And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: MAY 27, 1999
Industries Violate Clean Air Act with Impunity
Exxon to Clean Up W. Virginia Coke Works Superfund Site
New EDF Website Ranks Integrated Iron And Steel Mills
First Hybrid-Electric Big Rig Rolls Out
House Considers Cutting Funds for Killing Predators
Trumpeter Swan Migrates From Indiana to Ontario on Her Own
Santa Fe River All Wastewater Below Treatment Plant
Miccosukee Tribe of Florida Sets Everglades Water Standards
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 1999
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/may99/1999L-05-27-09.html
INDUSTRIES VIOLATE CLEAN AIR ACT WITH IMPUNITY
An Environmental Working Group analysis of recently released
enforcement
records from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
reveals a
persistent pattern of "significant violations" of the Clean
Air Act in five major
industries. Hundreds of large facilities in auto assembly,
iron and steel, petroleum
refining, pulp manufacturing, as well as metal smelting and
refining are
threatening public health by their repeated failure to
comply with federal clean air
safeguards. There has been little effort by state or federal
officials to bring even
the most flagrant offenders into compliance with current
statutory requirements
the analysis found. The Group studied records of compliance
with air pollution
standards at nearly 600 facilities across the U.S. during
the past two years. These
records, which were audited by polluters and state and
federal enforcement
agencies, have just recently been released to the public.
They show that more
than 39 percent (227 out of 575) of all major U.S.
facilities in these five industries
violated the Clean Air Act between January 1997 and December
1998. On
average, these facilities violated the Act four out of the
eight quarters during the
two-year period analyzed. All of these infractions fit the
EPA definition of
"significant" violations of the law. Only about one-third
(36 percent) of the 227
facilities violating the law have been fined by the U.S. EPA
or state environmental
regulators. Based in Washington, DC with an office in San
Francisco, the
Environmental Working Group produces reports and articles,
and provides
technical assistance and the development of computer
databases concerned
citizens who are campaigning to protect the environment. The
Group has
collaborative relationships with over 400 U.S. public
interest organizations.
* * *
EXXON TO CLEAN UP WEST VIRGINIA COKE WORKS SUPERFUND
SITE
The Exxon Company signed an agreement this week with federal
and state
environmental regulators and community leaders to clean up
the Sharon Steel
Fairmont Coke Works Superfund Site in Fairmont, West
Virginia. The cleanup
will use a new approach developed by Exxon. The Exxon
agreement, one of 12
pilots of its kind in the country, comes under the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) Project XL Program, which stands for eXcellence
and Leadership.
The program encourages companies to test cleaner, cheaper
and smarter ways to
achieve environmental results that are superior to those
achieved under current
regulations. Exxon will demolish and dispose of the
buildings on site to add
aesthetic value to the community and to facilitate
redevelopment. The company
will identify interested developers up-front and make the
site readily available to
them. Local government will provide future land use planning
for redevelopment.
Citizens will be involved throughout the cleanup process via
the Fairmont
Community Liaison Panel, which goes beyond what is required
by Superfund
law. The Sharon Steel Fairmont Coke Works site occupies 50
acres, 20 miles
south of Morgantown, along the I-79 industrial corridor in
Fairmont. A corporate
predecessor of Exxon owned the site from 1918 to 1948 and
then sold it to
Sharon Steel Corporation which operated a coke production
facility until
operations ceased in 1979, due to Clean Air Act and Clean
Water Act violations.
The EPA began evaluating the site for placement on the
Superfund List in 1987.
The EPA removed all immediate hazardous waste threats from
1993 through
1996. In addition to the Exxon agreement, another 11 pilot
XL projects are now
underway across the country, and another 35 are being
developed.
* * *
NEW EDF WEBSITE RANKS INTEGRATED IRON & STEEL MILLS
A new national pollution prevention performance ranking of
integrated iron and
steel mills by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF)
indicates that the USX-US
Steel mill in Fairfield, Alabama, ranks among the worst
third of integrated mills in
the U.S. for releases of toxic chemicals. EDF and Alabama
Environmental Council
are urging this plant to do more to prevent pollution.
