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USA: Velázquez Bill Would Bring Green Rooftops to Public Schools
Forward-thinking Congresswoman, Nydia Velázquez. @rep_velazquez recently introduced the Public School Green Rooftop Program Act, legislation that will establish a grant program to fund the installation of green roof systems on public school buildings
July 24, 2020
Washington, DC –If Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY) has her way, schools may become fertile ground for learning about the environment and sustainability. The New York Representative has authored a bill allocating federal resources for the adoption of green roofs at public elementary and secondary schools, known as the Public School Green Rooftop Program. The bill has the potential to open up a world of environmental and educational benefits for students and the broader community. The legislation would be especially beneficial to urban areas where access to green space is commonly limited.
“There is no better place to begin teaching our children about conservation than our public schools,” said Velázquez. “However, their education does not need to be confined to the classroom. These roofs allow students to directly engage with sustainable practices and see for themselves the impact that environmentally conscious initiatives can have on their hometowns and neighborhoods. By exposing them to these ideas early on in their education, we forge a path to a cleaner, healthier community.”
Under this program, the Department of Energy will implement a grant program for the installation and maintenance of green roof systems. Green roofs are a sustainable, durable method of improving a building’s carbon footprint, as well as a place where exploration by teachers and students of pressing environmental and agricultural issues can take root. Children living in urban areas will have the chance to see these practices firsthand, an opportunity they are not often afforded. The roofs, according to the EPA, provide a notable advantage to urban communities, where greenery is often hard to come by.
This bill follows a legacy of success in other states. According to estimates from the Missouri educational system, green roofs can save a single school up to $41,587 a year in electricity costs alone. These roofs will cut district energy and maintenance costs substantially. A regularly maintained green roof has a longevity of forty years, as opposed to a standard roof’s ten to fifteen. Additionally, the bill grants maintenance funding for up to four years after the installation of every roof.
Teaching outdoors may also confer an additional benefit: open air schoolrooms may mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus. In the 1900s, schools utilized an open-air classroom to prevent students from contracting tuberculosis. Today, this measure has seen support from elementary school teachers who fear that sending teachers and children back into school buildings may pose a danger.
“While we navigate this year’s public health crisis, we need to ensure that we take careful steps towards reopening, with safety as a priority,” asserted Velázquez. “Green rooftops can answer to the call for safer schooling: additional outdoor space provides an opportunity to increase social distancing and open air. This may be one of the ways we can continue to give children the education they need, safely.”
The bill has received resounding support, with endorsements from notable organizations such as National Resources Defense Council, UPROSE, The Nature Conservancy, New York City Audubon, Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, Green Roof Researcher Alliance, Williamsburg Greenpoint Parents for our Public Schools (WAGPOPS), The HOPE Program, Sustainable South Bronx, The New School Urban Systems Labs, Alive Structures, New York Sun Works, Riverkeeper, Red Hook Rise, Voces Ciudadanas de Sunset Park, Red Hook Rise, New York League of Conservation Voters, Resilient Red Hook, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, NYC H20, the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, Brooklyn Grange, El Puente, Brooklyn Greenroof, Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation, St. Nicks Alliance, New York Environmental Law & Justice Project, Environmental Justice Initiative, National Lawyers Guild - Environmental Justice Committee and Brooklyn Community Board 6.
“This critical legislation will give other public schools, especially those communities historically overburdened by ecological discrimination, the opportunity to reduce their building's environmental footprint significantly and enhance learning opportunities as our green roof has demonstrated at P.S. 41 in Manhattan,” said Vicki Sando, STEM Teacher and Green Roof Founder of P.S. 41 in New York City.
“We at NYC Audubon and the Green Roof Researchers Alliance are thrilled about this legislation and would like to thank Congresswoman Velázquez for her commitment to the natural world. The Public School Green Rooftop Program will result in the growth of critical habitat for wildlife, make the US more resilient in the face of climate change, and provide our youth the opportunity to experience conservation and environmental science first hand,” said Dustin Partridge of the Green Roof Researchers Alliance and Molly Adams of New York City Audubon.
“Passage of this bill will provide exceptional green roof benefits to children, their parents, and teachers at a time when access to safe, green space is very important to communities, and the need to redress the racial injustices is greater than ever,” said Steven W. Peck, GRP, Founder and President, Green Roofs for Healthy Cities.
“The HOPE Program, with extensive experience building and maintaining green roofs through our social enterprise, fully supports the Public School Green Rooftop program. This initiative will provide cleaner air for children in schools and the surrounding communities; contribute to ambitious local sustainability goals; and has the potential to provide living wage employment opportunities to the communities most impacted by the current crisis. It's a win, win, win,” said Jennifer Mitchell, Executive Director of the HOPE Program.
“Voces Ciudadanas is grateful for Congresswoman Velázquez’s leadership in introducing ‘the Public School Green Rooftop Program’ bill and hopes that Congress passes this bill that prioritizes long-term green investments into our communities that are beneficial on so many fronts including encouraging multidisciplinary learning, facilitating meaningful parent involvement, providing opportunities for physical activity, and promoting healthy eating,” said Victoria Becerra-Quiroz of Voces Ciudadanas de Sunset Park.
