Friends of the Earth / https://foe.org/the-study/
But the health benefits of organic agriculture extend far beyond our individual dinner plates. Organic farming offers a comprehensive alternative to chemical agriculture, and it protects our soil, air, water, wildlife, and critically – our farming communities – from toxic pesticides.
The purpose of pesticides is to kill. So it's not surprising that widespread use of these chemicals poses a serious public health threat. Diet alone exposes us to a frightening cocktail of pesticide residues, and toxic pesticides pose much more severe health threats to farming communities.
Food system workers and their families and communities – who are disproportionately Latinx and low-income – bear the brunt of harm from toxic pesticide use in agriculture. Farmworkers are at risk from direct exposure to harmful chemicals when mixing and applying pesticides, as well as while working in fields; as a result, they suffer more chemical-related injuries than any other U.S. workforce. Exposure also extends beyond the workplace. Workers can carry pesticides home on clothes, shoes, and skin, inadvertently exposing their children and other family members, and pesticide drift can harm people living, working, and learning near farms.
These exposure routes add up. And weaning our agricultural system off its addiction to toxic chemicals is an uphill battle.
We've seen recent wins on pesticide issues in the courts and in some states, but it can take decades of fighting to end the use of a single pesticide. For example, NRDC petitioned the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to end use of the brain-toxic pesticide chlorpyrifos in 2007; thirteen years later, we're still in court demanding that EPA protect public health. Meanwhile numerous similar organophosphate chemicals also remain in our fields and our bodies.
This pesticide "whack-a-mole" problem makes organic farming a potent addition to our public health toolbox, especially in farming communities: organic farmers do no use most synthetic pesticides, so organic farming eliminates a wide range of health threats posed by farming with toxic chemicals.
The health crises facing farm workers and rural communities needs urgent attention, particularly in light of the added burdens from the COVID-19 crisis. Kendra Klein and Anna Lappé got it right:
"As long as we treat organic food as if it's a shopping preference instead of a public good, we will miss the opportunity to fight for a desperately needed shift in how we farm."
We should all be able to eat without exposing anyone to toxic pesticides. That's why we support more public investment in organic in schools, in the Farm Bill, in climate policy, and beyond. The stakes are high – but the solutions are within reach.
Allison Johnson is a Sustainable Food Policy Advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Reposted with permission from the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Eye-Catching Designs Made from Recycled Plastic Bottles
The company sells a range of eco-friendly items like leggings, rash guards, and board shorts that are made using recycled post-consumer plastic bottles. There are currently 16 causes represented by distinct marine-life patterns, from whale shark research and invasive lionfish removal to sockeye salmon monitoring and abalone restoration.
One such organization is Get Inspired, a nonprofit that specializes in ocean restoration and environmental education. Get Inspired founder, marine biologist Nancy Caruso, says supporting on-the-ground efforts is one thing that sets Waterlust apart, like their apparel line that supports Get Inspired abalone restoration programs.
"All of us [conservation partners] are doing something," Caruso said. "We're not putting up exhibits and talking about it — although that is important — we're in the field."
Waterlust not only helps its conservation partners financially so they can continue their important work. It also helps them get the word out about what they're doing, whether that's through social media spotlights, photo and video projects, or the informative note card that comes with each piece of apparel.
"They're doing their part for sure, pushing the information out across all of their channels, and I think that's what makes them so interesting," Caruso said.
And then there are the clothes, which speak for themselves.
Advocate Apparel to Start Conversations About Conservation
Waterlust's concept of "advocate apparel" encourages people to see getting dressed every day as an opportunity to not only express their individuality and style, but also to advance the conversation around marine science. By infusing science into clothing, people can visually represent species and ecosystems in need of advocacy — something that, more often than not, leads to a teaching moment.
"When people wear Waterlust gear, it's just a matter of time before somebody asks them about the bright, funky designs," said Waterlust's CEO, Patrick Rynne. "That moment is incredibly special, because it creates an intimate opportunity for the wearer to share what they've learned with another."