Alabama's other integrated
iron and steel mill, the Gulf States Steel mill in Gadsden,
ranks among the top
third of integrated mills in the U.S. for pollution
prevention performance. The
integrated iron and steel mill rankings can be found on the
new EDF Iron and
Steel Community Guide website at:
http://www.edf.org/communityguides.
Intended as a tool for neighbors to forge a dialogue with
industries, the guide
describes mill processes and strategies for preventing
pollution. For example, it
suggests cleaner alternatives to the current coke making
process, a
highly-polluting part of iron and steel production. "With
just a few mouse-clicks
on EDF's Iron and Steel Community Guide, neighbors of these
plants can learn
how facilities in their area are doing in their efforts to
prevent pollution," said Lois
Epstein, EDF senior engineer. "The website will help the
public work with
integrated iron and steel plants to reduce their pollution."
To create the rankings,
EDF tracked toxic chemical releases and transfers from EPA's
1996 Toxics
Release Inventory database, and carbon monoxide and
particulate releases from
EPA's "AIRS" database, obtained in March, 1999. The rankings
focused only on
the nation's integrated iron and steel plants, which are
larger and generally more
polluting than the more common smaller mills.
* * *
FIRST HYBRID-ELECTRIC BIG RIG ROLLS OUT
The nation's first hybrid-electric heavy duty Class 8 truck
was rolled out at a
meeting of the California Air Resources Board (CARB)
Thursday, pushing the
leading edge of clean technologies for heavy-duty vehicles.
The big truck utilizes
a Kenworth T-800B chassis and replaces the diesel engine
with a smaller, clean
natural gas-powered engine to run a generator, which
provides power to the
vehicle's electric drive motor and battery packs.
Manufactured by San Diego
based ISE Research Corp. in cooperation with PACCAR, parent
company of
Kenworth and Peterbilt trucks, the hybrid electric prototype
truck is the result of
a multi-faceted public-private partnership. Integrated into
the truck are several
new technologies including a unique, automated auxiliary
power unit control
technology, as well as cutting-edge motor and motor
controller products. The net
result is a more efficient truck using less fuel and cutting
emissions. Truck
drivers say it is a much quieter and smoother riding than
the standard big rigs.
The hybrid truck project received funds from CARB's Clean
Air Technology
(ICAT) program, which funds technically feasible research
projects that have
good market possibilities, the potential to reduce air
pollution and can provide jobs
for California. Alan Lloyd, CARB chairman, said, "Bringing
clean air ideas to the
marketplace is the real value of ICAT. These vehicles are
the first of many that
will help us meet California's combined goals of technology
advancement,
economic development and healthful air." CARB contributed
$350,000 in 1997 to
the hybrid truck project because it showed the potential to
reduce the threat to
public health from diesel exhaust for the 90 percent of
Californians living in urban
areas.
* * *
HOUSE CONSIDERS CUTTING FUNDS FOR KILLING PREDATORS
Defenders of Wildlife hailed an amendment to the FY 2000
Agriculture
appropriations bill in the House as a great step in ensuring
the safety and survival
of thousands of mammals, including many endangered and
threatened species.
The amendment, offered by Congressmen Peter DeFazio, an
Oregon Democrat
and Charles Bass, a New Hampshire Republican, aims to reform
the U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services program by
cutting back on
funding to its deadly animal control protection program. "We
are very pleased that
both representatives were able to see through the pretty
name ‘Wildlife Services’
to what this program really is - a federal program that
indiscriminately kills tens of
thousands of animals each year and charges taxpayers
millions of dollars to do it,"
said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of
Wildlife. According to
Wildlife Services figures, nearly 100,000 predators in 17
western states were
killed in 1997 as part of the livestock protection program,
mainly on behalf of
western sheep ranchers. Wildlife Services provides this
killing service almost free
of charge to the ranchers, many of whom can afford to pay
for their own
predator control. Between 1991 and 1996, Wildlife Services
agents visited TV
celebrity Sam Donaldson’s New Mexico ranch more than 400
times and killed
more than 70 coyotes as well as many other animals,
Schlickeisen said. "To make
taxpayers continue to pay for a biologically unsound,
ineffective program where
the rule is kill everything in sight without any reasoning
behind it is just plain
ludicrous."