The bill, H.R. 7693, has been referred to the House Committee on Education and Labor.
A pdf version of the bill can be found here.
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Is The Future of Farming Indoors?
The global population is predicted to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, and to feed everyone, it’s estimated that global food production will need to increase by up to 70% in the next 30 years
July 14, 2020
Brian Kateman Contributor
I write about sustainable and ethical technology and consumer trends.
The global population is predicted to reach 9.7 billion by 2050 and to feed everyone, it’s estimated that global food production will need to increase by up to 70% in the next 30 years.
There are many challenges to overcome before fears of a worldwide food shortage can be allayed, including rising temperatures and more frequent droughts caused by global warming. These obstacles are making traditional farming methods increasingly inefficient and unpredictable.
Traditional farming has also been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the FAO, border closures, quarantines and disruptions to supply chains are limiting some people's access to food, especially in countries hit hard by the virus or already affected by high levels of food insecurity.
There’s an emerging consensus that the agriculture industry needs to adapt to use less water and chemicals, make crops less vulnerable to changes in the climate, and produce more reliable yields. Part of the answer may lie in the emerging start-ups growing produce in indoor environments, where growing conditions can be better managed.
The indoor farming technology market was valued at $23.75 billion in 2016, and is projected to reach $40.25 billion by 2022. Yields are typically much higher than traditional farming methods. Crops from indoor farming are grown in three dimensions, rather than two – and can be grown all year round, independent of external weather conditions.
Square Roots next-generation farmers growing basil. CRAIG VANDER LENDE
One of Square Roots’ indoor farms, for example, produces the same amount of food as a two- or three-acre farm annually, just from 340 square feet. This yield is achieved by growing plants at 90 degrees, and by using artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure the environment is optimal for each specific plant, including the day and night temperatures and amount of CO2 needed.
“Our indoor farms are living biosystems, constantly adapting to maintain optimal climates for growing specific crops. We’re then able to understand how changes in the climate can impact yield taste and texture,” says Tobias Peggs, Square Roots’ chief executive.
Not only could indoor farming help adapt to a warming planet, but it has the potential to help slow down climate change by being more sustainable – using less water and producing fewer emissions. While estimates vary widely, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, agriculture accounted for 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions in 2018; it is also highly dependent on, and a pollutant of, water.
Square Roots’ pop-up farms are built in shipping containers in cities, often in parking lots. They serve local communities, which means reduced emissions compared to traditional agriculture, which often involves transporting food much further. For example, it has 10 farms in Brooklyn that serve 100 retail stores all within five miles of the farm.
At the Plenty headquarters in South San Francisco, leafy greens use up one percent of the land and five percent of the water compared to traditional outdoor farms, says Matt Barnard, the start-up’s Chief Executive Officer, and Co-Founder.
AeroFarms’ indoor farm in New Jersey grows greens including baby kale, baby arugula, and baby watercress using 95% less water than conventional agriculture on just one percent of the land required. The crops grow under LED light with no pesticides and a fraction of the fertilizer used on traditional farms.
AeroFarms environmentally-controlled indoor farms can grow all year round independent of climate and ... [+] AEROFARMS
Marketing director Alina Zolotareva says being able to produce have ready-to-eat produce that doesn’t require rinsing helps to reduce water usage.
“This is a transformational innovation for agriculture at large,” she says, “as access to fresh water for growing food is one of the most pressing challenges of our time.”
As well as fewer miles and less water, indoor farming doesn’t require pesticides. This is better for the environment and human health as it eliminates the risk of water contamination due to run-off, and is in line with increasing consumer demand for non-GMO produce.
Plenty eliminates the need for pesticides with LED lights, which are synced with the crop’s growth, Barnard says, to provide the ideal spectrums and exposure and minimize energy usage.
“Our sensor system ensures each plant gets exactly the amount of purified water it needs, and any excess water is recycled through a closed-loop irrigation system resulting in greatly reduced water consumption and zero waste,” he says.
Nanobubbles super-saturates the water with oxygen, making the plant roots healthier. This promotes ... [+]
MOLEAER
Other farms are using nanobubble technology, such as Moleaer, which has allowed more than 100 indoor farms to connect their irrigation systems to generators that provide oxygen via sub-micron gas-containing cavities to the plant’s roots to provide chemical-free water. These nanobubbles result in healthier roots, more resilient plants, and increasing crop yields, says Nick Dyner, CEO of Moleaer.
“Our oxygen transfer efficiency provides the most cost-effective solution to elevate oxygen levels in the water, which in turn promotes beneficial bacteria and root development,” he says.
The company is also working on a new NASA-approved space farming research project, exploring how astronauts on the International Space Station can grow their own food in microgravity using nanobubble technology.
There are concerns that it’s an expensive investment, but Dyner says Moleaer has various systems so it’s accessible to all sizes of indoor farms, high- and low-tech. Some products do, however, require growers to connect an external source of oxygen, which must come from a gas supply company or an onsite oxygen generator, which Moleaer provides.
“In many cases, traditional farmers may have more to gain by using our technology, since the capital investment is significantly less than the most advanced growing technologies available today, which are often out of a typical farmer’s budget,” Dyner says.