The idea for the company came to Rynne when he was a Ph.D. student in marine science.
"I was surrounded by incredible people that were discovering fascinating things but noticed that often their work wasn't reaching the general public in creative and engaging ways," he said. "That seemed like a missed opportunity with big implications."
Waterlust initially focused on conventional media, like film and photography, to promote ocean science, but the team quickly realized engagement on social media didn't translate to action or even knowledge sharing offscreen.
Rynne also saw the "in one ear, out the other" issue in the classroom — if students didn't repeatedly engage with the topics they learned, they'd quickly forget them.
"We decided that if we truly wanted to achieve our goal of bringing science into people's lives and have it stick, it would need to be through a process that is frequently repeated, fun, and functional," Rynne said. "That's when we thought about clothing."
Support Marine Research and Sustainability in Style
To date, Waterlust has sold tens of thousands of pieces of apparel in over 100 countries, and the interactions its products have sparked have had clear implications for furthering science communication.
For Caruso alone, it's led to opportunities to share her abalone restoration methods with communities far and wide.
"It moves my small little world of what I'm doing here in Orange County, California, across the entire globe," she said. "That's one of the beautiful things about our partnership."
Check out all of the different eco-conscious apparel options available from Waterlust to help promote ocean conservation.
Melissa Smith is an avid writer, scuba diver, backpacker, and all-around outdoor enthusiast. She graduated from the University of Florida with degrees in journalism and sustainable studies. Before joining EcoWatch, Melissa worked as the managing editor of Scuba Diving magazine and the communications manager of The Ocean Agency, a non-profit that's featured in the Emmy award-winning documentary Chasing Coral.
On Tuesday, a major new investigative report published by Rolling Stone and authored by reporter Justin Nobel delves deep into the risks that the oil and gas industry's waste — much of it radioactive — poses to the industry's own workers and to the public.
"There is little public awareness of this enormous waste stream," Nobel, who also reports for DeSmog, wrote, "the disposal of which could present dangers at every step — from being transported along America's highways in unmarked trucks; handled by workers who are often misinformed and underprotected; leaked into waterways; and stored in dumps that are not equipped to contain the toxicity."
Additional documents obtained by Nobel and shared with DeSmog show that a report prepared for the American Petroleum Institute (API), the nation's largest oil and gas trade group, described the risks posed by the industry's radioactive wastes to workers as "significant" in 1982 — long before the shale drilling rush unleashed new floods of wastewater from the industry — including waste from the Marcellus Shale, which can carry unusually high levels of radioactive contamination.
A Trillion Toxic Gallons
Oil and gas wells pump out nearly a trillion gallons of wastewater a year, Rolling Stone reported. That's literally a river of waste — enough to replace all the water flowing from the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico for more than two and a half days.
Much of that wastewater, often referred to by the industry as "brine," carries high levels, not of familiar table salt, but of corrosive salts found deep below the Earth's surface, as well as toxic compounds and carcinogens.
That water can also carry serious amounts of radioactive materials. The Rolling Stone report, labeled "sobering" by the Poynter Institute, described levels of radium as high as 28,500 picocuries per liter in brine from the Marcellus Shale, underlying Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, and West Virginia, levels hundreds of times as much as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would allow in industrial discharges from other industries.
The oil and gas industry's waste, however, isn't regulated like most other industry's wastes, slipping instead through loopholes carved out in the nation's cornerstone environmental laws, including exemptions for the industry in federal laws covering hazardous waste.
"If I had a beaker of that on my desk and accidentally dropped it on the floor, they would shut the place down," Yuri Gorby, a microbiologist who'd studied radioactive materials at the U.S. Geological Survey and Department of Energy, told the magazine. "And if I dumped it down the sink, I could go to jail."
Crude Oil, Gas, and Radiation
"It is well-known that some naturally occurring elements, uranium for example, have an affinity for crude oil," the 1982 API report says, noting that uranium can decay into elements like radium-226 ("a potent source of radiation exposure, both internal and external," API's report explained) and radon-222 (which can "cause the most severe impact to public health," it observed).
