EPA

— Alert: H.R. 1 would gut environmental laws — Earthjustice

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Provisions in the bill includie would waiving nuclear waste restrictions. Oppose H.R. 1

SIGN LETTER BELOW

From Earthjustice

The House of Representatives is bringing H.R. 1, the Polluters over People Act, to the floor next week. Join this community sign on letter opposing this polluter giveaway that would exacerbate the climate crisis, perpetuate environmental injustices, and undermine U.S. economic and national security by prolonging reliance on risky and volatile energy sources. Its sweeping changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Mineral Leasing Act, the Mining Law of 1872, and the Clean Water Act prioritize polluter profits over the public health and exhibits an astonishing disregard for government accountability and the voices and welfare of communities impacted by federal decisions.

DEADLINE NOON EASTERN ON MONDAY, MARCH 27

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd6x6ourj6V8E_poQYweda7ILiA79ipD_82CbY32Z8_u_9Jzg/viewform

Community Sign On: Oppose HR 1

DEADLINE NOON EASTERN ON MONDAY, MARCH 27

The House of Representatives is bringing H.R. 1, the Polluters over People Act, to the floor. Join this community sign on letter opposing this polluter giveaway that would exacerbate the climate crisis, perpetuate environmental injustices, and undermine U.S. economic and national security by prolonging reliance on risky and volatile energy sources. Its sweeping changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Mineral Leasing Act, the Mining Law of 1872, and the Clean Water Act prioritize polluter profits over the public health and exhibits an astonishing disregard for government accountability and the voices and welfare of communities impacted by federal decisions.

Organization Sign on Deadline: Monday, March 27, 12 PM Eastern. We will only display organization name, not individual staff names.

March 27, 2023

Re: Vote Recommendation on H.R. 1, the “Lower Energy Costs Act”

Dear Representative,

On behalf of our millions of members and supporters, the undersigned organizations write to express our strong opposition and to urge you to vote NO on H.R. 1, the so-called “Lower Energy Costs Act,” which the House will take up next week.

This legislation would exacerbate the climate crisis, perpetuate environmental injustices, and undermine U.S. economic and national security by prolonging reliance on risky and volatile energy sources. Its sweeping changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Mineral Leasing Act, the Mining Law of 1872, and the Clean Water Act prioritize polluter profits over public health and exhibit an astonishing disregard for government accountability and the voices and welfare of communities impacted by federal decisions.

Division A

Division A would encourage new fossil fuel production and infrastructure, despite the scientific consensus that there is no room for investment in new fossil fuel production if we are to keep the world on a 1.5°C compatible pathway. It would also undermine bedrock environmental laws, including NEPA, by short-circuiting permitting processes and limiting public input. NEPA is a critical environmental law and an important tool for frontline and environmental justice communities to influence federal infrastructure projects that will impact them the most.

Division A’s most egregious provisions:

  • Repeal the Methane Emissions Reduction Program created by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). This critical program supports efforts to reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sector, improve methane monitoring, fund environmental restoration, and help communities reduce the health impacts of pollution.
  • Undercut public transparency and input from communities by arbitrarily limiting the time for environmental reviews. The bill alters the approval process for gas pipelines by requiring all other federal and state agencies to defer to FERC.
  • Strip away the federal government’s responsibility to examine the full impacts of LNG expansion on US energy markets, the environment, and local communities. It would make it easier to approve LNG exports by removing the first three sections of the Natural Gas Act, which require a public interest determination for LNG exports to non-FTA countries and by mandating that FERC deem gas exports in the public interest. LNG exports negatively impact Americans by exacerbating climate change, raising domestic energy prices, and perpetuating environmental injustices, and these factors need to be taken into account when deciding whether to approve additional LNG export terminals.
  • Authorize the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to waive the Clean Air Act (CAA) and Solid Waste Disposal Act (SWDA) requirements for waste produced by certain energy facilities. Exempting energy waste potentially including everything from fracking wastewater to mine processing facilities and tailing sites to nuclear facilities from these laws threatens the health of people in frontline communities, as well as our air and water. The waste from energy production are some of the most threatening products and sites, and often they exist for hundreds of years, even in perpetuity, which is part of the reason why the Superfund program is overwhelmed.
  • Undermine the Toxic Substances Control Act by short circuiting the review and approval process for new chemicals used in the energy sector, whether that is for fracking, petrochemicals, mining or dozens of other products. This rushed and weak assessment, which would lead to default approvals, would result in the blind rubber-stamping of chemicals for use in energy that have deleterious impacts on human health and the environment. Virtually any chemical that plays a role in the production, refining, distribution, and use of energy could be designated as “critical” by the Department of Energy.
  • Allow the EPA Administrator to circumvent the scientific process of approving or denying flexible air permitting at the agency. Doing so could potentially allow the EPA Administrator to increase air pollution from so-called “critical energy resource facilities,” subsequently harming environmental and public health. A broad spectrum of facilities that emit toxic air pollution could evade scrutiny for health impacts, including processing and refining products of oil, gas, coal, minerals, and fertilizers.
  • Modify the organization of the Department of Energy, taking the authority on many issues and processes that are vital for the protection of communities, air, lands, and water away from those who have the expertise in understanding the potential impacts of extraction and production, whether that is the Department of Interior (DOI) or Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In doing so it makes the only metric for consideration economic, which would mean that communities, lands, and waters would be sacrificed.

This Division also contains a provision purporting to support domestic supplies of  “critical minerals,” but in reality creates a new legislated term–“critical energy resources–which the majority has defined to mean virtually anything related to the energy sector, whether that is oil and gas, coal, petrochemicals or nuclear production, mineral processing, and refining. 