“Nanobubble technology is a cost-effective, chemical-free, and scalable solution that allows growers to increase crop yields and shorten cultivation time - which will be much needed to feed our growing population in the future.”
Peggs says Square Roots is also focused on ensuring its technology makes farming an accessible career path for young people who live in urban areas.
“If you’re a new young farmer at Square Roots, our app will guide you through what to do; what’s growing, what state is in it, what do we need to do today based on where things are in the growth cycle. Through our app and our training program we’re able to bring new people into our team, even folks with zero horticulture experience, and get them ready to go in about six weeks.”
Indoor farming is putting the youth back in agriculture. PLENTY
But despite being an emerging option for youth in the city, Barnard predicts most will remain traditional farmers.
“The world still needs the field and will need the field forever. We support the field by growing in addition to the field. Over time, [indoor] farming systems will become more accessible and affordable. Both field and indoor farming will be necessary to support global food demand.”
Viraj Puri, Co-Founder, and CEO of Gotham Greens, a pioneer in urban indoor agriculture that operates over 500,000 square feet greenhouses in 5 U.S. states, echoes this sentiment: “Growing produce indoors certainly has an increasing role to play in the future of sustainable food production. While indoor farming may not represent the future of all fresh produce production, for certain types of crops such as tomatoes, cucumbers, leafy greens, and herbs, it will become more prevalent. Customers are increasingly recognizing the reliability, consistency, and high quality of greenhouse-grown produce that’s grown in close proximity to large population centers using fewer natural resources. Other agricultural commodities like grains or fruits or root vegetables, however, can’t yet be produced.”
However, Dyner predicts that, eventually, the majority of agriculture will move to indoors, in vertical farms— the practice of growing crops in vertically stacked layers—in urban areas.
“These settings enable traditional farming to shift to controlled growing conditions, using new technology and automation, and reducing the risk of exposure to harsh climate conditions,” he says.
Plenty's goal is to build vertical farms in urban hubs and distribute each farm’s harvest locally ... [+]
PLENTY
Start-ups like Square Roots, Plenty, and AeroFarms currently practice vertical farming, which is a form of indoor farming that relies on artificial lighting such as LEDs instead of drawing on natural sunlight.
Other indoor farming companies like Gotham Greens grow produce in high-tech glass-clad greenhouses that primarily rely on natural sunlight for plant photosynthesis. According to Puri: “vertical farming is a more nascent technology within the indoor farming sector and the costs of running a vertical farm with artificial lighting and air conditioning is currently not as cost-effective as relying on natural sunlight in greenhouses.”
Gotham Greens takes a different approach, relying on natural sunlight rather than the artificial ... [+]
GOTHAM GREENS AND JULIE MCMAHON
“Greenhouse indoor farming technology has been in operation globally for 20 to 30 years and is proven to be commercially viable. That being said, the costs around artificial lighting and other vertical farming technologies have been coming down significantly in the past few years,” he adds.
Nonetheless, indoor farm technology start-ups, broadly speaking, don’t see themselves as disruptive, but as being on the same side of traditional farms, for the wider cause.
“The common enemy is the industrial food system, shipping food from one part of the world to the other, rather than locally produced food,” Peggs says.
Indoor farms don’t work in competition with each other, either; they work collaboratively by forming a network that shares data. For example, AeroFarms is collecting data on a research project with the non-profit Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research to understand the sensory and nutritional characteristics of leafy greens for the benefit of the entire agriculture industry.
However traditional and AI-based indoor farming work together in the future, there’s little doubt that indoor farming is helping to meet the needs of a growing global population and support traditional farming, which is both at the mercy of and exacerbating a warming planet. Only one method will find itself in space – but there’s space for them both.
I am co-founder and president of the Reducetarian Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing consumption of animal products.
Lead Photo: The world’s current agricultural practices are unsustainable, and indoor farming may offer solutions ... [+] PLENTY
Brookwood Teacher Wins National Award From EPA
Carrie Settles Livers is the only teacher in Georgia to be recognized with the Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators, which recognizes teachers from kindergarten through 12th grade for using the environment as a context for learning for their students
Brookwood High School science teacher Carrie Settles Livers, right, helps seniors Ellie Schutter, center, and Michael Hopf tend to plants on Thursday at Brookwood High School. Staff Photo: Taylor Denman
Carrie Settles Livers
A Brookwood science teacher who operates an aquaponics lab in her classroom was recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency for her innovative approach to teaching environmental science.
Carrie Settles Livers is the only teacher in Georgia to be recognized with the Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators, which recognizes teachers from kindergarten through 12th grade for using the environment as a context for learning for their students.
Settles Livers receives a Presidential Award plaque and an award of up to $2,500 to be used to further professional development in environmental education along with a congratulatory letter from a senior official from EPA and the White House. Gwinnett County Public Schools will will also receive up to $2,500 to fund environmental educational activities and programs.
Up to two teachers from each of EPA’s 10 regions, from different states, were selected to receive this award. The White House Council on Environmental Quality in partnership with the EPA aims to honor, support and encourage educators who incorporate environmental education in their classrooms and teaching methods.
In a Natural Resource Management Course, Brookwood students operate an aquaponics lab and harvest the produce with an entrepreneurial mindset. The produce has been produced and sold at events such as the Lilburn Farmers Market to help raise money for other academic experiences.
