Environmental
Advocates
353 Hamilton Street
Albany, NY 12210
August 31, 2000
Monica
Abreu Conley, Esq.
Environmental
Justice Coordinator
NYS
Department of Environmental Conservation
50
Wolf Road, Room 611
Albany,
NY 12233-1040
Re:
Comments to the Environmental Justice Advisory Board
Dear
Ms. Conley:
Thank you for the opportunity to
submit comments regarding environmental justice-related issues and the DEC’s
Environmental Justice Program. I am
writing you on behalf of Environmental Advocates, a New York State
environmental advocacy and watchdog group with thousands of supporters and over
130 organizational members.
We recognize that our colleagues in
various Environmental Justice organizations throughout the state speak with
greater knowledge and experience than we possess on most EJ Program
issues. We have, therefore,
deliberately kept our observations narrow in scope. Our comments focus primarily on environmental injustices that are
occurring out-of-state, but ones that are directly linked to actions and
decisions made within New York’s borders, and frequently involve waste
generated there. Below are some cases
that Environmental Advocates feels should be thoroughly considered by the DEC
when evaluating environmental justice issues:
When New Yorkers flush, their waste often ends up
travelling 2,065 miles away, to an isolated impoverished county on the Mexican
border whose largest town can't even afford a sewer system of its own. Roughly 20 percent of New York City’s sewage
sludge is transported to a waste disposal site just 3 miles Northeast of Sierra
Blanca, Texas in Hudspeth County.
Sierra Blanca is a town of approximately 600 people, 75 percent
Hispanic, 40 percent under the poverty line with an average yearly income of
$8,000 per family. (Sierra Blanca had
also been targeted for a low-level radioactive waste disposal facility. Fortunately, plans for that facility fell
through, due to local, regional and international opposition)
Residents have complained of offensive odors –
described as a mixture of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide vapors, and fecal odor –
that continuously drift through the town. Some children in Sierra Blanca have
developed strange rashes and blisters on their faces. There are significantly
more cases of flu, colds, allergies and asthma than before the site was
created. A Cornell University study
estimated that over 60,000 toxic substances and chemical compounds can be found
in sewage sludge.[1]
Until Congress banned ocean dumping of sewage sludge
in 1988, New York City dumped millions of tons of its sewage into the ocean.
New York sludge was too contaminated with toxic pollutants to be used, and too
expensive to be buried safely in a landfill. In 1992, New York City awarded a
six-year contract for the disposal of nearly a fifth of its sewage sludge to
Merco Joint Venture (Merco), an Oklahoma company with ties to New York
organized crime. 2
Merco looked at several areas, but most states responded quickly to head off importation. Oklahoma’s citizens, for instance, successfully pushed for a 5-year ban on the importation of out-of-state sewage. Arizona stopped shipments after samples of the sludge showed high levels of infectious disease and petroleum. Ultimately, Merco found its way to the outskirts of Sierra Blanca, Texas. Shortly after applying for a permit, Merco donated $1.5 million dollars to Texas Tech University to study the beneficial uses of sludge. Then, without an environmental impact statement, public process, or opportunity for questions, Merco, in an unprecedented 23 days, received approval of its five-year sludge registration from the Texas Water Commission. 3
In 1997, a Blanca Legal Defense Fund in conjunction
with Save Sierra Blanca filed a Civil Rights complaint with the USEPA against
the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC). The complaint was dismissed with no action
taken. That same year, Merco applied for a five-year renewal of its sludge-dumping
permit. They added an amendment stating that they would triple the amount of
sludge sprayed on the 102,555-acre Merco “ranch”, dumping up to 400 tons per
day. In 1999, Merco admitted that it had spread New York City sludge that had
not been properly treated to reduce pathogens.4
Merco’s negligence constituted a violation of state and federal law. This was hardly their first offense. In 1994, for instance, the corporations was
caught spreading untreated sludge and was fined $12,800, a sum unlikely to
deter illegal dumping on a contract valued at $168 million dollars over five
years.5
[For
more information on this issue visit http://www.txpeer.org/toxictour/merco.html
“Sierra Blanca, the Nation’s Largest Sewage
Dump”, a video documentary, examines how Sierra Blanca, a small
town on the U.S./Mexico border, became the resting place for New York City's
sewage. The video interview includes a meeting with several local residents
concerned with unusually high incidence of health problems. Additionally, the
video focuses on how the TNRCC
ignored local health concerns and illegal dumping to support tripling the
amount of New York's waste being dumped
in the Lone Star State.]
