non-profit that helps
communities clean up old dump sites. She says illegal tire dumping is
still a problem but not the gargantuan problem it used to be:


“I don’t think you’re seeing new major piles appearing. The regular
Joe isn’t dumping as many tires because people are now becoming
educated. They have a service they can take their tires to have them
disposed of properly.”


In many states, the place to take old tires is now the neighborhood
tire store. Since the early 1990s, about 35 states have required tire
dealers to collect small fees to dispose of used tires. Now fewer
people dump tires and about 4 out of 5 scrap tires have been
cleaned up. Numbers have nosedived from a billion stockpiled tires to
less than 200 million.


Not all states have had equal success reducing their cache of old
tires. Some states such as Alaska, Wyoming and Nevada are still
struggling. Their rural landscapes have made it hard to catch illegal
dumpers and collect tires. Many other states have stepped up
enforcement. They now make dumpers pay to clean up waste tire
sites and register scrap tire haulers. But Matt Hale says new laws
aren’t the only reason scrap tire programs are working. Hale directs
the division of solid waste for the US Environmental Protection
Agency:


“In many cases a successful program is the result of being near
markets for tires. In the southeast for example, tires are in demand as
a fuel use and that certainly makes state tire programs in that part of
the country easier.”


Stricter waste tire laws have made it easier for the tire
recycling industry to take hold. Dave Quarterson is a senior director
with Liberty Tire. Liberty’s the biggest tire recycling company in the
country:


“It has been difficult for companies like ours in the past to look at
having to invest 5 or 10 million dollars into a facility to recycle tires
and then to have to compete on the street with a guy with a $1000
pickup truck who’s rolling ’em down an embankment somewhere.”


In 1990, very few of the 300 million scrap tires generated each year
were re-used. Today about 90 percent are recycled. A majority of
these tires are chipped and shipped to cement kilns and paper mills
to be burned for fuel. A fuel source that US EPA says is relatively
safer than burning coal but environmental groups say is still polluting.


Tire recyclers like Liberty Tire are now in big demand. Liberty uses
almost 75 million scrap tires a year. Their headquarters
plant specializes in making “crumb” rubber. Crumb’s used in
everything from football field turf to brake lining. It’s made from
shredded tires that are frozen with liquid nitrogen and then pulverized
into various sized bits.


Dave Quarterson, says tire recyclers are starting to move away from
producing tire chips for fuel to making newer products like crumb
rubber:


“We’ve got a lot more money into producing it but it’s a lot more
rewarding financially.”


States are also encouraging new uses for the decades old tires that
still remain in big, abandoned piles. Even with this backlog of old
scrap tires, states and recyclers are optimistic that growing markets
and new laws mean more and more scrap tires will have a useful
second life.


For the Environment Report, this is Ann Murray.

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State Car Emissions Ok’d

  • Most of the cuts would come from tailpipe emissions, but the UCS says other improvements can be made in engine design as well.(Photo by Mark Brush)

A federal judge has ruled in favor of a state law aimed at cutting greenhouse gases from
cars and light trucks. Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

A federal judge has ruled in favor of a state law aimed at cutting greenhouse gases from
cars and light trucks. Mark Brush has more:


Like 11 other state laws – the Vermont law calls for a 30% cut in heat-trapping gas
emissions by 2016. Automakers sued Vermont saying these kinds of regulations would
hurt the industry and can not be made by individual states. A federal judge disagreed.


Michelle Robinson is with the Union of Concerned Scientists. She says the judge heard
from the group’s engineers. They designed a minivan that would meet these new
standards with technology that exists today:


“There’s no need to change the look of the vehicle or the performance of the vehicle in
any way. So you could maintain the levels of safety and performance that drivers expect
while improving the pollution performance of the vehicle.”


Aside from a likely appeal from the auto industry, the states are also waiting on the
Environmental Protection Agency. They have to get a waiver from the EPA before they
can enforce their laws.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Lawsuit Over Ship Emissions

Environmentalists are suing the US Environmental Protection Agency
over pollution from ocean-going vessels. Tracy Samilton reports:

Transcript

Environmentalists are suing the US Environmental Protection Agency
over pollution from ocean-going vessels. Tracy Samilton reports:


Friends of the Earth says big ships are among the largest mobile
sources of air pollution in the world. And large ships don’t have to
meet US environmental regulations.