“Instead of just having a school garden, we decided we want to fuse (Ag-STEM) with the entrepreneur mindset,” she told the Daily Post earlier this year. “I wanted this program to be sustainable to have seed money to feed people year after year.”
During the aquaponics project, her students learn about the importance of sustainable farming practices and how agricultural farming using scientific concepts of genetics, botany, physics, and environmental engineering can help tackle issues that contribute to food deserts in their community.
The course also provides students with examples of career opportunities in environmental science. The National Sales Director from Organic Valley Farms spoke to students about the company’s sustainable business model. The Chief Executive Officer of Hatponics, which produced the equipment for Brookwood’s lab, shared the story of his startup company.
A representative from the University of Georgia’s extension center discussed fall gardening practices, water consulting firm contracted by Gwinnett County spoke about water conservation and the City of Snellville’s Economic Development Advisor spoke about his honey bee farm and concerns of colony collapse disorder.
Settles Livers has also been named to the University of Georgia’s 40 Under 40 list, was a recipient of a Leavey Award for Excellence in Private Enterprise Education and has organized applications for grants to fund Brookwood environmental science projects.
Six US States Sue EPA Over Pesticide
“A chlorpyrifos ban is long overdue given the overwhelming evidence that says this pesticide harms brain development in children,” Tracy Gregoire, a project coordinator at the Learning Disabilities Association of America, said in a statement
Health Concerns Not Addressed
Several states sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday over the agency's decision to allow further use of a pesticide linked to brain damage. California, New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Maryland and Vermont argued in court documents that chlorpyrifos, a common pesticide, should be banned due to the dangers associated with it.
Earthjustice filed a similar lawsuit in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of groups advocating for environmentalists, farmworkers and people with learning disabilities.
“A chlorpyrifos ban is long overdue given the overwhelming evidence that says this pesticide harms brain development in children,” Tracy Gregoire, a project coordinator at the Learning Disabilities Association of America, said in a statement. “We are hopeful the courts will side with children who are now being exposed to irreparable, yet preventable harm.”
Chlorpyrifos, known on the market as Lorsban, is used on a wide variety of crops, including corn and cranberries. Farmers have called it the last line of defense against certain insects. But it has also been linked to learning and memory issues and prolonged nerve and muscle stimulation.
The EPA banned chlorpyrifos for household use in 2001 over concerns it would cause brain damage in children. EPA’s decision to allow continued use of chlorpyrifos came last month, the result of a court-ordered deadline to regulate the pesticide prompted by a lawsuit previously filed by Earthjustice.
EPA would not comment on the lawsuit but said those challenging the use of chlorpyrifos did not have enough data to demonstrate the product is not safe. The EPA said it would continue to review the safety of chlorpyrifos through 2022.
A month after former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt began leading the department, the agency rejected an Obama-era recommendation from agency scientists to ban the pesticide. In the absence of EPA action, some states have moved to regulate chlorpyrifos on their own. Hawaii last year banned its use, and California and New York are considering a similar move.
Source: thehill.com
Publication date: 8/8/2019
How To Actually Remove Pesticides From Your Fruit - Assuming That You Should Be Worried About Them In The First Place
By Sara Chodosh October 25, 2017
There’s a lot to worry about when it comes to food—or rather, there’s a lot that people want you to worry about. Every mommy blogger and natural living life coach with a URL to their name is bursting with helpful tips on how to rid yourself of toxins and chemicals. If you google “how to get pesticides off fruit” you’re greeted by a flurry of blogs all promising the solution.
It’s not unreasonable to want to consume fewer of the chemicals we use to kill off bugs and weeds. You should just make sure that what you’re doing is actually effective. Plenty of people wash their chicken before cooking it, even though that method does nothing to kill bacteria, and in fact spreads potentially dangerous pathogens all over your kitchen sink and such. So let’s look at the evidence:
Store-bought veggie washes don’t work, but baking soda does
Water can remove some of the pesticides from a piece of fruit, so a basic scrub under the tap will help at least a little. The extent to which this rather lackadaisical method works will depends on the fruit itself; some skins will more readily release the pesticides contained therein. Others, like apples treated with wax for extra shine, will retain them despite your scrubbing. But water’s occasional ineffectiveness doesn’t mean you should waste money on store-bought veggie washes—they don’t seem to work, either. And even if it worked (which it’s not clear that it does), regular soap is liable to seep into the surface.
A recent study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found one better alternative: baking soda. A solution of sodium bicarbonate and water can remove even more pesticides than water alone, provided you have more than a minute to spare. In the experiments, Gala apples that were allowed to soak in baking soda for eight minutes had significantly reduced pesticide residue on the surface, and at 12-15 minutes there were virtually no pesticides left. This is because sodium bicarbonate can help degrade the two types of pesticides used in this study, thiabendazole and phosmet. Other chemicals might not react the same way, so this solution isn’t a guarantee of a pesticide-free snack. It’s just a lot better than the alternatives.
