Radionuclides in My Well Water- Now What Do I Do

A radionuclide is an atom with an unstable nucleus that emits its excess energy in the form of rays or high speed particles. Radioactivity, the release of the excess energy as gamma rays and high energy alpha and beta particles occurs when unstable elements give off the excess energy and particles to form more stable elements. The process by which an element changes from an unstable state to a more stable state by emitting radiation is called radioactive decay.
Gamma rays, alpha particles, and beta particles, which are given off by radioactive decay, have very different properties but are all ionizing radiation. Each form of ionizing radiations contains enough energy to break chemical bonds. The radiation can break bonds in DNA and RNA disrupting its function and potentially damage or destroy living cells. Alpha particles do not penetrate the skin but enter the body when alpha-emitters are in food, water, or air. While some beta particles are capable of penetrating the skin, beta emitters are more hazardous when they enter the body through food and water.

Radioactive elements are naturally present in rocks, soil, and water from trace amounts to dangerous concentrations depending on where you are. The occurrence of radionuclides in ground water is controlled primarily by the local geology and geochemistry of rock and the flow and age of the water. Research by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) found that the over time the concentration of a one radioactive element varied significantly from the same well. Migration and concentration of radionuclides depends on the amount of radioactive material in the bedrock, the moisture levels in the soil, groundwater circulation, and atmospheric pressure. Uranium, thorium, and radium can be highly mobile in groundwater and can move considerable distances and be re-deposited in soils or carried in the groundwater to the well. The isotopes of radium can enter the body through water, and some may be deposited in the bones and may over many years can result in an increased risk of getting cancer. Exposure to uranium in drinking water may result in toxic effects to the kidneys. Some people who drink water containing uranium over many years have an increased risk of getting cancer.

Variation in Radon concentrations over time from USGS

When dissolved in water, radionuclides are colorless, odorless, and tasteless, and typically cannot be detected by our senses, unlike many well water contaminants that cause an undesirable color, odor, or taste. Natural radioactivity in drinking water and its effect on human health have become a greater concern in recent years. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has primary drinking water standards for gross alpha emitters, beta particles, radium and uranium under the Safe Drinking Water Act. However, the EPA also recommends that based solely on possible health risks and exposure over a lifetime that the goal should be to drink water containing a zero concentration of alpha emitters, beta particles, radium 226 and 228 and Uranium.

The EPA does not yet have a recommended drinking water standard for radon because the primary source of radon exposure is from breathing contaminated air in the home or office. EPA has focused on concentration of radon in the air. Radon is a colorless, odorless gas produced by the radioactive decay of radium, which in turn was formed by the decay of uranium. There is a correlation of elevated concentrations of radon in the inside air with elevated concentrations of radionuclidies in groundwater and groundwater can carry radon into the house.

Geological exploration has identified more than 55 locations within the Piedmont and Blue Ridge regions of Virginia where uranium is found. Uranium occurs in the Lovingston rock formation at a fraction of a percent, but radionuclides are known to be present in the groundwater in the regions thanks to sampling done at community water wells. About a decade ago, the USGS found that naturally occurring radionuclides in the ground water of southeastern Pennsylvania may pose a health hazard to some drinking water from wells drilled in the Chickies Quartzite. Counties in Maryland also have high radionuclides in water, just to name a few locations. You can find out more about the likelihood of radionuclides in your groundwater by inquiring at your state’s department of environmental quality or protection or by reading the community disclosure of nearby community water supply wells. That’s how I found out about local water quality and what to test for when I moved to this region.

If you are one of the 15% of U.S. households who obtain your water from a private well, you need to test your well. Every year you should test your well for bacteria and every few years for other substances including radionuclides. The radionuclides tests are expensive the cheapest way to go is to have a state and federal qualified and certified laboratory sample your well water for short-term GAPA, and GBPA. This screening test is less expensive than direct analysis for specific radionuclides. Testing for GAPA and GBPA may cost between $100 and $200, while testing for radium isotopes may cost between $200 and $300. Testing for total uranium may cost between $100 and $200. Call your local department of health to locate a qualified laboratory. Areas with known elevated levels of radionuclides tend to have a list of qualified laboratories. For a fee some health departments can sample your well. Nobody has the budget to test your well for free.

Once you identify the problem, solving the problem of radionuclides is very direct. The only real concern is drinking water and the possibility of radon carried in the water being released into the home. Reverse osmosis systems installed in the kitchen can be used to remove up to 99% of radionuclides in drinking water with selection of the correct membrane according to the EPA. Removal effectiveness depends on membrane selected, the water pressure and proper installation. Proper selection of the membrane and pressure is essential when selecting a reverse osmosis system. Hard water will cause scaling on the membrane so buy extra membranes and know how to change them. When the water pressure in the sink drops, the membrane is fouled and needs to be changed. The reverse osmosis systems require regular maintenance and monitoring to continue to function properly over an extended period of time.

Though I am not a fan of these systems in many applications, they are the best available technology for radionuclides. Reverse osmosis systems use a lot of water. They recover only 5% to 15% of the water entering the system, so they should only be used for the drinking and food preparation water. Waste water is typically connected to the house drains and will add to the load on the household septic system-it’s like adding an extra person to the septic load. A reverse osmosis system delivering 5 gallons of treated water per day may discharge 40 to 90 gallons of waste water per day to the septic system. This is a significant additional load and could impact the life and functioning of your septic system. You might want to look into other methods to dispose of the waste water.

Effectiveness of reverse osmosis system depends on initial levels of contamination, membrane size and type and water pressure. The application of pressure reverses the natural flow of the flow of water in osmosis from high concentration so that water passes from a more concentrated solution to a more dilute solution through a semi-permeable membrane. Reverse osmosis systems incorporate pre and post-filters along with the membrane itself in order for a reverse osmosis system to function properly. It is common to have a whole house filter system utilizing activated carbon installed in series with the reverse osmosis system. When addressing radionuclides the activated carbon filter can reduce the radon levels carried in the water, solving that problem.

Reverse osmosis units on the market range in cost from $200 to $3000 and vary in quality and effectiveness. Homes on well water need to purchase low pressure units. The size and membrane type are one of the factors that will determine cost. Replacement membranes cost $100 to $200 and filter cartridges around $50 (there are usually several)- it’s like a printer, the money is in selling the supplies. Reverse osmosis is a proven technology that has been used successfully on a commercial basis most famously for removing salt from seawater. Household reverse osmosis systems typically deliver small amounts (2 to 10 gallons per day) of treated water and waste 7 to 20 times the amount of water treated. Reverse osmosis systems can also remove many inorganic contaminants from household drinking water supplies including arsenic, sodium and nitrate. The removal effectiveness depends on the contaminant and its concentration, the membrane selected, the water pressure and proper installation and maintenance.

The EPA, Supreme Court and Carbon Dioxide

On Monday, June 23, 2014 the Supreme Court issued its opinion in the case Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA finding that regulators are not fee to “revise clear statutory terms that turn out not to work in practice.” The practical impact of this decision on current EPA regulations is limited, but the precedent is important.

Back in April 2007 in a decision in Massachusetts v EPA (2007), the Supreme Court had ruled that the Clean Air Act did authorize federal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, and that the agency was required to issue them for automobiles unless it had a scientific basis for its refusal. That case was brought by several states to force the EPA to determine whether or not emissions of greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles cause or contribute to air pollution which endangers public health or welfare, or whether the science is too uncertain to make a reasoned decision.

This decision was followed in December 2009 by EPA finding that “the current and projected concentrations of the six key well-mixed greenhouse gases in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.” These greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide (CO2) were thus pollutants under section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act which deals entirely with mobile sources of pollution.