Attorney Sarah Burt says emissions from cruise ships, cargo ships and
ocean tankers cause asthma and thousands of premature deaths:


“These tanker ships burn a fuel called bunker fuel, which is the lowest
grade of fuel available it’s completely unrefined.”


She says the US EPA already agreed to regulate large ship emissions,
but missed its April deadline. The EPA says the US is currently
negotiating tougher ship emissions standards with the International
Maritime Organization.


For the Environment Report, I’m Tracy Samilton.

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New 2008 Fuel Economy Stickers

  • A look at the new window sticker that will be seen on all 2008 models. (Photo courtesy of the EPA)

Starting this year you’ll see new fuel economy window stickers on cars and trucks. And as Mark Brush reports – the gas mileage displayed on these stickers will be closer to the actual mileage you’ll experience:

Transcript

Starting this year you’ll see new fuel economy window stickers on cars and trucks. And as Mark Brush reports – the gas mileage displayed on these stickers will be closer to the actual mileage you’ll experience:


The EPA gas mileage stickers will appear on all 2008 cars and trucks. And the Environmental Protection Agency says these stickers are more accurate. No more inflated gas mileage claims. Mileage estimates have been based on old tests that don’t reflect how we drive today.


David Friedman is with the Union of Concerned Scientists. He says car buyers might get sticker shock:

“Well what they will see is no matter what the car or truck they get they will see lower numbers. In fact, depending on the size class they are dealing with, the new window sticker numbers are anywhere from 10 percent to 15 percent lower on a combined basis than the old numbers.”


Consumers won’t just see the lower miles per gallon numbers. They’ll also see a bar graph that compares each vehicle’s gas mileage to others in its class.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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New Concerns Over Wastewater Sludge

  • Triclosan is an active ingredient in many products claiming antibacterial properties. (Photo by Kinna Ohman)

After sewage is cleaned at a wastewater treatment plant, sludge is left behind. This
sludge is often used on farms as fertilizer. But the wastewater treatment doesn’t get
rid of all the drugs and chemicals we flush down the drain. Kinna Ohman reports
researchers are finding some of these chemicals are affecting wildlife and could be
getting into our food:

Transcript

After sewage is cleaned at a wastewater treatment plant, sludge is left behind. This
sludge is often used on farms as fertilizer. But the wastewater treatment doesn’t get
rid of all the drugs and chemicals we flush down the drain. Kinna Ohman reports
researchers are finding some of these chemicals are affecting wildlife and could be
getting into our food:


Take a tour of any wastewater treatment plant and you’ll soon understand the main
objective: to separate the liquids from the solids. Until the mid 90s, most of these solids,
or sludge, used to go into landfills or were dumped in the ocean. But in 1994 the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency started a program to promote the use of sludge on farm
fields as fertilizer. The EPA thought this was the perfect solution… turning waste into a
useful product.


But scientists have found something which could turn the EPA program on its head.
Rolf Halden is an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Water
and Health. He says sludge contains most of the chemicals we use:


“If you look at municipal sludge, it really is a matrix that reflects the chemical footprint
of our society.”


Halden’s focused on one chemical he’s found in sludge called Triclosan – and
there’s a lot of it out there. It’s in antibacterial soaps, and can even be in our toothpastes,
deodorants, and shampoos. Until recently, most if it was thought to break down. Now,
Halden says they found something different:


“In the work that we have done at Johns Hopkins, we have demonstrated for example that
Triclosan when it enters a wastewater treatment plant is not effectively being degraded
and half of the mass is left over.”


Halden and his colleagues found this leftover mass in sludge. And since half the sludge
produced each year in the US goes to fertilize farm fields, Halden says we might want to
think about our food supply:


“We really create a pipeline of contaminants that are first discharged into the water and
then accumulated in sludge and then applied in agriculture which opens a pathway for the
contamination of the food supply and the further distribution of these chemicals in the
environment.”


