MVCAC May 2019

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Internal emails reveal how the chemical lobby fights regulation
by Duane Nichols via MVCAC 22 May '19

22 May '19

Internal emails reveal how the chemical lobby fights regulation By Emily Holden, The Guardian (US News), May 22, 2019 The US has long allowed companies to use thousands of chemicals with little or no data on whether they are safe. A 2016 update to US chemical laws is meant to require more testing, but critics say Trump’s EPA is using the new process to undermine ongoing reviews. The EPA says the changes to how it assesses chemicals will let the agency “expeditiously” regulate dangerous ones. NOTE: From personal knowledge and experience, the American Chemistry Council cannot be trusted. Nor can the Administrator of the US EPA, at this time. The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a trusted professional society. Duane Nichols, Chem. Engr. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/22/internal-emails-reveal-how-…

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The Worst Air in Pennsylvania is in our Monongahela River valley!
by Duane Nichols via MVCAC 09 May '19

09 May '19

Does Mon Valley Have Worst Air in PA? New Report Says: Yes See also: GASP — https://gasp-pgh.org/ A recent report published by Clean Water Action details the history of violations of the federal Clean Air Act standards in the Mon Valley over the past 12 years. The results found air quality monitors in the Mon Valley recorded some of the worst air, not just in Allegheny County, but throughout Pennsylvania. The report details the failure to protect Mon Valley residents from illegal levels of both sulfur dioxide and fine particles, or breathable soot. More than 400 exceedances of federal standards for these pollutants have been recorded by monitors in the Mon Valley since the EPA established the health based standards in 2006. “This report makes clear that both industry and government have failed to protect Mon Valley residents. When we know that this pollution, especially from U.S. Steel, is harming people, it should not take a decade to act. There is talk of how we are improving, but in 2018 the Mon Valley clearly had the worst air in Pennsylvania,” stated Myron Arnowitt, Pennsylvania director for Clean Water Action. Read the key findings and access the entire report here

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Researchers Now Have Even More Proof That Air Pollution Can Cause Dementia – Mother Jones
by Duane Nichols via MVCAC 07 May '19