"Almost all materials of interest and use to the petroleum industry contain measurable quantities of radionuclides that reside finally in process equipment, product streams, or waste," the 1982 report notes.
"This contamination can produce significant occupational exposures," API's report continued (emphasis in original).
Excerpt from a 1982 report prepared for the American Petroleum Institute and titled "An Analysis of the Impact of the Regulation of 'Radionuclides' as a Hazardous Air Pollutant on the Petroleum Industry."
API's report focused on the possibility that the federal government might step in and regulate those radioactive materials under the Clean Air Act or under federal Superfund laws.
"Depending on the mode of definition," the report adds, "very small quantities of petroleum products could easily contain reportable quantities of [radioactive materials]." A chart lists amounts as small as a half a barrel of crude oil or 17 cubic feet of natural gas as containing "one reportable quantity of uranium or radon" under the most restrictive definition.
The report labels uranium "a somewhat different dilemma" than radon gas. "We estimated earlier in this paper that significant quantities of uranium potentially enter our refineries via crude oil," the report continues. "Little is known of its fate, however."
"Since the law of conservation of matter must apply, it can only end up in the product, the process waste, remain in the process equipment, or escape into the environment," the report notes, calling for more study, particularly of the industry's refining equipment and waste.
Some of the report's most stark language warned about the possibility of federal regulation of the industry's radioactive wastes.
"It is concluded that the regulation of radionuclides could impose a severe burden on API member companies," the report says, "and it would be prudent to monitor closely both regulatory actions."
API spokesperson Reid Porter provided to DeSmog the group's response to the Rolling Stone investigation.
"We take each report of safety or health issues related to energy development very seriously," Porter said. "Nothing is more important than the health and safety of our workers, the local environment, and the communities where we live, operate, and raise families. Natural gas and oil companies meet or exceed strict federal and state regulations and also undergo regular inspections to ensure that all materials are managed, stored, transported, and disposed of safely. Through regular monitoring, ongoing testing, and strict handling protocols, industry operations are guided by internationally recognized standards and best practices to provide for safe working environments and public safety."
API also pointed to a one-page document titled "NORM [naturally occurring radioactive materials] in the Oil and Natural Gas Industry." As of publication time, API had not responded to questions from DeSmog regarding the 1982 report.
10 Years Later, Hazards 'Widespread'; 20 Years Later, Workers Sue Over Cancers
Over a decade later, problems persisted, other documents indicate. "Contamination of oil and gas facilities with naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) is widespread," a 1993 paper published by the Society of Petroleum Engineers warned. "Some contamination may be sufficiently severe that maintenance and other personnel may be exposed to hazardous concentration."
Nonetheless, the paper focused on the potential for "over-regulation."
"Where possible, industry input should be directed to minimize an over-regulation of NORM contamination in the industry," author Peter Gray, an expert on radioactivity who formerly worked for Phillips Petroleum Co., wrote. He added that concentrations of radioactive contamination at the time were "relatively low and do not usually present a health hazard to the public or to most personnel in the industry," but added that some facilities "may be hazardous to maintenance personnel in particular."
The 1993 paper notes that some oil-producing states had passed or were considering passing laws to protect against the industry's radioactive wastes, noting in particular that Louisiana and Mississippi had regulations in effect, and that Louisiana had required "radiation surveys of every petroleum facility in the state."
But state and federal regulators largely failed to act, Rolling Stone found. "Of 21 significant oil-and-gas-producing states, only five have provisions addressing workers, and just three include protections for the public, according to research by [Elizabeth Ann Glass] Geltman, the public-health expert," the magazine reported. "Much of the legislation that does exist seems hardly sufficient."
In documents dated nearly two decades later, from a 2011 lawsuit brought by more than 30 Louisiana oilfield workers who'd developed cancer, plaintiff's experts described as resulting from their exposure to radioactive materials at work.
