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How Changes in Toxic Waste Cleanup and Clean Air Policies Hurt 25 American Communities
The administration's weakening of our nation's most basic environmental protections leaves our children exposed to more asthma-triggering soot, growth-retarding lead, cancer-causing arsenic, and other contaminants. This report documents the consequences of Bush administration actions-and lack of action-on the health and safety of families in 25 communities across America. For example: Cliff Shearer, a firefighter in Middletown, Ohio, died in March 2002 of a rare form of cancer found predominantly in steel workers. But Shearer never worked in a steel plant-he just lived near one, AK Steel, reportedly the most profitable steel plant in the country. The EPA recently filed suit against AK Steel's more than 200 violations of the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, but the Bush administration's 2003 budget would slash the EPA workforce that takes action against chronic violators. Barb Brunton, a pediatric nurse and mother of four, grew her own vegetables in her backyard in Omaha so that she could make homemade baby food for her young children. But the soil in her yard was contaminated with high levels of lead, the legacy of the nearby ASARCO lead refinery, and the vegetables she fed to her children were actually poisoning them. The refinery closed in 1997, and the EPA is now considering placing the site on the Superfund priority list, but lack of funding could delay cleanup. Sammy Primm, who lives across the Chattahoochee River from a Georgia-Pacific pulp and paper mill, suffers from chronic congestion and his skin and eyes burn. The mill emits nearly 2 million pounds of toxic pollution annually, most of it methanol, a colorless, volatile, poisonous liquid. Now, a Bush administration proposal would allow the plant to increase its pollution without installing additional pollution control equipment. Marlene Yoss' three children were lead-poisoned from a smelter fire in northern Idaho. Pollution from this and other environmental disasters persists in northern Idaho's Coeur d'Alene watershed, renowned for its natural beauty but now contaminated by 80 years worth of toxic waste from mining operations. Every day a poisonous brew of arsenic and heavy metals washes down into the local waterways, but the proposed cleanup fails to deal with a major source of lead poisoning, and funding is uncertain at best. The list of communities profiled in this report is not comprehensive-it is a beginning of a broad indictment. The Sierra Club will continue to add cases to our list of communities at risk, communities where the administration has been demonstrably derelict in its duty to protect and defend our health and lives. Those additional communities will be added from time-to-time to our Web site, www.sierraclub.org/communities. Consequences of the Bush Administration's Actions Federal clean air protections, toxic waste cleanups, and environmental enforcement initiatives have been critical in protecting Americans' health and safeguarding our environment. Consider:
In the past two decades, the Superfund law has cleaned up more than 800 toxic waste sites in communities across the country, freeing residents from the health risks and fears that come with living next to toxic waste. Despite demonstrable benefits, the Bush administration is turning back the clock on three decades of progress by allowing facilities that expand their emissions of soot, smog, and other health-damaging pollutants to avoid modern air pollution controls. These pollutants damage the lungs and create increased risk of respiratory diseases such as asthma, bronchitis, and cancer. Researchers have found that breathing small soot particles increases the chance of premature death. Children, the elderly and those with pre-existing heart or respiratory disease are at greatest risk. Those living closest to major air polluting facilities suffer most. The Bush administration has announced that it will allow 17,000 major polluters, such as oil refineries, chemical plants, and coal-burning power plants, to increase their air emissions without installing modern pollution controls, as the Clean Air Act currently requires. That will mean more asthma and other respiratory diseases, and more premature deaths. In addition, by its inaction the administration is damaging the Superfund toxic waste cleanup program, letting it wither due to lack of funding. In many cases, Superfund is addressing the legacy of poor mining practices, which have spread millions of tons of toxic metals around the countryside. If these sites are not cleaned up, children in many communities will continue to carry dangerous levels of lead in their blood-lead that will slow their development, prevent them from learning, and damage their motor skills. The damage is permanent and irreversible. Exposing children to lead isn't the only risk, of course. Unbelievably, Sierra Club researchers found two Superfund locations where children are playing in the middle of toxic waste. Riding bicycles and all-terrain-vehicles on a former wood-preserving operation and a former tannery stirs up toxic chemicals like arsenic and chromium, exposing children to cancer-causing chemicals. Although Superfund requires polluters to clean up their own messes, many polluters have gone bankrupt and have no assets. There is little or no money to clean up many of these toxic waste sites, but the Bush administration has no plan other than to let them fester, continuing to expose communities to toxic chemicals. By failing to reinstate the "polluter-pays" tax that has historically funded the cleanup program, the Bush administration is condemning many communities to more years of toxic contamination. Allowing Factories and Power Plants to Increase Emissions