07 May '19

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/05/researchers-now-have-even-m… Researchers Now Have Even More Proof That Air Pollution Can Cause Dementia A Mother Jones investigation prompted the study that turned up the most convincing evidence to date. Aaron Reuben, Mother Jones Magazine, May 2019 A few years ago I stood in a cramped trailer beside the busy 110 freeway in Los Angeles as researchers at the University of Southern California gathered soot thrown off by vehicles pounding by just a few yards from their instruments, which rattled whenever a heavy truck passed. I was there to learn about how scientists were beginning to link air pollution—from power plants, motor vehicles, forest fires, you name it—to one of the least understood and most frightening of illnesses: dementia. “I have no hesitation whatsoever to say that air pollution causes dementia,” said one leading researcher. At that time, as I reported in Mother Jones, the research implicating air pollution as one factor that can contribute to dementia was alarming, consistent, and, ultimately, “suggestive.” Since then scientists have published a wave of studies that reveal that air pollution is much worse for us than we had previously imagined. The evidence is so compelling, in fact, that many leading researchers now believe it’s conclusive. “I have no hesitation whatsoever to say that air pollution causes dementia,” says Caleb Finch, gerontologist and the leader of USC’s Air Pollution and Brain Disease research network, which has completed many of these new studies. In terms of its effects on our health and welfare, Finch says, “air pollution is just as bad as cigarette smoke.” This evidence arrives alongside the alarming news that air quality is actually worsening for many cities in the United States, while the Trump Administration continues its effort to delay or roll-back environmental safeguards. What makes Finch—and the half dozen other researchers I talked to—so sure? Of all the new research, three studies in particular paint a stark picture of the extent to which the quality of our air can determine whether we will age with our minds intact. In one from 2018, researchers followed 130,000 older adults living in London for several years. Those exposed to higher levels of air pollutants, particularly nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter released by fossil fuel combustion, were significantly more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease—the most common kind of dementia—than their otherwise demographically matched peers. In total, Londoners exposed to the highest levels of air pollution were about one and a half times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s across the study period than their neighbors exposed to the lowest levels—a replication of previous findings from Taiwan, where air pollution levels are much higher. Another, a 2017 study published in the Lancet, followed all adults living in Ontario (roughly 6 and a half million people) for over a decade and found that those who lived closer to major high-traffic roads were significantly more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease across the study period regardless of their health at baseline or socioeconomic status. Both of these studies estimated that around 6 to 7 percent of all dementia cases in their samples could be attributed to air pollution exposures. Those studies from Canada and the UK are certainly intriguing. But the most compelling, and least reported on, study comes from the United States. It was also, incidentally, inspired by our previous reporting. Following our early report on the link between air pollution and dementia, three economists at Arizona State University—Kelly Bishop, Nicolai Kuminoff, and Jonathan Ketcham—decided to pursue a large-scale investigation of the issue. “We found the Mother Jones article compelling,” Ketcham says. “It was informative about the plausible pathways and the need for more rigorous studies that could test causality.” Ultimately, Bishop, Kuminoff, and Ketcham decided to link EPA air quality data to fifteen years of Medicare records for 6.9 million Americans over the age of 65. Rather than simply ask if Americans exposed to more air pollution developed dementia at higher rates, the team identified a quasi-natural experiment that arbitrarily separated Americans into higher and lower air pollution exposure groups. In 2005, the US Environmental Protection Agency targeted 132 counties in 21 states for increased regulation because they were found to be in violation of new air quality standards for fine particulate matter pollution. Residents of those counties consequently saw their air quality improve at a faster rate than their demographically matched peers living in other counties who, initially, had equal exposures but lived in counties with pollution levels that just barely fell below the new air quality standards. This quirk of different standards across the country allowed the researchers to ask if a manipulated decrease in air pollution exposure actually led to fewer cases of dementia, from Alzheimer’s or other dementing diseases, like strokes. This overcame a significant limitation of the other existing studies, which could only compare differences in exposure and disease arising “naturally” among people who lived in different places rather than by a planned intervention. “If people who have lower levels of education, who are less wealthy, and who are less healthy for reasons that we can’t observe end up living in more polluted areas,” says Ketcham, “it’s difficult to say which of those factors could have led to disease.” All told, a lead study author says, enforcing the EPA’s stricter air quality standard in 2005 likely resulted in 140,000 fewer people living with dementia by 2014. As they reported in the National Bureau of Economic Research last year, Bishop, Kuminoff, and Ketcham determined that air pollution could indeed cause dementia, specifically Alzheimer’s dementia. In counties that had to quickly comply with the new air quality standards, older people developed Alzheimer’s at lower rates than their peers in counties where the new rules didn’t apply. Annual exposure to an average of one more microgram of fine particle pollution per cubic meter of air (an amount well within the range of difference you could see if you moved from a clean neighborhood to a more polluted neighborhood) raised the typical US elder’s risk of dementia as if they had aged 2.7 additional years. The authors estimated that the size of this elevated risk approached that of other well-known dementia drivers, including hypertension and heart disease. All told, Ketcham says, enforcing the EPA’s stricter air quality standard likely resulted in 140,000 fewer people living with dementia by 2014. He places the economic value of that avoided disease burden at around $163 billion. Researchers now better understand what happens in the brain when you breathe polluted air—and how that can lead to neurodegeneration years later. When you inhale pollutants, the smallest particles, emitted by cars, power plants, and other places where fuel is burned, lodge in your lungs’ sensitive tissue or else pass into your blood stream. In those places they trigger an immune response that seeks to trap, contain, and remove the invading particles. In time that response generalizes to what we call “systemic inflammation,” or an over-active, overly excited immune response across the body. Systemic inflammation appears to be the primary way that air pollution harms the brain, says Caleb Finch. In early 2017 Finch and his colleagues showed that inflammation following air pollution exposure leads to the formation of Alzheimer’s plaques in the brains of mice genetically altered to develop Alzheimer’s pathology. “That was impressive,” says George Martin, Director Emeritus of the University of Washington’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, who was not involved in the study. Because of that study, and others like it, Martin now believes that air pollution could be one potential cause of dementia, although he wants more evidence on the mechanisms, “and, ideally, on a specific component or components of air pollution.” “My view of Alzheimer’s is changing,” said one prominent Alzheimer’s expert, “and I think the field is changing with it.” In the coming years, these new findings could shape scientists’ understanding of neurodegenerative disease. Because of these new studies, says George Perry, Chief Scientist of the Brain Health Consortium at the University of Texas at San Antonio and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, “my view of Alzheimer’s is changing, and I think the field is changing with it.” Perry now believes that air pollution is a potential risk factor for dementia, and his Alzheimer’s journal will soon run a special issue devoted to the link between the two. Motivated, in part, by the new evidence, Perry also increasingly sees dementia as a disease like cancer, where multiple factors could lead to pathology. “People develop cancer without smoking or being exposed to air pollution,” he says, “But each of those will raise your risk.” Unlike with smoking, we can’t always know when we are being exposed to dirty air, and we can’t decide when to quit. Yet Arizona State’s Kuminoff firmly believes that we could avoid more dementia by strengthening our existing air pollution standards. If there is a safe level of exposure, he says, “We haven’t gotten there yet.” One More Thing And it's a big one. Mother Jones is launching a new Corruption Project to do deep, time-intensive reporting on the corruption that is both the cause and result of the crisis in our democracy. The more we thought about how Mother Jones can have the most impact right now, the more we realized that so many stories come down to corruption: People with wealth and power putting their interests first—and often getting away with it. Our goal is to understand how we got here and how we might get out. We're aiming to create a reporting position dedicated to uncovering corruption, build a team, and let them investigate for a year—publishing our stories in a concerted window: a special issue of our magazine, video and podcast series, and a dedicated online portal so they don't get lost in the daily deluge of headlines and breaking news. We want to go all in, and we've got seed funding to get started—but we're looking to raise $500,000 in donations this spring so we can go even bigger. You can read about why we think this project is what the moment demands and what we hope to accomplish—and if you like how it sounds, please help us go big with a tax-deductible donation today.