At this point, scientists are still studying levels of this chemical. They haven’t even
begun to understand Triclosan’s effects in agriculture. But there’s something they do
know about it.


Researchers found Triclosan can mimic a thyroid hormone in the North American
bullfrog and disrupt its growth. When its tadpoles were exposed to low levels of
this chemical for a short amount of time, their growth into a juvenile frog was impaired.


But this doesn’t sound like that big of a deal… the frog doesn’t die, it just doesn’t grow
properly, right? Keep in mind that this study tracked exposure to Triclosan over four
hours. Halden says by spreading wastewater sludge in agriculture, we could be exposing
wildlife to chemicals like Triclosan for their entire lives.


“When these chemicals are transported into the environment with the agricultural
fertilizer, which is the municipal sludge, then they sit there for in the soil, not only for
seconds but for days and weeks and for months and to even years and in some situations
in sediments, in aquatic sediments, they can sit there for decades and this implies that
organisms are, for their lifespan, exposed to very high levels of these contaminants.
What the outcome of that is really not fully understood right now and requires more research.”


The U.S. Geological Survey has also been looking for chemicals in sludge – or biosolids –
and they’ve found steroids, antihistamines, and antidepressants. Ed Furlong, a research chemist
with the USGS in Denver, Colorado, says they are now studying how these chemicals react in agricultural
fields:


“We’ve identified that many of the compounds are consistently present in biosolids from
across the country. We’re now trying to understand what happens after those biosolids
are applied to the soil.”


The USGS is not the only agency looking at this issue. The Environmental Protection Agency has been conducting its own survey of chemicals like Triclosan in sludge. They say the results of the survey won’t be released until next
summer. Then comes the complicated process of deciding what to do with the survey
results. A decision about whether to stop using sludge with hormone disrupting
chemicals to fertilize farm fields could be years away.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kinna Ohman.

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Who Should Watch Big Farms?

  • Hog manure being injected into the ground and tilled under. The manure fertilizes the crops, but if too much is applied it can foul up waterways. (Photo by Mark Brush)

Big livestock operations can raise thousands of cows, chickens or pigs
under one roof. It helps keep the price of food lower. But neighbors
complain the government’s not doing a good enough job of monitoring the
pollution these farms produce. Rebecca Williams reports there’s a
debate heating up in several states over who should be regulating these
big farms:

Transcript

Big livestock operations can raise thousands of cows, chickens or pigs
under one roof. It helps keep the price of food lower. But neighbors
complain the government’s not doing a good enough job of monitoring the
pollution these farms produce. Rebecca Williams reports there’s a
debate heating up in several states over who should be regulating these
big farms:


The days of small farms with different kinds of livestock grazing in
the pasture are fading from the landscape.


They’re being replaced by farms that specialize in one kind of animal –
and raise thousands of them. They’re called concentrated animal
feeding operations, or CAFOs.


There are battles in several states right now over who should be keeping an eye
on the CAFOs. Usually, the state departments of environmental
protection have power under the federal Clean Water Act to enforce laws
and issue permits. But in the Midwest, in states such as Ohio and
Michigan, and in the West, in states such as Oregon and Idaho, they either have transferred or are working to transfer oversight power to the state agriculture departments – and get U.S. EPA approval.


Jerry Van Woerkom is a Republican state senator in Michigan. Right
now, the state Department of Environmental Quality – or DEQ – has the
oversight powers. But Senator Van Woerkom is sponsoring a package of
bills that would put most of the state’s big livestock farms under the
Department of Agriculture:


“Those people tend to be supportive and come with the attitude of we’re
going to try to work together to solve this problem. Whereas when they
work with the DEQ the attitude is more like we’re coming with a
hammer and if we find anything you’ve done that’s out of line, we’re
going to wop you with it.”


The CAFOs are in the spotlight because they can produce tens of
thousands of gallons of urine and manure each day. That liquefied
manure is eventually spread onto farm fields.


The Environmental Protection Agency says that waste can wash from
fields into streams and creeks. That can cause fish kills. Animal
waste has also gotten into drinking water and made people sick.