The EPA then took the next step and went on to address greenhouse gases, specifically CO2, from stationary sources. The problem in regulating CO2 from stationary sources is that the Clean Air Act imposes very specific permitting requirements on stationary sources, that are a “major emitting facility”. The Clean Air Act specifically defines a “major emitting facility” as a stationary source with the potential to emit 250 tons per year of “any air pollutant” (or 100 tons per year for certain types of sources). Facilities seeking to qualify for a permit must, demonstrate that they comply with emissions limitations that reflect the “best available control technology” for “each pollutant subject to regulation under” the Act. In addition, Title V of the Clean Air Act makes it unlawful to operate any “major source,” wherever located, without a permit. A “major source” is a stationary source with the potential to emit 100 tons per year of “any air pollutant.”

The obvious problem is that these thresholds would require virtually any commercial building, school, churches, farm, landfill and some residences to obtain a permit to operate under the Clean Air Act a process that according to the EPA could cost $20,000-$50,000 for each entity. So the EPA attempted to side step this issue by raising the permit triggering limits to 100,000 tons to qualify as a major emitting facility for greenhouse gases and 75,000 tons for a stationary source to require a permit under the law.

The Supreme Court found that the EPA lacked authority to “tailor” the Act’s unambiguous numerical thresholds of 100 or 250 tons per year to accommodate its greenhouse-gas-inclusive interpretation of the permitting triggers. This according to the decision would have been an enormous and transformative expansion in EPA’s authority, the ability determine carbon dioxide standards and enforcement without congressional authority. Stating that “Agencies must always give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress.”

The decision states that “the Clean Air Act neither compels nor permits EPA" to require a stationary source to obtain a “Prevention of Significant Deterioration” (PSD) or Title V permit only on the basis of its potential greenhouse-gas emissions. However, EPA can reasonably interpreted the Clean Air Act to require sources that would need permits based on their emission of conventional pollutants to comply with a “best available control technology” requirement for greenhouse gases.

So, EPA gets to require already regulated stationary sources of pollution to use the “best available control technology” to reduce greenhouse gases and determine the limits. This would cover according to the EPA 83% of the greenhouse gas emission from stationary sources. This decision does not address the recently proposed regulations to create national CO2 emissions standards for new and existing power plants with the goal of reducing CO2 emissions.

CO2 Emissions and Net Generation

Last week the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the new regulations that the EPA is proposing under the Clean Air Act to cut carbon dioxide emissions from existing electrical power plants. Power plants are the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, but still only account for about 32% of greenhouse gas released in 2012 (and slightly more of carbon dioxide). Greenhouse gases are: carbon dioxide (CO2), fluorinated gases, nitrous oxide and methane (CH4). According to the EPA CO2 represents 84% of mass of greenhouse gas emissions and that the climate models indicate to be the cause of climate change.

The proposed regulations will require power plants to cut their CO2 emissions by 30% from 2005 levels or 18% from 2013 levels on average across the United States by using a combination of strategies. The proposed regulation will have a very limited if any impact on the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. If these regulations were implemented and in effect today, the effect would be to reduce overall CO2 emissions of all the nations on earth by about three quarters of a percentage point, and by the time they are actually implemented the impact will be far less as U.S. emissions shrink slightly as China and India grow rapidly. In 2012, the U.S. represented about 16% of world CO2 emissions. These proposed regulations for power plants will not change the fate of the planet.

The approach the EPA is taking is to allocate to each state a CO2 limit. The basic formula for the state limit is a rate:

CO2 emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants) divided by (state electricity generation from fossil-fuel fired power plants plus certain low- or zero-emitting power sources).

Existing hydropower is excluded from the base calculation, but additional hydropower will be included in the denominator. However the goals for states are very different. For example, the final goal for Virginia is 810 pound of CO2 emitted per net megawatt hours of electricity produce in the state, for Maryland it is 1,187 and for West Virginia 1,620. You may wonder why the targets are different. The existing power plants in the electrical grid and their location determine the basic scale of the numerator. Power and commerce does not stop at state boarders, it moves across state lines. In addition, power plants are built to last generations so the ratio is determined by location of nuclear power plants, coal fired power plant, access to natural gas pipelines to supply natural gas to fire power plants, and history.

Below is data for March 2014 for a few states, the California, New York, and Massachusetts operate versions of cap and trade programs. Of these states only New York generated enough electricity within their borders during March 2014 to satisfy the needs are the state. Those states have become net buyers of electricity. They have outsourced the generation of power and its related CO2 emissions to other states. In addition, it appears that those states have also outsourced much of the industrial sector, importing products from other states and countries. Though I have only listed a few states you can see the pattern, Texas, South Carolina and Pennsylvania are net generators of electricity. Note that the actual capacity of the system is higher; March is a relatively modest demand month (no need for air conditioning).

All data from EIA

Washington DC besides not being a state has no goals from the EPA because it does not generate any power, though the waste water treatment plant at Blue Plaines is expanding its use of generated methane to power the plant as a renewable source of power and looking at the possibility of installing solar panels to supply power to the facility. You can take a look at the data on the U.S. Energy Information Agency, EIA, site to see which states and regions are net generators and which are net users of electricity. Also, you can see by the use of electricity for industry where in the United States we have the most industrial production.

As the  economics writer Robert J. Samuelson recently pointed out in an editorial in the Washington Post that thought we believe that climate change poses a threat to many of the earth’s citizens, we lack the technologies to stop it. The purpose of the EPA regulations seems to be to create the political and economic that fosters the development of technologies that will be needed for mankind to weather the storm and survive. “...But there is no assurance that this will happen, and much time and money may be invested in futile and wasteful efforts.” Both Mr. Samuelson and I are among the supporters of the idea of a carbon tax. Taxing the carbon content of products might be a more direct method to control CO2 generation and more effective method of reducing CO2 production without regulators taking control of a significant segment of the economy and could be applied to imports. Cap and trade schemes have a tendency to export manufacturing and generation. We should all remember when making purchase decisions that when we buy items manufactured in China or India that they were made using the dirtiest coal fired electric power plants on the planet. However, a direct tax must come from the legislature, not regulation. It would certainly generate badly needed revenue for our government that is running at a deficit.

With the CO2 limits imposed on states and management of how to cut them, the EPA is now taking control of the power generation sector of the economy to remake that industry in a less carbon intensive and more efficient vision. These regulations are likely to increase the cost and possibly limit the availability of electricity. These regulations will mark the end of the era of using coal to generate electricity in power plants with the EPA issuing CO2 “budgets” and tightening regulations on other coal burning emissions. Creating regional or national carbon trading market for “carbon credits” has the potential to prevent the reemergence of manufacturing in the United States that has been sparked by cheap natural gas and other favorable conditions. The EPA CO2 regulation for power plants may not be the right plan- my crystal ball is unclear. It is being proposed and will be implemented entirely by regulation without the support of congress as the elected representatives of the American People.

Supply and demand are more balanced on a regional basis, but Texas is still carrying the west

The EPA Puts the Nation on a CO2 Diet

On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy announced new regulations that the EPA is proposing to put in place under the Clean Air Act to cut carbon emissions from existing power plants under President Barak Obama’s Climate Action Plan. The details described in the news release summaries were not an entirely accurate reflection of what I read in the proposed regulation.