The 2013 plaintiff's expert report describes in detail how jobs like roustabout, roughneck, and derrickman can expose workers to radioactive materials, including a sludge where radioactive elements concentrate that collects inside pipes and so-called "pipe scale," or crusty deposits that also attract radioactive materials. The case ended in October 2016, following a long string of settlements on unspecified terms by individual plaintiffs in the case, public court records show.
Tracking the Trucks
Nobel's Rolling Stone exposé depicts radioactive drilling waste sloshing into a striking array of corners.
For example, to keep dust down, the "brine" can be spread on roads, like a stretch in Pennsylvania where Nobel describes a group of Amish girls strolling barefoot. Nobel adds that contractors pick up waste directly from the wellhead and that in 2016 alone, more than 10.5 million gallons were sprayed on roads in the northwestern corner of Pennsylvania.
The waste has also been sold at Lowe's, bottled as "AquaSalina" and marketed as a pet-safe way to fight ice and salt, though an Ohio state lab found it contains radium at more than 40 times the levels the Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows in discharge from industry. And the radium-laced waste is spilled from trucks transporting it, in potential what the article indicates may be a violation of federal law.
One brine truck driver, identified only as a man named Peter from Ohio, started taking his own samples after being told by another worker with a radiation detector that he'd been hauling "one of the 'hottest loads' he'd ever seen," Rolling Stone reports. "A lot of guys are coming up with cancer, or sores and skin lesions that take months to heal," Peter told the magazine. Tests by a university lab found radium levels as high as 8,500 picocuries per liter, the article adds.
One expert, scientist Marvin Reisnikoff, who'd served as one of the plaintiff's experts in the lawsuit brought by the Louisiana oilfield workers and co-authored the 2013 report, told Rolling Stone that a standard brine truck rolling through Pennsylvania might be carrying radioactive wastewater at levels a thousand times higher than those allowed under federal Department of Transportation (DOT) limits. But, a DOT spokesperson told Rolling Stone, federal regulators rely heavily on industry self-reporting, and the rules seem generally unenforced.
Environmental groups immediately called for congressional hearings into the drilling industry's radioactive wastes.
"This alarming report brings into stark relief what we already knew to be true," Food & Water Watch Policy Director Mitch Jones said in a statement calling for a congressional investigation, "that highly toxic and radioactive waste generated by fossil fuel drilling and fracking cannot be stored or disposed of safely, and in fact is often being intentionally dispersed in our communities."
"It is imperative that Congress hold hearings soon to examine and expose the full extent of the threat oil and gas waste poses to families and workers throughout America," he added, "and take urgent action to halt fracking and the legal and illegal dispersal of the waste currently taking place."
Reposted with permission from DeSmogBlog.
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Published in the peer-reviewed journal Chemosphere, the study by a group of scientists led by Rene Claveria of the Ateneo de Manila University records the unique ability of Pteris melanocaulon to absorb copper in its roots and arsenic in its leaves in large doses.
"It's not common for ferns to absorb both high concentrates of copper and arsenic," Claveria, an environmental geology expert, tells Mongabay. "Plants don't do it simultaneously in large doses. It's something new."
The fern was spotted in the mossy areas of an abandoned mining site in the province of Surigao del Norte by the scientists scouring major mining sites across the Philippines to study copper metallophytes under a government-funded research program.
The study of metallophytes, plants that have the ability to thrive on soils with high concentrations of heavy metals that are too toxic for other plant species, has been a growing interest among scholars, particularly for their possible use in phytoremediation, the process of cleaning up mineral-rich soil and groundwater using plants and trees.
"It's not common for ferns to absorb both high concentrates of copper and arsenic," Claveria, an environmental geology expert, tells Mongabay. "Plants don't do it simultaneously in large doses. It's something new."
The fern was spotted in the mossy areas of an abandoned mining site in the province of Surigao del Norte by the scientists scouring major mining sites across the Philippines to study copper metallophytes under a government-funded research program.
The study of metallophytes, plants that have the ability to thrive on soils with high concentrations of heavy metals that are too toxic for other plant species, has been a growing interest among scholars, particularly for their possible use in phytoremediation, the process of cleaning up mineral-rich soil and groundwater using plants and trees.
