While conceding that “incidents involving ammonium nitrate may be among the most severe and highest-profile accidental releases both in the United States and around the world,” the Environmental Protection Agency proposes leaving the highly explosive chemical unregulated as it updates rules covering the storage of hazardous substances. In a report to be released Tuesday, a pair of national environmental organizations points to the Jan. 31 Winston Weaver Co. fire as clear evidence that the EPA’s approach puts lives and communities at grave risk. “Companies should be required to disclose the presence of ammonium nitrate at their facilities and have approved risk management plans in place to protect workers and surrounding communities,” Coming Clean and the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform note in their 19-page report.
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Recent Coverage of the Coming Clean network
March 13, 2023
East Palestine Toxic Train Crash Shows Plastics Industry Toll on Planet. Will U.S. Ban Vinyl Chloride?
Five weeks after the Norfolk Southern train disaster in the small town of East Palestine, Ohio, the company’s CEO Alan Shaw was grilled on Capitol Hill Thursday about the February 3rd derailment and so-called controlled burn that blanketed the town with a toxic brew of at least six hazardous chemicals and gases, including vinyl chloride, which, when heated, becomes phosgene, the World War I chemical weapon. The company has evaded calls to cover healthcare costs as residents continue to report headaches, coughing, fatigue, irritation and burning of the skin. For more on the ongoing fallout from the toxic crash, and its roots in the plastics industry, we are joined by Monica Unseld, a biologist and environmental and social justice advocate who has studied the health impact of endocrine-disrupting chemicals used in plastics like those released in East Palestine.
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February 26, 2023
Can you tell if a ‘bomb train’ is coming to your town? It’s complicated.
In the wake of the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment, Governor Mike DeWine called on Congress to look into why the rural village didn’t know ahead of time they had volatile chemicals coming through town. “We should know when we have trains carrying hazardous materials through the state of Ohio,” DeWine said at a press conference. This information is out there, but it’s probably not what the governor had in mind. With the derailment of the Norfolk Southern train receiving international attention, more railroad communities are now asking what is traveling through their backyard. Stephanie Herron, a national organizer with the collective Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform said in a statement that neighboring communities refuse to accept these events as a fact of life. “These issues aren’t new to the people who live near hazardous facilities who have been speaking up about the urgent need to transition to safer chemicals to prevent disasters in their communities,“ Herron said. “What’s new is that more people are paying attention.”
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February 25, 2023
Revealed: the US is averaging one chemical accident every two days
Mike DeWine, the Ohio governor, recently lamented the toll taken on the residents of East Palestine after the toxic train derailment there, saying “no other community should have to go through this”. But such accidents are happening with striking regularity. A Guardian analysis of data collected by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and by non-profit groups that track chemical accidents in the US shows that accidental releases – be they through train derailments, truck crashes, pipeline ruptures or industrial plant leaks and spills – are happening consistently across the country. By one estimate these incidents are occurring, on average, every two days. For Eboni Cochran, a mother and volunteer community activist, the East Palestine disaster has hardly added to her faith in the federal government. Cochran lives with her husband and 16-year-old son roughly 400 miles south of the derailment, near a Louisville, Kentucky, industrial zone along the Ohio River that locals call “Rubbertown.” The area is home to a cluster of chemical manufacturing facilities, and curious odors and concerns about toxic exposures permeate the neighborhoods near the plants.
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December 6, 2022
New papers provide tools for health protective action
Two recently published science policy papers advance health protective policies and practices regarding hazardous chemicals. The two publications together – the Evaluation of Evidence paper and the Epidemiology Toolkit paper - are meant to be helpful for government regulatory and non-regulatory actions as well as private industry initiatives, to support health-protective policies and practices.
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November 22, 2022
White House Equity Screening Tool Aims to Steer Justice40 Funds
Environmental justice advocates generally embraced the tool’s release, though they expressed the broad expectation that the administration needs to refine the mapping effort in future iterations.“There is more work to do, but this is a positive step in the administration’s work to advance environmental justice for all,” said Richard Moore, co-coordinator of the Los Jardines Institute in Albuquerque, N.M., and a co-chair of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. The CEQ screening tool—which draws from other environmental equity mapping efforts long in use by the EPA and states such as California, Michigan, Maryland, and New Mexico—are key to President Joe Biden’s Justice40 effort to steer 40% of the benefits of climate, clean energy, affordable housing, and other investments to disadvantaged communities.
Read MoreOctober 25, 2022
Recent Chemical Disasters Impel Stronger Federal Safety Regs
Acrid smoke filling barely breathable air. School buildings shaking as students and teachers sheltered in place. First responders fighting fires over multiple days, and at a disadvantage due to the hazardous chemicals present. This was just some of the havoc wrought by three dangerous incidents at chemical facilities that occurred within a two-week span in January 2022, all of which caused significant harm to workers and communities. A timely joint report by Coming Clean and the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform (EJHA) analyzes these incidents and uses them as a lens to address the adequacy of the Risk Management Plan (RMP) rule, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) primary regulation intended to prevent chemical disasters. And, as EPA has recently proposed revisions to the RMP rule, Coming Clean and EJHA identify where EPA needs to do better in order to achieve its stated goal: protecting communities and advancing environmental justice.