* * *
TRUMPTER SWAN MIGRATES FROM INDIANA TO ONTARIO ON HER
OWN
Bringing with her the hopes for a new migrating population
of rare trumpeter
swans, a female trumpeter has made the 730 mile return
journey from
Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge to Sudbury, Ontario,
Canada. Part of an
experiment to establish a new migratory flock, the trumpeter
was one of four
swans that followed an ultra-light aircraft last winter from
Canada to southern
Indiana in an effort to teach the birds a migratory route
between summer nesting
grounds and a new wintering area. The trumpeters left
Muscatatuck in early
February. The female made the return trip to Canada without
the help of the
ultra-light to lead the way. Her arrival on May 5, back at
the site where she and
other trumpeters were trained to follow an ultra-light was
confirmed by members
of the Migratory Bird Research Group, the team of scientists
who trained the
birds. Muscatatuck Refuge biologist Mike Oliver said, "The
fact that this
trumpeter made it back to the training site in Canada means
she, and possibly the
other birds, learned the migratory route by following the
ultra-light south last
winter. Our hope is that some of the other Muscatatuck birds
will also return, and
ultimately, that one or more of them make the fall journey
back to southern
Indiana to spend the winter." Trumpeter swans, the largest
waterfowl in North
America, once existed throughout much of the northern United
States and
wintered as far south as southern Indiana and Illinois. But,
unregulated killing and
loss of habitat caused populations to dwindle. Before last
winter's historic
experimental flight, a migrating population had not been
seen in southern Indiana
for more than 100 years.
* * *
SANTA FE RIVER ALL WASTEWATER BELOW TREATMENT PLANT
The Santa Fe, New Mexico environmental group Forest
Guardians is asking the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to withhold a
discharge permit
sought by the city of Santa Fe's sewage-treatment plant
until a study on what is
required to restore the Santa Fe River to health below the
plant is finished.
Speaking for Forest Guardians, John Horning said the city's
effluent discharge
should be held to stricter pollution standards because the
river is in violation of
federal clean-water standards for ammonia and nitrogen. One
of the fish species
in the river below the plant is the Rio Grande sucker, a
candidate for listing under
the federal Endangered Species Act, Horning said. Bill
Landin, engineering
supervisor for the city's wastewater management division,
told "The New
Mexican" newspaper that the treatment plant is meeting all
standards required
under its latest permit, which expired in 1991. He said the
operation of the
treatment plant contributes to the restoration of wetlands
downstream. The river
is dry above the plant, but fills up with wastewater below
the facility, observers
say. The 1997 settlement of a Forest Guardians lawsuit
provides that new permits
to emit pollutants into a stream that violates federal clean
water standards cannot
be issued until a Total Maximum Daily Load has been
established that takes in all
pollution sources to the waterway.
* * *
MICCOSUKEE TRIBE OF FLORIDA SETS EVERGLADES WATER
STANDARDS
The U.S. EPA Wednesday approved tough new Water Quality
Standards to
protect the health of the Florida Everglades ecosystem. The
new standards,
adopted by the Miccosukee Tribe of Florida for waters on
their federal
reservation lands, are a significant step forward in
protecting the health of the
Everglades. The standards include for the first time ever
under the Clean Water
Act a specific, protective standard for the Everglades for
phosphorus.
Phosphorus, which is being set at 10 parts per billion
(ppb), is one of the chief
pollutants that threatens aquatic life and the restoration
of the Everglades. The
Miccosukee phosphorus standard, which is supported by the
best available
science, is critical because it sets a benchmark for how
much phosphorus the
ecosystem can handle before impacts to native aquatic life
begin to occur. The
Tribe has not set water quality standards for the entire
Everglades, but for waters
within its reservation boundaries. The state of Florida is
in the process of
reviewing additional scientific information and will adopt a
numeric phosphorus
standard for other portions of the Everglades. EPA will work
closely with the
State in this effort. If new scientific information in the
future indicates that 10
ppb is not protective of the Everglades ecosystem, then
under the Clean Water
Act, a more protective standard would be required.
AmeriScan Index: April 1999
© Environment News Service (ENS) 1999. All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.
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Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
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