When Congress reauthorized the Clean Air Act in 1977, it agreed to a compromise. Many older polluters did not have to retrofit their existing facilities with new pollution control equipment. But the law specified that if these facilities made major modifications that would result in more pollution, they would have to install modern pollution technology to protect air quality. The Bush administration's announcement reneges on this decades-old agreement. Instead of holding polluters accountable for making communities' air dirtier, as the Clean Air Act intended, the Bush administration created loopholes that will let polluters off the hook. Some of these new rules are final, while others will go through a public comment period. The final rules allow polluters to establish a pollution baseline based on past performance, when emissions levels were higher. Only increased emissions beyond that baseline, rather than current emissions levels, would trigger the requirement for modern pollution controls.The final rules will also enable polluters to escape the requirement for updated pollution controls for all of their pollutants if they install these controls for just one pollutant. The administration intends to propose additional, potentially more damaging rules. When the EPA and the Department of Justice began investigating power plants in the 1980s, they found that failure to comply with the Clean Air Act was resulting in tens of millions of tons of soot and smog.(2) Many well-documented studies have associated airborne soot with serious health damage, including increased asthma attacks and even premature death. Based on a study by Abt Associates, the Clean Air Task Force concluded that each year emissions from 51 power plants targeted by EPA enforcement action shorten the lives of up to 9,000 people and led to an estimated 170,000 asthma attacks.(3) Despite increasing data linking airborne soot with disease, the EPA has not conducted a full analysis of the public health impacts of the changes that the administration is making to the New Source Review program. In an August 1, 2002, letter to EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, 44 senators asked that the EPA analyze the impact on air pollution and public health before putting the changes into effect. The letter also requested that the EPA not finalize a rule that increases air pollution or undermines health. The Bush administration has also pushed for amendments to the Clean Air Act that allow more pollution than current law. The administration's "Clear Skies" plan takes a decade longer to get fewer results than existing clean air laws. It replaces programs that protect communities with a "cap and trade" system, allowing companies to buy and sell the right to pollute. An EPA analysis found that Clear Skies would allow 36 percent more smog-forming pollution, 50 percent more soot pollution, and a mind-boggling 200 percent more toxic mercury than strong enforcement of the Clean Air Act. It also fails to address the largest cause of global warming, carbon dioxide. Slowing Toxic Waste Cleanups and Shifting Program Costs to Taxpayers Congress enacted the Superfund law in 1980 to clean up the nation's worst toxic waste sites. One in four Americans lives within a short bicycle ride of a toxic waste site that is considered a Superfund cleanup priority. Toxic waste has polluted groundwater at 85 percent of Superfund sites. Some of the most commonly found chemicals at Superfund sites-including arsenic, lead, and mercury-can cause serious health problems such as cancer, reduced mental and physical development of children, and permanent damage to the brain and kidneys. The Superfund program has completed cleanup work at approximately 60 percent of the 1,238 waste sites on the priority cleanup list. Despite this progress, much work remains. An independent analysis of the Superfund program commissioned by Congress estimates that implementing the Superfund program from FY2000 through FY2009 will cost between $14 billion and $16.4 billion, not including inflation.(4) Since its inception, the Superfund program has been funded by the polluter-pays tax-an excise tax on oil and chemical companies and a corporate environmental income tax. The tax expired in 1995, and funding in the Superfund Trust Fund has subsequently dwindled from more than $3 billion to about $28 million. It is expected to run out of money by FY2004. As a result, individual taxpayers have been picking up more of the cleanup costs. In FY1995 taxpayers paid about 18 percent of cleanup costs; in FY2003 they will pay 54 percent. After FY2004, taxpayers may pay for almost all Superfund costs. Shifting the funding burden from polluting companies to individual taxpayers is unfair and diverts resources from other important environmental priorities. Not only has the expiration of the tax shifted the funding burden, it has also dramatically slowed the rate of toxic waste site cleanups. The EPA completed construction on only 47 sites in FY2001, fewer than the 75 it had projected and far fewer than the 87 achieved in FY2000. The rate of cleanups will continue to decline in the future unless Congress acts to increase the program's funding. When Congress amended Superfund in 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed the polluter-pays tax into law. Presidents George H. Bush and Bill Clinton collected the tax until it expired, and President Clinton sought the reinstatement of the tax during the rest of his term. President George W. Bush is the first president since Superfund began to oppose the polluter-pays tax and to support shifting more of the burden to taxpayers. Taking the Environmental Protection Cops Off the Beat The Bush administration is proposing to slash the EPA's ability to enforce clean air and clean water laws. The administration's FY2003 budget reduces personnel for enforcing environmental and health laws by more than 200 positions below FY2001 levels through a combination of continuing vacancies and further cuts. This represents a 13 percent cut in the federal enforcement program.(5) Although states have a principal role in enforcing some federal environmental laws, federal enforcement capability is essential to protecting communities from pollution. The federal government is often better suited than states to take enforcement actions against large corporations conducting business in many states. In the 1990s, it was the U.S. EPA that took the lead in enforcing the Clean Air Act's New Source Review requirements described above. The threat of federal enforcement is a vital safety net for communities when state agencies fail to enforce the laws on their own. The Bush administration proposed cutting the EPA's environmental enforcement budget in FY2002. Congress rejected that and maintained the EPA's enforcement capability. Up to Top HOME | Email Signup | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use | © 2008 Sierra Club |
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