Lynn Henning runs a small farm. She says there are 13 CAFOs within a
10 mile radius of her Michigan farmhouse. She says the manure odors
are overwhelming:


“We can’t hang laundry when the emissions are in the air. We have
severe fly outbreaks. We’ve had family farmers that have been diagnosed with hydrogen
sulfide poisoning from emissions from the CAFOs.”


Henning says the current oversight system is weak. She says the
Department of Environmental Quality doesn’t have enough funding to
monitor the CAFOs. So that job often falls to residents like her. She
says putting the Department of Agriculture in charge of oversight would
make the problems even worse:


“The MDA has no enforcement authority and they promote agriculture in
Michigan. It’s like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop.
You can’t give authority to punish to an agency that’s promoting.”


But it could become a wider trend if the states that are proposing the
switch now actually make it happen.


Karla Raettig is an attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project.
It’s a group that’s been critical of weakening environmental laws.
She’s been tracking trends in enforcement of livestock farms:


“I think the Farm Bureau and other really large industry advocates are
seeing a chance to get regulation that is perhaps more cooperative,
less regulatory and less on the enforcement side. It isn’t totally
nefarious but I think it could have outcomes that are not anticipated.”


Raettig says you have to wonder what will happen without the threat of
enforcement from an environmental agency.


But Senator Jerry Van Woerkom from Michigan argues that farmers are
more likely to do the right thing if they’re overseen by a friendlier
agency, as he proposes:


“I mean you’re not able to cover up problems that happen, it gets in
the newspaper, people know when problems happen. But I believe that the
agriculture department will work with people, especially if people are
getting a bad reputation. I think they will work with them and if
those people do get out of line, it’s back to the DEQ.”


Environmentalists and small farmers are worried about the idea of
states handing off oversight of CAFOs… from their environmental
watchdog agencies to their agencies in charge of promoting the business
of agriculture.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Citizen Lawsuit Targets Foreign Ships

  • Ocean vessel loading grain at elevator in Superior, Wisconsin. Nine foreign ships have been identified in the lawsuit against international shipping companies. (Photo by Jerry Bielicki, USACOE)

For decades foreign ships have brought tiny stowaways – called invasive
species – into the United States. And once they get loose, they upend
ecosystems and cause billions of dollars in damage. The shipping
industry has yet to seriously address the problem, and now conservation
and environmental groups are suing the companies they say are most at
fault. Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

For decades foreign ships have brought tiny stowaways – called invasive
species – into the United States. And once they get loose, they upend
ecosystems and cause billions of dollars in damage. The shipping
industry has yet to seriously address the problem, and now conservation
and environmental groups are suing the companies they say are most at
fault. Mark Brush has more:


In 1988, the now infamous zebra mussel slipped out of a ship’s ballast
tank near Detroit. It didn’t take long for it to spread, first
throughout the Great Lakes, then through the Ohio and Mississpi rivers,
then on to Alabama and Oklahoma, and now it’s as far west as Nevada.


The mussels clog up intake pipes at water and power plants and mess up
the food chain. In some places in the Great Lakes, they’ve severely
damaged the sport fishing industry.


And that’s the damage just one foreign pest can do. More than a
hundred have gotten in and more are on the way. The government has
done little to stop the spread of these pests from foreign ships. In
2005, a federal court in California ordered the EPA to set up a system.
The EPA appealed that ruling.


Andy Buchsbaum is the Director of the National Wildlife Federation’s
Great Lakes office. He says ballast water from foreign ships should be
regulated:


“The law is very clear. The Clean Water Act says you cannot discharge
pollution into navigable waters, like the Great Lakes, without first
obtaining a permit. Period. Any discharge without a permit
is illegal.”


So, instead of waiting for the EPA to act, several environmental and
conservation groups, including Buchsbaum’s group, say they are planning
to sue several shipping companies that operate ocean-going boats on the
Great Lakes. They’re targeting nine boats they feel are the biggest
violators.


Industry representatives have said that ballast water regulations would
hurt international shipping, but in the Great Lakes, it’s estimated
that ocean-going ships make up only 6% of the overall tonnage.