Other notably problematic provisions in the remainder of Division A would:

  • Prohibit the President from issuing a moratorium on fracking unless authorized by Congress. Fracking releases massive amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that has more than 80 times the power of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, driving approximately one quarter of the warming our planet has experienced to date. Fracking also harms local communities and ecosystems by releasing air pollutants and contaminating water sources
  • Exempt certain energy facilities from requirements to secure an interim permit before operating, instead allowing the facilities to operate before securing such a permit. The result could be the release of harmful pollutants into our air and water, threatening the environment and health of people in frontline communities. The facilities that could receive a permit without an accurate assessment of their impact include everything from radioactive waste to petrochemicals to fertilizer to mining waste, all extremely toxic industries.
  • Express disapproval of President Biden revoking the Presidential Permit for Keystone XL pipeline. If built, Keystone XL would have carried 830,000 barrels per day of the dirtiest oil on the planet, threatening our climate, farmland, critical water resources, and wildlife habitat along the pipeline’s path.

Express the sense of Congress that the federal government should not restrict the export of crude oil or other petroleum products. Increased oil drilling and exports have enormous climate repercussions and pollute communities and ecosystems. They also open U.S. consumers to the whipsaw effects of geopolitical tensions and conflicts, creating energy instability and often driving significant increases in energy pricesThe federal government must ensure that these exports do not compromise US climate and environmental justice goals or undermine our global climate leadership.

Division B

Title I would take us in the wrong direction on onshore and offshore oil and gas leasing. It would lock in decades’ worth of fossil fuel infrastructure, preclude protections for millions more acres of public lands, split estates, and offshore waters, and handcuff the Biden Administration’s ability to address the climate crisis through thoughtful management of our shared public resources. Like many recent proposals from the present House majority, it attempts to further prop up the federal fossil fuel program despite rising (and record) production, and industry’s existing access to tens of millions of acres of our shared public spaces and thousands of approved and unused permits to drill on federal lands and in offshore waters.

To start, Title I:

  • Mandates leasing onshore and offshore, eviscerating long-standing precedent that defers leasing decisions to the President and the Secretary of the Interior
  • Rushes oil and gas drilling permits through the environmental review process with zero regard for community input, effects on endangered species, or emissions consequences
  • Exempts as many permitting decisions from the federal review process as possible
  • Severely restricts the President’s authority to protect specific lands with natural, cultural, or scientific significance
  • Repeals the hard-fought common-sense reforms to the outdated oil and gas leasing program that were enacted in the Inflation Reduction Act to ensure that industry pays a fairer share when reaping—and profiting from —shared, public resources

Title II, which incorporates the BUILDER Act, would eviscerate NEPA and fundamentally gut the review of environmental, health, and economic impacts of decisions by over 80 agencies in the federal government. If passed, local community voices would be silenced, the public would be essentially unable to hold the federal government accountable, and polluting industries would be allowed to steer a review process designed to be in the public, not private, interest.

The ways this bill would radically undermine informed government decision-making and accountability are too numerous to detail here, but a few merit particular attention:

  • Dramatically Narrows Application of NEPA and Limits the Scope of Reviews – The bill would radically limit the application of NEPA by redefining the threshold consideration of what is a “major federal action” for the purposes of NEPA. Further, the bill excludes oil and gas gathering lines, federal loans, projects not occurring on federal lands, loan guarantees, and other forms of financial assistance from NEPA, which could potentially allow projects such as offshore oil and gas development, coal fired generating facilities, LNG projects, nuclear facilities, roads, bridges, highways, and concentrated animal feeding operations to evade any review or public scrutiny. For reviews that do occur, it relieves agencies of any responsibility to undertake any new research necessary for informed decision making and potentially prevents the consideration of upstream and downstream impacts of decisions, thus codifying climate denial into federal decisions.
  • Essentially Eliminates Judicial Review – In addition to reducing the statute of limitations to a mere 120 days, the bill would bar legal challenges to categorical exclusions as well as many environmental assessments. For the few remaining projects subject to judicial review, injunctive relief would be prohibited, thus ensuring that projects move forward regardless of how egregiously deficient a review or harmful the impacts of a project on a community or the environment.
  • Allows Inherent Conflicts of Interests In Review – The bill would allow project sponsors to prepare their own environmental reviews, thus eliminating objective analyses about the environmental and related social and economic effects of federal actions and institutionalizing bias in the review process. This potentially undermines the entire purpose of NEPA to have federal agencies make informed, unbiased decisions in the public interest.
  • Prioritizes Project Sponsors Over the Public Interest – The legislation not only would impose arbitrary timelines on reviews but would also prohibit an agency from extending the time if needed to do essential scientific work or to accommodate public comment, unless the project sponsor agrees. Further, the bill would severely narrow what has long been considered the “heart” of the NEPA process, by prioritizing consideration of alternatives that meet the project sponsor goals.

Finally, Title III would exacerbate deficiencies in the existing 151-year-old mining law, result in an unnecessary increase in mining on federal public lands, and put at risk irreplaceable protected lands, special places, endangered and sensitive wildlife, tribal sacred sites, and culturally significant sites.

Current mining law has allowed for the pollution of America’s environment and waterways, placing additional unjust burdens on communities who have already borne the brunt of our nation’s toxic mining legacy. The GAO estimates America is littered with hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines while the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates hardrock mines have polluted 40% of the headwaters of western U.S. watersheds and will cost taxpayers more than $50 billion to clean up. Under current law, taxpayers are potentially liable for billions more in cleanup costs at currently operating mines because the legal requirements for mining companies to remediate lands and waters remain inadequate. This legislation does nothing to address the legacy of abandoned mines or promote remediation of American lands and waters.

