Earth Blog

Today the EPA released their “report card” for the Charles River in Boston. Since 1995 they have been grading the water quality and measuring the effectiveness of cleanup efforts against the basic goals of the Clean Water Act: making sure the waterways are clean for fishing and swimming.

Libby, a small town in Northwestern Montana, contacted the EPA in 1999 after concerns that asbestos from a local vermiculite mine was causing lung cancer, and respiratory problems in its citizens.

According to the EPA’s summary for the Libby Superfund site, the mine supplied “more than 70 percent of all vermiculite sold in the United States from 1919 to 1990.” The mineral, which resembles mica, is naturally-occurring and when heated it expands. Some of the vermiculite was used as insulation in walls and attics and was sold under the brand name Zonolite.

After collecting extensive samples the EPA found high levels of contamination from a toxic form of natural amphibole asbestos fibers now called Libby Amphibole asbestos (LA).

In 2009 an ambient air quality report found that the LA air concentrations were 10,000 times lower than they were in Libby when the mine and milling plants were operational.

That was the same year the EPA declared a Public Health Emergency in Libby to provide federal aid to residents suffering from asbestos-related diseases.

Today the EPA released their annual top 25 metropolitan areas with the most Energy Star certified buildings.

Three California cities are in the top ten with Los Angeles ranked 1st, San Francisco at 3rd, and Riverside is ranked 9th. According to the EPA, Los Angeles has been in the top spot since 2008.

California has a total of six cities on the list with Sacramento (12th), San Diego (19th), and San Jose (21st) making the Golden State the host with the most.

How do Energy Star buildings differ from buildings that carry LEED certification?

The Halaco site in Oxnard, California, is one of many superfund sites in Southern California currently being cleaned up and studied by the EPA. Some residents of the area are old enough to recall the metal smelter’s havoc on the air and most all have a passing knowledge if not curiosity about the abandoned and fenced-off plant situated so close to the ocean.

Just in time for Spring Break a new federal regulation will prevent certain boats from discharging sewage -whether or not it’s treated- into California’s marine waters.  The sewage ban will create the largest “No Discharge Zone” (NDZ) in the country stretching from Mexico to Oregon and includes waters around major islands. The ban will stop an estimated 22 million gallons or more of treated sewage from being dumped into the oceans, bays, and estuaries each year along 1,624 miles of coast. Under the Clean Water Act the state of California was able to ask the EPA to approve the NDZ to help restore water quality.

“This is an important step to protect California's coastline. I want to commend the shipping industry, environmental groups and U.S. EPA for working with California to craft a common sense approach to keeping our coastal waters clean," said California’s Governor Jerry Brown.

The EPA (the job-killing, regulating machine we talk about a lot here on the Earth Blog) has announced the 2012 beneficiaries of their “Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities” program. The program is part of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities that includes the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The Building Blocks program isn’t handing out money to fifty-six communities in twenty-six states- they are providing technical assistance which is a fancy term for information. These communities asked the EPA to come in to help create a plan for improving their town’s infrastructures. 

The EPA explained it best: “The assistance will be delivered in a day-long workshop for each community that will provide ideas on local policies and procedures to improve the local economy, environment, and quality of life. Each community will receive a short ‘next steps’ memo outlining options the community can consider as it moves forward.”  

Akron, Ohio, based FirstEnergy will close six coal-fired power plants across Ohio, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, by September because they are old and it would be costly to bring them up to the EPA’s recently passed Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS). The six might be in the first wave, if not the first, of plants that will close as energy providers weigh the costs of upgrading.

By now you have probably heard about the new standards for power plants the Environmental Protective Agency (EPA) has issued to eliminate toxic chemicals like arsenic, mercury, nickel, selenium, and cyanide from the air. It’s called the Mercury and Toxic Air Standards (MATS) and they are the first set of national standards the agency has put forth for coal-fired power plants to follow. MATS will continue the work the Clean Air Act (CAA) began in 1990.

Thirty-one years ago President Jimmy Carter signed the “Superfund” act into law. Its official name is the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and it’s a federal law that was created to clean up areas that are contaminated by hazardous substances. In addition, the act also gives the EPA the ability to go into a site and clean if the companies or businesses responsible do not follow orders to do so themselves. There is trust fund money available for the EPA’s use to facilitate the cleaning of sites where no one has take responsibility. If trust fund money is used the EPA will then work to be reimbursed for costs accrued even working with the Department of Justice when payments are overdue.

Previously here on the Earth Blog we’ve talked about the importance of clean water to sustaining life and how the issue affects us all globally. Yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it will provide $1.8 to $3.8 million in grant money for projects to restore American waterways as part of the Urban Waters program. The ultimate goal of the grants is to fund research, studies, training, and projects that will help improve and restore water quality through activities that are also community oriented.