July, 18 2018, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Lisa Evans, Earthjustice, (978) 548-8645 or levans@earthjustice.org, Larissa Liebmann, Waterkeeper Alliance, (212) 747-0622 x 122 or LLiebmann@waterkeeper.org, Brian Willis, Sierra Club, (202) 895-0420 x103 or brian.willis@sierraclub.org, Michael Kelly, Clean Water Action, (202) 895-0420 x103 or mkelly@cleanwater.org, Andrew Rehn, Prairie Rivers Network, (217) 344-2371 x 208 or arehn@prairierivers.org, Tim Maloney, Hoosier Environmental Council, (812) 369-8677, Tom Pelton, Environmental Integrity Project, (443) 510-2574 or tpelton@environmentalintegrity.org, Ruth Santiago, Comite Dialogo Ambiental, Inc., (781) 312-2223 or rstgo2@gmail.com
Trump Administration's New Rule Weakens Toxic Coal Ash Pollution Safeguards
EPA Announcement Puts People at Increased Risk to Cancer, Heart Disease, Stroke, Brain Damage
WASHINGTON
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency signed yesterday the first rule of its two-part rulemaking to weaken the first-ever federal regulations that provide health and environmental safeguards for communities near toxic coal ash waste dumps. The rule was made public this morning.
The new rule:
- Fails to add boron, a common and dangerous coal ash contaminant, to the list of pollutants that will drive cleanup of groundwater at contaminated sites nationwide.
- Weakens drinking water protection standards by removing strong national limits for groundwater contamination for several hazardous chemicals, namely lead, cobalt, lithium and molybdenum.
- Extends compliance deadlines for closing unlined leaking ash ponds and ash ponds within five feet of groundwater and permits hundreds of leaking ponds to continue to operate.
- Permits state officials to terminate groundwater monitoring.
- Allows state officials to judge whether sites are following the rules instead of qualified, professional engineers.
All of these changes significantly weaken the protections established in 2015. Every single one of the changes is in response to an industry petition filed with the Trump administration in 2017.
Coal ash is the toxic waste left over from hundreds of coal-burning power plants throughout the United States. For decades, coal ash has been dumped into giant pits, where toxic chemicals seep into water and blow into the air. Coal ash waste is filled with some of some of the deadliest known toxic chemicals, including heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury and chromium. The toxics raise the risk for cancer, heart disease, and stroke, and can inflict permanent brain damage on children.
"Today's rule indicates Wheeler is continuing EPA's radical drive to remove critical health protections at the behest of industry," said Earthjustice attorney Lisa Evans. "This is the first major rule signed during Andrew Wheeler's time running the EPA, and his true colors are shining through. Wheeler is ignoring the serious health threats to hundreds of communities at risk from contaminated drinking water."
"This indefensible gutting of our nation's first-ever coal ash pollution control rule cements the shameful environmental legacy of the Trump Administration," said Lisa Hallowell, Senior Attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project. "Today's action opens the door for weakened monitoring and cleanup standards, which means - in no uncertain terms - that the public and the environment on which we all depend will be in harm's way."
In October 2015, the first-ever EPA safeguards to protect communities near coal ash dumps went into effect after Earthjustice filed a lawsuit on behalf of public interest groups and a Native American tribe, the Moapa Band of Paiutes. The EPA received more than a half-million comments from people supporting the safeguards that the EPA gutted today.
EPA is finalizing this rollback of coal ash protections just as the nation is discovering that nearly all coal ash ponds and landfills are leaking toxic pollutants to groundwater. The EPA's 2015 coal ash rule required utilities to test the water near their coal ash dumps to make sure hazardous chemicals were not leaking into drinking water sources. Coal ash contains concentrated levels of heavy metals, which are released to water when the ash is dumped into unlined pits. According to recently released industry data, about 95 percent of all the dump sites have contaminated groundwater with toxins like arsenic and boron to levels the EPA has deemed unsafe to drink.
