Victory in Maryland over toxic fascism
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott stands up to the EPA
By Pat Elder
March 30, 2023
EPA Administrator Michael Regan called out states that are attempting to block East Palestine waste, deeming it "unlawful."
The highly contaminated wastewater that was scheduled to arrive in Baltimore this week from the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment will be processed elsewhere, treatment company Clean Harbors said Tuesday.
"Given the actions that Mayor Scott has taken in denying our request to discharge the East Palestine pretreated wastewater into the Baltimore City system, we will not be processing any of the wastewater from the EPA-regulated cleanup of the site in Ohio at our Baltimore plant," Clean Harbors said.
All hell broke loose in Maryland over the last few days after an EPA-approved plan was announced that Clean Harbors would be treating contaminated water from the Norfolk Southern train derailment in Ohio and sending it to the seriously troubled Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant in Dundalk.
What could be worse? This would have been a nightmare for Maryland, as it is proving to be in several communities around the country that have agreed to accept the toxic wastewater.
An estimated 7.8 million gallons of wastewater and over 8,400 tons of contaminated soil from the train wreck site have been shipped off to disposal sites, the EPA reported.
Maryland Republican Delegate Ric Metzgar of Baltimore County was quick to sound the alarm. He was outraged. “If I have to stand in front of the train to stop it, I will do it because we need to eliminate this before it happens,” he said.
Republican Delegate Kathy Szeliga said Democratic Gov. Wes Moore could have stepped in to stop the toxins from being sent to the Back River facility.
Great leadership from Baltimore
Mayor Brandon Scott!
But it was Baltimore’s Democratic Mayor Brandon Scott who was in a position to stand up to the EPA plan and did so. Mayor Scott directed the city’s Department of Public Works to modify discharge permits from Clean Harbors, so that the partially treated water could not enter the city’s sewer system. Checkmate.
Right on, St. Mary’s alumnus!
PFAS in the mix
The press has largely ignored PFAS, a major concern among state regulators and the scientific community that fundamentally changes the dynamics of various treatment plans regarding the disaster.
Emergency response teams in East Palestine, Ohio used firefighting foams containing PFAS on the burning railroad cars, according to Ranking Member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) of the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Capito said the EPA had been slow to respond to her office’s inquiries on the use of PFAS-based firefighting foams in combating the fire.
The EPA has so far resisted calls from Ohio’s US senators to test for PFAS.
Press reports say 581,000 gallons of mostly firefighting foam used to douse the burning train cars and their hazardous materials have been shipped from the site to Vickery Environmental Inc., an Ohio facility located about 150 miles west of East Palestine.
Data provided by the engineering firm Arcadis shows Per fluoro octanoic acid (PFOA) and Per fluoro octane sulfonic acid (PFOS) at 9.4 parts per trillion (ppt) and 8.7 ppt respectively in a five-sample composite of the waters that were on the way to Baltimore. Two million gallons of the wastewater containing the reported concentrations of PFOA and PFOS would be big trouble for the Chesapeake watershed or anywhere else on earth with living organisms.
The EPA’s plan would have required Clean Harbors to treat the wastewater to produce an effluent below 4 ppt for PFOA and PFOS, before it is discharged into the city sewers and the Chesapeake. It’s still lethal, especially when we’re considering the treatment of 2 million gallons of wastewater. Even then, we’re still stuck with what to do with the filters that are used to lower the concentrations of PFAS in the water. The filters are a huge concern because they’re often incinerated while the stuff doesn’t burn. Incineration just sprinkles a silent, invisible death over the ground and water to start the process of PFAS coursing through the environment all over again.
Minnesota requires some lakes to have concentrations below .05 ppt of PFOS before fishing is allowed. The EPA level is 200 times higher for the water that would have flooded into my Chesapeake Bay from Back River.
Thank you, Mayor Scott, on behalf of the people of Maryland.
Things are already bad enough at the Back River Wastewater Treatment plant.