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State natural gas rule misses chance to curb climate changing pollution | Opinion - pennlive.com
by Duane Nichols via MVCAC 06 May '19

06 May '19

https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2019/05/state-natural-gas-rule-misses-chan… PA State natural gas rule misses chance to curb climate changing pollution | Opinion Essay by Prof. Peter DeCarlo, PennLive.com, May 6, 2019 We must reduce air pollution caused by Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry. Lawmakers in Harrisburg are working on a rule to do just that, but they’re only getting it half right. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) current proposal to curb air pollution at thousands of existing natural gas facilities targets health-damaging and ozone-forming volatile organic compounds (VOCs), but only describes reducing methane emissions as a “co-benefit.” Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and a significant cause of climate change. It is unlikely we will achieve the goal of 80 percent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 as promised by Governor Wolf if we do not directly regulate methane. Targeting methane reductions must be a central focus of the proposed rule. It cannot be downgraded to an indirect benefit. As an atmospheric and climate scientist at Drexel University, I’ve studied leakage from the natural gas industry throughout the Commonwealth for eight years. My research team documented a 300 percent increase in methane emissions in northeastern Pennsylvania between 2012 and 2015. During that same time period, the estimates from the natural gas industry suggested a 30 percent decrease in methane emissions. That disturbing discrepancy is a clear indicator that the state must to do more to measure and mitigate methane emissions from existing natural gas sites and not rely on imprecise estimates. The draft rule as currently written will allow leaks in many parts of the state to emit substantially more methane before triggering VOC controls. Most of the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania is comprised of dry gas, meaning it contains a lower fraction of VOCs in the natural gas than the “wet gas” area of the state (primarily southwest Pennsylvania). By not addressing methane leakage directly, DEP would be allowing a significant amount of methane leaks to occur at gas infrastructure throughout the state. From a climate change perspective, this is irresponsible. In addition, the rule also unfortunately includes an exemptions for natural gas wells that produce a low amount of gas. Research has shown that these low-producing wells can actually emit just as much methane or more than higher producing wells. In the interest of limiting climate-damaging methane emissions, this exemption must be removed from the proposed rule. I voiced my support for a rule that addresses these shortcomings at a recent meeting of DEP’s air quality advisory committee in Harrisburg. I shared my research findings concluding that methane emissions are considerably higher than industry and DEP estimates. As the rule advances to the Environmental Quality Board, the state’s environmental rule-making body, and becomes available for public comment, I hope DEP will improve the draft rule by specifically targeting methane at existing natural gas operations in Pennsylvania and removing exemptions. If we want a chance to avoid the impacts of catastrophic climate change, DEP must do everything within its authority to protect current and future generations. Peter DeCarlo, associate professor at Drexel University’s College of Engineering and College of Arts and Sciences.