Power plants are the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States accounting for about 33% of greenhouse gas release (and slightly more of carbon dioxide). Greenhouse gases are: carbon dioxide (CO2), fluorinated gases, nitrous oxide and methane (CH4). According to the EPA CO2 represents 84% of mass of greenhouse gas emissions and that the climate models indicate to be the cause of climate change. The proposed regulations will require power plants to cut their CO2 emissions by 30% from 2005 levels or 18% from 2013 levels by using a combination of approaches.

data from EIA

One of the main goals of this proposed regulation is reducing the amount of electricity generated from coal fired power plant and reducing the total number of coal fired power plants in the United States. In the past few years the EPA has implemented tougher regulations for these power plants. The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) and the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) are two of the latest regulations to address power plants. MATS regulates mercury, arsenic, acid gas, nickel, selenium, and cyanide and slashes emissions of those pollutants from coal fired electrical generation plants. The CSPR is aimed at coal fired electrical generation plants, too. It slashes smokestack emissions of SO2 and NOX that can travel into neighboring states. Those pollutants react in the atmosphere to form fine particles and ground-level ozone and are transported long distances, making it difficult for other states to achieve their particle requirements under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) which have also recently been tightened. Until now there has been no federal rule to prevent power plants from releasing as much CO2 as they want, though several states already have some sort of limitation on CO2; and CO2 generation in the United States has been falling in the past seven years.

President Obama has directed the EPA to create national CO2 emissions standards for new and existing power plants with the goal of reducing CO2 emissions. Last September the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revised their proposed Clean Air Act standards to cut carbon pollution from new power plants. Under the revised proposal, new large natural gas-fired turbines would need to meet a carbon dioxide (CO2) limit of 1,000-1,100 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour depending on size, while new coal-fired units would need to meet a limit of 1,100 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour. Existing coal –fired electrical generation turbines emit about 2,080-2,180 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour of power produced. Natural gas produces about 1,170 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour.

With Monday’s announcement the EPA is proposing regulation for the existing power plants requiring a reduction in the overall CO2 emitted by the nation. If these regulations if implemented and in effect today, the effect would be to reduce overall CO2 emissions of all the nations on earth by less than 1% and by the time they are actually implemented the impact will be a fraction of a percent. So, these regulations are not going to change the impact of CO2 on the climate.

The approach the EPA is taking is to allocate to each state a CO2 limit. The basic formula for the limit assigned to each state is:

CO2 emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants) divided by (state electricity generation from fossil-fuel fired power plants plus certain low- or zero-emitting power sources).

It is to be noted that existing hydropower is excluded from the base calculation, but additional hydropower will be included in the denominator. EPA lists the interim and final goal for each state on pages 346-348 of the proposed regulation preceded by the explanation of how they arrived at these goals. According to the EPA, their approach factors in megawatt hours from fossil fuel power plants plus other types of power generation like renewables and nuclear, as well as megawatt-hour savings from energy efficiency in the state. The final goal for Virginia is 810 pound of CO2 emitted per net megawatt hours of electricity produce in the state, for Maryland it is 1,187 and for West Virginia 1,620. The EPA expects the regulations to result in a reduction in the electricity used per capita and in the CO2 generated per megawatt hour of electricity produced, and details how each state will achieve it in the 645 page regulation.

There are expected to be comments and legal challenges to the regulation, since it appears to be an expansion of the scope of existing laws and there are significant fiscal implications of the regulation across the economy. Nonetheless the EPA will mandate the limit and the states must provide a plan for achieving that limit that is acceptable to the EPA by June 30, 2016. States must determine a mix of four overall strategies that the EPA “helps” them pick:

• Make fossil fuel power plants more efficient. Though, it is estimated by the EPA that many coal plants can be upgraded to become slightly more efficient; this will be very cost dependent. Efficiency gains are expected to be 6%.
• Use lower CO2 emitting power plants more. This strategy both encourages the increase in utilization of the existing natural gas fired power plants (as well as construction of gas fired power plants). EPA considers increase utilization of low CO2 emitting power generation in the base load the preferred option of achieving the goal. 
• Use more zero- and low-emitting power sources by expanding renewable energy programs. The EPA is requiring the expansion of states’ Renewable Portfolio Standards, RPS, which require that a portion of energy produced to be by renewable. Within the prosed regulation EPA has assigned each state (with the exception of Vermont) a renewable energy generation goal (pages 202-204 of the proposed regulation). Virginia which currently supplies 3% of electricity from renewable sources is required to supply 16% of electricity from renewable sources. (Maryland currently supplies 2% from renewables and is also required to supply 16% from renewable sources in 2030.) Texas will be required to supply 20% of their electricity from renewable sources and currently supplies 8%. You get the picture. 
• Use electricity more efficiently. EPA is also requiring each state to establish energy savings programs and the amount of savings that utilities must achieve through customer energy efficiency programs. See page 229 of the regulation for each states goal. 
• Utilization of programs such as state cap and trade to put pressure on the CO2 generation and encourage the investment into energy saving and greenhouse gas reducing technologies. EPA looks for expansion of the various cap and trade programs that exist in 10 states. The states can develop a state-only plan or collaborate with other states to develop plans on a multi-state basis and EPA supplies the states your home state is grouped with. Delaware, District of Columbia (despite having no goals), Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia are grouped together in the East Central group. 

Though a national cap and trade law to address CO2 failed to pass the senate in 2009 and died, cap and trade law and regulations for CO2 exist in California and a program exists among nine northeastern states. In addition, cap and trade was used successfully to address the acid rain problem in the 1990’s. That program served as a way to cut pollution without heavy-handed regulations, allowing each business to choose how to reach the mandated goal. Each year the cap would ratchet down, allowing less pollution while market forces drove up the price for permits, creating an incentive for industries to invest in air scrubbers and pollution removal technology. However, that program was a permit trading program among regulated plants and not effectively covering the entire economy. The proposed CO2 regulation covers all electrical generation, its cost and availability in the United States.

One of the challenges in reducing CO2 emissions in the United States has been that there is no economically feasible carbon capture technology that can be retrofitted to a coal fired power plant and too much of the CO2 generated nationally comes from coal fired power plants- almost 13%. In addition, power companies are utilities that are limited by layers of regulations that control pricing and limit flexibility due to technical, business and jurisdictional constraints. The U.S. is the largest producer of natural gas, so we have alternatives. With this regulation the EPA is now taking control of the power generation sector of the economy to remake that industry in a less carbon intensive and more efficient vision. These regulations are likely to increase the cost and possibly limit the availability of electricity, but are also intended to reduce the use of electricity. These regulations will mark the end of the era of using coal to generate electricity in power plants. This era began with the oil crisis in 1972 and will end with the EPA issuing CO2 “budgets” and potentially creates a regional or national carbon trading market for “carbon credits."

I should admit that I am one of the many who prefer a carbon tax to EPA's command and control regulations. Taxing the carbon content of products might be a more direct method to control CO2 generation and more effective method of reducing CO2 production without regulators taking control of a significant segment of the economy and could be applied to imports. However, a direct tax must come from the legislature, not regulation, and would have to be negotiated and vetted by the elected representatives of the people. It would certainly generate badly needed revenue for our government that is running at a deficit.  

12 d-Con Rat and Mouse Poison Unsafe for Consumer Use

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reached agreement with Reckitt Benckiser Inc. (Rickitt) to phase out 12 d-CON mouse and rat poison products that do not currently comply with EPA safety standards. These standards require that rodent poisons sold to consumers be pellets, solid and granular bait be secured in bait stations are tamper proof and to be first generation anticoagulants. EPA prohibits the sale of products containing brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difethialone and difenacoum to residential consumers because the danger of misuse and the resulting risk to wildlife and children.

