Scientists and environmental advocates have long known that microfibers rub off clothing in the washing machine. Wachiwit / iStock / Getty Images Plus
What is the environmental footprint of your favorite pair of blue jeans?
<p>A new study indicates it might be quite large. The study, published in <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.estlett.0c00498" target="_blank">Environmental Science and Technology Letters</a> Wednesday, found denim <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/microfibers" target="_self">microfibers</a> had infiltrated all the way to the Canadian <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/arctic" target="_self">Arctic</a> Ocean. Researchers say it's a telling example of the extent of human-generated pollution.</p><p>"It's not an indictment of jeans — I want to be really clear that we're not coming down on jeans," study coauthor and University of Toronto environmental scientist Miriam Diamond <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/your-blue-jeans-are-polluting-the-ocean/?fbclid=IwAR0ImLGDKaFOz00SUdTb36l9TfbHyoliY16W8ICiuY0pTZSECXjsWMtOZJE&mbid=social_fb_sci&utm_brand=wired-science&utm_medium=social&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=facebook" target="_blank">told WIRED</a>. "It's just a really potent example of human impact."</p>
<div id="f07e3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ed4acc51d06332189afa9d2eeb0c7195"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1301132809302663168" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Yay! Our study on 'The Widespread Environmental Footprint of Indigo Denim #Microfibers from Blue Jeans' is out in… https://t.co/RELNCtmquQ</div> — Sam Athey (@Sam Athey)<a href="https://twitter.com/sustainablesam_/statuses/1301132809302663168">1599049210.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/scientists" target="_self">Scientists</a> and environmental advocates have long known that <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/plastic" target="_self">plastic</a> microfibers rub off synthetic clothing in the washing machine, where they enter the world's <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceanshttps://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans" target="_self">oceans</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/rivers" target="_self">rivers</a> via wastewater treatment plants. One study <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/laundry-clothes-plastic-pollution-oceans-2646168554.html" target="_self">estimated</a> that two garbage trucks worth of microfibers enter Europe's oceans this way every day. These fibers have been found everywhere from <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/plastics-ocean-animals-2509746046.html" target="_self">the bellies of deep-sea crustaceans</a> to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/microplastics-in-ocean-2645891531.html" target="_self">concentrated hotspots</a> in the sediment of the Mediterranean seafloor.</p><p>At any given moment, about half of the world's population is wearing blue jeans or other types of denim. So researchers at the University of Toronto wondered whether the popular garment had an equally global environmental impact.</p>
<p>To find out, they looked at water samples from the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the Great Lakes, and suburban lakes near Toronto. They found that indigo denim microfibers made up a sizable percentage of all the microfibers found in the three locations, <a href="https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/presspacs/2020/acs-presspac-september-2-2020/the-widespread-footprint-of-blue-jean-microfibers.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">according to an American Chemical Society (ACS) press release</a>; the percentages were as follows:</p><ol><li>Toronto Lakes: 12 percent</li><li>Arctic: 20 percent</li><li>Great Lakes: 23 percent</li></ol><p>"Unfortunately, the results are not surprising to environmental scientists; they are even expected," Caroline Gauchotte-Lindsay at the University of Glasgow in the UK, who was not involved in the study, told <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2253421-blue-jeans-pollute-water-by-releasing-50000-microfibres-per-wash/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=echobox&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1599053088" target="_blank">New Scientist</a>.</p>
<p>The researchers didn't just look to see where the denim ended up. They also examined how it got there. To do this, they washed used, new and new distressed jeans, according to WIRED. They found that the new jeans released more fibers, and that a pair of jeans could release 56,000 microfibers per wash.</p><p>They also counted the denim microfibers that turned up in effluent, or discharge, from two wastewater treatment plants on Lake Ontario. They concluded that as many as a billion denim microfibers could be entering the lake every day.</p><p>While denim is made with organic fiber, not plastic, study coauthor Sam Athey told WIRED that it could still bring human contaminants to ocean ecosystems.</p>
<p>"They're called 'natural' textile fibers," Athey said. "I'm doing air quotes around 'natural' because they contain these chemical additives. They also pick up chemicals from the environment, when you're wearing your clothes, when they're in the closet."</p><p>The researchers did not check to see if the denim had entered the Arctic food web, but they did check the guts of Great Lakes rainbow smelt. However, they only found a single denim fiber in all of the fish they collected.</p><p>More research is needed to determine what impact, if any, blue jean fibers are having on the environment and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/marine-life" target="_self">marine life</a>. For now, there are steps you can take to keep your jeans from shedding into the oceans, Athey advised on Twitter. You can wash your jeans less frequently, get a filter for your washing machine and buy your jeans used.</p>
<div id="ce0f7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="397a94af0c14897aa42f0075e2accddf"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1301196803300352007" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">@EmmaAckerley27 @EnvSciTech @AdamsJenniferK @lisaerdle @liisajay @UofTTrashTeam @UofTEarthSci @UofTArtSci Good ques… https://t.co/Zdeb7heCZi</div> — Sam Athey (@Sam Athey)<a href="https://twitter.com/sustainablesam_/statuses/1301196803300352007">1599064467.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>"While we certainly need more research to fully understand the effects, we also have ample evidence right now to act," Nicholas Mallos, senior director of the <a href="https://oceanconservancy.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Ocean Conservancy</a>'s Trash Free Seas Program who was not involved with the research, told WIRED.</p>
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A Lebanese boy cleans a damaged car in Beirut on August 11, 2020, after a huge chemical explosion devastated large swaths of the capital. AFP / Getty Images
By Kathleen Schuster
In the weeks since Beirut's deadly chemical blast, residents have been sweeping up the broken glass and wiping down surfaces caked in dust. And it's this dust that some say poses a major threat to the city.
<p>"The most dangerous thing" right now, according to Greenpeace's Middle East and North Africa program manager in Beirut, Julien Jreissati, is that no one knows "what actually exploded besides ammonium nitrate" and, therefore, how toxic the dust is.</p><p>"We don't know what kind of pollution, what level of pollution, what the potential impact is and, therefore, what the potential countermeasures" should be, says Jreissati.</p><p>On August 4, nearly 3,000 tons of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/lebanon-beirut-reform-explosion/a-54544805" target="_blank">the highly combustible chemical compound</a> exploded in Beirut's port, shooting a plume of orange smoke into the afternoon sky, followed quickly by a pressure wave that ripped through nearby buildings and blew out windows across the metropolis. </p><p>And while those toxic gases are believed to have dissipated after several days, authorities have yet to confirm what else burned in the port warehouse fire and subsequently exploded. They also don't know the magnitude or composition of the fine particulate matter released from the rubble and broken glass.</p>
Side Effects of Ammonium Nitrate
<p>What is known is that when heated, ammonium nitrate — commonly used in fertilizers and, due to its ability to speed up combustion, also in explosives — melts, releasing toxic gases like nitrogen oxides (NOx) and ammonia gas (NH3).</p><p>These gases, both harmful to the human respiratory system and the environment, in turn break down and react with other chemicals. Nitrogen oxides, for example, when combined with other pollutants and sunlight form "bad ozone," that is to say, <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ground-level-ozone-pollution/ground-level-ozone-basics" target="_blank">ozone at ground level</a>.</p><p>Not only would these gases mix with Beirut's already dangerous air pollution levels — a combination of fossil fuel combustion, <a href="https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/20/9281/2020/" target="_blank">sea salt, and mineral dust</a> — which were estimated at least 150% over the World Health Organization's (WHO) standards before the disaster, but also with demolition dust.</p><p>There's no up-to-date information on the level of air pollution at the moment: Beirut shut down its monitoring system to cut costs in 2019. In previous years, though, Lebanon has averaged roughly 30 micrograms of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) per cubic meter, far above the WHO recommendation of <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/69477/WHO_SDE_PHE_OEH_06.02_eng.pdf?sequence=1" target="_blank">10 micrograms per cubic meter</a>.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU5Mzg1Mi9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNTc3MjQ2MX0.MtdeL2v5Rx1FgEcUcJxPR4oYvpZORDh2FxvCW70wOOs/img.png?width=980" id="4254a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0d23f927fc33f9d36e5769086b5fd89c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p><br>"There's the demolition construction, demolition waste from the buildings, the walls, the concrete. There's a lot of glass, obviously, also from the buildings and some from the high rises that were the curtain wall, so a lot of glass," says Jihan Seoud, who manages the UNDP's Energy and Environment Program in Beirut.</p><p>It's this uncertainty that makes Seoud cautious. There are too many unknown variables to jump to conclusions, she says – and running tests will take time.</p>
Political Instability Holds Up Testing
<p>One person familiar with those tests is Najat Saliba, a professor of chemistry at the American University of Beirut, where she also directs the Nature Conservation Center.</p><p>Her team has been taking air samples with their own sensors and expects results in about a month — double the wait of the usual procedure, she says, due to the economic collapse.</p><p>"We are really running very low on resources like quality standards and equipment to do the tests," Saliba says.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU5Mzg1Ny9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNDk3ODc0OX0.27EJx_2-WCG8HnVr0hBBWkYAveZVrX1a0Mywt_YApc8/img.png?width=980" id="349b8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1dca42e00bb9d881d6f8f7a387c0aa7e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>She emphasizes that <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/beirut-pollution-explosion-lebanon-dust-environment-garbage/a-54704363?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" target="_blank">at the heart of it all is political incompetence</a> — the same kind that has, for example, seen pollution levels worsen with the rise of diesel-powered generators across Beirut, where the power grid is unable to provide electricity for 24 hours a day.</p><p>And while the dust issue has been concerning, Saliba notes that a bigger problem is looming: garbage.</p>
Beirut's Epic Trash Problem
<p>That message doesn't bode well for Beirut, which has been dealing with a <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/trash-crisis-forces-lebanons-environmental-awakening/a-36765579" target="_blank">recurring trash crisis</a> for several years, and is now facing a cleanup to the tune of up to $15 million (€12.6 million). In 2015, the government failed to react quickly enough after a major trash dump was closed, leaving streets and beaches covered in mounds of solid waste.</p><p>In fact, one of the city's main landfills reached capacity in late April, prompting the government to approve a vertical expansion that would hold for roughly three months – or until around the time of the blast.</p><p>The question of what to do with the solid waste has been on the mind of some, like Salam Kabboul, a local freelance journalist and co-founder of "The Tent," a volunteer initiative launched the day after the blast. The name refers to their first project of offering victims snacks and a place to rest with the only thing they had on hand: a tent.</p><p>Now, they repair buildings and homes so life can return to normal. They take precautions for the dust, but when it comes to dealing with trash, they're also in the dark about what to do.</p><p>"It's not clear what happens to the waste," says Kabboul, who, like everyone else is aware of another imminent trash crisis.</p><p>A new aspect of this problem is the type of debris in the cleanup. According to Seoud from UNDP, there's a lot of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-e-waste/a-47210118" target="_blank">hard-to-dispose-of items</a> like air conditioners, compressors, electronics.</p><p>There's also medical waste from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the fear of chemical waste – both of which could cause problems for the city's water. As things stand, Beirut is waiting to find out if all of its pipes are still intact post-explosion, and researchers still aren't allowed to test the already contaminated coastal waters, which are roped off as the search for the missing continues.</p><p>Beirut is facing one pollution problem on top of another. Now, with the magnitude of dust and debris putting the city under even more strain, civilians and NGOs alike hope that this disaster could mark a turning point as it moves forward.</p>
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Pollution From Oil Wells and Industrial Sites Hit by Hurricane Laura Remains Unknown
28 August
Climate
An LNG processing plant is seen in Cameron, Louisiana on August 26, 2020. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP / Getty Images
The full extent of the damage wrought by the storm formerly known as Hurricane Laura will only continue to grow as the weakened storm continues inland and pollution from petrochemical plants and other industrial sites is discovered.