New York’s Consolidated Edison, owner and operator and of the Indian Point 2 nuclear facility, is a member of Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a consortium that signed an agreement with the Goshute Tribe to store 40,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from many of the nation’s power plants on their land in Skull Valley, Utah. Utah’s governor, and many others, including members of the Goshute Tribe, strongly object to this project. Among their concerns: fault lines lie beneath the site, and it would require long-distance transportation of high-level nuclear waste from around the country. Skull Valley is already covered with waste sites, including: two hazardous waste incinerators, a low-level radioactive disposal site, a coal-powered electric plant (whose service area is primarily in California), and a large magnesium production plant. Native American reservations are often targeted as prime dumping lands for hazardous waste, not only because they are typically remote areas, but also, due to their territorial sovereignty, they give contractors a way to completely avoid federal and state regulations and oversight. New York should not be a party to this injustice.
New York State’s low-level radioactive waste is
shipped to three out-of-state facilities: in Washington, Utah, and the largest,
in Barnwell, South Carolina. Barnwell is a poor, rural community that is 46
percent African-American. Fifty-five percent of the waste volume and 99 percent
of the radioactivity is shipped to Barnwell because the other two sites have
very low radioactive concentration limits.5
In 1990, during routine environmental monitoring, tritium, a dangerous
mutagenic chemical, was found 2200 feet south of the disposal trenches. The
tritium plume is now about 3,100 feet long and 750 feet wide (1992 estimation),
approximately 46 acres total, and is moving towards Mary’s Branch, the closest
flowing stream. Radioactive material often moves through underground faults.
Barnwell has one such fault running through at least two trenches where
radioactive waste is stored.6 The
storage site was closed from June 1994 to June 1995, but was reopened by the
South Carolina legislature, with higher fees intended to help balance the
state’s education budget. Chem-Nuclear, the company that operates the storage
site, has been unable to make the required payments, and yet is still accepting
low-level radioactive waste.
Not long ago, if a solid waste firm wanted to build a construction and demolition wood waste incinerator, it would try to sell it to prospective host communities as a co-generation plant for burning clean wood chips. Now that “green energy” is the buzz word of the evolving marketplace created by electric utility deregulation, these same incinerator schemers are packaging their incinerators as green energy biomass co-generation power plants that will improve air quality.
At the same time that the new green energy
marketplace has resulted in an 11.5 megawatt wind farm in Madison County,
several nearby upstate communities have been targeted for construction and
demolition waste incinerators. One such
marketeer is the Philpower Corporation, who says that their new company is
“specializing in environmentally-friendly power” and that they're doing this
“in response to a growing need for green power.” They describe their waste
incinerators as “green energy biomass co-generation power plants” that would
“take pollution out of the air.”
Philpower Corporation is already scouting several
New York communities, pitching their waste incinerator as a “green” energy
facility. Incineration is not an environmentally benign activity. Incinerators burn anything from tires to
wood to animal feces, and, true to the principle of “garbage in – garbage out”
most of the toxins brought to the flame go up the stack or are concentrated in
the ash; and sometimes new pollutants are created in the process. After looking
into the facts, environmental groups in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and
Maryland have decided to fight Philpower’s request for new incinerators in
their states. Equally ominous is the fact that Philpower has expressed interest
in converting some upstate boiler facilities to waste incinerators. 7
Waste incineration is the worst category of biomass.