Of particular concern, this title upends more than a century of practice by validating mining claims under the Mining Law of 1872 before the claimant has proven a mineral discovery. Currently, mining claims do not become valid just because the claimant says so: mining rights fully vest only after the miner discovers valuable minerals. Yet, under Section 20307, a claimant would no longer need to actually prove they discovered valuable minerals. Instead, any person could “claim” mining rights on unwithdrawn public lands merely by grounding a stake, paying a fee, and filing some paperwork. This section would effectively lock out most other uses of public lands, prioritizing mining instead regardless of whether those lands had any value for mineral development.

Title III also continues the current majority’s constant attempts to unnecessarily prop up the domestic uranium industry. Under Section 20308, the U.S. Geological Survey is once again directed to reevaluate its list of critical minerals. However, under this bill, “fuel minerals” are now defined to specifically exclude uranium, making it an automatic candidate for consideration despite its dominant use as a fuel mineral.

Division C

Division C (as well as section 10008(e) of Division A) would weaken state and tribal authority under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, one of the law’s most important provisions empowering states. Native, rural, and socioeconomically disadvantaged communities have been fighting to stem the marginalization accompanying resource extraction for decades and Section 401 enables those communities to work through states and tribes to protect their waters.

States and authorized tribes depend on the Clean Water Act Section 401 certification process to ensure that projects requiring federal licenses and permits will not harm the waters within their borders—projects like dams, river alterations, wetland fills, and interstate pipelines. If this bill is enacted, state and tribal experts would lose a key oversight tool for activities that can threaten state and tribal investments in pollution control programs, fish recovery programs, temperature control mechanisms, minimum-flow requirements, and other essential activities. 

The bill seeks to limit states’ longstanding authority under Section 401 to broadly consider the impact of a project or activity on water quality. It would significantly curb Section 401’s express authority enabling states to make certification decisions based on requirements of state law, which would severely hamstring states’ and tribes’ ability to comply with laws they have adopted to maintain and improve the condition of their water bodies. As tribes often do not receive the required government-to-government consultation, they depend on Section 401 certification to ensure their waters remain protected. Rollbacks in this proposed legislation would severely restrict the usage of this tool, leaving tribes without one of the few tools they have to ensure their waters are healthy enough to support tribal rights and traditions.

Conclusion

H.R. 1 would encourage new fossil fuel production and infrastructure, locking us into increased extraction, high and volatile energy prices, and even greater profits for fossil fuel companies. It would undermine bedrock environmental laws through its short circuiting of government accountability, meaningful public input, and review. It would put the interests of industry ahead of the public. We urge all Members to vote NO on H.R. 1, and to instead prioritize efforts to meet the challenge of the climate crisis, secure our clean energy future, and protect public health, community voices, public lands, waters, and oceans.

Sincerely,

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— EPA won’t require full cleanup of Hunters Point, SF

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From Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility PEER

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, October 5, 2022
Contact:
Jeff Ruch jruch@peer.org (510) 213-7028

EPA Says Hunters Point Will Never Be Fully Cleaned  

EPA Plans to Ignore Prop P Mandate and Its Own Superfund Standards  

Oakland, CA —The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that Hunters Point Naval Shipyard cleanup will not be sufficient to allow unrestricted residential use, according to an agency memo sent to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Instead, the agency will rely upon caps and “land use restrictions” in violation of Proposition P, the overwhelmingly approved voter initiative demanding a full cleanup for the shipyard, a Superfund site since 1989.  

In meetings with top EPA officials in August and December 2021, PEER and allied groups asked for a commitment that the soil cleanup standards for Hunters Point be strict enough to allow for unrestricted residential use. They argued that the current soil cleanup standards violated EPA’s own Superfund guidance and would leave so much radiological waste that 1 in every 473 people would get cancer or the equivalent of getting a chest X-ray every other day for decades. 

Via an unsigned September 30, 2022 memo transmitted by Silvina Fonseca, a senior official with EPA’s Office of Land and Emergency Management which oversees Superfund, the agency demurred on the groups’ request to tighten the soil cleanup standards and would instead rely upon restrictions on allowed land uses at Hunters Point contrary to the demands of Proposition P, passed by more than 86% of voters in 2000, that the shipyard “be cleaned to a level which would enable the unrestricted use of the property – the highest standard for cleanup established by the [EPA]” – 

“Regarding your recommendation that soil radiological cleanup goals be based on an unrestricted use scenario consistent with the City/County of San Francisco’s Proposition P, broadly, EPA’s policy is to achieve protective remedies consistent with reasonably anticipated future land use. Institutional controls, like land use restrictions, are a common component of Superfund remedies nationwide to ensure protection of human health but also to ensure the integrity of remedies in the long term.” 

 “The bottom line is that EPA will not commit to the full cleanup of Hunters Point,” stated PEER Pacific Director Jeff Ruch, noting that this memo was nearly one year after EPA had promised to answer the groups’ August 2021 request. “As things stand now, the plan at Hunters Point is to pave over contamination rather than remove it.”  

The EPA revelation occurred just one day after EPA testified before the Board’s Government Audit and Oversight Committee last week but failed to disclose the EPA decision to not require a complete cleanup. This revelation creates a new confrontation regarding Hunters Point. The President of the Board of Supervisors has pledged there will be no transfer of Hunters Point land to the City without a “100% complete cleanup,” and EPA has now declared there will be no such cleanup. Tomorrow, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will resume consideration of a County Grand Jury report about rising groundwater and sea-level rise would wash much of the remaining Hunters Point contamination into San Francisco Bay. 

