Specific Demands from Groups of Advocates Across the Country
Communities should be protected from unnecessary exposures to toxic chemicals such as carcinogens, endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and neurotoxins. Our public health agencies have long been using the notion of a “cluster,” not as a way to protect the public from exposures, but rather to rely on blunt statistical analyses and an imperfect understanding of toxic vulnerabilities to dismiss legitimate public health risks. These imperfect tools have been touted to those victimized by exposures, as providing the answer, at the same time as they are used to denigrate those raising the concern. The classic search for a “cluster,” by its very design is almost guaranteed to fail. It is based on blunt statistical tools, limited data, and fundamental myths continually pushed on the public to further deny the need for protection. Carcinogens do not simply cause one type of cancer. Children, infants, and those exposed in utero do adhere to the same toxicological profile and cancer slope factors that healthy adult males working in refineries do. What we do know is that toxic chemicals are toxic. They are capable of causing genetic damage, and neurological injury, as well as do things like promote tumor growth and disrupt our critical hormonal balance. We can no longer insist on “cluster” identification as the signal detection for communities that need protection, but rather focus on the needless, and no doubt detrimental exposure to these hazardous chemicals that can and should be prevented before the bodies are counted.
The Safe Drinking Water and Clean Water Act (SDWA & CWA) standards and permitting limits need to be updated. The current SDWA standards are from 1996 and are outdated as they do not address numerous chemicals, including pharmaceuticals and personal care products, that people are being exposed to through their drinking water supplies. Maximum Contaminant Level Goals (“MCLGs”) need to be re-evaluated in this process and should receive renewed emphasis as the goals for the protection of public health versus the cost-benefit compromises reflected in our current Maximum Contaminant Levels (“MCLs”). Health-based standards should be reviewed and renewed at the federal level so that a two-tiered system of safe drinking water is not allowed to persist. CWA permit standards need to take into account newly emerging contaminants such as pharmaceutical compounds and microplastics as well as the synergistic relationships between these compounds in human and ecotoxicology.
Toxic chemicals must be replaced by green alternatives. The chemical industry has long gotten away with a dirty and destructive playbook that starts by denying the harmful effects of a chemical. Once those effects are recognized, however, alternatives are developed that do not remedy the persistence, toxicity, or other harm, but rather simply sidestep scrutiny. This allows the cycle to simply repeat itself. Instead, this process should be driven by our knowledge of functional chemistry and the push for cleaner alternatives rather than simply those with different names.
Address the public health risks posed by the numerous Superfund sites across the country and accelerate cleanup of these sites so that communities living proximate to these sites do not continue to bear the burden of this legacy pollution.
Address the problems posed by landfills in our communities. Hazardous wastes cannot be disposed of at landfills that were not designed to handle hazardous wastes. For example, oil and chemical dispersant-laden wastes from cleanup in the Gulf Coast were disposed of in many non-hazardous waste landfills. These landfills are located in and near communities, often lower-income communities and communities of color. These wastes should be removed from these landfills that are not equipped to handle them and properly disposed of. Inactive landfills, such as those dumps or ponds used for coal ash, fly ash, and other mining and energy wastes, need to be monitored and closed. The past decades have shown that these dumpsites pose a serious risk to the water and air of the surrounding communities and ecosystems.
Scientific advances must be used to modernize risk assessments. These tools must be used to consider the cumulative impact of multiple sources and multiple chemicals when determining the risk for cleanup, enforcement, and permitting. Industrialized areas typically involve exposures to both more than one chemical and chemical contributions from more than one industrial source. In addition, the risk to susceptible subpopulations must be adequately addressed. This includes children, pregnant mothers, as well as the elderly, and otherwise compromised. The communities sharing the air, soil, and water with this industry bear a disproportionate burden from this industry. Our public health agencies should be using modern scientific, statistical, and artificial intelligence tools to assess the risks to these communities, including the most susceptible members therein, and account for those risks when making permitting and other decisions including those regarding enforcement and cleanup.
We must address the legacy threat of coal ash in our communities. This starts with the recognition that coal ash, which contains numerous toxic and radioactive metals, is a toxic, and thus “hazardous” substance. The continued willful blindness adopted by our agencies is unacceptable and has allowed for the wanton dispersal of this waste in and throughout our communities. Power companies and other coal ash generators need to be held to account including documenting when and how these wastes have been used and where they are located throughout our neighborhoods and schools. This includes enforcement of the Coal Combustion Residuals (“CCR”) Rule, monitoring drinking water supplies, both private and public in areas within a half-mile of coal ash ponds, dumps, or disposal areas, and supporting environmental justice efforts through organizing and technical assistance.
EPA should immediately acknowledge that the outdated regulation, The Standards for the Use of Disposal of Sewage Sludge (Title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations [CFR), Part 503 published in the Federal Register (58 FR 9248 to 9404, February 19, 1993) never did — nor does it now — protect public health and the environment “from any reasonably anticipated adverse effects of certain pollutants that might be present in sewage sludge biosolids” as stated on its current website. This set of regulations has allowed persistent, toxic, pollutants to be spread on our lands, getting into our food supplies, livestock, and our bodies. The risk assessments that these regulations are based on are inadequate, outdated, and do not account for known contaminants found in sewage sludge, including PFOs compounds, pharmaceuticals, microplastics, or other compounds regularly found in sewage sludge at unsafe levels. As with coal ash, sewage sludge is hazardous and therefore should not be regulated as a non-hazardous substance.
U.S. nuclear plants must be updated to reduce the vulnerability to failures in critical safety systems. Flood walls at the nation’s nuclear facilities should be inspected and heightened to ensure that they can withstand incidents like upstream dam failures.
Children in our schools and communities need stronger preventative protections. EPA, along with other federal and state agencies, needs to exercise greater involvement in setting public health-based standards for redevelopment including the siting and construction of schools and the cleanup and use of brownfields. There are too many examples of schools being sited in industrially impacted areas, including areas documented to have risks due to air and soil pollution, and using soil and other fill materials (e.g., coal ash) that are not suited for housing our most vulnerable members. Brownfields redevelopment needs to be done to the most protective standards rather than defaulting to standards developed for and by the industry and its consultants such as Gradient and Ramboll. Industry consultants that continue to deny the role of carcinogens in our public health burdens should no longer be given a voice in our public policy decisions regarding the protection of the public.
The EPA should evaluate specific occupational exposures for firefighters as this population is particularly at risk from emerging contaminants. Greater regulation of non-essential use of endocrine disrupting chemicals including phthalates, bisphenols, aldehydes, and flame retardants must take place until more independent health studies have been published to support their usage, particularly in high exposure scenarios like clothing and furniture. The EPA should not rely only exclusively on OSHA to evaluate and provide guidance on toxic chemicals but must work together and enlist the cooperation of other agencies including NTP, NIEHS, and others. The EPA should mandate that all records of asbestos remediation in publicly accessible buildings be disclosed to the public. PFAS should be banned from all non-essential uses including textiles, firefighting equipment, PPE, fire suppression additives, foams, and concentrations. Our health agencies should consider recommending medical monitoring programs for firefighters and those exposed to these chemicals in the line of public service.