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Clairton Coke Works Receiving On-Going Air Pollution Monitoring
by Duane Nichols via MVCAC 02 May '19

02 May '19

Cleaner air, but not clean enough for Mon Valley residents Article by DON HOPEY, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 1, 2019 The Allegheny County Health Department says the air in the still-industrial Mon Valley is cleaner than it’s been in decades, but a dozen residents at the Board of Health meeting Wednesday afternoon said that’s not good enough. Jim Kelly, department deputy director of environmental health, repeated Tuesday’s announcement that the soot monitor in Liberty, downwind from U.S. Steel Corp.’s Clairton Coke Works, met the federal standard for airborne particles in 2018 for the first time. And he said the county’s portion of a state plan to control pollution shows that Liberty and all eight county monitors measuring PM 2.5, or pollution particulates 2.5 micrometers in diameter or smaller, would meet National Ambient Air Quality Standards by 2021. “Meteorology may have had an influence on the PM levels because of all the hard rain events and fewer and less severe inversions, but we don’t think it was a significant effect,” Mr. Kelly said. “More significantly, violations were way down and Clairton [Coke Works] had the fewest since 2015. So 2018 was a particularly clean year.” The 2018 annual PM 2.5 value for the Liberty monitor was 11.5 micrograms per cubic meter, slightly lower than the Environmental Protection Agency standard of 12, and more than a point below the 2017 value of 13.4. The short-term, daily PM value was 28 micrograms per cubic meter, lower than the EPA standards of 35 and below the 2017 value of 36.5. All other county monitors are also in compliance. But Matt Mehalik, executive director of the Breathe Project, a coalition of 24 local environmental organizations, told the health board “it’s premature to be doing a victory lap” even with the Liberty numbers much improved. “We have to make sure that U.S. Steel doesn’t backslide,” he said. “There is much work yet to be done.” Don Nevills, a Navy veteran and business owner from Clairton, urged the health board to take quick action on new, tougher coke oven emissions standards. “I understand what the [coke works] means to the region. I get it. But what I can’t understand is why we can’t have clean air,” Mr. Nevills said. “We’ve come part way, but we’ve got a long way yet to go.” He said at the same time the Pittsburgh-based steelmaker is making $1.8 billion in profits, the cancer rate in Clairton is significantly higher than the national average. “The company is reaping the rewards. It can afford to start replacing its three antiquated coke batteries that are causing so many problems,” Mr. Nevills said. “You [the health board] can help us live longer and breathe easier by holding U.S. Steel accountable.” Mark Dixon, a local environmental filmmaker, called the steelmaker’s operation of the coke works following a Dec. 24 fire that destroyed its desulfurization equipment and led to nine violations of sulfur dioxide emissions standards “criminal” and the health department response “impotent.” “Air quality better than it used to be is no longer good enough,” Mr. Dixon said. “We demand clean air now.” “It’s important we do figure out the sources and emissions,” said Joylette Portlock, a health board member, “and link those to the actual health impacts.” Kurt Barshick, general manager of U.S. Steel’s Mon Valley Works, which includes Clairton, the Edgar Thomson steel mill in Braddock and the Irvin mill in West Mifflin, said the operations have had no sulfur dioxide exceedances since the pollution control repairs were completed at the coke works April 4 and has met the performance requirements set forth in several consent orders. After the lengthy meeting ended, Health Department Director Karen Hacker said the department has heard the complaints and requests for help from Mon Valley residents and is taking unprecedented action to address the air pollution problems. “We’ve done nothing but increase our efforts in that area. We have heard their complaints, and I am glad they are speaking out,” Dr. Hacker said. “I welcome their comments, but we also need to acknowledge improvements when we see them.” She said the department is reviewing whether to intervene on the side of PennEnvironment and the Clean Air Council in a federal lawsuit filed Monday in Pittsburgh that alleges U.S. Steel violated the federal Clean Air Act by continuing to operate the coke works and its Edgar Thomson and Irvin steel mills without adequately controlling emissions of sulfur dioxide and other coke oven gases. “We want to make sure we don’t get in the way of the citizens’ complaint they filed,” she said. The department is reviewing air quality data but has not yet assessed fines related to the emissions that occurred for 102 days from the date of the fire until the desulfurization equipment went back in operation. https://www.post-gazette.com/news/2019/05/01/Cleaner-air-but-not-clean-enou…

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MVCAC May 2019