TennesseeCitizenScienceWatch

New study looks at the association between mountaintop mining and birth defects in central Appalachia

A new study by Melissa M. Ahern, Michael Hendryx, Jamison Conley, Evan Fedorko, Alan Ducatman and Keith J. Zullig adds to a growing body of research on negative impacts of mountaintop removal coal mining to the health and well being of citizens who live near these mines. Here's the abstract:

Abstract

Birth defects are examined in mountaintop coal mining areas compared to other coal mining areas and non-mining areas of central Appalachia. The study hypothesis is that higher birth-defect rates are present in mountaintop mining areas. National Center for Health Statistics natality files were used to analyze 1996–2003 live births in four Central Appalachian states (N=1,889,071). Poisson regression models that control for covariates compare birth defect prevalence rates associated with maternal residence in county mining type: mountaintop mining areas, other mining areas, or non-mining areas. The prevalence rate ratio (PRR) for any birth defect was significantly higher in mountaintop mining areas compared to non-mining areas (PRR=1.26, 95% CI=1.21, 1.32), after controlling for covariates. Rates were significantly higher in mountaintop mining areas for six of seven types of defects: circulatory/respiratory, central nervous system, musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal, urogenital, and ‘other’. There was evidence that mountaintop mining effects became more pronounced in the latter years (2000–2003) versus earlier years (1996–1999.) Spatial correlation between mountaintop mining and birth defects was also present, suggesting effects of mountaintop mining in a focal county on birth defects in neighboring counties. Elevated birth defect rates are partly a function of socioeconomic disadvantage, but remain elevated after controlling for those risks. Both socioeconomic and environmental influences in mountaintop mining areas may be contributing factors.

via www.sciencedirect.com

See also:

New WVU-Va Tech study links water quality and cancer deaths in West Virginia coalfields (April 2010)

Mortality in Appalachian Coal Mining Regions: The Value of Statistical Life Lost

Access 5 articles by Michael Hendryx and others in a virtual journal issue on Environmental Health for Rural Populations

Scientists call for moratorium on mountaintop removal mining permits

Action Alert: HR 1391 would kill meaningful protection of communities from coal ash

A couple of days ago I posted a link on Rep. David McKinley's bad ash bill that would permanently prohibit the EPA from regulating coal and other fossil fuel combustion wastes under subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).

A number of organizations have released action alerts to ask citizens to let their  Representative in Washington know that this is not an acceptable outcome for handling toxic coal ash.

The bill -- HR 1391 -- is scheduled for markup at 4pm tomorrow in the House Environment and the Economy subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and could be voted on in committee in a day or two.

If your Representative is a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee or the Environment and Economy subcommittee, it would be especially appreciated if you would get in touch with them to register your opinion on this issue.

If you live in the 7th District of Tennessee, your Representive is Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who is a member of the Committee.

It is especially important to contact your representative if you live near a coal-burning power plant or a landfill that accepts coal combustion waste. The strongest protection for people and communities near ash ponds and landfills would be for coal combustion wastes to be regulated under Subtitle C!

You can find more information on coal combustion waste disposal and the proposed rule at EPA's Coal Combustion Residuals page.

Robert Alvarez: Fixing America's Nuclear Waste Storage Problem

Great article on spent fuel storage by Robert Alvarez, an Institute for Policy Studies senior scholar, who served as a senior policy adviser to the Secretary of Energy during the Clinton administration and wrote the recently released report Spent Nuclear Fuel Pools in the U.S.: Reducing the Deadly Risks of Storage (PDF), available for download at www.ips-dc.org.

Excerpt from today's article at The Nation:

In March 1992 George Galatis, a nuclear engineer at the Millstone nuclear power station in Waterford, Connecticut, became alarmed during a refueling. The reactor had to be shut down and the full radioactive core of the Unit 1 reactor, which held thousands of rods, was removed and then dumped into the spent fuel pool—a blatant violation of Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) safety requirements.

via www.thenation.com

AP IMPACT: US nuke regulators weaken safety rules - Yahoo! News

Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation's aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards, or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.