Expensive incinerators have an appetite for material that encourages waste
production, and, since they almost always benefit from some sort of public
subsidy, this resource-wasteful phenomenon violates state policy while running
counter to the best interests of the environment and the public’s health. By
categorizing incinerators as “green,” other, genuinely clean sources of energy
are displaced. New York’s main renewable energy focus should be on wind,
geothermal, and solar energy. The term “green” energy should be judiciously
applied to these sources and not to incineration and other environmentally
destructive strategies that contribute to consumer deceit and exploitation of
disadvantaged communities.
·
71%
of African-Americans and 50% of Latino Americans live in areas with the worst
air pollution. Only 34% of Euro-Americans live in these areas.8
·
96%
of black children and 80% of white children of poor families in inner cities
have unsafe levels of lead in their blood – amounts sufficient to reduce IQ,
harm hearing, reduce the ability to concentrate, and stunt physical growth.9
·
More
than 300,000 farm workers suffer pesticide-related illnesses each year. People
of color make up 80-90% of all migrant farm workers.10
·
The
U.S. exported 139,000 tons of toxic waste in 1990 alone.11
·
3
out of 5 Americans of color live in communities with uncontrolled toxic waste
sites.12
·
Abandoned
hazardous waste sites in minority communities take 20% longer than those in
Euro-American areas to be placed on the national priority list for cleanup.13
·
Penalties
under hazardous waste laws at sites having the greatest Euro-American
population were 500% higher than penalties with the greatest minority
population. The fines averaged $335,566 for Euro-American areas: $55,318 in minority
areas.14
Sincerely,
Kyle Rabin
Nuclear Energy Policy Project Director
Air & Energy Program Associate
Environmental Advocates
353 Hamilton Street
Albany, NY 12210
David
Higby
Solid
Waste Project Director
Environmental Advocates
353 Hamilton Street
Albany, NY 12210
Jeff
Jones
Communications
Director
Environmental Advocates
353 Hamilton Street
Albany, NY 12210
Lisa
Cohrs
Air
& Energy Intern
Environmental Advocates
353 Hamilton Street
Albany, NY 12210
[1] “Organic Toxicants and pathogens in Sewage Sludge and Their Environmental Effects,” J.G. Babish, D.J. Lisk, G.S. Stoewsand, and C. Wilkinson, A Special Report of the Subcommittee on Organics in Sludge, Cornell University, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, December 1981.
2 “Flood of Money Wins an Uneasy Home in Texas for New York City Waste,” Allen R. Myerson, The New York Times, July 17, 1995 and “Stink over Sludge,” Kevin Flynn and Michael Moss, New York Newsday, August 2, 1994
3 “West Texas
Residents object to playing host to relocated NY sludge.” Lee Hancock
Dallas
Morning News, May 27, 1992
4 TNRCC Compliance Review Inspection Report MERCO site March 17, 1999
5 “New York State Low-Level Radioactive Waste Status Report for 1999.” New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (June 2000)
6 Resnikoff, Marvin. PhD. “Leakage from Existing Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Facilities” (New York: Radioactive Waste Management Associates, January 6, 1992)
7 In an August 30, 2000 phone conversation with Wayne Coverdale, a Philpower representative, we were told that the company has expressed interest in converting some upstate facilities to waste incinerators. Mr. Coverdale would not disclose the locations, citing the information to be sensitive due to the competitive nature of the restructured electric utility industry.
8 Luke Cole, “Empowerment as the key to Environmental Equity,” The Environmental Justice Project (Lawyer’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law: Washington, D.C., 1993).
9 Karen Florini and others, “Legacy of Lead: America’s Continuing Epidemic of Childhood Lead Poisoning,” (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Defense Fund, Mar,1990).
10 “Environmental Justice at Home and Abroad,” People of Color Environmental Groups, 1994-5 Directory, (Flint, MI: Mott Foundation).
11 “International Toxics Trade,” People of Color Environmental Groups, 1994-5 Directory, (Flint, MI: Mott Foundation).
12 Lester Brown, State of the World (Norton: New York, 1994).
13 Robert Bullard, “Environmental Justice Project (Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law: Washington D.C., 1993).
14 Robert Bullard, “Environmental Justice Project (Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law: Washington D.C., 1993).