We now know that the coal ash dumps are leaking, but EPA is looking the other way. Requirements to close these leaking dump sites and to clean up poisoned water were set to go into effect later in 2018, but the new rule weakens cleanup standards and pushes closure and cleanup dates to 2020.
"We will not stand by and allow the Trump Administration to give carte blanche to well-funded polluters that threaten the water of thousands of communities across our country with their toxic coal ash," said Dalal Aboulhosn, Sierra Club's Deputy Legislative Director for Land and Water. "We'll use every means we have to beat back this latest attempt to weaken basic clean water protections for working families, farmers, and outdoor businesses - whose lives and livelihoods are being threatened by coal ash every day. Our work will not be completed until every coal ash pit is properly secured and every local resident has access to an online monitor that confirms it."
"This administration is doing everything it can to give coal a free ride, including dismantling our bare minimum protections," said Larissa Liebmann, staff attorney at Waterkeeper Alliance. "The corporate dollars saved by weakening the CCR rule will be born by the communities living near coal ash disposal sites -- they will pay the costs of contaminated drinking water and polluted waterways."
"EPA failed for three decades to protect our water from toxic coal plants and now the Trump administration is turning back the clock, doubling down on that failure, and leaving communities in jeopardy," said Jennifer Peters, Clean Water Action's National Water Programs Director. "Trump clearly doesn't care who his administration puts at risk as long as he can give handouts to the corporate polluters who write the checks for re-election campaigns."
The EPA and Wheeler are caving to pressure from polluters who have fought hard against common-sense pollution protections for coal ash dumps. Over 1,400 coal ash waste dumps are spread across the nation, and at almost every site, the toxic waste has contaminated water sources.
"These changes aren't going to help Illinois," said Andrew Rehn of the Prairie Rivers Network. "We need professional engineers, not political appointees or polluters, making decisions about the safety and clean up of coal ash."
"Decades of regulatory inaction on coal ash disposal has left Indiana with a toxic legacy of serious groundwater contamination - with unsafe levels of arsenic, lead, boron, and radium, among other contaminants -- confirmed at fifteen disposal sites in Indiana located on the shores of the White River, the Wabash River, Kankakee River, the Ohio River and Lake Michigan," said Tim Maloney of Hoosier Environmental Council. "It is simply negligent for the EPA to roll back the long-overdue federal coal ash standards that the agency adopted in 2015, and would result in this pollution being left in place to continue contaminating our waterways and drinking water sources for many years to come."
Federal protections are critical, because the dumps are ticking time bombs. In 2008, the single-largest toxic waste spill in U.S. history happened when a billion gallons of coal ash sludge burst through a dam at the Tennessee Valley Authority Kingston plant and covered 300 acres, destroying dozens of homes. In 2014, a portion of a coal ash dump in North Carolina collapsed, fouling 80 miles of the Dan River with toxic sludge.
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
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On Kent State Massacre Anniversary, Progressives Decry Repression of Student Protests
"The militarized repression of young people speaking out against a terrible war was shameful then and it's shameful now," said one state lawmaker.
May 04, 2024
As U.S. Republicans push for the deployment of National Guard troops to quell nationwide student demonstrations against the Gaza genocide, progressive lawmakers marked the anniversary of the 1970 Kent State Massacre by condemning police repression of peaceful protesters and reaffirming the power of dissent.
"On the 54th anniversary of the Kent State Massacre, students across our country are being brutalized for standing up to endless war," Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Mo.) said on social media. "Our country must learn to actually uphold the rights of free speech and assembly upon which it was founded."
Fellow "Squad" member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said that "54 years ago, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed students at Kent State."
"Students have a right to speak out, organize, and protest systemic wrongs," she added. "We can't silence those expressing dissent, no matter how uncomfortable their protests may be to those in power."
On May 4, 1970, 28 Ohio National Guard troops fired 67 live rounds into a crowd of unarmed Kent State students rallying against the expansion of the U.S.-led war in Vietnam into Cambodia. They murdered students Allison Krause, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder—all aged 19 or 20. Nine other students were wounded, including one who was permanently paralyzed.
