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newsies 1- july '97
FYI, to subscribe to greenpeace's various listserv's, incl. the global news
headlines (immed. below) that i periodically remind people they snip after
the 1st sentence or less (for int'l copyright reasons, but gp is working on
getting a bit more leeway):
send command 'lists' to: majordomo@xs2.greenpeace.org
(add the command 'help' to get a list of commands, incl. how to subscribe,
if you're unfamiliar w/ the majordomo automated listserv software). -tony
------
July 6, 1997
FROM GREENPEACE, Greenbase Project
<<< TOXICS >>>
<<GP>>
2 (Olympics) Australiam government to investigate contamination
claim SYDNEY, July 6 (AFP) Claims that highly toxic dioxins had
been dumped at the 2000 Sydney Olympics site would be seriously
investigated, Environment Minister Robert Hill said Sunday.
3 [2] FDA stops use of dioxin-tainted livestock feed WASHINGTON,
July 3 (Reuter) The Food and Drug Administration Thursday barred
further sale and distribution of poultry feed that was tainted with
dioxin, a dangerous chemical compound. The FDA said the levels of
4 AP Worldstream July 05, 1997 HEADLINE: Sixty-seven people sent
to hospital after chlorine leak DATELINE: KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia
Sixty-seven people were rushed to the hospital following
a chlorine leak at a water treatment plant at a village
<<< CHEMICAL WEAPONS >>>
OPPT NEWSBREAK Thursday, 3 July 1997
Today's "Toxic News for the Net" brought to you by the OPPT
Library
http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/oppt_nb.txt
"Addenda [Around the Nation]." Washington Post, 3 July 97, A10.
Times Beach, Missouri, which was abandoned and leveled
because of dioxin contamination, will be turned into a park
dedicated to U.S. Route 66, the highway running from Chicago
to Los Angeles that served as a major east-west link until
the 1950s, when the interstate highway system covered parts
of it and bypassed the rest.
"A Sanitary History of Household Bleach [Etcetera]." Washington
Post Home, 3 July 97, 22.
A timeline of the evolution of household bleach, from 5000
B.C. when Egyptians relied on the sun to whiten their
garments, through the early 1900s when the Electro-Alkaline
Co. (now the Clorox Co.) made sodium hypochlorite bleach, to
today's environmental debate over reducing dioxin, a
chlorine byproduct.
"Children's Health Declaration, Chair's Summary from G-7
Environment Ministers Meeting in
Miami," Bureau of National Affairs - International Environment
Reporter Current Reports (May
14, 1997): 498-501.
G-7 Environmental Ministers released a declaration on children's
health during a recent meeting in
Miami. The declaration acknowledged that children are exposed to
numerous health threats from
a wide variety of environmental hazards, and specified "items for
action" which could "benefit
most from collective effort by the Eight." The action items were
environmental risk assessments
and standard setting, children's exposure to lead,
microbiologically safe drinking water,
environmental tobacco smoke, emerging threats to children's
health from endocrine disrupting
chemicals, and impacts of global climate change to children's
health. The declaration stressed the
importance of sharing information, collaborating on research and
developing cooperative
strategies to deal with these threats.
** [note: epa's proposed rule on this just arrived, see separate post from me.]
EPA Report Details Impacts of Air Toxics On Great Waters,
Proposes Plan of Action. Daily Environment Report, July 1, 1997,
pAA-1.
EPA Administrator Carol Browner was expected to submit a
report to Congress yesterday detailing the deposition of air
toxics to the nation's surface waters. The June 30 deadline for
the letter to Congress was part of a settlement reached in May
with environmental organizations (Sierra Club v. Browner, DC DC,
No. 96-1680).
The document, titled "Deposition of Air Pollutants to the
Great Waters - Report to Congress," calls for more regulation to
protect the country's great waters (the Great Lakes, Chesapeake
Bay, Lake Champlain, and some coastal areas) from air pollution.
The agency is required under court order to make a final decision
on what future control measures will need to be taken by March
15, 1998.
According to Eric Ginsberg of the Air Quality Strategies and
Standards Division of the EPA Office of Air Quality Planning and
Standards, the agency's findings support the conclusion that the
deposition of air toxics to surface waters is happening. The
agency has not yet found a strong cause and effect relationship
linking the pollutants to the damage that is being seen in these
environments, however.
Ginsberg cited several examples of progress that is being
made to reduce the deposition of air toxics to the waters. An
agreement between Canada and the US, for example, is expected to
reduce the amount of mercury deposited to the Great Lakes by 50
percent.
Howard Fox, a Sierra Club attorney, accuses the EPA of being
slow in addressing this problem. Under Section 112(m) of the
Clean Air Act, the agency was required to prepare a report on the
problem three years after the 1990 amendments were adopted, and
biennially after that. EPA was also required to make a decision
as to whether new regulation would be needed to resolve the
problem by November 1995.
Fox said that there was enough evidence on the issue at this
time that EPA should move immediately to address the problem.
No Further Rules Needed to Protect Great Waters From Air Toxics,
EPA Says. Daily Environment Report, July 2, 1997, ppA-4-5.
EPA does not need to set additional regulations to protect
certain surface waters in the United States from toxic air
pollutant deposition, according to a agency report entitled
_Deposition of Air Pollutants to the Great Waters-Report to
Congress_.
The report concluded that while deposition of 15 "pollutants
of concern" into the nation's surface waters is still a problem,
the provisions concerning toxics in the Clean Air Act give the
agency enough authority to deal with the problem.
The report stated that provisions contained in Section 112
of the Clean Air Act, which set technology based standards for
the sources of 188 air toxics, "are adequate to prevent serious
adverse human health effects and serious or widespread
environmental effects as a result of atmospheric depositions of
[hazardous air pollutants] emitted by stationary sources."