“On one hand, EPA talks about the importance of community input but on the other hand says it is free to ignore Prop P, one of the strongest expressions of community input imaginable,” added Ruch, pointing out this was supposed to be the biggest redevelopment in the city since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. “After more than 30 years of EPA supervision, Hunters Point is and will likely remain a radiological waste dump.”   

### 

Read the EPA memo 

Look at the Navy/EPA plan to leave contaminated soil onsite 

View the Grand Jury report 

Examine the lack of transparency on cleanup plans 

Look at the call for a national “garden pathway” cleanup standard

https://peer.org/epa-says-hunters-point-will-never-be-fully-cleaned/

— San Francisco: Eco-fraud by the bay

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From Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)
Summer 2018 newsletter

Hot Property…in More Ways than One.
Hunters Point is being touted as San Francisco’s biggest
redevelopment since the 1906 earthquake.

San Francisco currently has a severe case of real estate fever,
pricing all but the rich out of its new housing market. The city’s poorest quarter, Bayview-Hunters Point in its southeast corner, is the latest epicenter of development mania. But, there is a big problem.

The Hunters Point Naval Shipyard hosted nuclear weapons work, including supposed decontamination of Navy ships used in Pacific hydrogen bomb tests–which left the shipyard with ultra-high radioactivity. It has been an EPA Superfund site since 1989.

Now, this nearly 30-year radiation cleanup has run off the tracks. PEER has obtained documents showing that the remaining contamination is far, far worse than previously reported:
• Almost 100% of the soil samples taken by the U.S. Navy’s contractor Tetra Tech re-examined by the  EPA are “falsified,” subject to deliberate manipulation and “neither reliable nor defensible”;
• Parcels transferred to San Francisco under false pretenses as suitable remain deeply contaminated; and
• Most every Tetra Tech radiation survey on the shipyard’s buildings is bogus.

One of the things that makes these findings so remarkable is that the Navy was on notice for years that it had a major data meltdown on its hands yet is still trying to cook the books. Of course, neither the Navy nor EPA revealed any of this. There are still more shoes to drop and we intend to make Hunters Point the poster child for meaningful Superfund reform.

– – – – – – – –

Don’t Eat the Tomatoes
In areas of Hunters Point certified as clean, residents are subject to
a curious covenant: they may not grow food unless they import
soil. This raises the question of what is meant by “clean.” It is especially important with respect to radiation, a pollutant that keeps
on giving.

Click to access PEEReview_Summer_18.pdf

Posted under Fair Use Rules

— EPA tells public “no harmful health effects” from significant radiation exposure

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From Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility – PEER

For Immediate Release: Oct 16, 2017
Contact: Kirsten Stade (202) 265-7337

PRUITT’S EPA: LEARNING TO LOVE RADIATION

Public Told “No Harmful Health Effects” from Significant Radiation Exposure

Washington, DC — In a startling public health reversal, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is now declaring that radiation exposures equivalent to as many as 5,000 chest x-rays “usually result in no harmful health effects,” according to an agency document posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). For decades, EPA had taken the position that “There is no known safe amount of radiation” and is responsible for enforcing laws such as the Safe Drinking Water Act, which prohibits public radiation exposure at levels the agency now says is safe.

In a September 2017 document titled “Questions & Answers for Radiological and Nuclear Emergencies,” EPA declares, in a FAQ format, the following:

“How much radiation is safe? How much is considered low risk?
According to radiation safety experts, radiation exposures of 5–10 rem (5,000–10,000 mrem or 50–100 mSv) usually result in no harmful health effects, because radiation below these levels is a minor contributor to our overall cancer risk…”

EPA does not specify which “radiation safety experts” it is now relying upon but it is notable that –

  • The National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, and EPA itself, have long estimated that 10,000 millirems could be expected to induce excess cancers in every 86th person exposed;
  • Those health effects are for a one-time exposure but EPA is rolling out a new approach that would allow daily public exposure at highly elevated levels every day for up to a year; and
  • EPA’s longstanding scientific estimate is that 10,000 millirems would produce a risk at least 100 times higher than EPA’s acceptable risk range on radiation exposure to the public.

“I knew that under Scott Pruitt EPA is in climate denial but now it appears to be in radiation denial, as well,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, pointing out that EPA’s new advice contradicts its own 2007 advisory on the same topic which concludes “There is no known safe amount of radiation…the current body of scientific knowledge tells us this.” “This appears to be another case of the Pruitt EPA proclaiming conclusions exactly opposite the overwhelming weight of scientific research.”

EPA’s new approach is encapsulated in a policy with the paradoxical title of “Protective Action Guides” that allows public exposure to radioactivity following a nuclear release at levels many times the maximum limits of the Safe Drinking Water Act. It was finalized on the very last day of the Obama presidency but apparently has been embraced by the Trump team, as this health non-warning was issued just days ago.

“This signals that in the event of a Fukushima-type accident EPA will allow public consumption of radiation-contaminated drinking water for months,” added Ruch, noting that PEER is preparing to legally challenge the new drinking water Protective Action Guides. “Dr. Strangelove is alive and lurking somewhere in the corridors of EPA.”

###

Read the new EPA radiation exposure advisory

View summary of radiation exposure implications

See EPA side-by-side displays of contradictory 2007 and 2017 advisories

Look at EPA’s new radiation Protective Action Guide for drinking water 

https://www.peer.org/news/news-releases/pruitt%E2%80%99s-epa-learning-to-love-radiation.html

— San Francisco: EPA & Navy used wrong and unsafe standard for radioactive/toxins cleanup; EPA Superfund manager stonewalls at public meeting

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Lily Lee, EPA Cleanup Project Manager, Superfund Division
Interviewed on February 8, 2017 at a community meeting on the cleanup problems and fraud at the San Francisco Superfund site. The Superfund site is located at the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard and Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory.