"The militarized repression of young people speaking out against a terrible war was shameful then and it's shameful now," New York state Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher (D-50) said on Saturday.
Protests against Israel's assault on Gaza—which according to Palestinian and international officials has killed, maimed, or left missing more than 123,000 Gazans—have spread to dozens of campuses across the U.S. and around the world. Police have been called in to break up protest encampments at numerous schools. Hundreds of students, faculty, and journalists have been arrested, sometimes violently.
At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), police stood by this week as a pro-Israel mob attacked a campus protest encampment before officers arrested peaceful protesters and supporters.
As law enforcement officials have tried to justify the crackdown by claiming "outside agitators" are behind the protests, some observers noted historical parallels.
"Watching what is happening at UCLA," Virginia state Sen. Mamie Locke (D-2) said on social media. "Old enough to remember Kent State, Jackson State, South Carolina State, and the dog whistles of 'law and order,' 'outside agitators.' So reminiscent of 1968."
On February 8, 1968, police shot 31 students—most of them in the back—at a protest against Jim Crow segregation at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, murdering three young Black men: Samuel Hammond Jr., Delano Middleton, and Henry Smith.
Eleven days after Kent State, police opened fire on a crowd of Black students protesting the bombing of Cambodia at Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi, killing Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green and injuring 12 others.
"Our institutions must learn from these past mistakes to not use militarized responses against unarmed, peaceful student protesters by calling in the National Guard, bringing in state troopers, or deploying police in riot gear," Laurel Krause, the sister of slain Kent State protester Allison Krause, said in a statement marking the ignominious anniversary.
"We must not repeat the horrors of Kent State 54 years later," she added.
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UN Food Chief Says Northern Gaza Suffering 'Full-Blown Famine'
"And it's moving its way south," she warned.
May 04, 2024
United Nations World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said Friday that Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip are experiencing "full-blown famine" after nearly seven months of Israeli bombardment and invasion—and that deadly malnutrition is "moving its way south" through the embattled enclave.
While U.N. agencies have warned since March that famine was imminent in Gaza, McCain's remarks—which came during an interview with Kristen Welker that is scheduled to air on Sunday's edition of NBC News' "Meet the Press"—make her the most high-profile international official to date to publicly acknowledge a state of famine in parts of the Palestinian territory.
"It's horror," said McCain, who is American. "There is famine—full-blown famine—in the north, and it's moving its way south."
UN World Food Program @WFPChief: “There is famine — full-blown famine — in the north of Gaza, and it’s moving its way south.”
pic.twitter.com/eyk0OeOEzr
— Waleed Shahid 🪬 (@_waleedshahid) May 4, 2024
McCain's remarks come as hundreds of thousands of Gazans are on the brink of starvation. Dozens of Palestinians—the vast majority of them children and infants—have already died of malnutrition and dehydration in northern Gaza.
According to Palestinian and international officials, Israel's 211-day assault on Gaza—which many experts including Israelis call genocidal—has killed or maimed more than 123,000 Palestinians since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks, including an estimated 11,000 people who are believed to be dead and buried beneath the ruins of the hundreds of thousands of destroyed or damaged homes and other buildings.
In addition to not allowing adequate humanitarian aid into Gaza, Israeli forces have also repeatedly attacked both aid workers and desperate civilians trying to access the lifesaving provisions.
"What we are asking for and what we continually ask for is a cease-fire and the ability to have unfettered access, to get in safe through the various ports and gate crossings," McCain said during the interview.
On Saturday, Hamas spokesperson Osman Hamdan said there have been "some forward steps" toward a cease-fire agreement during negotiations in Egypt. Egyptian mediators proposed a six-week cessation of hostilities, the release of an unspecified number of Israeli and international hostages, and a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
However, one Israeli official toldABC News on condition of anonymity Saturday that "Israel will under no circumstances agree to the end of the war as part of an agreement to release our abductees."