<p>More than 1,400 active oil wells sit in the path Hurricane Laura carved through Louisiana's coastline, some of which are decades old and especially vulnerable due to the state's receding coastline. </p><p>"I have a lump in my throat thinking about them," Bob Bea, a specialist in catastrophic risk management and former well manager for Shell, told the New Orleans Advocate. </p><p>The environmental damage caused by leaking wells, as well as from pollution spread from other damaged industrial sites, may not be discovered for days as officials focus on search and rescue tasks in the wake of the storm.</p>
<p>The storm's rapid intensification, fueled by exceptionally warm sea-surface temperatures, likely made matters worse but overconfidence from regulators and oil companies is also to blame, according to Bea. </p><p>"When it comes to how we manage our platforms, pipelines, and wells, we here in the U.S. are not world leaders in risk management," he said. </p><p>"We're not Canada or Norway. We're not even a Third World country." </p>
<p><strong>For a deeper dive:</strong></p><p><a href="https://www.nola.com/news/business/article_8106c25c-e86b-11ea-a890-fb56159b024e.html?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=94133008&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_VLOWHPFC592Gm_5D57qGB9LRL98MiRz3oGxdSpC7qsuf2cd_S4qAmA5Ps3kfhIcCRgU5Ia0C1DuRpa5L2RCX2SZb4dxbFgw9OUG6YFovxlBT8l3E&utm_content=94133008&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">New Orleans Advocate</a>; Potential industrial pollution: <a href="https://apnews.com/1887dbe11dec8c0db2f41988599382fc?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=94133008&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9dhp6AZcLb4AA5AUQRI20P8OFVHGu_7tB-IXKvNWtCzHjNPK8eOi1FpDpKWgIC_sH8pDi3bD6OqZciElqQ4Se8wxi0v6_cgxaeYTeHPGbCLsFHgLA&utm_content=94133008&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">AP</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/climate/hurricane-laura-fire-pollution.html?searchResultPosition=3&utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=94133008&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8esde0511EKliwyNlN6Ts0ewK1sJvLLsOr8ximeb95eof33jzMzW6aI3DpdD7vZjU4-D0X4w-O1IrmO0_okgfQ5axh0I7uZw-BYBnRs122VkMadJI&utm_content=94133008&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">New York Times</a>, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-energy-corridor-narrowly-averts-direct-hit-from-hurricane-laura-11598539350?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=94133008&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--wHrEUgGUYgpBwo_asKLbIC1xgahQH9DJyFcU4-r-Ubq-FZFycnVnewxrJRTFguz6q9t7y7NDVUxyfDPXQdF95XWB4Wd0dfwIrhOFMpkU6vWhRo1c&utm_content=94133008&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Wall Street Journal</a>, <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/hurricane-laura-could-lead-to-an-environmental-disaster-on?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=94133008&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--v564n6L9bIwptZCCIdB--FxYL_N3AV4pZ2JheOXD4p8NYUEFAvhIHBG2rldHsPGQ82vP9y-RCUwsFDd9isz3-L6coCQiq4fe2XFhHhK0N0pqwCto&utm_content=94133008&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Buzzfeed</a><br/></p><p><em>For more </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" target="_blank"><em>climate change</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/business/renewables/" target="_blank"><em>clean energy</em></a><em> news, you can follow Climate Nexus on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateNexus" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em> and </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ClimateNexus/" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a><em>, and sign up for daily </em><a href="http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=7c84c08aaa" target="_blank"><em>Hot News</em></a><em>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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EPA Has Granted More Than 3,000 Pollution Monitoring Exemptions to Oil and Gas Industry
26 August
Climate
Environmental regulators across the country granted more than 3,000 requests from polluting oil and gas operations, government facilities, chemical plants, and other facilities to stop pollution monitoring. PxHere / CC0
Environmental regulators across the country granted more than 3,000 requests from polluting oil and gas operations, government facilities, chemical plants, and other facilities to stop pollution monitoring and other procedures intended to protect human health and the environment, an expansive two-month AP investigation revealed.
<p>The Trump administration, under pressure from the oil and gas industry, allowed for the exemptions in late March because of the coronavirus pandemic. </p><p>"It's like saying, 'We're going to remove the radar guns and remove speedometers, but you still have to comply with the speed limit,'" said Eric Schaeffer, now head of the Environmental Integrity Project advocacy group. "That doesn't make sense." </p><p>While EPA claims the monitoring waivers do not constitute a license to pollute at will, without effective monitoring there is no way to know. </p><p>As a whole, the skipped leak inspections could be endangering oil and gas workers and allowing thousands of tons of greenhouse pollution to be emitted into the atmosphere, a former oil and gas engineer told the AP.</p>
<p>The investigation's findings run counter to statements made by the EPA in June that the coronavirus was not impacting compliance and monitoring, and that the industry was not seeking relief. </p><p>In fact, the industry actors aggressively sought and were granted exemptions, as early as March, to skip inspections of smokestacks, tank seals, flare stacks, and emissions monitoring systems, which could raise the risk of explosions. </p><p>"As surely as night follows day there are going to be an increased number of deaths from those causes," Philip J. Landrigan, director of the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good at Boston College, told the AP.</p>
<p><strong>For a deeper dive:</strong></p><p><a href="https://apnews.com/3bf753f9036e7d88f4746b1a36c1ddc4?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=93878362&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8llXBR1XSIHnBMwvxjlxSTzAmU1Yd25iuXcsHj4vE8oBH169XOVGeDGxaAruzlCNLYkhcXGNC0FJFTnyKho_GYG7zgOD__m50Rvc-lLDpvzw2fuhM&utm_content=93878362&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">AP</a></p><p><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/broadcast-networks/three-years-corporate-broadcast-news-hurricane-coverage-failed-mention-specific" target="_blank"></a><em>For more </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" target="_blank"><em>climate change</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/business/renewables/" target="_blank"><em>clean energy</em></a><em> news, you can follow Climate Nexus on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateNexus" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em> and </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ClimateNexus/" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a><em>, and sign up for daily </em><a href="http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=7c84c08aaa" target="_blank"><em>Hot News</em></a><em>.</em></p>
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Research has revealed PFAS compounds — even some that have been previously phased out of production — in manatees, loggerhead turtles, alligators, seabirds, polar bears, dolphins and whales. Fadhilahmedh1357 / Wikimedia Commons / CC by 4.0
By Max G. Levy
In seabird after seabird, Anna Robuck found something concerning: per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, lurking around vital organs.