Joel Brammeier is with the Alliance for the Great Lakes, one of the
groups that intends to sue the ship owners. He says a few ocean-going
boats have caused a lot of damage:


“The cost savings that we’re seeing from allowing unregulated ocean
shipping on the Lakes pales compared to the economic burden that
invasive species are placing on the Lakes. That’s stunning. The
ocean-going shipping industry is actually bringing in less than the
region is losing because of the things that ocean going ships
unintentionally bring in.”


The environmental and conservation groups who intend to sue say there
are ballast water cleaning technologies available now. The National
Wildlife Federation’s Andy Buchsbaum says they’re willing to back off
their lawsuit if the ship owners promise to clean up their ballast
water:


“This legal action is not designed to shut down the shipping industry
in the Great Lakes. That is not our intention. Our intention is to
get these guys to comply with the Clean Water Act. And that means
putting on treatment technology and getting permits.”


The shipping industry says it needs more time. Steve Fisher is with
the American Great Lakes Ports Association. He concedes there are some
technologies to clean up ballast water:


“I’ll be very frank with you. There’s technologies out there that will
do something.”


(Brush:) “So, why not use those?”


“Because a ship owner needs to know how high the bar is before he jumps
over it.”


In other words the ship owners won’t clean up their ballast water until
the federal government tells them how clean is clean, and so far, the
federal government hasn’t done that.


The EPA and the shipping industry say they’re working on the decades
old problem, but the groups that intend to sue say they’re not moving
fast enough. More invasive species are getting in. They’re hoping the threat of a
lawsuit will help force more action sooner.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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After a Decade, Epa Looks at Pesticides

The US Environmental Protection Agency plans to begin testing
hundreds of pesticides to see if they disrupt human hormones. Tracy
Samilton reports that environmental groups aren’t satisfied with the
plan. They say the research is too little, too late:

Transcript

The US Environmental Protection Agency plans to begin testing
hundreds of pesticides to see if they disrupt human hormones. Tracy
Samilton reports that environmental groups aren’t satisfied with the
plan. They say the research is too little, too late:


Ten years ago, the EPA was directed by Congress to test pesticides to
see if they interfere with human hormones which control everything from
metabolism to reproduction. Now the EPA says it will take two more
years before it will start studying a short list of 73 pesticides.


The agency will eventually test all 700 or so pesticides on the market.
The Natural Resources Defense Council says the testing could eventually
lead to banning some harmful pesticides. But the environmental group
says the EPA dragged its feet on the study for far too long. And the
NRDC complains the short list includes chemicals already known to
disrupt hormones.


For the Environment Report, I’m Tracy Samilton.

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Epa to Study Farm Air Pollution

Air pollution from chicken, cattle and pig farms will be studied for the first time
on a nationwide basis. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Air pollution from chicken, cattle and pig farms will be studied for the first time
on a nationwide basis. Chuck Quirmbach reports:


More farms have large numbers of animals, and more non-farm neighbors are complaining
about odors and potential health risks from air emissions. The EPA has said for several years that
it doesn’t have enough data to tell whether big farms comply with existing air pollution laws. So
the government will team up with some universities on a two-year, 15-million dollar study at 24
farms in nine states.


EPA Administrator Steve Johnson says the results will be used to estimate emissions from future
large farms:


“That they will have the benefit of the ability to model and predict what air emissions may happen
that would enable us for them and for us to take preventative action.”


As part of a legal agreement the agriculture industry will help pay for the air pollution study.


For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach

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Dredging Gets Grudging Approval

A new study raises concerns about efforts to dredge polluted sediment
out of waterways. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

A new study raises concerns about efforts to dredge polluted sediment
out of waterways. Chuck Quirmbach reports:


A study by the National Research Council looked at the dredging of
contaminants from about 25 projects around the US. Study Chairman
Charles O’Melia of Johns Hopkins University says the report has two
main conclusions:


One is that dredging has some failings when it comes to achieving short
term pollution reductions. For example, particles can be left behind or
re-suspended in the water.


O’Melia also says the report points to the need for more monitoring of
dredging projects:


“Each site is different and it is not going to be possible, to be able
to come up a plan that you would know with certainty what would
work… that you have to go out and test it.”


The EPA is evaluating the study, but says for the most part, it’s happy
with existing dredging plans for rivers.


For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach

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