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October 23, 2022
Safety advocates say EPA proposal not enough to protect vulnerable communities like Kanawha Valley from chemical disaster
Maya Nye felt the boom that changed her life from a mile away. Then a fire truck went down her one-way street announcing that a shelter-in-place order had taken effect and to shut all doors and windows. Nye, then 16, sheltered in place like she had been taught in school, but the duct tape she put up to cover the cracks around the door and windows didn’t work. The smell infiltrated her house. An explosion at the Institute chemical plant then owned by former French chemical company Rhône-Poulenc killed one worker and injured two others who were in a unit for the insecticide methomyl. It was Aug. 18, 1993 — nearly nine years after a leak of highly toxic methyl isocyanate from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, killed thousands of people and caused permanent disabilities or premature death for many thousands more. “My life was forever changed,” recalled Nye, who became a chemical safety advocate and is now federal policy director for Coming Clean, a chemical industry-focused environmental health nonprofit. Read More
Most Farmworkers Speak Spanish, but Pesticide Safety Labels Are Often Only Printed in English
Pesticide labels are more like long technical manuals, sometimes totaling 30-plus pages. The intent of all that information is to minimize the risk of handling the highly toxic chemicals. And there are a lot of risks: Depending on the strength of the pesticide and exposure, farmworkers who come into contact with pesticides can land in a hospital with headaches, rashes, vomiting, and nausea, not to mention the potential for serious long-term health consequences like cancer. While Spanish is the dominant language for 62 percent of farmworkers in the U.S., pesticide labels are typically only printed in English. “We’ve been fighting for bilingual pesticide labels for 15 or 20 years,” says Jeannie Economos, pesticide safety and environmental health project coordinator with the Farmworker Association of Florida. “It’s very frustrating.”
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September 21, 2022
Qualco chemical plant lacked federal oversight at time of giant Passaic fire
Despite housing millions of pounds of hazardous chemicals, the Passaic chlorine plant that was almost engulfed in a massive fire earlier this year was not required to register its stockpile with the federal government or develop a special safety plan, according to a report released Tuesday by a watchdog group. The Qualco chlorine plant falls outside the purview of the Environmental Protection Agency's Risk Management Plan and its most recent revisions designed to prevent chemical disasters like the one that nearly unfolded in January. "A stronger rule is needed to ensure that hazards are removed, or we will continue to see more chemical disasters," said Steve Taylor, a director at Coming Clean, an environmental nonprofit group based in Vermont. Elias Rodriguez, an EPA spokesman, confirmed that Qualco is not in the EPA's program because it "does not meet threshold quantities of RMP-regulated substances." Read More
September 21, 2022
Report recommends safety measures to prevent chemical disasters
(KPLC News) Some think more needs to be done to reduce risk from chemical leaks and explosions from industries. The explosion at Westlake Chemical in January is one of three featured in a report profiling explosions and safety measures that authors said EPA can require right now to prevent future chemical disasters. Authors of the report wrote six workers were injured and 7,000 students in a dozen schools had to shelter in place. Steve Taylor said their report includes three case studies of serious chemical incidents, including Westlake. “That happened within two weeks of each other, in January of this year, and each of those incidents and the failures that led up to them provides important insights for how EPA needs to strengthen this rule to prevent chemical disasters,” Taylor said. Read More
September 20, 2022
Louisiana plant's 'egregious' record highlighted in national push for new chemical safety rules
A new report points to a chemical explosion in Louisiana this year as a prime example of why the federal government should toughen national safety standards at petrochemical plants. The Jan. 26 blast that injured six workers at Westlake Corp.’s Lake Charles South complex and forced thousands of students to shelter at their schools was one of three chemical incidents highlighted in the report, produced by Coming Clean and the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform. Read More
September 20, 2022
Report slams EPA's approach to chemical disasters
EPA is relying too much on voluntary industry actions to address the risks certain chemical facilities pose to the public, advocates say in a scathing new report that pushes for changes to a draft rule. Two coalitions composed of environmental justice groups, Coming Clean and the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, in a report released Tuesday say that while EPA is seeking regulatory revisions to address the risks, more must be done. The groups lay out specific recommendations and point to recent chemical disasters in pressuring the agency for changes to its approach. Industrial and commercial facilities storing highly hazardous chemicals, the groups argue, "disproportionately endanger communities of color and low-income communities." Those areas, they continue, "also often experience disproportionate levels of toxic air pollution and other health and environmental hazards." Read More
September 14, 2022
EPA will restore an Obama-era chemical disaster safety rule, but advocates say it doesn’t go far enough
The EPA is planning to reinstate a rule meant to prevent fires, leaks, spills, explosions, and other disasters at more than 12,000 facilities nationwide, including many oil and gas and petrochemical plants. But many safety advocates say it’s still missing crucial protection for people living nearby. Maya Nye, federal policy director with environmental health and justice group Coming Clean, said that nearby air monitors are often disabled or turned off before and during emergencies. “We think they need to have fenceline monitors and ensure that they have backup power and are never turned off,” Nye said. Read More
September 8, 2022
EPA proposes changes to chemical disaster prevention rule that looms large in Kanawha Valley
The Environmental Protection Agency has revealed, and is taking public comment on, its revisions to the Risk Management Program rule that requires facilities using hazardous substances to develop programs to prevent and limit releases of chemicals into the environment. The rule looms large in the Kanawha Valley, which has long been called "Chemical Valley" for its disproportionately high number of chemical plants. Maya Nye, federal policy director at Coming Clean, a chemical industry-focused environmental health nonprofit, grew up a mile from Union Carbide's Institute facility and believes that too many of the rule's provisions are voluntary.