<p><br/></p>
<p><em><a href="https://therevelator.org/author/maxglevy/" target="_blank">Max G. Levy </a>is a freelance science journalist. He writes stories about the environment, public health, basic science, and how technology shapes policy.</em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/pfas-ocean-wildlife/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></p>
<p>"Brain, liver, kidney, lung, blood, heart," Robuck says, rattling off a few hiding spots before pausing to recall the rest. Robuck, a Ph.D. candidate in chemical oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, quickly settles on a simpler response: She found the chemicals everywhere she looked.</p><p>PFAS — a group of synthetic chemicals — are often called "forever chemicals" due to their quasi-unbreakable molecular bonds and knack for accumulating in living organisms. That <em>foreverness </em>is less of a design flaw than a design feature: The stubborn, versatile molecules help weatherproof clothing; smother flames in firefighting foam; and withstand heat and grime on nonstick pans.</p><p>Through consumption and disposal, the chemicals seep into ecosystems and bodies, where they have been <a href="https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/pfas/health-effects/index.html" target="_blank">linked to</a> cancers, pregnancy complications, and reproductive and immune dysfunction. Recent attention has focused on the prevalence of PFAS in drinking water.</p>
<p>"Over the past 10-15 years we've really developed this super negative picture of what PFAS do to humans," Robuck says. "But we've barely scratched the surface of that in wildlife."</p><p>One particular area of concern is the marine ecosystem. Long seen as a bottomless sink for pollutants, the ocean is a final stop for PFAS trickling into the ecosystem. Once in the ocean, PFAS can persist for decades or longer — and travel long distances. As a result, a growing body of scientific research suggests that marine wildlife are accumulating dangerous amounts of "forever chemicals."</p><p>"If we continue to emit PFAS, then the capacity of the ocean to dilute them is going to be exceeded," says <a href="https://pharmacology-toxicology.ecu.edu/dewittj/" target="_blank">Jamie DeWitt</a>, an environmental toxicologist at Eastern Carolina University. "For all we know, oceans could be reservoirs that re-pollute the land."</p>
Journeying Across the Globe
<p>Coastal environments seem especially vulnerable to PFAS seeping from the <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article235963052.html" target="_blank">chemical plants</a> and military bases <a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2020/04/updated-map-suspected-and-confirmed-pfas-pollution-us-military-bases" target="_blank">responsible for heavy contamination</a>. <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/ccwagner" target="_blank">Charlotte Wagner</a>, a researcher at Harvard University studying the global transport of pollutants, says it's still unclear what fraction of PFAS pollutants remain contained at their source, and what fraction has already leached into other environments.</p><p>But the fact that they do spread — and far — is clear. They generally wind up in oceans, according to Wagner. And not just the ones nearby. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15913661/" target="_blank">Studies</a> in the early 2000s showed that PFAS survived decades-long journeys from manufacturers to remote ocean basins without breaking down.</p><p>"The ocean is not this static pool or bathtub," she says. Large-scale ocean circulation moves pollutants huge distances across the globe. Some varieties of PFAS may degrade slightly over the course of years, until they convert into one of the more stable "terminal PFAS" subgroups, including PFAAs.</p><p>"To the best of our knowledge PFAAs don't degrade at all under natural environmental conditions," says Robuck. Rather than diluting PFAS to infinitely low concentrations, oceans carry them to remote areas, like the <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.0c00228" target="_blank">Arctic</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1309104215304190" target="_blank">Antarctic</a>.</p><p>Other pollutants that reach the ocean, like <a href="https://therevelator.org/toxic-plastic-pollution-food-chain/" target="_blank">DDT and PCBs</a>, will stick to algae and sediment that eventually fall to the ocean floor. "That is a really important removal process," Wagner says. "For PFAS, that process is minor." Plants, algae and sediment only remove a small fraction of PFAS from the water column. That leaves more to accumulate in animals, reaching concentrations thousands of times higher than surrounding waters.</p><p>And those chemicals could travel right back to humans. Eating a lot of seafood, especially fish high on the food chain like tuna, would be concerning, she says.</p><p>But it's not just fish — and humans eating them — that are at risk. A study last year reported PFAS in seawater and <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.9b03230" target="_blank">plankton</a> dozens of miles off the Mid-Atlantic coast. Other research has revealed PFAS compounds — even some that have been previously phased out of production — in <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30803684/" target="_blank">manatees</a>, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30321810/" target="_blank">loggerhead turtles</a>, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27689886/" target="_blank">alligators</a>, <a href="https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_report.cfm?Lab=NHEERL&dirEntryId=345700" target="_blank">seabirds</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Brain%20region%20distribution%20and%20patterns%20of%20bioaccumulative%20perfluoroalkyl%20carboxylates%20and%20sulfonates%20in%20East%20Greenland%20polar%20bears%20(Ursus%20maritimus)&author=A.K.%20Greaves&publication_year=2012&pages=713-722" target="_blank">polar bears</a>, <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es0506556" target="_blank">dolphins</a> and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28350446/" target="_blank">whales</a>.</p>
Measuring Harm to Ocean Life
<p>In North Carolina's Cape Fear River, striped bass carrying <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412019334762" target="_blank">high levels of PFAS </a>showed distinct signs of impaired immune and liver function. But in the vastness of ocean water, can PFAS levels be high enough to cause harm?</p><p>"In recent years there have been increases in immune-based diseases in turtles and dolphins," says DeWitt. One of the most <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22109712/" target="_blank">well-studied</a> health effects of PFAS is immune dysfunction. Most experiments are limited to humans, rodents and chickens, but researchers are piecing together the role of PFAS in marine immune issues.</p><p>One study concluded that PFOS, a phased-out PFAS that still circulates today, triggers <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5831401/" target="_blank">"chronic immune activation</a>" in bottlenose dolphins. A similar link between PFOS and susceptibility to disease appeared in <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16955890/" target="_blank">sea otters</a>. Other research links multiple PFAS to hormonal changes in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2016.07.015" target="_blank">polar bear brains</a>. But these aquatic wildlife health studies are few and far between.</p><p>"PFAS in wildlife is kind of the <em>wild west</em>," says Robuck. "Wildlife are inherently difficult to study in a lot of ways."</p><p>Zeroing on the health effects for individual species is tricky because scientists lack baseline data about stress responses and pollutant levels. They have no choice but to presume consequences in wildlife based on hormonal, immune and reproductive effects in lab animals. For Robuck, that means judging how a pelican will respond to its measured PFAS levels according to health data collected from a chicken. "That's a really crappy comparison," she says.</p><p>In one sense, the method is conservative: Lab animals are well cared for, so their health effects may be a best-case scenario compared to the stressful baseline of wild animals' experience. But it also means we don't have an accurate sense of what dangerous thresholds are for most aquatic life — despite a parade of red flags.</p>Endless Stream of Pollutants
<p>Part of the problem is the sheer number of different compounds. Of the thousands of known PFAS, studies have only deduced health thresholds for a handful. Scientists screening their effects simply can't keep up with the pace.</p><p>The chemical compounds that fall under the PFAS umbrella are also not all the same. Some are long, bulky molecules; others are smaller and more agile. Some forms tend to naturally convert into others; others don't degrade whatsoever. Each molecule has the potential to be more toxic or bioaccumulative than the next. But for a lot of PFAS, Wagner says, scientists don't even have standardized methods of <em>detecting </em>them.</p><p>To make matters worse, even as some of the most dangerous chemicals are being phased out, companies are making alternatives. But they <a href="https://www.ewg.org/release/epa-genx-nearly-toxic-notorious-non-stick-chemicals-it-replaced" target="_blank">may not be any safer</a> than what they're replacing. And scientists have found these alternatives are also accumulating in the bodies of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214158819300145?casa_token=6t17JUQM74gAAAAA:igHTxRV6z9RPhf1UNqwvbgD9iARSODj4WJtavRsmTbF6UUvn2P1YXirvBya2VC094wm8HMxb3A" target="_blank">fish and polar bears</a>.</p><p>"It seems that we haven't learned anything from the past," says Belén González-Gaya, an analytical chemist at the University of Basque Country in Spain. "We keep on substituting compounds [for] others without any knowledge of biological effects."</p><p><a href="https://www.ewg.org/experts/sydney-evans.php" target="_blank">Sydney Evans</a>, a research scientist for the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, suggests that researchers shouldn't have to prove the health risks for thousands of similar compounds in order to warrant regulatory action. "The burden needs to be on these companies and manufacturers to prove their compounds are safe," she says.</p><p>And while there is much we don't know about the majority of PFAS, experts argue that we do know enough to assume they all share fundamental features: persistence, bioaccumulation and health risks. For this reason a group of scientists recently <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.estlett.0c00255" target="_blank">published a call</a> for governments and companies to treat all PFAS, old and new, as a single hazardous group.</p><p>"It's really the only way that we can be ahead of the curve," says Wagner, who cowrote the article. "Rather than always realizing that a compound is toxic once it's already everywhere and we measure it on a remote ice-site somewhere in Greenland."</p><p>To shut off the flow of PFAS into the ocean, scientists say that manufacturers should phase out the chemicals and focus on proving safer alternatives.</p><p>With so many open questions, Robuck hopes to see research that more closely predicts threats to marine life — and by extension people, too.</p><p>"As humans, we rely on every natural resource under the sun," she says. "When we undercut a healthy environment, we undercut our own health."</p>From Your Site Articles
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It is reasonable to make a connection between smoke exposure and risk of viral infection. Needpix
By Luke Montrose
If I dare to give the coronavirus credit for anything, I would say it has made people more conscious of the air they breathe.