Even after the long soak time, though, there were some pesticides that the baking soda couldn’t get to. Thiabendazole and phosmet, like many other substances, seep into the skin and flesh of the produce they’re applied to. There’s an upper limit to the amount that the fruit can absorb, since the added chemicals will come to an equilibrium inside the cells, but none of it will come out in the wash.
Buying organic can help, though not much
If you’re hoping to avoid pesticides altogether, you’ll have to look beyond the organic aisle. Produce grown under organic conditions can still have pesticides, it’s just a different—and supposedly less toxic—set of them. But they’re still chemicals that can seep into your fruit through the skin or even leech into the flesh itself via the plant’s water supply, both of which prevent you from washing them away.
The most common piece of advice here is to avoid those fruits that pose more of a pesticide risk, often known as the “Dirty Dozen.” An environmental group called the Environmental Working Group has claimed that switching to the organic versions of those 12 fruits and veggies could substantially improve your health. It’s true that organic versions will generally contain fewer and less harmful chemicals, and there’s certainly no harm in eating organic, but it’s worth noting that EWG’s methodology is far from scientific. Their analysis relied on unproven theories about how pesticides might interact with one another, and thus has skewed results. A rebuttal in theJournal of Toxicology found that EWG didn’t even attempt to estimate pesticide exposure in the first place, and that “substitution of organic forms of the twelve commodities for conventional forms does not result in any appreciable reduction of consumer risks.”
In other words: science does not back up the Dirty Dozen advice. But it’s your money; you can eat organic if you want to.
It’s not clear how worried you should be about those pesticides in the first place
That same Journal of Toxicology analysis also found that the levels of pesticides detected in the so-called Dirty Dozen all fell below the acceptable limit set by the Environmental Protection Agency. And we’re not talking just slightly below the limit. The allowable dose for methamidophos on bell peppers was 49.5 times higher than the actual amount of pesticide, and that was the fruit with the highest exposure. Many of them came 1,000-or 30,000-fold under the legal limit. It is worth noting that legal limits aren’t infallible. Human exposures and their bodily impacts are difficult to study (and oft under-studied), and too often we don’t know exactly how a particular pesticide might affect us. If the EPA bases their acceptable limit on faulty science, it may overestimate how much exposure we can tolerate. And that’s assuming that the EPA is even doing their job properly in the first place.
If you’re still not sure—maybe you don’t trust the EPA, or you think pesticides haven’t been studied well enough (both perfectly fair points)—try going to your local farmer’s market. There, you can talk to the growers and discuss which pesticides they use. Of course, there seems to be an ever-growing trend of farmer’s markets filling up with folks simply reselling wholesale produce. So you might want to do an extra baking soda wash just to be sure.
tags: pesticides epa food health
Trump Administration Approves Antibiotic Residue On Citrus Fruit
Medically important antibiotic oxytetracycline allowed on oranges, tangerines
Medically Important Antibiotic Oxytetracycline Allowed On Oranges,Tangerines
The Trump administration has approved a maximum level of the medically important antibiotic oxytetracycline allowed in citrus fruits. The Environmental Protection Agency decision opens the door for widespread use of the drug in California, Florida and other states on crops like grapefruits, oranges and tangerines.
This week’s approval, which failed to fully assess risks to human health or endangered wildlife, comes as leading researchers caution against expanding use of antibiotics like oxytetracycline that are critical in combating certain respiratory infections like pneumonia.
“This short-term agricultural fix is a horrible precedent that ignores the dangerous, long-term implications of overusing these medically important antibiotics,” said Nathan Donley, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The more we use these medicines in agriculture, the more likely they’ll lose their effectiveness when people fall desperately ill.”
This week’s decision was prompted by a 2016 Geo Logic Corp. request that the EPA permanently approve oxytetracycline for use as a pesticide to suppress citrus greening disease on roughly 700,000 acres of citrus trees in states like Florida and California.
The EPA has indicated that it intends to approve this request, but it has yet to issue a final approval. The establishment of an allowable level or “tolerance” on food crops is one of the last steps in the approval process.
In setting the tolerance level the EPA failed to analyze how the antibiotic could affect gut bacteria in humans that play a critical role in digestion, metabolism and immune system health.
The agency also failed to assess how fruit trees treated with the antibiotic year after year could affect the development of human pathogens resistant to the tetracycline class of antibiotics. And the EPA failed to consider the potential harm increased use of the antibiotic could cause to the nation’s most endangered wildlife.
In 2016 the EPA approved an emergency use of up to 1.6 million pounds of oxytetracycline and streptomycin, another medically important antibiotic, on citrus trees in Florida. This was followed by another emergency approval in 2017 for Florida and for Florida and California in 2018.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that more than 2 million people are infected with antibiotic-resistant organisms each year, leading to an estimated 23,000 deaths.
“We’re using more of these antibiotics on fruit trees than to treat disease in humans,” said Donley. “Citrus greening disease is a serious issue, but using important antibiotics with limited effectiveness against the disease isn’t the solution.”
Antibiotics such as oxytetracycline and streptomycin have transformed human and veterinary medicine, making once-lethal infections and diseases readily treatable and curable. For more than 10 years the World Health Organization has recognized these drugs as being “highly important” or “critically important” to human medicine.
But the misuse and overuse of antibiotics has resulted in the spread of bacteria resistant to them, triggering growing international concern over the continuing long-term ability of these drugs to tackle disease.