Time after time, officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have decided that original regulations were too strict, arguing that safety margins could be eased without peril, according to records and interviews.

The result? Rising fears that these accommodations by the NRC are significantly undermining safety — and inching the reactors closer to an accident that could harm the public and jeopardize the future of nuclear power in the United States.

via news.yahoo.com

McKinley sells out West Virginians (and all of us) with sponsorship of coal ash bill

More than two years ago, millions of gallons of toxic coal ash sludge broke through a waste pond at the Kingston Fossil plant and created a waking nightmare for citizens in Roane County, Tennessee. Those citizens -- many of them now suffering health consequences related to the ash -- still wait for strong regulations that could prevent a similar disaster for other communities near ash ponds.

In the aftermath of the Kingston event, many in the US Congress seemed to be interested in moving forward on tighter regulation of coal ash. The EPA finally came out with a proposed coal ash rule, and citizens from all over the country testified at official (and unofficial) hearings to express their concerns. But in April this year, Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) introduced H.R 1391, a bill to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating fossil fuel combustion waste under subtitle C of the Solid Waste Disposal Act.

Yesterday's Tr-Ash Talk Bog at Earthjustice explored Rep. McKinley's possible motivation for a bill that clearly works against public health and safety, and the disappointment of Curt Havens, a West Virginia citizen who says McKinley promised to protect communities from another Kingston-style coal ash disaster:

Some of our elected leaders are once more maneuvering to block much-needed health protections against coal ash. Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) has sponsored a bill that would broadly remove federal authority for any regulation of coal ash ever. This bill, if enacted, also would conveniently protect his business interests. In April, Politico exposed Rep. McKinley’s business interest in ensuring that coal ash is not regulated. Rep McKinley owns the largest engineering firm in West Virginia and his company uses coal ash in concrete, as fill for roads and other uses.

Rep. McKinley also represents a district that has the largest coal ash pond in the nation, and his bill goes against what he promised West Virginian Curt Havens, veteran and constituent.  Havens was at the Energy and Commerce hearing in April, when Rep. McKinley said, about prior coal ash threats, "I want to make sure that never happens again to another family in America." (Those comments start at minute marker 2:26:26.) Again, business interests are coming before the interest of protecting public health.

via earthjustice.org

We, the people, need to keep pressure on our representatives to keep bad legislation from suppressing the protection that stronger regulation under Subtitle C would give us. HR 1391 will be be marked up in the Environment and Economy subcommittee of Energy and Commerce Committee next Thursday, June 21. Please contact subcommittee committee members and let them know what you think.

Generation mPower and TVA Sign letter of intent for small modular reactors in Roane County

Small modular reactors are becoming a hot subject as the United States and other countries try to find their way through the challenges of electical power generation for the 21st century. It looks as if TVA would like to see them in Tennessee:

Charlotte, N.C.–(Business Wire)– The Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W) (NYSE:BWC – News) announced today that Generation mPower LLC (GmP), a majority-owned subsidiary of Babcock & Wilcox Nuclear Energy, Inc., has signed a letter of intent with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) that defines the project plans and associated conditions for designing, licensing and constructing up to six B&W mPower small modular reactors (SMRs) at TVA’s Clinch River site in Roane County, Tenn. The project is expected to include joint development and pursuit of a construction permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The project would also include engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) activities leading to receipt of an operating license from the NRC, assuming certain preconditions are met.

via www.nuclearcounterfeit.com

A few days ago, Dr. Ajun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), had a great article on small modular reactors (SMRs) at The Hill.

Makhijani says the enthusiasm for SMRs is "hype and hope more than substance." He summarizes the drawbacks as he sees them and concludes that:

The result is that a typical reactor project would still have to be very large with several reactors per project; a single small reactor at a site would become prohibitively expensive if security and safety standards are to be maintained. This would defeat the purpose of the flexible "modular" design.