<p>A friend texted me this week after going for a jog in the foothills near Boise, Idaho, writing: "My lungs are burning … explain what's happening!!!"</p><p>A wildfire was burning to the east of town – one of dozens of fires that were sending smoke and ash through communities in <a href="https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/" target="_blank">hot, dry western states</a>. As <a href="https://www.boisestate.edu/ceh/luke-montrose/" target="_blank">an environmental toxicologist</a>, I research how air pollution, particularly wood smoke, impacts human health and disease.</p><p>I gave my friend the short answer: The state had issued a yellow, or moderate, air quality index warning due in part to wildfires. The high temperature for the day was expected to reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and it was already approaching 90. <a href="https://www.epa.gov/pm-pollution/how-smoke-fires-can-affect-your-health" target="_blank">That combination of high temperatures and elevated levels of particles</a> from a fire can affect even healthy lungs. For someone with lung damage or respiratory illness, moderate levels of smoke particulate can <a href="http://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1409277" target="_blank">exacerbate respiratory problems.</a></p><p>That's only the start of the story of how wildfire smoke affects humans who breathe it. The rest, and how to stay healthy, is important to understand as the western wildfire season picks up.</p>
What’s in Wildfire Smoke?
<p><a href="http://doi.org/10.1038/s41370-018-0064-7" target="_blank">What exactly is in a wildfire's smoke</a> depends on a few key things: what's burning – grass, brush or trees; the temperature – is it flaming or just smoldering; and the distance between the person breathing the smoke and the fire producing it.</p><p>The distance affects the ability of smoke to "age," meaning to be acted upon by the sun and other chemicals in the air as it travels. <a href="http://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.9b01034" target="_blank">Aging can make it more toxic</a>. Importantly, large particles like what most people think of as ash do not typically travel that far from the fire, but small particles, or aerosols, can travel <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2018.06.006" target="_blank">across continents</a>.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU3MzYyMC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NzIwMzAwMH0.boNzt5uWMc0amtWkXnOwz6KV-k_Wqs1Jb7D2mqGl0YE/img.jpg?width=980" id="5aefd" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ca57ac8fc66ed110ce105819d49700c0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Smoke from wildfires obscures the California sky on Aug. 19, 2020. Lauren Dauphin/NASA Earth Observatory
<p>Smoke from wildfires contains <a href="https://www3.epa.gov/airnow/wildfire-smoke/wildfire-smoke-guide-revised-2019.pdf" target="_blank">thousands of individual compounds</a>, including carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carbon dioxide, hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides. The most prevalent pollutant by mass is particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, roughly 50 times smaller than a grain of sand. Its prevalence is one reason health authorities issue air quality warnings using PM2.5 as the metric.</p>What Does That Smoke Do to Human Bodies?
<p>There is another reason <a href="https://www.calhospital.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/wildfire_smoke_considerations_for_californias_public_health_officials_august_2019.pdf" target="_blank">PM2.5 is used to make health recommendations</a>: It defines the cutoff for particles that can travel deep into the lungs and cause the most damage.</p><p>The human body is equipped with natural defense mechanisms against particles bigger than PM2.5. As I tell my students, if you have ever <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/mucociliary-clearance" target="_blank">coughed up phlegm</a> or blown your nose after being around a campfire and discovered black or brown mucus in the tissue, you have witnessed these mechanisms firsthand.</p><p>The really small particles bypass these defenses and disturb the air sacks where oxygen crosses over into the blood. Fortunately, we have specialized immune cells present in the air sacks called macrophages. It's their job to seek out foreign material and remove or destroy it. However, <a href="http://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305744" target="_blank">studies</a> have shown that repeated exposure to elevated levels of wood smoke can suppress macrophages, leading to increases in lung inflammation.</p>What Does That Mean for COVID-19 Symptoms?
<p>Dose, frequency and duration are important when it comes to smoke exposure. Short-term exposure can irritate the eyes and throat. Long-term exposure to wildfire smoke over days or weeks, or breathing in heavy smoke, can raise the risk of <a href="https://www.calhospital.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/wildfire_smoke_considerations_for_californias_public_health_officials_august_2019.pdf" target="_blank">lung damage</a> and may also contribute to <a href="https://health.ny.gov/environmental/outdoors/air/smoke_from_fire.htm" target="_blank">cardiovascular problems</a>. Considering that it is the macrophage's job to remove foreign material – including smoke particles and pathogens – it is reasonable to make a <a href="http://doi.org/10.3109/08958378.2012.756086" target="_blank">connection</a> between smoke exposure and risk of viral infection.</p><p>Recent evidence suggests that long-term exposure to PM2.5 may make the coronavirus more deadly. A nationwide study found that even a small increase in PM2.5 from one U.S. county to the next was associated with a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.05.20054502" target="_blank">large increase in the death rate</a> from COVID-19.</p>What Can You Do to Stay Healthy?
<p>The advice I gave my friend who had been running while smoke was in the air applies to just about anyone downwind from a wildfire.</p><p>Stay informed about air quality by identifying local resources for air quality alerts, information about active fires, and recommendations for better health practices.</p><p>If possible, avoid being outside or doing strenuous activity, like running or cycling, when there is an air quality warning for your area.</p><p>Be aware that not all face masks protect against smoke particles. In the context of COVID-19, the best data currently suggests that a cloth mask benefits public health, especially for those around the mask wearer, but also to some extent <a href="https://theconversation.com/cloth-masks-do-protect-the-wearer-breathing-in-less-coronavirus-means-you-get-less-sick-143726" target="_blank">for the person wearing the mask</a>. However, most cloth masks will not capture small wood smoke particles. That requires an N95 mask in conjunction with fit testing for the mask and training in how to wear it. Without a proper fit, N95s do not work as well.</p><p>Establish a clean space. Some communities in western states have offered "clean spaces" programs that help people take refuge in buildings with clean air and air conditioning. However, during the pandemic, being in an enclosed space with others can create other health risks. At home, a person can create clean and cool spaces using a window air conditioner and a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH5APw_SLUU" target="_blank">portable air purifier</a>.</p><p><span></span><a href="https://www.epa.gov/pm-pollution/how-smoke-fires-can-affect-your-health" target="_blank">The EPA also advises</a> people to avoid anything that contributes to indoor air pollutants. That includes vacuuming that can stir up pollutants, as well as burning candles, firing up gas stoves and smoking.</p>From Your Site Articles
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An example of abandoned oil pumps and well. Martina Birnbaum / Getty Images
By Ray Levy-Uyeda
A farmer for most of his life, Sam Stewart bought farmland in Montana about 35 years ago. Since then, he's planted and harvested his wheat and other crops around 16 open oil wells on this land, which he estimates were dug in the 1920s.