For more information:
Nathan Donley
Tel: (971) 717-6406
Email: ndonley@biologicaldiversity.org
www.Biologicaldiversity.org
Publication date : 12/7/2018
Report Finds Traces Of A Controversial Herbicide In Cheerios And Quaker Oats
Glyphosate is a popular weedkiller used on crops worldwide, but it has been at the center of a debate over its presence in foods. A new report found traces in Cheerios, Quaker Oats and other breakfast foods.CreditSeth Perlman/Associated Press
By Mihir Zaveri
- August. 15, 2018
- The New York Times
An environmental research and advocacy group has found traces of a controversial herbicide in Cheerios, Quaker Oats and other breakfast foods that it says could increase cancer risk for children.
The report comes amid longstanding debate about the safety of the chemical glyphosate, which federal regulators maintain is not likely to cause cancer.
In its report, released Wednesday, the Environmental Working Group said that it tested 45 samples of breakfast foods made from oats grown in fields sprayed with herbicides. Then, using a strict standard the group developed, it found elevated levels of glyphosate in 31 of them.
“There are levels above what we could consider safe in very popular breakfast foods,” said Alexis Temkin, the group’s toxicologist who helped with the analysis in the report.
The findings by the group, which has opposed the use of pesticides that may end up in food, were reported widely. But the question of whether glyphosate is safe is not so simple.
In fact, it is central to a raging international debate about the chemical that has spawned thousands of lawsuits, allegations of faulty research supporting and opposing the chemical and a vigorous defense of the herbicide from Monsanto, the company that helped develop it 40 years ago and helped turn it into the most popular weedkiller in the world.
Scott Partridge, a vice president at Monsanto, said in an interview on Wednesday that hundreds of studies had validated the safety of glyphosate and that it doesn’t cause cancer. He called the Environmental Working Group an activist group.
“They have an agenda,” he said. “They are fear mongering. They distort science.”
Central to critiques of the glyphosate, which prevents plants from photosynthesizing, is a 2015 decision by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer to declare glyphosate a probable carcinogen.
That spurred a federal case in the United States over such claims and prompted California to declare it a chemical that is known to cause cancer.
Last week, a California jury found that Monsanto had failed to warn a school groundskeeper of the cancer risks posed by its weedkiller, Roundup, of which glyphosate is an active ingredient. The man’s lawyers said he developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after using the weedkiller as part of his job as a pest control manager for a California county school system.
Monsanto was ordered to pay $289 million in damages. The company says it is facing more than 5,200 similar lawsuits.
Some research points to other potential health effects of glyphosate. In a study published last year in Scientific Reports, a journal from the publishers of Nature, rats that consumed very low doses of glyphosate each day showed early signs of fatty liver disease within three months, which worsened over time.
But many regulators and researchers say glyphosate is safe.
The classification by the International Agency for Research on Cancer has been disputed by United States and European regulators. And a recent major study, published by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, “observed no associations between glyphosate use and overall cancer risk.”
In December 2017, the federal Environmental Protection Agency issued a draft human health risk assessment that said glyphosate was most likely not carcinogenic to humans.
The E.P.A. is currently reviewing public comments on that assessment as part of a standard review, and will decide on whether or not the agency needs any “mitigation measures” by 2019, a spokesman said Wednesday.
The United States Food and Drug Administration, which regulates domestic and imported food to make sure it does not exceed levels set by the E.P.A., said that based on 2016 samples, it had not found any violations of E.P.A. standards with glyphosate. More recent samples are still under review, an agency spokeswoman said.
The F.D.A. said Wednesday that it would consider the Environmental Working Group’s findings.
Both Quaker Oats and General Mills, which makes Cheerios, said that their products were safe and met federal standards.
“While our products comply with all safety and regulatory requirements, we are happy to be part of the discussion and are interested in collaborating with industry peers, regulators and other interested parties on glyphosate,” a Quaker spokesman said Wednesday.
A General Mills spokeswoman said, “Our products are safe and without question they meet regulatory safety levels.”
Follow Mihir Zaveri on Twitter: @MihirZaveri.
A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 15, 2018, on Page B2 of the New York edition with the headline: Report Says Traces of a Disputed Herbicide Were Found in Some Cereals.
US: The EPA’s Latest News on Asbestos Has A Lot of People Nervous
Asbestos is arguably one of the most well-known cancer-causing agents, and one that the Environmental Protection Agency has been trying to regulate on and off for decades.
The Carcinogen Is Banned In 55 Countries, But Not Here.
By Jennifer Lu August 9, 2018
The potent carcinogen is banned in 55 countries. DepositPhotos
Asbestos is arguably one of the most well-known cancer-causing agents, and one that the Environmental Protection Agency has been trying to regulate on and off for decades. The toxic construction material, banned in other 55 other countries, made the news earlier this week amidst fears that the EPA is easing the way for an uptick in asbestos manufacturing.
In fact, asbestos never left the U.S. market, though there are certain restrictions limiting its uses. Instead, the EPA plans to track asbestos imports for review every time a manufacturer wants to use them for a new purpose, as is required by the law. But since the current EPA has eyed more lenient regulations on everything from pesticides to air pollution from cars and coal-fired power plants, environmental groups fear that the “new uses” review could signal an uptick in asbestos manufacturing, despite its dangers to public health, rather than a move toward the total ban the EPA sought under the Obama administration.