There are three types of rodenticide products. First-generation anticoagulants (warfarin, chlorophacinone, and diphacinone), second-generation anticoagulants (brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difenacoum, and difethialone), and non-anticoagulants (bromethalin, cholecalciferol and zinc phosphide). All the anticoagulants interfere with blood clotting, and death results from excessive bleeding in about 5-7 days. The second-generation anticoagulants are especially hazardous because they are highly toxic, and they persist a long time in body tissues. The second-generation anticoagulants are designed to be toxic in a single feeding, but since time-to-death is still 5-7 days, rodents can feed multiple times before death, resulting in carcasses containing residues that may be many times the lethal dose. Predators or scavengers that feed on those poisoned rodents may then also be poisoned. The non-anticoagulants have differing ways of affecting pests. Bromethalin is a nerve toxicant that causes respiratory distress. Cholecalciferol is vitamin D3, which in small dosages is needed for good health in most mammals, but in massive doses is toxic, especially to rodents. Zinc phosphide causes the release of toxic phosphine gas in the stomach.

The d-CON pellets were a second generation anticoagulant sold loose and often placed in open trays. Open anticoagulant bait products have been responsible for at least 10,000 accidental ingestions by babies and young children over the years. Few of these documented cases were serious because the amounts consumed were often too small to make children very sick and the children could be treated with vitamin K, which can serve as an antidote to first generation anticoagulants and possibly very low doses of second generation anticoagulants. The second generation anticoagulants were also documented to affect wildlife that consume the poisoned mice, including golden eagles, northern spotted owls and San Joaquin kit foxes. The State of California banned these products earlier this year based on that documentation.

Rickitt has agreed to stop production by the end of the year and stop distribution to retailers by March 31, 2015, and replace the existing second generation anticoagulants products with new bait products would continue to using first generation anticoagulants for which Vitamin K is a readily available antidote. The products will not contain neurotoxins. The new products will be housed in protective bait stations. In February 2013 the EPA made the determination that 12 products produced by Reckitt did not meet current safety standards and issued a Notice of Intent to Cancel their registration (which allows sale of the product). Reckitt challenged this determination through the EPA’s administrative hearing process and lost. Reckitt then decided to voluntarily cancel the 12 d-CON products and withdraw its challenge of the Agency’s denials of applications for registration of two other d-CON products.

The cancelled products are:

Remaining on the market are: d-CON Bait Station XIV, d-CON Bait Station XIII, d-Con Bait Station XI, and d-CON Bait Station XII.

Other products that are on the market that meet the EPA standards are:

The major provisions of the agreement between the EPA and Reckitt are:

• Production of the 12 d-CON rat and mouse poison products will be phased out and stop by December 31, 2014.
• Reckitt will cease distribution of existing stocks of these products by March 31, 2015.
• During the phase-out period Reckitt will only produce quantities of these products to satisfy previously existing contracts and agreements.
• Retailers will be permitted keep the products on the shelves until stocks are depleted, and end users will be permitted to use them until exhausted. 

If you have mouse or rat poison checks the product labels to see what you have. It is legal for consumers to use the 12 d-CON mouse and rat poison products, provided they follow all label directions and precautions. If you have small children or pets in the house, just don’t. Certainly, do not use the products outside. Consumers who wish to dispose of any of the d-CON mouse and rat poison products listed above should contact their state or local waste disposal program for collection programs for hazardous materials. In Prince William, the landfill has a hazardous material program. These pesticides are harmful to the wildlife, so consumers who have opened containers should not discard them outdoors or dispose of them in sinks or toilets.

Supreme Court Revives EPA Rule Targeting Coal Power Plants

EPA's breakdown of power plant pollution

On Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (6-2) that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can reinstate the  Cross State Air Pollution Rule, CSAPR, which allows EPA’s "cost-effective allocation of emissionsreductions among upwind states”  by requiring some state to clean up more than their fair share of pollution. CSAPR dictates each State’s emissions reduction goals and the Federal Implementation Plans to obtain those goals at the State level. However, the EPA had used computer modeling to generate emissions “budgets” for each upwind State without regard for the amount of pollution each state was contributing to a downwind problem, but based instead on the cost of remediation. Now the Supreme Court has confirmed requiring the level of cleanup to be based on cost and requiring more work to be done where the cost of capturing a ton of sulfur-dioxide and nitrogen-oxide was the lowest creating a pollution trading system.

Back in  August 2012 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled (2-1) that the Cross State Air Pollution Rule, CSAPR, exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s authority by requiring some state to clean up more than their fair share of pollution. The Supreme Court has overruled that decision. CASPR was intended to prevent pollution from one state from moving into other states and preventing them from meeting their air quality goals. CSAPR, when implemented will reduce SO2 emissions by 73% from 2005 levels and NOx emissions by 54% at the approximately 1,000 coal fired electrical generation plants in the eastern half of the country. The industry has indicated that many of these plants may be forced to close. This rule is intended to help downwind states unfairly impacted by upwind states attain their 24-Hour and/or Annual particulate pollution of 2.5 micrometers or less called PM2.5 National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and the 1997 8-Hour Ozone NAAQS. CSAPR will replace EPA's 2005 Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR). 

The earth’s atmosphere is interconnected. That is accepted when it comes to carbon dioxide, but it also applies to industrial pollutants and soot. The EPA has estimated that just one-quarter of U.S. measured pollution emissions from coal-burning power plants are deposited within the contiguous U.S. The remainder enters the global cycle. Conversely, current estimates are that less than half of all measured coal pollution emissions deposited within the United States comes from American sources. According to the Mount Bachelor Observatory, Chinese exports include acid rain that falls in China, Korea, and Japan, and pollutants that enter the air stream including sulfates, NOx, black carbon, soot produced by cars, stoves, factories, and crop burning. EPA can now address these pollutants based on the cost of remediation instead of based on contribution by a state.

However, as a president, CSAPR may do much more. In the next two months the EPA is expected to propose a new sweeping set of Clean Air Act regulations to cut emission of carbon dioxide to fight global warming. According to the EPA the largest source of carbon dioxide is coal fired power plants, this decision will mark the end of the era of using coal to generate electricity in power plants. This era began with the oil crisis in 1972 and will end with CSAPR. However, using this decision EPA can allocate carbon dioxide “budgets” based on costs to meet the budget and potentially creates a national carbon trading market for carbon dioxide. In addition, it could create interstate trade and tariff  issues when allocating carbon dioxide and methane “budgets” in a world of greenhouse gas caps and trade markets.

from EIA

The Waters of the United States

Coming soon to federal regulation

On March 31, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Army Corps) released a proposed rule to expand protection and regulation under the Clean Water Act to streams and wetlands that are merely seasonal. The text of the rule will appear in the Federal Register in April and open a 90 day comment period.

Though the EPA news release called this action a “clarification,” it is tremendous expansion of the scope of the 1972 Clean Water Act which made it illegal to discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters of the United States unless a permit was obtained. The discharge of pollutants regulated under the Clean Water Act was from so called point sources. Point sources are discrete conveyances, such as a pipe. The regulation was intended to stop the free discharge of sewage and industrial waste into our rivers.

The proposed rule expands the definition of navigable waters to apply to include wetlands, seasonal streams and any water that might at any time during the year impact or reach the navigable waters of the United States. In this way the EPA does not see this as an expansion of the Clean Water Act jurisdiction, but it is. The proposed rule will sweep in waters previously considered isolated or exempt and that are a great distance from navigable waters.