<p><br/></p>
<p>Maneuvering around the wells is not an arduous process, per se, but it requires seeding the same area twice, which is wasteful and can slow his process. The real nuisance is the invisible methane wafting into the air—a greenhouse gas with an impact 10 times that of carbon dioxide. "You don't want loose gas being just emitted," Stewart says.</p><p>Unplugged wells in Montana and across the country <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/reports/2020/04/29/484158/congress-can-help-energy-states-weather-oil-bust-coronavirus-pandemic/" target="_blank">leak thousands of metric tons</a> of <a href="https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-DRILLING/WELLS/gjnpwylaapw/USA-DRILLING.jpg" target="_blank">greenhouse gases each year</a>. They can also leach toxins into groundwater and surface water systems, contaminating aquifers. More often than not, these wells simply aren't being cleaned up. That's in part because a lack of funding and political will has stymied the state's cleanup efforts, and in part because there's uncertainty around ownership. "I didn't know they were actually abandoned," Stewart says of the multiple orphaned wells on his property. "I thought the oil company was responsible."</p><p>A foundation formed in 2019 could finally help clean up some of these abandoned oil wells, including those on Stewart's property. "The operator who is responsible is long gone," says Curtis Shuck, founder of the Well Done Foundation. "Our focus is doing the right thing, leaving it better than the way we found it."</p>
Abandoned Wells
<p>The first oil wells in Montana were drilled at the turn of the century, and the industry <a href="https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6881&context=etd" target="_blank">experienced its first boom</a> in the 1920s. <a href="https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6881&context=etd" target="_blank">Energy demands of World War II</a> spurred a second boom; between 1942 and 1945, <a href="https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6881&context=etd" target="_blank">oil production in the Elk Basin region</a> increased from 16,000 to 940,000 barrels annually. When those wells no longer produced oil, companies could just leave. The Oil and Gas Conservation Commission of Montana, tasked with identifying and plugging abandoned wells, wasn't created until 1954, and by that time an untold number of wells had already been drilled, produced, and abandoned. </p><p>As more companies moved into Montana, oil and gas production grew into an increasingly important part of local and state economies; by 2015, it<a href="https://montanapetroleum.org/about-us/economic-impact/" target="_blank"> made up 5.6%</a> of the state's general fund. But the industry that once was a cornerstone of Montana's economy is now in a nosedive: a yearslong decline in global oil production and demand compounded by the <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063049965" target="_blank">pandemic-induced economic slowdown</a> has produced some of the worst oil <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-07/oil-companies-warn-kansas-city-fed-of-widespread-insolvencies" target="_blank">production conditions in recent years</a>.</p><p>In 2016, the most recent year for which he was able to provide data, 4,713 oil and gas wells were in operation in the state and 204 had been abandoned, according to Allen Olson, executive director of the Montana Petroleum Association, a trade organization that works on behalf of the businesses. But that's a <a href="https://montanapetroleum.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/MPA-Booklet.pdf" target="_blank">fraction of the tens of thousands</a> that have been drilled in Montana in the past century. </p><p>Data on abandoned wells remain incomplete, which further complicates cleanup efforts. Plus, state legislatures have drastically different policies on how to address abandoned wells. One thing remains certain: The issue is enormous and far-reaching. A 2018 report from the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-06/documents/6.22.17_ghgi_stakeholder_workshop_2018_ghgi_revision_-_abandoned_wells.pdf" target="_blank">Environmental Protection Agency </a>estimated that the country has 3.2 million abandoned oil and gas wells. </p><p>Abandoned wells in Montana—left by companies that filed for bankruptcy, for example, default to the state. Theoretically, a state-run fund pays for well adoption and closure, but even under state control, the wells often lay unplugged, because plugging abandoned wells and restoring the surface land is expensive. Olson believes that the "state regulatory agency here is doing an excellent job staying on top" of plugging wells. But the <a href="http://www.mtrules.org/gateway/ruleno.asp?RN=36%2E22%2E1308" target="_blank">state's plugging plan</a> doesn't explicitly address the issue of abandoned oil wells, and also neglects to lay out a time-bound plan for plugging wells. </p><p>It's not just that states like Montana don't have a legislative apparatus to hold corporations accountable, says Mitch Jones, the climate and energy program director at Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit that pushes for corporate and government accountability. He says that the lack of governmental action is by design. When wells are abandoned, Jones says, "the costs of doing business are passed on to the public instead of being paid by the shareholders in the industry."</p><p>Nationwide, the federal government's own agency in charge of plugging abandoned wells, the Bureau of Land Management, has openly acknowledged that it <a href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/710/701450.pdf" target="_blank">doesn't have the financial resources</a> to tackle the issue of plugging wells on federal land. There was no federal <a href="https://climatecrisis.house.gov/sites/climatecrisis.house.gov/files/Climate%20Crisis%20Action%20Plan.pdf" target="_blank">nationwide bond requirement</a> to cover the cost of reclaiming wells until the 1950s, and the required value for bonds has not increased since then. </p><p>That's right: the amount required to cover the cost of cleanup has not been increased or adjusted for inflation for nearly 70 years, so the federal amount is <a href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/710/701450.pdf" target="_blank">woefully ineffective.</a> Bond standards of a couple thousand dollars often don't address wells that cost tens of thousands to plug, another cause for wells to be abandoned. </p><p>Jones believes that extractive companies are harming the environment and then escaping culpability by declaring bankruptcy. "Not pointing fingers isn't really an option in order to win this fight against climate change," he says. Identifying the sources of harm holds polluting industries accountable for supporting solutions and provides a pathway for legislation that protects the planet, Jones says. The <a href="https://climatecrisis.house.gov/sites/climatecrisis.house.gov/files/Climate%20Crisis%20Action%20Plan.pdf" target="_blank">House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, </a>for example, just proposed a $2 billion remediation program for orphaned wells in June, though given the political climate, that legislation has a rocky future.</p>
A Boost or a Burden?
<p>Kirk Panasuk, a lifelong Montanan, farmer, and member of the Northern Plains Resource Council's Oil and Gas Task Force, remembers growing up with oil wells on his grandparents' farm. Panasuk says "once you've leased the land you've lost control." An oil company would lease the mineral rights—not the surface land but the profitable oil below. That lease might expire, the company would leave, and another company would come in to start the process again.</p><p>Agriculture is a difficult industry, and Panasuk says what seems like "free money" at the outset can lead to problems down the road. Water systems are connected, which means that an oil leak in Montana has the potential to leach chemicals into bodies of water such as the Yellowstone River that flows into other states through the Missouri River, a <a href="https://www.nwd-mr.usace.army.mil/" target="_blank">river crucial</a> to municipal, industrial, and agricultural function. </p><p>Panasuk now volunteers with the NPRC to lobby state legislators on practices that would hold resource extraction companies accountable by mandating water testing and treatment. He admits that he's made money off of these companies by leasing mineral rights to oil producers who then sell the oil at market. Despite the environmental fallout, Panasuk believes that oil companies' leasing of land actually "saved a lot of small farms from failure [and] bankruptcy."</p><p>Olson of the Montana Petroleum Association says that in 2019, when oil was $60 per barrel, a company might produce 100 barrels per day and pay a royalty fee of 12.5%, which could garner a farmer $750 per day for leasing their land. Today, with prices and production down, the payoffs look different. In April, oil prices went into the <a href="https://billingsgazette.com/news/local/oil-price-collapse-hits-billings-area-businesses-hard/article_df10e954-3e0c-5b6c-9641-135208d4ad2c.html" target="_blank">negative</a>, and in August, they're <a href="https://www.oilmonster.com/crude-oil-prices/central-montana-price/159/228" target="_blank">hovering around $30 per barrel</a>. </p><p>While an oil lease might benefit a farmer initially, Jones says that oil companies are well-versed in this practice. "The oil and gas industry takes advantage of the inequities in our agriculture system to prey upon farmers and get them to sign leases for drilling on their land," Jones says, which can "undermine agricultural activity that's taking place."</p><p>In other farming communities around the country, where oil and gas companies produce natural gas through <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/poor-communities-bear-greatest-burden-from-fracking/" target="_blank">hydraulic fracturing</a>, farmers and members of the local community often bear the brunt of water pollution. Not to mention that farming is dependent on a predictable and healthy climate, which is being threatened by resource extraction. </p>A Foundation Is Formed
<p>In early 2019, Curtis Shuck was in the northern town of Shelby, about 15 miles south of the Canadian border, meeting with farmers about agricultural transportation. More than three decades in the oil and gas industry hadn't prepared him for what he saw—abandoned, methane-leaking, unplugged oil wells.</p><p>He walked the area with the farmers and learned how they worked around the wells, most of which had stopped producing oil decades earlier. What was left were remnant pipes strewn across the fields and a sulfuric stench like rotten eggs. </p><p>On his journey home to Bozeman, Shuck couldn't stop thinking about what he had seen, knowing that each open well was responsible for tons of emissions. On that drive, the idea for the Well Done Foundation was born. </p><p>Just over a year after that first trip north, the Well Done Foundation plugged its first three wells and expanded beyond the Montana pilot program into dozens of other states. Shuck says that he hopes the foundation can also gather the concrete data that the government lacks, such as the number of orphaned wells and their emissions, which makes it difficult to develop solutions.</p><p>Shuck says he can acknowledge the state's shortcomings in their cleanup efforts while building relationships with those who make regulatory decisions. The "state fund is grossly underfunded," Shuck says, but "why should the public bear the burden of this orphaned well issue?"</p><p>The Well Done team identifies abandoned oil wells around the state, and then posts a financial bond to the state's Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, a way for the state to track and partially fund the plugging. In doing so, the state is holding up its end of the bargain, but without this push from Well Done, it might take the state years to accomplish what the Foundation does in months. </p><p>The foundation researches individual well emissions for about nine months as well as studying the construction of a well, how deep it goes, and the materials that are required to plug it. Shuck says it's important that the foundation does its due diligence to identify wells that have collapsed in on themselves or have an obstruction that needs to be addressed before plugging. </p><p>Then the foundation works with county commissions, private entities, and those who own the surface land to develop and execute a "plugging plan," which so far has been funded by private or anonymous donors. The actual plugging of the well takes only a few days, and then the Foundation works to restore the surface land to its "pre-drilling condition," which allows a farmer to seed the land and grow crops. </p><p>Shuck is adamant that the foundation's work is not about fighting corporations, but about taking responsibility for one's community. The foundation has built partnerships with both conservation organizations and oil and gas companies. Shuck says that abandoned wells are a "bit of a black eye to the industry," so plugging the orphaned wells demonstrates their environmental responsibility and develops a partnership that may come in <a href="https://www.rigzone.com/news/orphan_well_stimulus_would_employ_displaced_workers-04-jun-2020-162291-article/" target="_blank">useful as the industry quickly changes</a>.</p><p>"There are plenty of folks that want to blame Big Oil, little oil, or oil in general," he says. But the work, to him, is not about pointing fingers. Neither the left's demonization of fossil fuels nor the right's push for energy independence are relevant to the work, in Shuck's view. </p><p>In late April, the foundation successfully plugged its first well—a 96-year-old well called Big West Anderson #3 in Toole County that it had "adopted" by taking over legal responsibility from the state. The well, which hadn't produced oil since the 1980s, had been releasing 6,600 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. For comparison, one car on the road releases about <a href="https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi?Dockey=P100U8YT.pdf" target="_blank">4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide</a> per year. </p><p>Just one day after the foundation plugged Big West Anderson #3, its greenhouse gas emissions were nonexistent.</p><p>Shuck says, "What's exciting about this is that we can make an impact one well at a time."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from </em><em><a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2020/08/13/pollution-oil-wells-montana/" target="_blank">YES! Magazine</a>.</em></p><p><a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/authors/ray-levy-uyeda/" target="_blank"><em>Ray Levy-Uyeda</em></a><strong><em> </em></strong><em>is a Bay Area-based freelance writer who focuses on gender, politics, and activism.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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The Anderson Community Group. Left to right, Caroline Laur, Anita Foust, the Rev. Bryon Shoffner, and Bill Compton, came together to fight for environmental justice in their community. Anderson Community Group
By Isabella Garcia
On Thanksgiving Day 2019, right after Caroline Laur had finished giving thanks for her home, a neighbor at church told her that a company had submitted permit requests to build an asphalt plant in their community. The plans indicated the plant would be 250 feet from Laur's backdoor.