Ms. Lee was interviewed by Labor Video Project, and then asked questions by Dan Hirsch, UCSC Executive Director on Environmental and Radioactive Policy, on the cleanup and EPA exposure guidelines. Her answers, as Superfund Cleanup Project Manager, are surprising.

This is why these agencies organize “poster” open house format meetings. They do not want to be asked these important questions in front of an audience, and they certainly don’t want to be forced to answer. Of course, as public employees, they don’t want to be seen as avoiding or stonewalling, and they certainly don’t want to go on the record admitting negligence or indifference in implementing rules.

In a meeting in another town on a public health issue, members of the public refused to put up with this style of format. They pulled chairs into the center of the room, sat down as a group, and demanded to have a presentation made to them as a whole. Rather than do that, the people in charge gathered up their materials and walked out. Unless forced, they will not submit to a regular meeting format.

https://youtu.be/J_YVou0kmQI

Interview of Lily Lee, EPA, begins at 29:13

This transcript begins toward the end of her interview with Labor Video Project

…

Lee: …We are here to say that I am doing my job every day the same way I have been and I will keep doing so to ensure that the cleanup here is meeting all of the health-based standards

LVP: I understand that 50% of the black population, African-American population, their children have asthma and other toxins from living out here. Is that of concern to you?

Lee: What we do here is that we set the standards for cleanup based on health-protective levels and then we ensure that when the Navy’s cleanup is happening, both during the process and when they’re done, that it meets our health-based standards to protect people from health conditions such as asthma.

[“Health-protective levels” and “health-based standards” — The EPA has repeatedly loosened exposure guidelines for radioactivity which they acknowledge increases the percentage of the population that will develop cancer. If the EPA uses these terms often enough, do they believe they will become accurate?

Her following interchange with Dan Hirsch reveals that she does not enforce EPA’s own standards, and she further says that steady exposure to radiation at the level of 25 millirem is something the body can cope with.]

Hirsch: Did the EPA’s criteria in effect at that time — I’m not talking about doing an analysis years later that it wasn’t that big of a mistake — why was the mistake made in the first place? Why did EPA allow clean-up standards that were contradicting EPA’s then current standards?

Lee: And again, I wasn’t there at that time and I tried to look for records about this information, and I’ve unfortunately not been able to find those records, but what I can tell you is that I am looking at the current standards, the current PRG calculator which is unfortunately in flux right now, and we are looking to see, revisit these standards to determine whether or not they would fall within the circle risk (?) range using site-specific factors.

Hirsch: I mean, you know you’re playing a game about this over and over again. The public was told you were cleaning up to a one in a million risk. You’ve seen EPA standards, but it turns out the Navy didn’t do that and used standards that are very much weaker than the ones that they said they would be using, and EPA said should be used at that time.

You’re now saying you’re seeing whether, okay it was a mistake but whether the mistake was mistake of a 300 fold. That isn’t very reassuring to the public.

I want to come back to the central issue. Do you agree that 25 millirems should not have been used, that was, even at the time, something the EPA said that was not acceptable and not protective.

Lee: I want to explain that some of the language that you saw in the footnotes referenced the 25 millrems but wasn’t necessarily the only standard that the Navy would be required to meet that

Hirsch (interrupting): In the tables, they actually estimate the dose for the other standard that they met, and for several of those, that was 25 millirem. So they actually did use 25 millirem. They shouldn’t have

Lee (interrupting) ___waste?

Hirsch: And structures.

Lee: Okay, and structures.

Hirsch: And they’re not supposed to according to EPA guidelines.

That’s 12 chest x-rays a year. They’re saying it’s okay for people to get a chest x-ray a month from the moment of conception to the moment of birth. Even the EPA says that level of radiation is outside the upper limit of your acceptable risk range.

So do you concede that they used a cleanup number that EPA said, even at the time, should not have been used?

Lee: So, I would like to talk about the chest x-ray which is an acute dose meaning a dose that people would get in one situation during the chest x-ray itself as being different from what’s relevant here at the base which would be a dose that would be over time continuously across year. So that wouldn’t be something

Hirsch (interrupting): Your own agency says there is no difference. EPA formally said that getting a chest x-ray a month is no different than getting a thirtieth of a chest x-ray every day for those months. That there is no… It’s linear, so the rate at which you get it doesn’t matter.

You know that’s your own agency’s official position.

Lee: So, if you can get a small dose that’s over a period of time, your body does have some recovery and

Hirsch (interrupting): Excuse me, are you saying that EPA believes that radiation is potentially good for you – the hormesis theory? Or that, or are you also saying that the risk is not linear with dose? Because the official position of EPA is just the opposite of what you’ve just said.

Lee: So, thank you for sharing your perspective. I am saying that those kinds of exposures are different, and I am also saying as I have said before that we are looking at the original standards to see if under the current version of the PRG calculator which is going to be changed soon, that that will still fall within the national contingency plan superfund regulation range of acceptable.

Hirsch: I want you to answer once and for all whether the standards that they chose were consistent or inconsistent with EPA’s guidance in effect at the time they chose them. Not whether going back years later and trying to say whether it was a 300 fold mistake.

Was the standard chosen by the Navy and approved by the EPA inconsistent with EPA’s Superfund guidance in effect at the time?

Lee: And I’d let you know that I don’t have information about what the standards were in effect at the time and I’m going to go back and look at that information some more. I’ve done some research

Hirsch (interrupting): ___the 25 millirem was back then considered unacceptable? Back in 2013? Do you not know the ___ in 2013 is not acceptable? So why was 25 millirem allowed to be used?