For several years EPA has attempted to expand the reach of the Clean Water Act to all waters and discharges to include all sources. Federal authority does not extend to non-point sources, such as from run off from agricultural and urban sources not part of a storm sewer system as well as other small sources such as septic systems. The EPA has been frustrated in their attempts to address what they view as the current generation of environmental problems. These problems are subtle, much less visible to the naked eye because they are from diffuse or non-point sources and often not nearly as susceptible to a top-down, command-and-control approach.

Agriculture is reported to be one or the main non-point sources of water pollution and in studies done in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and Sacramento River Delta and other locations the contamination from agriculture runoff has been the major source of contamination. Pesticide runoff is a large contributor of known pollutants to the watersheds and may be a significant contributor of endocrine disruptors to the freshwater supply. Both rain feed and irrigated agriculture are sources of contamination of fresh water. Now EPA is making another attempt to expand the Clean Water Act reach to all water and all sources of pollution.

EPA has overcome the challenges of regulating every source of contamination in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed by imposing the Chesapeake Bay pollution diet, the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) mandated to the six Chesapeake Bay Watershed states (Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia) and the District of the Columbia. The TMDL sets a total Chesapeake Bay watershed limit for the entire region of 185.9 million pounds of nitrogen, 12.5 million pounds of phosphorus and 6.45 billion pounds of sediment per year which is a 25% reduction in nitrogen, 24% reduction in phosphorus and 20 %t reduction in sediment from the current levels. The pollution limits are then partitioned to the various jurisdictions and river basins based on the Chesapeake Bay modeling tools and monitoring data.

The US EPA has mandated these levels and allowed the states (and District of Columbia) to determine how to achieve them (with the EPA’s approval) by threatening to use what they call “back stop measures”, but are simply reductions in the allowed (permitted) releases from point source permits (waste water treatment plants, municipal separate storm sewer systems, and confined animal feed lots) to achieve the TMDL Essentially, they have said do this in a way we find acceptable or we will impose the most direct and expensive method to achieve our clean water goals.

Now, EPA wants to expand their authority to every bit of water in the US and will be able to effectively and directly regulate all sources of pollution without working through the states. If adopted as proposed, this rule will be felt throughout the U.S and in all areas of our economy and lives not previously directly touched by the EPA. It will have a profound impact on many locally regulated activities, including home building, mining, road construction, commercial property development and water infrastructure projects. The capricious application of the federal command and control regulatory scheme will directly impact all our lives.

Sargent’s and Wellmark will Cease Manufacture of Flea and Tick Products for Pets

off the market

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reached an agreement with Sergeant's Pet Care Products, Inc. and Wellmark International to cease manufacturing flea and tick pet collars containing propoxur by April 1, 2015 and to cease selling the product by April 1, 2016. These flea and tick products are sold under the trade names Bansect, Sentry, Zodiac and Biospot and others. Since flea and tick collars have a shelf life of five years, be sure to read the ingredient list before buying any product.

EPA announced in their press release that this “voluntary” agreement will expedite the removal of propoxur containing products from the market, but the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed a petition against the EPA in 2009 to cancel the allowed use of propoxur, a known neurotoxin and carcinogen, and tetrachlorvinphos, an organophosphate a class of chemicals that are also neurotoxins. So, expediency was not the issue for five years. NRDC filed a lawsuit against the EPA toforce the agency to respond to NRDC’s petitions to cancel all manufacturer registrations and uses of neurotoxic pesticides propoxur and tetrachlorvinphos (TCVP) used in popular pet flea treatment products in February 2014. EPA had already negotiated an agreement with Wellmark and Sergeant’s by January 22, 2014.

off the market

Propoxur belongs to a class of pesticides called carbamates that can cause cognitive, behavioral and motor developmental defects in children. Several studies in the research literature documented that prenatal and early- life exposure to organophosphates of which TCVP is one, can impair children’s neurological development at levels below what can cause acute symptoms of poisoning. Due to concerns that the other organophosphates products can harm children’s more vulnerable developing brains and nervous systems, the agency had already restricted household use of other known neurotoxic pesticides.

EPA completed the propoxur pet collar risk assessment showing risks to children from exposure to pet collars containing propoxur in September 2013. Although the amounts in the residue left by flea collars are smaller than the doses that cause acute human symptoms, propoxur may cause long-term health consequences. Through pet collars, children are potentially exposed to levels of propoxur that exceed the US EPA's acceptable levels, according to an NRDC study published in 2009. That study found that after three days, 100 % of pets wearing a propoxur flea collar had enough chemical on their fur to exceed the EPA's acceptable dose level for toddlers.

EPA’s recent risk assessment confirmed this result. The decision reached between EPA and Sergeant's and Wellmark to remove this flea and tick products from the market is the solution to most quickly remove the pet collars from the market. Flea and tick collars work by leaving a pesticide residue on dogs' and cats' fur, which can be transferred to people by hugging, petting or coming into contact with the pets. Some children even sleep with their pets. The major source of exposure to these chemicals is from absorption through the skin after directly touching the treated pet. Small children may ingest pesticide residues when they touch a treated cat or dog and subsequently put their hands in their mouth.

EPA’s risk assessment found, in some but not all use scenarios, unacceptable risks to children from exposure to propoxur pet collars on the first day following application. Because the manufacturers could not find a way to eliminate unacceptable risk under all scenarios, EPA “encouraged” them to cancel these products and they subsequently agreed. Propoxur will remain a registered insecticide for use to control ticks, fleas and a variety of insects in industrial, commercial and residential facilities, just no longer used for pet flea and tick collars.

Flea and tick products can be appropriate treatments for protecting pets and people because fleas and ticks can transmit disease to animals and humans. In Northern Virginia we are especially aware of the threat of Lyme disease. Lyme disease is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi and is transmitted to humans through the bite of infected blacklegged ticks; however, there are eleven tick borne diseases listed by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

Dogs are also very susceptible to tick bites and tick borne diseases. Vaccines are available for only some of the tick borne diseases that dogs can get, and they don’t keep the dogs from bringing ticks into your home, thus it is prudent to use a tick preventive product on your dog. Alternatives include newer pesticide products sprayed or spotted onto pets, such as fipronil (Frontline®) or imidacloprid (Advantage®). Particularly when used in combination with physical measures like frequent washing and combing of the pet and vacuuming carpets and furniture, can bring mild flea infestations under control. Cats are extremely sensitive to a variety of chemicals. Do not apply any insect acaricides or repellents to your cats without first consulting your veterinarian! It simply might be best and safest to keep your cat as an indoor pet.

Remember to protect yourself and your children from tick borne disease. CDC recommends protect your family from Lyme disease and other tick borne illnesses by being diligent in preventing tick bites:
• Use insect repellent that contains 20 - 30% DEET on yourself and your children.
• Make children bathe or shower as soon as possible after they come indoors.
• Look for ticks on their bodies. Ticks can hide under the armpits, behind the knees, in the hair, and groin.
• Put clothes in the dryer on high heat for 60 minutes to kill any remaining ticks.

EPA Continues to Save the World- Regulating Wood Stoves and Fireplaces

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing new standards for the amount of air pollution that can be emitted by residential wood stoves and heaters, beginning in 2015. There will be a public hearing Feb. 26, 2014 in Boston. EPA expects to issue a final wood stove rule in 2015, the full 354 pages of the proposed regulation can be read at this link if you are interested.

The EPA’s proposal covers wood stoves, fireplace inserts, indoor and outdoor wood boilers (also called hydronic heaters), forced air furnaces and masonry heaters, and is intended to make the next generation of wood stoves, fireplaces and heaters 80% cleaner than those manufactured or built today. The current proposal would not affect heaters, fireplaces and stoves already in use in homes today.