<p>Laur has a premalignant blood disease, and for the past two years, she has been trying to build up her immune system to prevent the disease from evolving into a terminal form of cancer. "When I heard about this plant," Laur says, "I went to the Duke Cancer Research Center, and a Duke scholar in my illness told me this would be a life-threatening situation for me, and I would have to leave." Having to move from her home, where she has lived for 15 years, would be devastating for Laur, not to mention a monetary loss. Who would buy a home 250 feet from an asphalt plant?</p>
<p>Laur lives in Anderson, North Carolina, a rural <a href="https://northcarolina.hometownlocator.com/counties/subdivisions/data,n,township%2520of%2520anderson,id,3703390056,cfips,033.cfm" target="_blank">township with just over 2,000 people</a> (and zero cell towers). It is one of the many predominantly Black communities in the United States experiencing a perfect storm of injustices threatening the health of residents and their environment.</p><p>An informal community survey shows that more than 70% of Anderson residents are Black, while the <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/caswellcountynorthcarolina,NC/PST045219" target="_blank">county and state's populations</a> are 32% and 22% Black, respectively. Predominantly <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5844406/" target="_blank">Black neighborhoods in the U.S. have historically been exposed to higher rates of air pollution</a>. Specifically, Black people in America are exposed to about 1.5 times more particulate matter—a form of air pollution known to cause cancer—than White people. This <a href="https://www.epa.gov/pm-pollution/health-and-environmental-effects-particulate-matter-pm" target="_blank">exposure leads to higher incidences of health problems</a> such as heart attacks, asthma, and decreased lung function.</p><p>A growing number of studies show <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412016301386" target="_blank">polluting facilities are disproportionately located in Black and minority communities</a>, so it's hardly surprising that the asphalt plant was slated for construction in Anderson. A 2018 study from the Environmental Protection Agency concluded that <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5844406/" target="_blank">the discrepancy goes beyond geography or poverty</a>, too: Not only are more factories in minority neighborhoods, but these factories are more likely to produce greater emissions than those in non-minority neighborhoods.</p><p>These days, the risks are even higher. Because <a href="https://www.who.int/airpollution/ambient/health-impacts/en/" target="_blank">exposure to air pollutants decreases lung function</a>, communities in polluted areas are more susceptible to COVID-19; a recent <a href="https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/covid-pm" target="_blank">Harvard study found that people in areas with high particulate matter are 8% more likely to die</a> of the coronavirus than those in areas where the pollution is just one unit lower. That's been borne out in North Carolina, where <a href="https://covid19.ncdhhs.gov/dashboard/cases" target="_blank">Black residents make up 33% of the state's 1,568 COVID deaths as of July 15</a>, despite only making up only 22% of the population.</p><p>"This is not just an Anderson community health crisis," Laur says. "This is a North Carolina health crisis. It's an American health crisis."</p>
Grassroots Resistance
<p>The plant that would threaten Laur's health and home was awaiting the approval of an air permit by the North Carolina Department of Air Quality which, if approved, would basically greenlight the project. "This made me get out and go door to door," Laur says. One by one, she alerted her neighbors to the prospect of the asphalt plant. "I got to meet some of my neighbors I never knew before," she says. "There's no secret that there has always been a pretty strong line between the White community and the Black community here." In the end, three neighbors joined her efforts—the Rev. Bryon Shoffner, Anita Foust, and Bill Compton. Together, they formed the Anderson Community Group to advocate for environmental justice in their community.</p><p>"We are all the four corners of the community," Laur says with a laugh. "You've got a sick old White lady, Rev. Shoffner is a disabled vet, you've got Anita, who is a Black woman, and you've got a White, old country farmer. We all come from different faiths, but we've all come together as one."</p><p>Suddenly thrust into activism, the group contacted the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, a coalition that provides resources and connections with other groups. "We advocate, we organize, and we assist communities with whatever actions they are thinking of trying to protect themselves," says Naeema Muhammad, the network's co-director. Muhammad met with the activists from Anderson and recognized their need for legal advice, so she connected them with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The legal resources were key when the group determined that the data from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality's environmental justice report wasn't adding up.</p><p>The report—a requirement for all DEQ permit requests—stated that the Anderson community was 33% minority. That seemed far too low to the residents, so the Anderson Community Group did a census of each house within a 1-mile radius of the proposed plant—the same radius considered in the DEQ's environmental justice report.</p><p>"Rev. Shoffner went out into the community and did his own survey and found out that it was more than 70% minority," Laur says. "That was huge, because that changed the situation to a Title VI matter." Title VI is a federal civil rights law that prevents people from being discriminated against on the grounds of race, color, or national origin. Title VI cases require a more rigorous and comprehensive environmental justice report, so recognizing the Anderson community as a Title VI matter increases the strength of their request for a more in-depth report.</p><p>The massive difference in race demographics comes down to census data, Laur says. The DEQ was using race data from the 2010 census, which was only <a href="https://www.censushardtocountmaps2020.us/?latlng=35.77385,-78.73807&z=7&query=coordinates::36.44038,-79.36343&promotedfeaturetype=states&arp=arpRaceEthnicity&baselayerstate=4&rtrYear=sR2010&infotab=info-rtrselfresponse&filterQuery=false" target="_blank">completed by about 64% of the population of Caswell County</a>—the county where Anderson is located. Laur says the Anderson population response rate could be even lower because the community is considered <a href="https://www.nccensus.org/about-the-census#hard-to-count-communities" target="_blank">"hard-to-count" by the U.S. Census Bureau</a>.</p><p>"The people who don't fill it out are rural people who want to keep their land and don't want zoning and minorities," Laur says, which creates skewed race demographics. The Anderson Community Group said that when they brought up this issue with the director of North Carolina DEQ, he said he was aware of the problem.</p><p>"So that tells me that all the EJ reports in North Carolina that have been done may not even be valid, just like ours," Laur says. "We were told that we are the first [community members] who have ever doubted it and checked it out."</p>Elevating Voices
<p>Determined to have new data collected, the Anderson Community Group rallied in early 2020. After learning from the state Department of Air Quality, the department responsible for approving or rejecting the asphalt air permit, that 100 statements of concern from community members would be sufficient to trigger a public hearing, the Anderson group gathered letters of concern from their community. They submitted more than 108.</p><p>"Then we were told there wasn't enough concern to have a public hearing," Laur says. "So, we started inundating the [Department of Air Quality director with emails and phone calls from the community."</p><p>Finally, in February 2020, the DEQ declared a public comment period for the issue, effectively placing the air permit for the asphalt plant on hold until a public hearing August 3. The public hearing will be held online because of COVID-19, but Laur says most people in Anderson don't own computers, and won't be able to attend. When the community group filed a complaint regarding accessibility, the DEQ then allowed public comments to be submitted via voicemail.</p><p>"Well, we don't have a cell tower out here," Laur says. She has personally never been able to use her cellphone in her home, and even her landline phone drops calls frequently. Even being able to afford a landline is a luxury in Anderson, Laur says.</p><p>To make sure community voices are heard, Laur says, the Anderson Community Group is "begging, fighting, scratching, and screaming" for the public comment period to be extended until the hearing can be held in person. The group fears that the community won't be able to properly participate, and as a result, the DEQ will approve the asphalt permit without listening to residents' concerns or considering accurate data.</p><p>The health impacts on the community could be huge. During Shoffner's unofficial survey, he also found that more than 90% of those within a 1-mile radius of the proposed plant have health conditions such as asthma, lung disease, and previous strokes and heart attacks that would be exacerbated by polluting industries.</p><p>"That's the thing that we feel they are truly missing: They're not allowing data to catch up," Shoffner says. Not only is the existing data outdated and inaccurate, he argues, but even data from 2018 would only provide a partial picture, because it does not account for the effects of COVID-19 on the community. "Of course, our ultimate goal is for them to say they're not going to build a polluting industry in a Black neighborhood, but our next move is to get them to postpone it until they get the data that shows how the asphalt plant and COVID-19 is affecting Black and brown people."</p><p>Shoffner says that the pandemic has thankfully slowed down the whirlwind of decisions on the asphalt plant and given the team time to consider what else they can do to halt its construction. For example, in July, the group <a href="https://acejustice.org/ej-petition" target="_blank">created a mail-in petition</a> for the North Carolina governor to stop the permit process.</p><p>"This team has been able to research and dig and get in a lot of doors," he says, noting that they have had productive conversations with leaders from the North Carolina DEQ. "We're winning as long as we're on the phone and getting conference calls. When they stop taking our calls, that's when we'll start asking what to do now."</p><p><em>CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Anita Foust. Text has been updated.</em></p><p><em>Isabella Garcia </em><em>is a former solutions journalism intern for YES!.</em></p><p><em><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2020/07/23/north-carolina-community-pollution/" target="_blank">YES! Magazine</a>.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2646927403#/" target="_self"></a></em><em></em></em></p>
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If you lived in a community suffering from bad air quality in 1981, chances are your neighborhood hasn't improved much. That's the takeaway from a new study that found despite years of progress to improve air pollution, wealthy, white Americans are breathing much cleaner air than low-income communities of color, The Guardian reported.