A fern species that flourishes in the mossy slopes of an open pit copper mining site in Surigao del Norte, a province in Mindanao. Teresita Perez / Mongabay
"We are interested in metallophytes … plants that grow on mining areas," Claveria says. "While analyzing all these plants, we decided that fern is the most suitable for our study because they have higher amounts of absorbed copper and arsenic and other metals."
The decision to narrow down to ferns came with scholarly backing: the Pteris genus, which includes around 300 species of ferns, feature other popular metallophytes that absorb arsenic. But unlike other widely researched species, P. melanocaulon was mostly unknown, in part due to the scarcity of research journals on the plant. Existing surveys conducted by the team across various large- and small-scale mining sites showed that it only proliferates in two areas in the Philippines.
"When we focused on ferns, there was one that stood out: the P. melanocaulon, which we didn't see in any other mining sites we surveyed," Claveria says. "We found it in Surigao [del Norte] and later on, in Carmen [in Cebu province] … and this fern happens to grow in areas [within these sites] that are supposedly barren."
The mossy open slopes left behind by open pit mines, notorious for their high levels of arsenic and copper concentrates, were the perfect breeding grounds for P. melanocaulon, which thrive in lush clusters that overpower the other plants in the Surigao del Norte mining site, Claveria says. Curious about the fern, they recovered samples and conducted initial tests to measure its copper absorption capabilities in 2014.
The results showed that the plant's roots have "anomalously high" concentrations of copper, Claveria says. After publishing their findings in the International Journal of Phythoremediation in 2015, the team expanded their research on the plant and threw arsenic into the mix.
Rene Claveria and Teresita Perez examining plants in Surigao del Norte. Teresita Perez / Mongabay
The logic was since the fern survives alongside other species that are known arsenic metallophytes, maybe it could also absorb arsenic.
After collecting another set of samples, they conducted a series of tests that verified their hypothesis: the fern does indeed absorb the toxic mineral and stores it in its stems and leaves. They took the research a little further and funded a greenhouse to propagate spores of P. melanocaulon at Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro province, where they experimented with the potted plants.
They added different concentrations and solutions of arsenic to uncontaminated soil in a series of experiments that lasted for six weeks. The plant's ability to absorb arsenic varied, adjusting to the concentration of the element in the soil, much to the researchers' surprise. The team noted two important observations: that the fern contained more arsenic concentrate than the soil it was planted on, and that despite exposure to high levels of arsenic, it showed no symptoms of toxicity.
"P. melanocaulon is an accumulator of [arsenic], with the plant having higher amounts of [arsenic] than that of the soil," the study says. The study also noted that while the arsenic concentration increases, the fern can "efficiently absorb and store" arsenic and extract it from the soil, making it an "efficient arsenic accumulator and hyperaccumulator."
The results, according to Claveria and Teresita Perez, also of the Ateneo de Manila University who headed the research program, prove that the plant can be used to rehabilitate mining sites, especially since its "root system provides good soil cover" and "can ideally immobilize metal contaminants." This means that the plant can filter contaminated water and reduce the spread of heavy metals through the soil.
Rene Claveria collecting soil samples in Surigao del Norte. Teresita Perez / Mongabay
"If you use the ferns to clean up arsenic, which is very toxic, there could be colonization or succession of plants," Perez says. "Eventually, a year after or after one and a half years, you can already plant some high value crops in the area."
With the protocol in the propagation of the fern species in the books, Perez says the possibility of using the fern to rehabilitate mining soil on a large-scale project is possible. But first, she says, decision-makers should be aware of metallophytes — and that there are indigenous plants that can be used as natural remedies to alleviate mineral-heavy soils.
"We have to recommend to our policymakers the use of indigenous plant materials to actually clean up arsenic-contaminated areas," Perez says. "In the past, rehabilitating mining sites involved planting invasive species — that was really a wrong move. But now, we're propagating the idea of indigenous and endemic species so these areas can develop new ecosystems."
Reposted with permission from Mongabay.
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