Lee: As I said, we are going to be checking the current version of EPA calculator

Hirsch (interrupting): Why was a cleanup standard allowed to be used that was not consistent with your guidance? I’m not talking about whether a post doc analysis as to whether it is too huge a mistake. I’m talking about whether it was a mistake. 25 millirem, is it not today, and wasn’t it in 2013, outside the level that EPA said was protective? It was a level that EPA said should not be used for cleanup standards. Am I not right about that?

Lee: I will go back and check to make sure.

Hirsch: Don’t you know that 25 millirem EPA has always, has said for long periods of time and certainly in the last years, is not to be used at Superfund sites?

Lee: I have seen that guidance information before.

Hirsch: Alright. Well, then, let’s just admit, can’t you, that they used a cleanup standard that was incompatible with Superfund guidance in effect at the time. Can you admit that?

Lee: As I said, I will go back and check that information.

— Cover-up of radioactive and toxic waste at San Francisco; whistleblowers fired; 25 millirem used for testing in violation of EPA standards

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Video by the Labor Video Project
53:53

The 420-acre shipyard was one of the nation’s most notorious Superfund sites, home to a federal nuclear program begun in 1946 that included a secret laboratory [Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory] where tests were conducted to determine the effects of radiation on living organisms. Military equipment and ships contaminated by atomic bomb explosions were kept at Hunters Point, and the grounds were polluted with petroleum fuels, pesticides, heavy metals, PCBs, organic compounds and asbestos. — SF Chronicle, February 7, 2017

On February 8, 2017, government agencies held a  meeting on the state of clean up at San Francisco’s former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. It was an open format”  meeting with poster boards and reps scattered around the room, forcing people to individually talk with reps. This was done instead of a real meeting before the whole audience — presentations by the various oversight agencies and questions and answers from audience which would put them on record for their remarks and which everyone could hear. “A government propaganda show,” said a community advocate. This format was deliberately chosen for lack of accountability.

The Navy representative refused to answer a request to hold a meeting with presentations and debate.

Government representatives included:

Nina Bacey, California Dept of Toxic Substances Control
Amy Browntell, SF Department of Public Health
Lily Lee, EPA Cleanup Project Manager, Superfund Division
Zach?, U.S. Navy
Malia Cohen, SF Board of Supervisors

Community advocates who spoke on camera included:

Marie Harris, Green Action
Bradley Angel, Green Action
Dr. Ray Tomkins, environmental scientist
Daniel Hirsch, UCSC Executive Director on Environmental and      Nuclear Policy; Founder, Committee to Bridge the Gap

Comments and interviews:

3:10 Interview of Nina Bacey, California DTSC

16:13 Interview of Amy Brownell, SF Public Health

18:37 Marie Harris, Green Action

20:10 Bradley Angel, Green Action

22:11 Dr. Ray Tomkins, environmental scientist — on the testing

29:13 Interview of Lily Lee, EPA

35:10 Daniel Hirsch (UCSC) questions Lily Lee (EPA)

41:40 Interview of Malia Cohen, SF Supervisor

45:07 Bradley Angel, Green Action

From the Labor Video Project

Cover up blows up at SF Hunters Point Naval Shipyard “Clean-up” Meeting, 2-7-17

At a meeting at San Francisco Hunters Point superfund site, the US Navy, EPA, California Department of Toxic Substances and San Francisco Department of Public Health tried to explain what they are doing about the systemic falsification of testing at the highly contaminated site. There has been on Federal, state or local criminal investigation of the intimidation, workplace bullying and termination of health and safety testers and whistleblowers at Test America and Tetra Tech. The US Navy also said they are still employing Tetra Tech around the United States.

Continue reading →

— Details on the EPA plan; agency hid proposed increases to “avoid confusion”; PAG levels 100s-1000s times Clean Drinking Water standards

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From Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

For Immediate Release: Dec 22, 2016
Contact: Kirsten Stade (202) 265-7337

RADICAL DRINKING WATER RADIATION RISE CONFIRMED IN EPA PLAN

EPA Hid Planned Exposure Levels 1,000s of Times Safe Drinking Water Act Limits

Posted on Dec 22, 2016 | Tags: Drinking Water, EPA

Washington, DC — In the last days of the Obama Administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is about to dramatically increase allowable public exposure to radioactivity to levels thousands of times above the maximum limits of the Safe Drinking Water Act, according to documents the agency surrendered in a federal lawsuit brought by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). These radical rollbacks cover the “intermediate period” following a radiation release and could last for up to several years. This plan is in its final stage of approval.

The documents indicate that the plan’s rationale is rooted in public relations, not public health. Following Japan’s Fukushima meltdown in 2011, EPA’s claims that no radioactivity could reach the U.S. at levels of concern were contradicted by its own rainwater measurements showing contamination from Fukushima throughout the U.S. well above Safe Drinking Water Act limits. In reaction, EPA prepared new limits 1000s of times higher than even the Fukushima rainwater because “EPA experienced major difficulties conveying to the public that the detected levels…were not of immediate concern for public health.”

When EPA published for public comment the proposed “Protective Action Guides,” it hid proposed new concentrations for all but four of the 110 radionuclides covered, and refused to reveal how much they were above Safe Drinking Water Act limits. It took a lawsuit to get EPA to release documents showing that –

  • The proposed PAGs for two radionuclides (Cobalt-60 and Calcium-45) are more than 10,000 times Safe Drinking Water Act limits. Others are hundreds or thousands of times higher;
  • According to EPA’s own internal analysis, some concentrations are high enough to deliver a lifetime permissible dose in a single day. Scores of other radionuclides would be allowed at levels that would produce a lifetime dose in a week or a month;
  • The levels proposed by the Obama EPA are higher than what the Bush EPA tried to adopt–also in its final days. That plan was ultimately withdrawn; and
  • EPA hid the proposed increases from the public so as to “avoid confusion,” intending to release the higher concentrations only after the proposal was adopted. The documents also reveal that EPA’s radiation division even hid the new concentrations from other divisions of EPA that were critical of the proposal, requiring repeated efforts to get them to even be disclosed internally.