"We've just seen in the past that voluntary measures don't work," Nye said. "Voluntary measures are not adequate to protect workers and the public."Nye pointed to a provision that says natural hazards, such as floods, wildfires and extreme temperatures, should be included in chemical facility hazard reviews. The rule should go further, Nye argued, to ensure that facility operators act to guard against natural hazards beyond reviewing the potential for those crises. Read More
September 1, 2022
Biden promised billions for environmental justice. Will it get into the right hands?
Eboni Cochran, an advocate with Rubbertown Emergency ACTion, has a family go-bag ready in case of an industrial disaster. Chickasaw Park and other areas of Cochran's neighborhood are in the 98th percentile nationally for proximity to Risk Management Program facilities — facilities where the handling of "extremely hazardous materials" necessitates emergency response procedures. West End residents don't even know what they're breathing, and Cochran said that's been a big part of REACT’s focus. Federal funding could go a long way toward establishing a comprehensive, real-time air monitoring system that would allow those residents to know what they’re breathing and whether it’s safe to go outside, Cochran said. Read More
July 25, 2022
Items with lead are easy to find at antique shops, discount stores. They’re also toxic
Campaign for Healthier Solutions, which works to reduce lead and other toxic elements in items purchased at discount stores, has conducted studies over the years on the lead levels in things like tablecloths, jewelry and toys sold at discount stores. Its most recent study found that of 226 items tested, the level with toxic chemicals, including lead, dropped from 81% in 2015 to 53% in 2022. While the lead levels were improved, lead soldering in toys and headphones targeted towards children were found to have high levels of the toxic metal. The group wants discount stores to demand manufacturers produce products with no lead, said José Bravo, national coordinator for the Campaign for Healthier Solutions. “Lead is such an easy lift for stores or retailers to go upstream to their suppliers and say, ‘Guess what? No lead is safe lead, right,’” he said.
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July 19, 2022
Group urges chemical industry to move away from petrochemicals
Activists say the chemical industry needs to switch from petrochemical building blocks such as methanol to safer, biobased substances, Chemical & Engineering News reports. Substances that are not derived from fossil fuels should replace benzene, butadiene, ethylene, methanol, propylene, toluene, and xylene, according to a report by the group Coming Clean, a U.S.-based network of community activists, environmental justice organizations, and policy, science and market experts. Such a shift would be a major change for south Louisiana, where the petrochemical industry has grown over the past decade. In Baton Rouge, for example, ExxonMobil is in the middle of a $500 million production capacity upgrade at its polyolefins plant. Read More
July 13, 2022
Switch to safer basic chemicals, activists tell industry
The chemical industry needs to switch away from its major building-block petrochemicals so it can transform into a sector that no longer harms people’s health or the environment, according to a July 13 report from activists. Lower-hazard substances that are not derived from fossil fuels should replace benzene, butadiene, ethylene, methanol, propylene, toluene, and xylene, says the report by the group Coming Clean. It is a US-based network of community activists, environmental justice organizations, and policy, science, and market experts. “The petrochemical sector’s reliance on fossil-fuel feedstocks and manufacturing processes that have evolved little in a hundred years is a massive barrier for change,” Beverley Thorpe, program manager at Clean Production Action and author of the report, says in a statement.
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June 30, 2022
"Extremely dangerous path": Supreme Court decision on EPA is a step backward in fighting climate change, experts warn
A 2021 study found that fossil fuel air pollution is responsible for causing nearly 1 in 5 deaths worldwide every year. This year, the World Health Organization found that 99% of the world is breathing poor-quality air, mostly because of fossil fuel emissions. In the U.S., the impacts of climate change have historically impacted low-income communities and people of color the most. Industrial facilities are often located in these areas, polluting the air and causing health problems for people who live nearby. Roberts said she hopes the setback from the court will be an "extra push" for change. "We came together because of the failures and the inconsistencies with the climate and with the climate polices that really were not impacting everyone," she said. "…After decisions like the one have been made, now it's time for us to organize, educate, mobilize and take action. And that's what we're ready to do." Read More