Congress enacted the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1976 to "comprehensively regulate chemicals and toxic substances that we come into contact with in the everyday," starting with asbestos, says Melanie Benesh, a legislative attorney at the Environmental Working Group. "Because it's one of the toxic substances that everyone has heard of and knows is bad, it's become a poster child for this law and why it is broken."
Asbestos is an umbrella term for six naturally-occurring fibrous minerals that contain some amount of silicon and oxygen. Greek for "unquenchable," asbestos doesn't evaporate, dissolve, burn, or react readily with most chemicals, making it an ideal insulation and fireproofing material. Asbestos can be found in attic and wall insulations, vinyl floor tiles and roof shingles, around hot water and steam pipes, and in automobile brakes.
Because the filamentous material is easily friable, or crumbled to a powder when handled, asbestos is easily inhaled into the lungs, where it can cause mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive cancer that grows in the tissue lining around the organs.
Between 1999 and 2015, the Center for Disease Control counted 45,221 deaths from malignant mesothelioma in the United States. Though most deaths occurred in people 85 or older, the fact that people younger than 55 were also dying from mesothelioma suggests that occupational and environmental asbestos exposure was still a problem. Asbestos is also associated with lung cancer and other lung diseases. In light of its toxicity, the Environmental Protection Agency banned most asbestos products in 1989, only to have the rule overturned in court. As a result, certain asbestos products are restricted in the U.S., but asbestos is still allowed in other productions.
In 2016, Congress updated the Toxic Substances Control Act in an attempt to strengthen it, and asbestos was put back on EPA's roster as one of the first ten chemicals for review.
The agency released a framework in June 2017 for how it would evaluate exposure risks from asbestos being produced now or in the foreseeable future. The guidelines allow EPA to exclude legacy sources of exposure from consideration—for example, asbestos installed into the frames of schools and older buildings using outdated production methods.
“They're only going to look at a very narrow use for asbestos and ignore that people might be exposed to it from older cases,” says Rena Steinzor, a professor of environmental law at the University of Maryland. But failure to account for pre-existing routes of asbestos exposure could downplay the overall risk and lead to a less protective evaluation.
The material easily crumbles when handled, and inhaling the dust can cause health problems.DepositPhotos
Separately, to stay on top of future uses, the EPA is requiring manufacturers to give them at least 90 days notice before importing asbestos to make new asbestos products the EPA doesn’t currently know about. The rule also forbids companies from making new asbestos products until the EPA has review each new use, which include certain types of adhesives, sealants, roof coatings, gaskets, pipeline wrap, sealant tape, and vinyl floor tile, to name a few.
On the one hand, the rule makes sense because the EPA needs some time to decide whether the new uses are okay, Steinzor says.
“But why not just ban them when we know asbestos are not safe,” Benesh points out.
The market seems ready to take advantage of the EPA’s mixed signals.
A Russian asbestos mining company, perhaps sensing an opportunity, posted photos of its products stamped with a seal bearing Donald Trump's face on Facebook. The social media caption read, "Donald is on our side!"
President Trump, who made his businesses in the real estate sector, has expressed support for asbestos as a maligned construction material in the past. In 2012, he tweeted that the World Trade Center would not have burned down if it had been fire-proofed with asbestos.
Meanwhile, asbestos imports to the U.S., which have declined overall and in the last few years, rose 45 percent between 2015 to 2016 to 700 metric tons. Ninety-five percent of the asbestos entering the U.S. in 2016 came from Brazil, with Russia supplementing the rest. However, Brazil banned asbestos mining, use and commercialization in November of 2017.
"Maybe five or ten years ago, you wouldn’t think anyone would be reintroducing asbestos to the marketplace," says Steinzor. "It's a sign of the times that this is happening.”
tags: construction asbestos carcinogens environmental protection agency
The Chemical Industry Scores A Big Win At the E.P.A.
The E.P.A., after heavy lobbying by the chemical industry, narrowed how it will conduct safety checks on toxic substances — like perchloroethylene, used in dry cleaning.CreditJustin Sullivan/Getty Images
By Eric Lipton
- June 7, 2018
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration, after heavy lobbying by the chemical industry, is scaling back the way the federal government determines health and safety risks associated with the most dangerous chemicals on the market, documents from the Environmental Protection Agency show.
Under a law passed by Congress during the final year of the Obama administration, the E.P.A. was required for the first time to evaluate hundreds of potentially toxic chemicals and determine if they should face new restrictions, or even be removed from the market. The chemicals include many in everyday use, such as dry-cleaning solvents, paint strippers and substances used in health and beauty products like shampoos and cosmetics.
But as it moves forward reviewing the first batch of 10 chemicals, the E.P.A. has in most cases decided to exclude from its calculations any potential exposure caused by the substances’ presence in the air, the ground or water, according to more than 1,500 pages of documents released last week by the agency.