The negotiations come as Israeli forces prepare for an expected ground invasion of Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city, where more than a million refugees forcibly displaced from other parts of the strip are sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents. On Friday, the U.N.'s humanitarian agency
warned that an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah would put hundreds of thousands of Palestinians "at imminent risk of death."
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'Racist POS' Mike Collins Cheers Video of Ole Miss Mob Attack on Black Student
"This is not about Israel, Palestine, or Gaza. This is old-fashioned American racism and misogyny," said one observer. "These are the types of young white men who will grow up to be Republican governors, senators, and members of Congress."
May 03, 2024
Republican Georgia Congressman Mike Collins came under fire Friday over a social media post applauding video of white University of Mississippi students racially abusing a Black woman participating in a campus protest for Palestine.
Collins posted the video—in which numerous people can be heard grunting like apes and one young man is seen jumping up and down like a monkey in front of the Black woman—with the caption, "Ole Miss taking care of business."
Collins—or whoever's in charge of his social media accounts—sparred with Black leaders who called out his racism. When former Democratic Ohio state senator Nina Turner said the video showed "anti-Blackness," the congressman shot back, "*Anti-terroristness."
When Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) accused Collins of "fueling white supremacy," the Republican retorted, "Don't take down any more signs at our workplace, please" along with a photo of the Democrat triggering a fire alarm in a House of Representatives office building last year.
Around 30 protesters were rallying in support of Palestine in the Ole Miss Quad when counter-protesters gathered near the demonstrators. Some booed and chanted, "We want Trump!" Others singled out the Black woman—who NBC Newssaid is a graduate student at the school—chanting "Lizzo, Lizzo, Lizzo," "take a shower," "your nose is huge," "fuck you, fat bitch," and "lock her up!"
The counter-protesters also sang the "Star-Spangled Banner." Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves shared a separate video of the singing students on social media, captioning his post, "Warms my heart" and "I love Mississippi."
No racist language can be heard in the video shared by Reeves.
The Daily Mississippianreports the demonstrators were escorted off the Quad after counter-protesters threw water bottles at them.
Collins is no stranger to accusations of racism. Earlier this year, he suggested murdering migrants by throwing them from helicopters into the sea, in the manner of U.S.-backed South American dictators in the 1970s.
He also
introduced the Restricting Administration Zealots from Obliging Raiders (RAZOR) Act, which would ban the federal government from removing or altering "any state-constructed barriers installed to mitigate illegal immigration," such as the razor buoys installed in the Rio Grande by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Collins was also
accused of antisemitism after he amplified a social media post by an avowed neo-Nazi targeting a Washington Post reporter for being Jewish.
Ole Miss said Friday that "statements were made at the demonstration on our campus Thursday that were offensive and inappropriate."
"We cannot comment specifically about that video, but the university is looking into reports about specific actions," the school added. "Any actions that violate university policy will be met with appropriate action."
The Ole Miss incident comes amid rapidly spreading campus protests across the U.S. and around the world in response to Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, which has killed, maimed, or left missing around 5% of the embattled strip's 2.3 million people, most of them civilians, while forcibly displacing nearly 9 in 10 people and driving hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation.
While numerous Ole Miss students said they did not understand what the pro-Palestine protesters hoped to accomplish, others voiced support for the demonstrators—and for Palestine.
"As we've seen throughout history, time and time again, the student movement is never wrong. Time and time again, anytime there's a student protest, and you're against it, you're on the wrong side of history," Xavier Black, a junior majoring in international studies, told
The Daily Mississippian. "So I would like to be on the right side."
One Palestinian American Ole Miss student was teary-eyed as she thanked the protesters.
"Hey guys, I know that what just happened was really intimidating, and it was a little scary, but I just want to say I'm so proud of you guys," the student—who gave only her first name, Jana—said,
according toMississippi Today. "This wasn't going to happen... without all of you guys. Palestine was being heard. And I just want to thank you guys so much."
"I know that was such a big risk, but this is the most that people have ever thought for us, so don't give up," she added. "I know that was really hard, but we need to keep fighting. This was just the start of it, okay?"
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