These regulations are intended to reduce the health impacts of fine particle pollution, of which wood smoke is a contributing factor in some areas. Residential wood smoke contains fine particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less, carbon monoxide, toxic air pollutants such as benzene and formaldehyde, and what the EPA calls climate-forcing emissions– greenhouse gases resulting from combustion and incomplete combustion. According to the EPA, smoke from wood stoves and fireplaces contributes hundreds of thousands of tons of fine particles during the winter months, which I suppose is not surprising given the sheer number of households in the nation.

Particle pollution has been linked to a wide range of serious health effects, including heart attacks, strokes and asthma attacks. In some areas, residential wood smoke makes up a significant portion of the fine particle pollution problem. According to the proposed regulations, residential wood combustion accounts for 44% of the total remaining stationary and mobile polycyclic organic matter (POM) emissions, nearly 25% of the remaining air toxics cancer risks and 15 % of non-cancer respiratory such as irritation of the airways, coughing or difficulty breathing and aggravated asthma.

Health effects can result from both short-term and long-term exposure to particulate pollution. People most sensitive to particulate pollution include infants and children, the elderly, and people with existing heart and lung disease. The smallest particles can penetrate deepest, causing the greatest harm. Researchers are still trying to identify which types and sources of particles are most hazardous to human health. Though, particles created from combustion soot tend to be fine particles with diameters smaller than 2.5 microns (PM 2.5) which are the most dangerous because it lodges in the lungs.

Reportedly, residential wood smoke causes many counties in the U.S. to exceed the US EPA annual PM2.5 air quality standard which was lowered in 2012 (thought states have until 2020 to meet the tighter standard). The annual standard for the smallest particles is 12 ug/m3 and 24-hr standard is 35 ug/m3. In 2012 when EPA promulgated the revised standard, they projected that 99% of U.S. counties with monitoring stations would meet the standard with only 7 counties in California failing to meet the Annual Fine Particle Health Standard of 12 μg/m3. Now the EPA states “residential wood smoke causes many counties in the U.S. to either exceed the EPA’s ... national ambient air quality standards... for fine particles or places them on the cusp of exceeding those standards.” So now to continue down the road on their quest for continual reductions in pollution levels despite growing population, EPA must increase regulation on residential fireplaces and wood stoves. The EPA states that they “continue to encourage state, local, tribal, and consumer efforts to replace older heaters with newer, cleaner, more efficient heaters, but that is not part of this federal rulemaking.” Wait until next year.

Below is the list of air quality rules that have resulted in the tremendous improvement in air quality from 2000-2010. The next level in clean air will have to regulate every home and individual behavior and choices.

• Heavy Duty Diesel Rule (U.S. EPA, 2000)
• Clean Air Non-road Diesel Rule (U.S. EPA, 2004)
• Regional Haze Regulations and Guidelines for Best Available Retrofit Technology Determinations (U.S. EPA, 2005b)
• NOx Emission Standard for New Commercial Aircraft Engines (U.S. EPA, 2005)
• Emissions Standards for Locomotives and Marine Compression-Ignition Engines (U.S. EPA, 2008)
• Control of Emissions for Non-road Spark Ignition Engines and Equipment (U.S. EPA, 2008)
• C3 Oceangoing Vessels (U.S. EPA, 2010)
• Hospital/Medical/Infectious Waste Incinerators: New Source Performance Standards and Emission Guidelines: Final Rule Amendments (U.S. EPA, 2009)
• Reciprocating Internal Combustion Engines (RICE) NESHAPs (U.S. EPA, 2010)
• Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (U.S. EPA, 2011)
• Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (U.S. EPA, 2011)
• National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for fine particles (U.S. EPA, 2012)
• Carbon Dioxide Standard for Power Plants (U.S. EPA, 2012 and 2013)

Changes at the Virginia Soil and Water Conservation Districts

During the past legislative session the water programs of the state were all consolidated and transferred to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) by HB 2048 and SB 1279. Though there have been no changes in statutes or regulatory oversight, this was still a really big move to consolidate management and oversight of all water programs within the state under DEQ control. DEQ now manages; the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Areas, erosion and sediment control, point source and non-point source contamination, and the execution of all parts of the Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) Virginia developed to comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandates. With these changes the 47 Virginia Soil and Water Conservation Districts were moved under the oversight of the DEQ.

On Monday there was a well-attended Public Meeting in Culpeper to discuss these changes and allow the various community members and stakeholders to express their concerns and support. The soil and water conservation districts (Districts) were born out of the dust bowl days to prevent erosion and preserve the soil and manage the network of small damns that were built throughout the nation. Over the years the mission evolved. Today the districts provide technical assistance to help farmers and landowners adopt conservation management practices. The districts also promote and encourage voluntary adoption of the approved storm water management, water protection strategies and soil protection and conservation measures that are known as “Best Management Practices” or BMPs. Part of the promotion of the adoption of the BMPs are various financial incentives known collectively as cost share programs that help farmers and landowners pay for the necessary improvements. Finally the Districts run a series of educational programs for both children and adults to further understanding of our watersheds, water quality and the seemingly small actions that can provide big solutions to our water quality if they are adopted by most people.

According to Neil Zahradka of the DEQ Office of Land Application Programs, the consolidation of the Districts under DEQ is intended to improved oversight and implementation of Virginia’s WIP. The WIP is the plan created to comply with the Chesapeake Bay pollution diet, the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment mandated by the EPA to Virginia and the other Chesapeake Bay Watershed states and the District of the Columbia. EPA has legal authority to regulate only point source releases of contaminants and pollutants- wastewater, industrial, and municipal separate stormwater systems (MS4), and concentrated animal feeding operation permits as well as set total maximum daily load (TMDL) of those contaminants in rivers and surface waters. Under threat of EPA reducing these point source release levels to incredibly expensive to achieve or perhaps unachievable levels, Virginia produced a WIP that ultimately satisfied EPA. Though how these activities will be paid for is still unknown. EPA has never had a budget for implementation of these programs that are estimated to cost billions of dollars.

The revised and accepted WIP requires that Virginia’s Stormwater Management Regulations require redevelopments to meet reductions in nutrient and sediment loads, and to prevent nutrient pollution and sediment load increases from new development. In the future all new development appears to be required to be almost sediment and nutrient pollution free or to “pay” for their developments by reducing runoff from existing developments. The Commonwealth will reduce pollution from stormwater running off urban streets and parking lots by mandating reductions in state permits for large city stormwater systems. According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation stormwater runoff remains the only source of water pollution in Virginia that continues to increase. It is likely that the increase in nutrient pollution and sediment pollution from stormwater systems is partially a reflection of the expansion of suburban development out into Loudoun, Prince William and Fauquier counties and the increasing population and road traffic in these areas.

For agricultural operations the revised WIP requires the implementation of resource management plans and BMPs on most agricultural acres which may include: 35 foot grass or forest buffers between cropland and perennial surface waters; stream exclusion of livestock; and implemented nutrient management plans. Virginia plans to continue to provide cost-share funding to achieve these goals through the Districts and has even expanded stream exclusion funding to 100%. According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation 30% of the pollution loads in the Chesapeake Bay are from farming practices, the best money spent could be to implement agricultural nutrient management plans. That is why the DEQ has consolidated the water programs, Virginia need virtually all the farmers in the state to implement BMPs.