<p>"Disadvantaged communities remain persistently exposed to higher levels of air pollution," said Jonathan Colmer, an economist at the University of Virginia and co-author of the new <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6503/575" target="_blank">study</a> published in the journal <em>Science</em>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-environment-pollution/after-three-decades-most-polluted-us-neighborhoods-havent-changed-idUSKCN24V3BS#:~:text=After%20three%20decades%2C%20most%20polluted%20U.S.%20neighborhoods%20haven't%20changed,-Nichola%20Groom&text=Likewise%2C%20the%20least%20polluted%20areas,decades%20in%20the%20United%20States." target="_blank">Reuters</a> reported. "This was true in 1980, it was true in 1990, 2000, 2010, and so on."</p><p>The study examined fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, across the United States dating back to 1981. It found that the concentration of pollution from fine particulate matter fell about 70 percent between 1981 and 2016. Experts attribute the progress to stricter emissions regulations, more fuel-efficient vehicles and a decrease in coal-fired plants, Reuters reported.</p><p>But even with four decades of air quality improvement, low-income communities of color still do not have equal access to clean air. That's particularly worrying because of the connection between pollution and COVID-19. Recently, a group of <a href="https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/covid-pm" target="_blank">Harvard data scientists</a> found that a person living in areas with high-particulate pollution is 15 percent more likely to die from COVID-19 than someone living in an area with only slightly less air pollution, <a href="https://www.wellandgood.com/air-pollution-covid-19/" target="_blank">Well and Good</a> reported.</p>
<p>"The persistence of these relative disparities were striking," Colmer told <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/07/30/896635668/air-quality-disparities-persist-despite-overall-gains" target="_blank">NPR</a>. "Federal and state guidelines aim for all people and places to enjoy the same degree of protection from environmental hazards. We're falling short in terms of addressing relative disparities."</p><p>The study was released four months after the Trump administration rejected an Environmental Protection Agency recommendation to tighten air quality regulations, Reuters reported. Though the administration countered that current standards were adequate, the evidence suggests otherwise.</p><p>"If a child was born in Los Angeles county today, they would be exposed to the same amount of pollution the average child was exposed to in the early 1990s," Colmer said in The Guardian.</p>
<p><br>"This paper nicely shines a spotlight on the fact that these disparities continue to be large and that we ought to do something about them," said Joshua Apte, an environmental scientist at the University of California, Berkeley not involved in the study, Reuters reported.</p><p>To address the disparities, researchers note that housing discrimination is one of the main culprits, as low-income communities are often located near sources of pollution, according to NPR.</p><p>But housing discrimination isn't the only issue.</p><p>"Only when we figure out what the causes of the disparities are can we then think about, 'Okay, what are the appropriate policies we can use to mitigate these disparities?'" Lala Ma, an environmental economist at the University of Kentucky told NPR.</p>
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Oregon's coastline, where ocean acidification threatens entire ecosystems. James St. John / Flickr / CC by 2.0
In 2007, baby oysters began dying by the millions at the Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery on the Oregon coast.
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<p>At first, the owners suspected bacterial contamination was to blame.</p><p>"Once they partnered with academics and other regional managers, they found out it was actually ocean acidification," says Charlotte Regula-Whitefield.</p><p>Regula-Whitefield works with the Oregon Coordinating Council on Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia.</p><p>"When you burn fossil fuels you release carbon dioxide, CO2, and that does get absorbed into our oceans … and it makes the water more acidic," she says.</p>
<p>That more corrosive water can prevent marine species from properly forming shells, which can kill them.</p><p>The Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery learned to adapt. It now monitors the acidity of the ocean water that flows into its tanks and has a system to adjust the pH when needed. Over the years, its harvest levels have returned to normal.</p><p>But outside of those tanks, ocean acidification threatens entire ecosystems.</p><p>"All the things that actually live in the ocean – from the kelp to the fish to the sea urchin – are all tied to ocean acidification," Regula-Whitefield says. "So when small changes occur, these organisms are at risk."</p><p>And protecting them requires reducing carbon pollution.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/07/what-is-ocean-acidification/" target="_blank">Yale Climate Connections</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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The Huntley coal plant in Tonawanda, New York, contributed to the local economy — and pollution levels. youtu.be
The Huntley coal plant in Tonawanda, New York, was once the area's biggest polluter. But it was also the town's biggest taxpayer.
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<p>So when the plant was slated to close, the town was concerned about job losses – not just for company employees, but public sector workers like teachers and paramedics.</p><p>"Those tax dollars that company pays … goes to the folks picking up garbage, and goes to people fixing the roads, and helps fund special ed," says Rebecca Newberry, executive director of the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cacwny.org/">Clean Air Coalition of Western New York</a>.</p><p>To ease the transition, her group partnered with the town, local businesses, unions, residents, and community groups.</p>
<p>Together they created <a target="_blank" href="http://tonawandatomorrow.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2017/08/TonawandaTomorrowPlanJune15SinglePages.pdf">an economic development plan</a> to help the town make up lost revenue over time. It's designed to grow local businesses and create new jobs, especially in manufacturing and technology.</p><p>The group also helped convince the state to provide funds that fill the more immediate gap in revenue.</p><p>The plant closed in 2016, and Newberry says that since that time, "not one public sector employee, to our knowledge, has lost their job because of the closing of this plant."</p><p>So Tonawanda has moved away from a coal-powered economy while helping protect the community.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/07/how-tonawanda-ny-protected-its-economy-after-its-coal-plant-closed/" target="_blank">Yale Climate Connections</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Cheap, inefficient devices create a vicious cycle that further drives global warming. Tinou Bao / Flickr / CC by 2.0
Air conditioning systems are a significant contributor to global warming pollution that can and should be made more efficient, a new UN report shows.
<p>"If we deal with cooling wrong, we essentially cook ourselves," Gabrielle Dreyfus, the cool efficiency program manager at the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, said on a press call. </p><p>As climate change drives up global temperatures, demand for air conditioning is expected to quadruple by 2050. To provide cooling units to everybody who needs them — not just those who can afford them— the world would need up to 14 billion units by 2050, according to the report. </p><p>However, cheap, inefficient devices — especially when powered by coal- or gas-fired power plants — create a vicious cycle that further drives global warming, while improving cooling efficiency could bring multifold benefits. </p>
<p>Completely banning hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs – a group of potent but short-lived greenhouse gases that are still used in many cooling devices – could trim global warming by up to 0.4°C by the end of the century. </p><p>A switch to more efficient air conditioning units could cut global energy consumption by the equivalent of all the 2018 coal-fired generation in China and India combined. </p><p>The report also calls for low-tech efficiency improvements, which will especially benefit low-income communities and communities of color. </p>
<p><strong>For a deeper dive:</strong></p><p><a href="https://apnews.com/29cda8789fd823816e477e484a50840f?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=91652880&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8rVGeqB9r3rr8rWxQxpU_HmBT-Pc8XF1JY46Pnq2t4PQM0_x1Gzy0VKUl-kA4c2wJ4DX5oICN7O0XmiDHI0DoifpR9uz3LYdlKh3dDHgCgzJCPUmw&utm_content=91652880&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">AP</a>, <a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/we-essentially-cook-ourselves-if-we-don-t-fix-air-con-1844416667?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=91652880&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_2GjI85NAdvqXxnE-J3sZBKUNzU6TwbInckcR7dqE2NgofyAGh4iXm1aaxkDZ4x6SEpDD1aIztCwJWe8tqopoy3CzthmVMASCKzuGX4J7up5CL5mY&utm_content=91652880&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>, <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200717154858-3uu9c?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=91652880&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--r5tBq3D_iSmFdaLhoDUZBiYazsZRkSkfdgW1kenm8ahVVvLt9cuhnkUiV0ulHfau5ouguWE2tQUR5SQ1n35z4uGjwB12ihPW1SD7H5hL5GmzK7BU&utm_content=91652880&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Thomson Reuters Foundation</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/17/air-conditioning-curbs-could-save-years-worth-of-emissions-study?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=91652880&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-85vzlyqsPguHY9n5m3jl1ZR7w0u3YWitMy56POF2xdYHEhQNOGZJ52mctdd1yPd2Od-EWV5HdJocdBLu6vq9jcT5In8MVwdxkQ6rBWiyFsKkSel_o&utm_content=91652880&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/17/energy-efficient-cooling-will-curb-climate-change-un-iea-report.html?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=91652880&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_qvhqhWEjMeI04ReAsCRGy3O5cXbryqSjr4oJfLY77L2cW-sC10L33dcmlUy8gVu6C1ktZ5eMVHa2UQHYQa18lzVQEywjtwMP6HfrQPV03ajirq7w&utm_content=91652880&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">CNBC</a></p><p><em>For more </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" target="_blank"><em>climate change</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/business/renewables/" target="_blank"><em>clean energy</em></a><em> news, you can follow Climate Nexus on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateNexus" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em> and </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ClimateNexus/" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a><em>, and sign up for daily </em><a href="http://climatenexus.us4.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=d1f5797e59060083034310930&id=7c84c08aaa" target="_blank"><em>Hot News</em></a><em>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
- Four Simple Ways to Use Less Energy This Summer - EcoWatch ›
- Extreme Heat-Stressed Locations Could Increase by 80% - EcoWatch ›
- Air Conditioners Contribute to 'Energy Poverty,' New Study Finds ... ›
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Marathon Petroleum, the largest oil refiner in the country, has a history of air pollution violations impacting low-income and Black and Brown communities. Notorious4life / Wikimedia Commons
By Sarah Thomas and Nathan Heffernan
Fossil fuel companies have reaped millions of dollars in benefits from a stimulus package intended to help struggling Americans and the economy. Among these is Marathon Petroleum, the largest oil refiner in the country, which has a history of air pollution violations impacting low-income and Black and Brown communities.