PFOA tends to bond with solid wastewater sludge, unlike PFOS which travels long distances in water. PFOA-contaminated sludge is spread on the state’s agricultural fields. The chemical poisons produce. The EPA understands all of this. It’s amazing to consider that most people still think the agency is about protecting the environment.
Unfortunate souls will be sickened by this pollution elsewhere, but not in Maryland because of a robust, unscripted, passionate, bipartisan response.
With PFAS known to be in the mix the public ought to be provided complete test results from all PFAS compounds tested. Commercial labs often test for more than 50 varieties of PFAS but we only have results from two compounds and those are composite results. No state should allow the importation of this wastewater without this crucially important data. What we know about PFAS already should cause a re-examination of decisions to accept the waste in a few states that may actually put public health over financial interests.
Denise Trabbic-Pointer, a toxics and remediation specialist with Sierra Club Michigan explained, “The fact that the wastewater likely contains other organic compounds and suspended solid will make it tougher to effectively treat if the wastewater is not properly characterized prior to treatment.”
Trabbic-Pointer warned that granular activated carbon (GAC) used by treatment facilities will need to monitor for the “breakthrough of small chain PFAS to assure treatment of all two million gallons.”
The two compounds reported by Arcadis - PFOS and PFOA - are no longer produced in the United States. These 8-carbon-chain PFAS compounds have been replaced by shorter chain PFAS in firefighting foams and many military and industrial applications. Many of these newer compounds also cause a myriad of health issues and are thought to contaminate soil, sediment, air, groundwater, and surface water forever.
“Forever” is mind-boggling.
Baltimore stood up to the EPA
In a March 17 press release, the EPA warned that states blocking the importation of hazardous waste from the crash site would violate the U.S. Constitution.
“A State that blocks these waste shipments may be impeding Norfolk Southern’s ability to comply with obligations under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, (CERCLA), as well as EPA’s order to Norfolk Southern, which is unlawful,” Regan continued. “We’ve been abundantly clear with our state partners that waste from East Palestine has been subject to more testing and more analysis … than other similar waste regular accepted at facilities nationwide.”
EPA Acting Assistant Administrator Barry N. Breen wrote, “States have no basis to prevent receipt of out-of-state waste from East Palestine, particularly while allowing similar wastes to be disposed in their states.”
Maybe.
The key for states is to modify discharge permits from the firms that receive the toxins so that the treated water cannot enter municipal sewer systems.
The EPA said that about 20 rail cars were reported to have been carrying hazardous materials. Vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, ethylhexyl acrylate and ethylene glycol monobutyl ethers were released into the air, surface soil and surface waters, it said.
This is a terrible catastrophe.
States are failing in their fiduciary duties to citizens if they do not demand to review comprehensive test results of these chemicals, together with Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons; Trichloroethylene (TCE); Tetrachloroethylene (PCE); Benzene, Toluene, Ethylene and Xylene; Volatile and Semi-Volatile Organic Compounds; PCBs; and Dioxin, for starters.
State environmental and health agencies across the country are often led by toe-the-line half-asleep bureaucrats who are good people otherwise, but miserably fail to protect human health and the environment. Maryland’s Departments of Health, Environment, and Natural Resources have failed to protect citizens from industrial contaminants. People are suffering terrible consequences.
Asked to comment on the EPA’s initial announcement, Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) spokesman Jay Apperson said Maryland is “working in partnership to help the people of East Palestine recover from the recent derailment.” He said MDE was informed that about two million gallons of water sourced from a stream adjacent to the derailment are coming to Baltimore for treatment. “Levels of contaminants are so low that the water is not considered to be hazardous waste, and contaminants will be fully removed before the water is discharged,” Apperson said.
Hakuna Matada!
This doesn’t reflect well on the leadership of Maryland’s Department of the Environment under Secretary Serena McIlwain or the administration of Democratic Governor Wes Moore. Both have been silent throughout this ordeal, preferring Apperson to toe the line before more responsible adults took charge of the situation.
Financial support from the Downs Law Group makes this work possible.
The firm is working to provide legal representation to individuals with a high likelihood of exposure to PFAS and other contaminants.
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