The Districts depend on the cooperation and willingness of community partners and volunteers to work with them in order to achieve their goals. The relationships and trust that the Districts have with their communities is their greatest strength. The Districts encourage participation using established relationships, technical help and financial incentives and now have 100% funding available for their livestock exclusion program to expand the reach of their voluntary conservation activities. In the idiom of the carrot and the stick, the Districts are strictly a carrot organization. This cannot be said about the DEQ. As the representative of the Virginia’s Cattlemen’s Association pointed out the Districts has been very effective in getting BMPs on the ground and the deadlines under Chesapeake Bay TMDL leaves no time for Virginia to step back and accept the change.

The Districts that objected to the consolidation under DEQ seemed to object primarily for concern for the cultural clash between the culture that has evolved at DEQ in dealing with regulatory mandates for large businesses that have compliance officers rather than smaller and moderate sized farmers who read their paperwork in the evening. The Districts need by-in from the farmers and cattlemen (and women) to make the progress that the EPA requires under the WIP. The Districts that supported the consolidation thought that the agency responsible for implementation for the WIP and Chesapeake Bay TMDL should house the soil and water conservation districts. This was especially true for districts that had significant urban and suburban storm water and non-point source involvement. Increased funding could help the Districts.

PWSWCD 2012 River Cleanup

The End of Coal May Not Be the Time of Methane

On Wednesday, Gina McCarthy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Energy and Power. Ms. McCarthy spoke about the EPA’s plans for the United States within the framework of the directions given to federal agencies last June saying: “The President’s Climate Action Plan directs federal agencies to address climate change using existing executive authorities. The Plan has three key pillars: cutting carbon pollution in America; preparing the country for the impacts of climate change; and leading international efforts to combat global climate change.”

The first steps of the President’s and EPA’s Climate program addressed motor vehicles, which emit nearly a third of U.S. carbon pollution. The EPA and the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued new millage and emission standards for automobiles and light trucks for model year 2012 through 2016 that require vehicles to meet an estimated combined average emissions level of 250 grams of carbon dioxide (CO2) per mile in model year 2016, equivalent to 35.5 miles per gallon (mpg) if the automotive industry were to meet this CO2 level entirely through fuel economy improvements. A second set of standards requires continued improvement in gas mileage of about a 5% per year in average fuel economy from 2016 – 2025 that will result in car and light truck fuel economy to an average 56.2 miles per gallon by 2025.

After addressing automobiles, the President asked EPA to develop plans to reduce carbon pollution from future and existing power plants, which are responsible for about 40 % of America’s carbon dioxide emissions. This month EPA is expected to release the revised Carbon Pollution Standard for New Power Plants that had previously been announced 2012 and limits the amount of CO2 that can be produced for each megawatt of electricity produced. Under the revised rule, it is expected that new power plants will have to emit no more than 1,100 tons of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour of energy produced. . That standard will effectively change the fuel of choice for all future power capacity additions to natural gas, nuclear, or the renewable category (with government subsidies). All existing plants and currently permitted and built in the next 12 months will be grandfathered and exempt from this new rule for a period of time. Reductions in CO2 generation from power plants will not improve human health, but the official “social costs” of carbon dioxide used by the EPA to $65 per ton.

EPA has also issued other regulations targeted at coal fired power plants, EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, CSAPR, Mercury and Air Toxic's Standard, MATS and the lowering of the primary annual 2.5 micron particulate standard (PM 2.5) to 12. CSAPR which requires reductions of sulfur-dioxide and nitrogen-oxide emissions in coal fired plants was made final in July but at the end of last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit granted a stay to the implementation of the CSAPR pending resolution of the legal challenges. MATS regulates mercury, arsenic, acid gas, nickel, selenium, and cyanide and was finalized on December 21. 2011. All of these regulations are anticipated to have direct human health benefits in addition to reducing the ability of coal fired power plants to operate. There will be a reduction in the number of coal fired power plants and no new coal plants will be built. The 92% of the market for coal is domestic power plants. That market will shrink and wither and the age of coal will end.

The President’s Plan also calls for the development of a comprehensive, interagency strategy to address emissions of methane – a powerful greenhouse gas that also contributes to ozone pollution. So it remains unclear if regulations aimed at methane will reduce the feasibility of using our abundant natural gas resources as the primary fuel in power generation and for heating of commercial and residential buildings.

Even as EPA works to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, they are incorporating research on climate impacts into the implementation of their regulatory programs. According to Ms. McCarthy, EPA is working to build our national resilience to Climate Change, including developing the National Drought Resilience Partnership, ensuring the security of our freshwater supplies, protecting our water utilities, and protecting and restoring our forests in the fact of a changing climate. In addition, EPA will continue to engage in discussions with other nations to develop strategies for reducing carbon pollution through an array of activities.” These include public-private partnership efforts to address emissions of methane and other short-lived climate pollutants under the Climate and Clean Air Coalition and the Global Methane Initiative, as well as bilateral cooperation with major economies.”

The EPA and Sustainable Communities

I spoke with Charlie Bartsch who is Senior Advisor for Economic Development to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Assistant Administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response to catch up and find out what the former Director of Brownfield Studies at the Northeast-Midwest Institute was doing at the EPA. Despite the political appointment and ridiculously long title, Charlie is working to help communities think creatively and bring strategies for redevelopment and revitalization to the areas surrounding their Brownfield sites.

In simplistic terms, a Brownfield is an environmentally contaminated property. Even when redevelopment is performed by private industry, local governments and communities need to work together to encourage and facilitate the remediation, redevelopment and full utilization of Brownfield sites. The largest obstacles to redevelopment need to be removed or overcome to achieve this goal. The most obvious impediment is the contamination itself. The costs and time involved to remediate a site to pristine environmental conditions can be prohibitive. However, over the past two decades, the trend in the United States has been to develop risk based cleanup standards and voluntary cleanup programs intended in part to encourage Brownfield redevelopment. These programs reduced the cost of cleanup while intending to enforce cleanup levels, which are protective of human health and the environment. These programs differ in their application from region to region and agency to agency, but facilitate the remediation and redevelopment of contaminated properties. Though, cleanup to a lesser level costs less, it still costs more to redevelopment a contaminated property. The money to research and test a site to determine how contaminated the site is can be prohibitively expensive. In addition, there is the need to ensure that risk based cleanups will remain protective over time which can involve on-going increased property operating costs.

During the early days of the 21st century when real estate was white hot there was enough value in the contaminated properties in places like California, New York, and Massachusetts to be able to purchase a contaminated property at a discount and remediate and redevelop a site and we glossed over the durability of a cleanup and future operating cost associated with the cleanup. However, that was then. These days and especially in communities that are not in the markets with the most expensive real estate it is a tremendous challenge to not only redevelop a contaminated, but to revitalize a community. These languishing properties were contaminated by industry that in most cases long ago left town or by public works that have been replaced. Not only is a community left with an abandoned eyesore and contaminated property, but the community is left searching for economic vitality to revitalize the community.

One of the programs that Charlie is working with is what the EPA is calling The Brownfield Area-Wide Planning Program. In the area-wide planning approach to redevelopments the strategy is for the community to lead in the revitalization of the area surrounding the brownfield site. The thinking now goes that revitalization of the area surrounding the site is as critical to the successful reuse of the property as environmental assessment, cleanup, and redevelopment of the contaminated property site. It is believed that the area-wide planning approach will enhance EPA's core Brownfields assistance programs which had stalled in the great recession when the economics of Brownfield redevelopment and the lack of financing became insurmountable hurdles, especially in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. So EPA is using small grants of $175,000-$200,000 to try to jump start economic redevelopment by encouraging “continued meaningful involvement in a locally-driven planning process” that will result in a strategy for making Brownfields site assessment, cleanup and/or redevelopment decisions for the future.