Oil Companies Receiving Bailout Money
<p>The CARES Act included several provisions to support businesses, one of which allowed companies to claim an immediate tax refund by deducting current operating losses from income taxes paid in the past five years. As a result of changes to allow the <a href="https://foe.org/news/big-oil-scores-1-4-billion-in-covid-tax-scam/" target="_blank">"carryback"</a> of net operating losses, Marathon received <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-15/-stealth-bailout-shovels-millions-of-dollars-to-oil-companies" target="_blank">$411 million in tax benefits</a>, a sum even greater than their recent $334 million penalty for environmental violations. The Federal Reserve also included Marathon Petroleum in its <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-energy/2020/06/29/fed-buys-millions-in-energy-bonds-788849" target="_blank">recent purchase of energy bonds</a>.</p><p>Oil and gas companies, like Marathon, are not violating any rules by claiming this tax benefit, but there are significant downsides to using public resources to prop up dirty companies with a history of air pollution violations in the midst of a pandemic that targets the respiratory system. As part of the paycheck protection program, a separate program under the CARES Act, at least <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/07/fossil-fuel-industry-coronavirus-aid-us-analysis" target="_blank">$3 billion</a> in taxpayer dollars intended for small businesses have gone to over 5,600 U.S. fossil fuel companies and are being used to save an antiquated industry, rather than investing in a sustainable future that will benefit all Americans.</p><p>Democratic <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/14/us-oil-gas-companies-coronavirus-relief-loan-ppp" target="_blank">lawmakers have warned</a> that this oil bailout is not only taking the funds meant for smaller businesses, but is also forcing taxpayers to pay for the industry's past mistakes. Senators Brian Schatz and Sheldon Whitehouse <a href="https://www.schatz.senate.gov/press-releases/schatz-whitehouse-senators-to-fed-loans-should-help-small-businesses-not-bail-out-oil-companies-that-risk-stability-of-financial-system" target="_blank">wrote</a> that the pandemic "was not the source of the oil and gas industry's dire financial condition," and that this bailout "poses both a credit risk and a more profound climate transition risk to taxpayers."</p><p>Marathon Petroleum is just one example of an oil company that was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-marathon-petroleum-activist/marathon-petroleum-to-change-ceo-split-company-after-hedge-fund-campaign-idUSKBN1XA1DI" target="_blank">already struggling</a> prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, partly due to their expensive 2018 acquisition of rival refiner Andeavor. Oil companies have been pursuing such <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/18/the-us-oil-industry-shook-up-the-world-and-now-its-shaking-out.html" target="_blank">mergers</a> in an attempt to generate investor excitement and make up for the structural weaknesses of the oil sector. More specifically, upstream companies have spent billions more on drilling than they receive from selling the produced oil and gas, which creates a condition known as <a href="https://ieefa.org/the-depreciation-dodge/" target="_blank">negative free cash flow</a>. Investing in oil stock has had a similarly negative trajectory, as the average U.S. oil producer over the past three years has produced <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/10/16/the-oil-stock-merger-wave-continues-despite-invest.aspx" target="_blank">a total return of negative 17%.</a></p>A History of Environmental Racism
<p>The acquisition of Andeavor and other refineries has made Marathon Petroleum the largest refiner in the U.S. with a long list of costly penalties. All told, Marathon and its acquired companies have been <a href="https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/prog.php?parent=marathon-petroleum&order=pen_year&sort=desc" target="_blank">fined more than $1.4 billion</a> in environmental, consumer protection and workplace violations since 2000. A significant recent example was its <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/marathon-petroleum-company-reduce-air-pollution-refineries-five-states" target="_blank">$334 million settlement with the EPA in 2016</a> to reduce air pollutants in five states: Michigan, Louisiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Illinois. The EPA <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/marathon-petroleum-company-reduce-air-pollution-refineries-five-states" target="_blank">announced</a> that the required investments in air pollution controls would "help reduce emissions that can cause respiratory and cardiovascular health impacts, which can disproportionately affect low-income and vulnerable populations."</p><p>Many of Marathon's refineries have notably high indicators for <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ejscreen" target="_blank">Environmental Justice Indexes</a>, signifying high levels of air pollution among minority and at-risk groups. For the 1-mile radius surrounding the Detroit, Michigan refinery, the surrounding communities score above the state 90th percentile for diesel particulate matter, air toxics cancer risk, and respiratory hazard index. The Canton, Ohio refinery additionally scores around the 75th percentile in these indexes. The Garyville, Louisiana refinery — located in Louisiana's infamous "Cancer Alley" — scores in the 99th percentile country-wide for air toxics cancer risk. The Political Economy Research Institute lists Marathon as the <a href="https://grconnect.com/tox100/ry2017/index.php?search=yes&company2=4274" target="_blank">33rd worst air polluter in the nation,</a> with an Environmental Justice Minority Share of 59%, meaning that its refineries disproportionately impact communities of color.</p><p>Despite the 2016 EPA settlement, communities living nearby to the refineries continue to face environmental injustices and deadly air pollution. In Southwest Detroit, the predominantly Black zip code 48217, the most polluted area in Michigan, is home to dozens of polluting facilities, including the Marathon Petroleum refinery. This residential area experiences <a href="https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2019/02/20/marathon-petroleum-responds-to-history-of-environmental-violations-in-southwest-detroit" target="_blank">higher rates of asthma and cancer than the rest of the country</a> due to toxic pollution. Community organizers and environmental justice groups have protested the<a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2017/11/09/marathon-oil-protest-pollution-southwest-detroit/107519866/" target="_blank"> Marathon refinery over the past decade</a>, calling for accountability from the oil giant and buy-outs for their now devalued property.</p><p>In September 2019, an alleged vapor leak sparked further protests as Marathon failed to inform residents of the <a href="https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2020/02/06/tlaib-urges-epa-to-investigate-chemical-leaks-at-marathon-oil-in-southwest-detroit?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=articleblog&utm_campaign=rightrail&utm_content=RecentByTag" target="_blank">dangers and health impacts of chemicals released</a>. Prior to the September incident, an earlier vapor release in February of 2019 caused residents to complain of "a nauseating stench" and of "vomiting, troubled or labored breathing, and irritated eyes and throats" <a href="https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/struggling-to-breathe-in-48217-michigans-most-toxic-zip-code/Content?oid=23542211" target="_blank">reported the <em>Metro Times</em></a>. The September incident prompted U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib and the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform in February 2020 to request that the EPA undertake a formal investigation of the chemical leak by Marathon. The facility is the only oil refinery in Michigan, and as <em>Metro Times </em>reports "emits 29 different types of toxins, which waft across neighborhoods and puts residents at an elevated risk of cancer, respiratory disease, asthma, and liver failure."</p><p>The impacts on nearby communities does not stop at environmental health. Marathon and its affiliates have also racked up nearly $40 million in penalties for workplace safety or health violations, according to the <a href="https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/prog.php?parent=marathon-petroleum&order=pen_year&sort=desc" target="_blank">Violationtracker </a>website.</p>
Lobbying Against Common-Sense Solutions
<p>The CARES Act bailout to Marathon Petroleum, a significant air polluter, is further concerning given the lobbying ties the fossil fuel giant has with the Trump administration. In May 2020, the House Oversight Committee <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/500015-house-oversight-seeks-docs-from-marathon-oil-after-trump-mileage" target="_blank">requested documents from Marathon Petroleum</a> related to its <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/climate/cafe-emissions-rollback-oil-industry.html" target="_blank">extensive lobbying efforts</a> related to Trump's rollback of fuel economy standards — a rule change that has already been mired in scandal. In 2018, Gary Heminger, Marathon's former CEO, told investors <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/climate/cafe-emissions-rollback-oil-industry.html" target="_blank">the new rule would help sell up to 400,000 more barrels of oil a day</a>. The investigation seeks documents detailing meetings with top officials at the EPA and the Department of Transportation.</p><p>While the CARES Act is necessary for stimulating the economy during this crisis, large hand-outs to notorious air polluters must be scrutinized. Air pollution exposure has been linked to<a href="https://epha.org/air-pollution-caused-conditions-the-risk-of-co-morbidities/" target="_blank"> increasing incidence and severity of several respiratory infections that are similar to COVID-19.</a> Residential areas surrounding oil refineries such as Marathon Petroleum are often predominantly Black communities, which are already affected disproportionately by the pandemic. The bailout money towards Marathon Petroleum maintains oil refineries that pollute surrounding communities, worsening the health and economic impacts of the Covid pandemic.</p><p>Our recovery from this crisis shouldn't worsen existing public health problems or lock us into higher greenhouse gas emissions. We need a green and just recovery that puts us on a path to the sustainable future we need.</p>
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