Instead, the agency will focus on possible harm caused by direct contact with a chemical in the workplace or elsewhere. The approach means that the improper disposal of chemicals — leading to the contamination of drinking water, for instance — will often not be a factor in deciding whether to restrict or ban them.
The approach is a big victory for the chemical industry, which has repeatedly pressed the E.P.A. to narrow the scope of its risk evaluations. Nancy B. Beck, the Trump administration’s appointee to help oversee the E.P.A.’s toxic chemical unit, previously worked as an executive at the American Chemistry Council, one of the industry’s main lobbying groups.
A spokesman for the E.P.A. said that the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and other laws already provided the agency with the authority to regulate chemicals found in the air, rivers and drinking water, so there was no need to revisit them under the 2016 law, which updated the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976.
The agency can “better protect human health and the environment by focusing on those pathways that are likely to represent the greatest areas of concern to E.P.A.,” said the spokesman, Jahan Wilcox.
Nancy B. Beck, who oversees the E.P.A.’s toxic chemical unit, previously worked at one of the industry’s main lobbying groups.CreditU.S. Senate Committee Channel
But three former agency officials, including a former supervisor of the toxic chemical program, said that the E.P.A.’s approach would result in a flawed analysis of the threat presented by chemicals.
“It is ridiculous,” said Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, who retired last year after nearly four decades at the E.P.A., where she ran the toxic chemical unit during her last year. “You can’t determine if there is an unreasonable risk without doing a comprehensive risk evaluation.”
Senator Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico, and Representative Frank Pallone Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, who played leading roles in passing the 2016 law, said the E.P.A. was ignoring its directive for a comprehensive analysis of risks.
“Congress worked hard in bipartisan fashion to reform our nation’s broken chemical safety laws, but Pruitt’s E.P.A. is failing to put the new law to use as intended,” Mr. Udall said in a statement referring to Scott Pruitt, the E.P.A. administrator.
A spokesman for Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, who is chairman of the Senate committee that oversees the agency, declined to comment.
Cumulatively, the approach being taken for the 10 chemicals means the E.P.A.’s risk analysis will not take into account an estimated 68 million pounds a year of emissions, according to an analysis by the Environmental Defense Fund, based on agency data.
Dr. Beck declined requests for comment. She had pushed the E.P.A. during the Obama administration to narrow the scope of the risk evaluations, in a fashion similar to the approach under her watch.
Also helping oversee the risk evaluation effort is Erik Baptist, a former senior lawyer at the American Petroleum Institute, another big player in the chemical industry.
The American Chemistry Council said in a statement last week that the E.P.A.’s approach met “the requirements of the law,” adding that it wanted the risk assessments to be “protective and practical.”
Scott Pruitt, the E.P.A. administrator, signing new rules related to the Toxic Substances Control Act last year. CreditEnvironmental Protection Agency
Under the approach, the E.P.A. will examine what harm can be caused, for example, to anyone directly exposed to perchloroethylene — a dry-cleaning solvent and metal degreaser designated by the E.P.A. as a likely carcinogen— during manufacturing or when using it in dry cleaning, carpet cleaning or handling certain ink-removal products.
But the agency will not focus on exposures that occur from traces of the chemical found in drinking water in 44 states as a result of improper disposal over decades, the E.P.A. documents say. The decision conflicts with a risk assessment plan detailed by the agency a year ago, which included drinking water. And the change came after the American Chemistry Council argued in February last year that “the E.P.A. has discretion to select the conditions of use that it will consider.”
The agency will also not consider the hazards of perchloroethylene discharged into streams or lakes, landfills or the air from dry-cleaning stores or manufacturing or processing plants, the documents say.
The documents contain similar conclusions about nine of the 10 chemicals under review. One of these is 1,4-dioxane, which can be found in small amounts in antifreeze, deodorants, shampoos, and cosmetics and is considered “likely to be carcinogenic to humans.” Another is trichloroethylene, which is used to make a refrigerant chemical and remove grease from metal parts and is associated with cancers of the liver, kidneys, and blood.
Other changes identified in the E.P.A. documents narrow the definitions of certain chemicals, including asbestos. Some asbestos-like fibers will not be included in the risk assessments, one agency staff member said, nor will the 8.8 million pounds a year of asbestos deposited in hazardous landfills or the 13.1 million pounds discarded in routine dump sites.
The most likely outcome of the changes will be that the agency finds lower levels of risks associated with many chemicals, and as a result, imposes fewer new restrictions or prohibitions, several current and former agency officials said.
“They don’t want to open Pandora’s box by looking comprehensively at the risk, as they may prove to be significant and then they have to deal with it,” said Robert M. Sussman, a former chemical industry lawyer and E.P.A. official who now works as a consultant to Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, an advocacy group.
Despite the changes, the E.P.A. is still expected to ban the use of methylene chloride as a paint stripper soon — an action first proposed at the end of the Obama administration. The chemical, one of the 10 under review, is a popular ingredient used in dozens of products sold at home improvement stores nationwide and has been blamed in dozens of deaths.
A collection of more than a dozen groups — representing environmental, public health and labor organizations — are suing the E.P.A. to challenge earlier changes in the toxic chemical evaluation program. The case is before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco.
A version of this article appears in print on June 7, 2018, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: E.P.A. Eases Way It Evaluates Risk From Chemicals.