EPA’s Brownfield Area-Wide Planning program is part of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities collaboration among EPA and the Departments of Transportation (DOT) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) launched by President Obama in 2009. The Partnership for Sustainable Communities ensures that the agencies consider affordable housing, transportation, and environmental protection together to create healthier communities. To date, the three agency program has provided more than $4 billion in funding for projects. You can search the link to see where the money has been spent. The EPA Area-Wide program was launched in 2010 when EPA selected 23 communities to receive grants and direct technical assistance to work towards these goals. The Brownfields Area-Wide (BF AWP) Planning program aims to promote community revitalization by using cleanups to stimulate local economies and protect people’s health and the environment. EPA’s Brownfields program encourages the redevelopment of abandoned and potentially contaminated waste sites across the country.

The grant recipients varied across the board and a quick look at the two ends of the spectrum can give you a flavor of the program. The City of Kalispell, Montana is the home to approximately 1,300 people. The grant given to the city was targeted to focus on the Core Revitalization Area (CRA), which generally follows historic railroad tracks and contains multiple brownfields. The CRA project began in 2004 when the community decided to develop a downtown strategy to revitalize the central core of Kalispell. This EPA grant- area-wide plan was targeted to identify and rank brownfields along the rail corridor in terms of health risk and revitalization need, develop a market study and needs assessment to facilitate brownfields site reuse planning, and allow the city to more fully involve the community in the planning process.

At the other end of the spectrum is the Neighborhood Parks Council (NPC) of San Francisco, CA. The EPA grant to NPC was intended to will facilitate community involvement in area-wide planning of the Blue Greenway which is imagined as a 13-mile corridor along the city’s Southeastern waterfront, where open spaces will be linked together for new recreational opportunities, nature discovery, and public access to the waterfront. This area adjacent to the Bay was the industrial heart of the city from the 1850s to the mid-1900s and included heavy industrial uses, sewer treatment facilities, and power generation facilities. This is a poor neighborhood with a poverty rate at 21% and unemployment of 19% sitting adjacent to the waterfront, but blighted by the abandoned properties. The NPC has led the effort to create the Blue Greenway Project since 2003. The area-wide planning grant was intended to leverage existing efforts to address the threats to human health and the environment posed by the historic contamination, and identifying reuses for brownfield sites.

As Charlie explained to me, EPA does not have established metrics to measure the success of the Brownfields Area-Wide Planning Pilot Project. However, Charlie did list a series of goals for the program that would demonstrate success.

• Lead to success in redeveloping these economically and environmentally damaged locations. 
• Modify and advance local government thinking and knowledge about Brownfields and the redevelopment process.
• Facilitate the removal of stigma from the Brownfields and adjacent communities.
• Cross fertilization of knowledge and ideas across communities and getting everyone to think more creatively about resources and infrastructure.
• Encourage everyone of the communities to grow smarter and determine what is feasible and desirable. 

The first 23 communities that have received grants have pretty much spent the money and we will all look forward to hearing what they have learned and accomplished with the grants. EPA reports Brownfields grants and investments have leveraged more than $19 billion in cleanup and redevelopment over the years, creating 87,000 jobs from both public and private sources though it is unclear how this was measured, but that would be a cost of under $220,000 per job. This past spring, EPA announced that the second round of grants had been awarded. Approximately $4 million in grants had been given to 20 communities to assist with planning for cleanup and reuse of Brownfields properties.

The Cost to Maintain 24/7 Drinking Water in the United States

Last week the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the results of their 2011 Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey and Assessment. The survey showed that $384 billion in improvements are needed for the nation’s drinking water infrastructure through 2030 for systems to continue providing safe drinking water to 297 million Americans. The estimate only covers infrastructure needs that are eligible for, but not necessarily financed by, Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF). There are significant water system needs that are not eligible for DWSRF funding, such as raw water dams and reservoirs, water system expansions necessary for population growth, and water system operation and maintenance costs. These costs are not included in the EPA estimate, but do appear as part of the estimates of the American Water Works Association, AWWA, who estimated that the cost would be significantly higher than the EPA estimate.

Even after adjusting the estimates into 2011 dollars the EPA estimate for total national need has increased every few years. The infrastructure estimate was $227 billion in 1995, $225 billion in 1999, $375.9 billion in 2003 and $ 379.7 in 2007 (as adjusted to 2011 dollars). No progress has been made in the long term replacement and maintenance of our water infrastructure during the past 16 years and our water systems continue to age. EPA allocates DWSRF grants to states based on the finding of this assessment. These funds help states to provide low-cost financing to public water systems for infrastructure improvements necessary to protect public health and comply with drinking water regulations. Since its inception in 1997, the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund has provided about $15 billion in grants, though this is far from enough to maintain the operation of public water supplies that were built 50-100 years ago.

The EPA assessment shows that improvements are primarily needed in:

• Distribution and transmission: $247.5 billion to replace or refurbish aging or deteriorating water mains
• Treatment: $72.5 billion to expand or rehabilitate infrastructure to reduce contamination
• Storage: $39.5 billion to rehabilitate or cover finished water storage reservoirs
• Source: $20.5 billion to construct or rehabilitate intake structures, wells and spring collectors

Maintaining the water distribution system of piping and pumps is the lion’s share of the costs. It is always in cities that report street closing due to sinkholes that formed from leaking pipes primarily because the urban systems are the oldest. However, it is the smallest systems that actually have the highest cost per person for pipe replacement because the residences are more spread out- there are more feet of pipe main per residence and the EPA’s data is believed to be weakest in that category.

We have barely thought twice about our water and have taken for granted the capital investment made by previous generations. The water bill that most pay barely covers the cost of delivering the water and some repairs and there seems to be significant resistance to increasing water bills to pay the true cost of water and the system to deliver that water. No infrastructure lasts forever and we have failed to properly maintain and plan for the orderly replacement of the water distribution systems. The water distribution systems in most of our big cities have reached the end of their useful life and water mains are failing at an ever increasing rate. As documented both by this survey and the AWWA, report: “Buried No Longer: Confronting America ’s Water Infrastructure Challenge” the need to replace or rebuild the pipe networks that deliver water comes on top of other water investment needs, such as the need to replace water treatment plants, upgrade treatment technology to respond to emerging contaminants in our raw water supplies, replace storage tanks and on-going monitoring and compliance costs.

According to the AWWA 2010 report, restoring existing water systems as they reach the end of their useful lives and expanding them to serve a growing population will cost at least $1 trillion over the next 25 years in 2010 dollars, if we plan to maintain 24 hours per day on demand of water service for our country. The AWWA analysis includes investments that will be necessary to meet projected population growth, regional population shifts, and service area growth over that period. The EPA estimates that the twenty-year capital improvement needs for infrastructure investments necessary from 2011, through 2030, for the existing water systems to continue to provide safe drinking water to the public to be $384 billion assuming no growth in service area and no population shift. EPA’s “Clean Water and Drinking Water Infrastructure Gap Analysis,” actually estimated drinking water systems’ 20-year capital needs in the range $231 billion to $670 billion with a point estimate of $412 billion. The EPA costs exclude maintenance and replacement of dams and reservoirs because they are excluded from the EPA’s DWSRF funding. Neither estimate fully addresses the cost of infrastructure needs to to offset existing and anticipated drought conditions. In the past several years, water systems across the United States have been hit by drought and only a small number of water systems have plans to address drought impacts to existing customers that could not be addressed by conservation programs.

The United States has had one of the finest and safest drinking water supply systems in the world. To keep 42/7 on demand safe water , we need to invest in the system for our future.

 

from WSSA