Beyond that, Makhijani echoes concerns of many others about the nuclear power industry's actual track record:

Nuclear power advocates have long promised far more than they can deliver, ignoring essential hurdles such as cost, safety, and performance. Decades of experience, however, have proven those promises to be hollow and hazardous. The notion that "small is beautiful" for nuclear reactors is not just fanciful; it is whistling past the graveyard of the "nuclear renaissance" that never was.

For more information on Dr. Makhijani's views on nuclear power generation issues, you can visit the IEER website or check out other articles:

Arjun Makhijani believes nuclear power is too costly and too risky (March 12, 2011)

Spent Fuel Pools: Assessing the Threat at Damaged Nuclear Plant (March 17, 2011 -- interview of Arjun Makhijani and Najmedin Meshkati by Judy Woodruff, PBS)

Fukushima: It's much worse than you think - Al Jazeera English

This is a good article from Dahr Jamail. It features analysis of the ongoing Fukushima nuclear plant disaster from Arnie Gunderson, a US nuclear engineer who is a frequent contributor to a "no nukes" listserv I subscribe to. His assessments of Fukushima and warnings about the nuclear power generation situation in the United States have been on point and very helpful to many activists.

Here's an excerpt from Jamail's article:

"Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind," Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, told Al Jazeera.

Japan's 9.0 earthquake on March 11 caused a massive tsunami that crippled the cooling systems at the Tokyo Electric Power Company's (TEPCO) nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan. It also led to hydrogen explosions and reactor meltdowns that forced evacuations of those living within a 20km radius of the plant.

Gundersen, a licensed reactor operator with 39 years of nuclear power engineering experience, managing and coordinating projects at 70 nuclear power plants around the US, says the Fukushima nuclear plant likely has more exposed reactor cores than commonly believed.

"Fukushima has three nuclear reactors exposed and four fuel cores exposed," he said, "You probably have the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactor cores because of the fuel cores, and they are all in desperate need of being cooled, and there is no means to cool them effectively."

via english.aljazeera.net

Chemicals In Our Waters Are Affecting Humans And Aquatic Life In Unanticipated Ways

This article was published back in 2008, but it introduces the problem of emerging chemical contaminants and their impact on aquatic life:

Derek Muir of Environment Canada and colleagues have determined that of the 30,000 or so chemicals used commercially in the United States and Canada, about 400 resist breaking down in the environment and can accumulate in fish and wildlife. These researchers estimate that of this 400, only 4 percent are routinely analyzed and about 75 percent have not been studied. These "emerging chemical contaminants," or ECCs, are not necessarily all new substances. But with improved detection technologies, their unexpected potential impacts on the environment and human health are just now coming to light.

via www.sciencedaily.com

The US Geological Survey's Toxic Substances Hydrology program has been conducting research on emerging contaminants and has a lot of information and links at their Emerging Contaminants in the Environment web page. The Contaminant Biology program page at USGS also has excellent info and links.

The EPA just made it easier to see who's dumping what in your community

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is making it easier to find out what chemicals are being used or dumped in your community. data about chemicals. EPA is releasing two databases — the Toxicity Forecaster database (ToxCastDB) and a database of chemical exposure studies (ExpoCastDB). With these online tools, citizens can access toxicity and exposure data on thousands of chemicals.

How big of a deal are chemicals in our environment? More than 45 million chemicals are commercially availble worldwide, and thousands more are added to chemical registries every day.

The EPA has some search widgets that  I've installed in the sidebar, or you can use the links above to check out the databases. I'm also putting together some typelists that will soon be added to the sidebar -- they will include the EPA databses as well as links to CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) website.

For more information you can read the full press release:EPA Improves Access to Information on Hundreds of Chemicals / Searchable databases on chemical toxicity and exposure data now available.