“To cover its embarrassment after being caught dissembling about Fukushima fallout on American soil, EPA is pursuing a justification for assuming a radioactive fetal position even in cases of ultra-high contamination,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has called for the PAGs to be withdrawn on both public health and legal grounds. “The Safe Drinking Water Act is a federal law; it cannot be nullified or neutered by regulatory ‘guidance.’”

Despite claims of transparency, EPA solicited public comment on its plan even as it hid the bulk of the plan’s effects. Nonetheless, more than 60,000 people filed comments in opposition.

“The Dr. Strangelove wing of EPA does not want this information shared with many of its own experts, let alone the public,” added Ruch, noting that PEER had to file a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to force release of exposure limits. “This is a matter of public health that should be promulgated in broad daylight rather than slimed through in the witching hours of a departing administration.”

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View ultra-high proposed PAG allowable concentrations

(and explanation for the chart)

See briefing memo explaining why EPA wants water PAGs

Read letter of opposition from New York Attorney General

Revisit PEER lawsuit

— Obama administration final gift: EPA adopts huge increase in allowable drinking water contamination

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From Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

For Immediate Release: Jan 19, 2017
Contact: Kirsten Stade (202) 265-7337

FIG LEAVES NO COVER FOR DRINKING WATER RADIATION ROLLBACK

Final Approval for Radical Radiation Rise in Water Supplies after Nuclear Release

Posted on Jan 19, 2017

Washington, DC — In a not so lovely parting gift, the Obama administration today formally adopted a policy of allowing public exposure to radioactivity following a nuclear release at levels many times the maximum limits of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Last-minute modifications ladled in by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address public health concerns afford scant comfort, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

The “Protective Action Guide (PAG) for Drinking Water after a Radiological Incident” was finalized today by its publication in the Federal Register. This policy lets the public consume water containing radiation at levels hundreds and thousands of times what is permitted for the more than 100 chemical elements that can emit radiation (radionuclides) under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

“Since this policy authorizes leaving people in contaminated zones and not providing them bottled or other potable drinking water for long periods, it should be called a ‘Protective Inaction Guide,’” stated Jeff Ruch, Executive Director of PEER which had to sue EPA to force release of information specifying what levels of which radionuclides EPA would permit public exposure to. “Under this policy, affected Americans would be guinea pigs in an untimed radiation experiment.”

In its final action, the EPA claims to have tightened the policy with respect to duration of public exposure, the nature of the triggering event and protections for infants and nursing mothers. PEER disputes the accuracy and efficacy of these supposed mitigations for the following reasons:

  • Duration. These rollbacks cover the “intermediate period” after the radiation release has been brought under control (not necessarily stopped but no longer growing). EPA now contends that this period may last for “week to months but not longer than a year.” However, the PAG itself states that the early, intermediate and late “phases cannot be represented by precise periods of time” and suggests their duration be viewed as “in terms of activities, rather than time spans.” Nor does EPA specify what happens if this intermediate period extends beyond a year;
  • Trigger. EPA now says application of the PAG is limited to “nationally significant radiological contamination incidents” but does not define the term. The PAG itself states that it covers “a wide range of incidents,” not just reactor accidents but also spills. By contrast, the EPA website FAQ posting says the PAG applies in “any radiological emergency”; and
  • Sensitive Populations. The PAG allows 500 millirems (mrem) of radiation exposure for the general population but only 100 mrem for the most sensitive populations (e.g., infants, children, pregnant women and nursing women). But EPA never explains how non-nursing children will get only one-fifth the radiation their parents receive in situations lacking clean drinking water.

“EPA’s qualifications tacitly concede the dangers to public health but do little to solve them,” added Ruch, noting that PEER is considering a lawsuit to nullify the PAG. “Among other legal vulnerabilities, this policy flies in the face of the anti-backsliding requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act.”

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View the Federal Register notice

Examine redline showing recent EPA rewrites

See EPA’s public relations motivation for the PAG

Look at the full Drinking Water PAG

Read the non-explanatory EPA blog posting

http://www.peer.org/news/news-releases/fig-leaves-no-cover-for-drinking-water-radiation-rollback.html

— Tell EPA — Stop dangerous radioactive drinking water

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From the Nuclear Information and Research Service

November 21, 2016

In July, thousands of us took action to stop dangerous new radiation guidance for drinking water. The EPA refused to listen, and now this guidance could be approved anytime–unless we act now!

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy is on the verge of approving radiation levels hundreds and thousands of times higher than currently allowed in drinking water and at cleaned-up Superfund sites. These mis-named “Protective” Action Guides for Drinking Water (Water PAGs)  dramatically INCREASE allowable radioactivity in water. Enormous levels of invisible but deadly radioactive contamination would be permitted in drinking water for weeks, months or even years after a nuclear accident or “incident.” The PAGs are not for the immediate phase after a radioactive release but the next phase–which could last for years–when local residents may return home to contaminated water and not know the danger.

Take action now: Protect drinking water from dangerous radiation levels!

There are two quick actions to take today:

  1. Tell your EPA Regional Administrator (see map and list below) to ask EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy why she is raising radiation levels allowed in drinking water.
  2. Send a message to Administrator McCarthy yourself asking her not to approve these dangerous radiation levels in drinking water.

We have stopped PAGs like these from being approved before–and we can do it again. EPA insiders attempted to push these dangerous guides through in the waning days of the Bush administration, and public pressure like this got the agency to pull them back. Now we have to do it again!

Click here to take action now.

Thanks for all you do!

Diane D’Arrigo
Radioactive Waste Project Director

More Information

The PAGs protect the polluters from liability, not the public from radiation. CHECK out this NBC4 News Story.

These PAGs are a bad legacy. Approving them now is a deceptive way to circumvent the Safe Drinking Water Act, Superfund cleanup levels, and EPA’s history of limiting the allowable risk of cancer to 1 in a million people exposed (or at most 1 in 10,000 in worst-case scenarios).

The PAGs don’t just affect water!

  • They markedly relax long-term cleanup standards.
  • They set very high and outdated radiation levels allowable in food.
  • They eliminate requirements to evacuate people vulnterable to high radiation doses to the thyroid and skin.
  • They eliminate limits on lifetime whole body radiation exposures.
  • And they recommend dumping radioactive waste in municipal garbage dumps not designed for such waste.

Outrageously, EPA is expanding the kinds of radioactive ‘incidents’ that would be allowed to give off these dangerously high levels and doses. PAGs originally applied to huge nuclear disasters like the nuclear power meltdowns at Fukushima or a dirty bomb BUT NOW they could ALSO apply to less dramatic releases from nuclear power reactors or radio-pharmaceutical spills, nuclear transport accidents, fires or any radioactive “incident” that “warrant[s] consideration of protective action.”

EPA REGIONS and REGIONAL ADMINISTRATORS

Region 1 Administrator Curt Spalding
(617) 918-1010
spalding.curt@epa.gov;

Region 2 Administrator Judith Enck
(212) 637-5000
enck.judith@epa.gov

Region 3 Administrator Cecil Rodrigues
(215) 814-2683
Rodrigues.cecil@Epa.gov

Region 4 Administrator Heather McTeer Toney
(404) 562-9900
McTeertoney.heather@Epa.gov

Region 5 Acting Administrator Robert A. Kaplan
(312) 886-3000
Kaplan.robert@Epa.gov

Region 6 Administrator Ron Curry
(214) 665-2100
Curry.ron@Epa.gov

Region 7 Administrator Mark Hague
(913) 551-7006
Hague.mark@Epa.gov

Region 8 Administrator Shaun McGrath
(303) 312-6532
McGrath.shaun@Epa.gov

Region 9 Acting Administrator Alexis Strauss
(415) 947-8000
Strauss.alexis@Epa.gov

Region 10 Administrator Dennis McLerran
(206) 553-1234
mclerran.dennis@epa.gov

For more info, contact Diane D’Arrigo at NIRS: dianed@nirs.org or 301-270-6477

http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/5502/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1378216

http://www.nirs.org

— Nigerians, contact the Navajo Nation about uranium mining safety claims — $$millions spent for cleanup and no end in sight

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From Albuquerque Journal

Feds reach settlement with Navajos over uranium mine cleanup

By Susan Montoya Bryan / Associated Press
Tuesday, July 19th, 2016

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The federal government has reached another settlement with the Navajo Nation that will clear the way for cleanup work to continue at abandoned uranium mines across the largest American Indian reservation in the U.S.

The target includes 46 sites that have been identified as priorities due to radiation levels, their proximity to people and the threat of contamination spreading. Cleanup is supposed to be done at 16 abandoned mines while evaluations are planned for another 30 sites and studies will be done at two more to see if water supplies have been compromised.

The agreement announced by the U.S. Justice Department settles the tribe’s claims over the costs of engineering evaluations and cleanups at the mines.

The federal government has already spent $100 million to address abandoned mines on Navajo lands and a separate settlement reached with DOJ last year was worth more than $13 million. However, estimates for the future costs for cleanup at priority sites stretch into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could not immediately pinpoint the worth of the latest settlement.

Assistant Attorney General John C. Cruden, who is with the DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said the latest settlement marks the second phase of ensuring cleanup of mines that pose the most significant public health risks.

“Addressing the legacy of uranium mining on Navajo lands reflects the commitment of the Justice Department and the Obama administration to fairly and honorably resolve the historic grievances of American Indian tribes and build a healthier future for their people,” Cruden said in a statement.

Navajo leaders have been pushing for cleanup for decades, specifically for the removal of contaminated soils and other materials rather than burying and capping the waste on tribal land. Since 2005, they’ve had a ban on uranium mining.

Over four decades, some 4 million tons of uranium ore were extracted from mines on Navajo lands with the federal government being the sole purchaser from the 1940s through the 1960s, when commercial sales began. The mining operations stretched from western New Mexico into Arizona and southern Utah.

Decades of uranium mining have left behind a legacy of contamination that includes one of the nation’s worst disasters involving radioactive waste: a spill in the Church Rock area that sent more than 1,100 tons of mining waste and millions of gallons of toxic water into an arroyo and downstream to the Rio Puerco. The result was a Superfund declaration.

Advocates have called for more studies on the health effects of continued exposure to the contamination resulting from the mining sites, and some have criticized the slow pace of cleanup and the lack of adequate funding for the work that needs to be done.

In a report submitted to New Mexico lawmakers last year, a team of consultants estimated it would take EPA more than a century to fund the removal of contamination at just 21 of the highest priority sites.

In a letter sent last month to President Barack Obama and EPA leadership, Navajo President Russell Begaye said the abandoned uranium mines project continues to struggle with outreach, coordination and trust issues.

EPA officials say in the last decade, the agency has remediated nearly four dozen homes, conducted field studies at all 523 mines on Navajo lands and provided safe drinking water to more than 3,000 families. Stabilization and cleanup work also has been done at nine abandoned mines.

Feds reach settlement with Navajos over uranium mine cleanup