EPA faces suit from 11 groups over coal ash
www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/health/epa-faces-suit-from-11-groups-over-coal-ash-630121/
April 6, 2012 12:00 am
By Don Hopey / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Eleven environmental organizations are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to force it to better regulate toxic coal ash and citing recent groundwater contamination at 29 coal ash dump sites in 16 states, including two in Western Pennsylvania.
According to the EPA’s own data, coal ash has caused contamination of groundwater at coal-fired power plants in Homer City, Indiana County, and near New Castle, Lawrence County.
Earthjustice, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the other groups Thursday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., said in a release that the EPA hasn’t updated coal ash disposal and control regulations in more than 30 years and that it continues to delay new rules despite recent evidence of “leaking waste ponds, poisoned groundwater supplies and threats to public health.”
Coal ash is produced mainly by coal-fired power plants and contains a mixture of toxic chemicals and compounds, Earthjustice said, including arsenic, lead, hexavalent chromium, manganese, mercury, selenium and cadmium.
The EPA data, based on a 2010 questionnaire sent to 700 fossil- and nuclear-fueled power plants to asses water discharges, show ash from GenOn’s 60-year-old, 330-megawatt New Castle power plant in West Pittsburg, Lawrence County, has contaminated groundwater with arsenic.
The 1,884-megawatt Homer City power plant operated by Midwest Generation EME LLC and owned by General Electric, uses 19 ponds or landfills to dispose of its ash and, according to the EPA, has contaminated groundwater with iron, lead, manganese and sulfate.
GenOn, which announced in March it will close the New Castle power plant in April 2015, did not return calls requesting comment. Midwest Generation EME, operator of the 43-year-old power plant 50 miles east of Pittsburgh, also did not return calls.
The environmental groups’ lawsuit seeks an order to force the EPA to set deadlines for review and revision of coal ash regulations, as well as changes to tests done to determine if the waste is hazardous under federal law.
“The numbers of coal ash ponds and landfills that are contaminating water supplies continues to grow, yet nearby communities still do not have effective federal protection,” said Lisa Evans, an Earthjustice attorney.
Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project and a former EPA regulator, said the dumping of toxic coal ash is on the rise. In 2010, he said, toxic heavy metals in power plant ash disposal topped 113 million pounds, a nearly 10 percent increase from 2009.
In September 2010, the EPA held public hearings in Pittsburgh and six other cities across the nation on a proposal to federally regulate coal ash for the first time, a proposal that the coal and power industries opposed. Industry leaders at the hearing said federal regulation would be costly, hurt the industry, cost jobs and increase electric rates.
Mr. Schaeffer said EPA’s proposed standards for safe disposal, including a plan to close unsafe ash ponds within five years, “have gone nowhere.”
The nation’s power plants produce approximately 150 million tons of ash a year, about 20 tons of that in Pennsylvania.
Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.
First Published 2012-04-06
New study determines states offer inadequate coal ash protection
http://www.tnonline.com/2011/aug/25/new-study-determines-states-offer-inadequate-coal-ash-protection
Thursday, August 25, 2011
A new study finds that state regulations regarding coal ash disposal are inadequate to protect public health and drinking water supplies for nearby communities. The information comes as federal regulations – the first of their kind – are under attack by a hostile Congress bent on derailing any effort to ensure strong, federally enforceable safeguards for coal ash, America’s second largest industrial waste stream.
Earthjustice and Appalachian Mountain Advocates (formerly the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment) released “State of Failure: How states fail to protect our health and drinking water from toxic coal ash,” a review of state regulations in 37 states, which together comprise over 98 percent of all coal ash generated nationally. The study highlights the lack of state-based regulations for coal ash disposal and points to the 12 worst states when it comes to coal ash dumping: Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina and Virginia.
There are currently nearly 700 coal ash ponds and hundreds of coal ash landfills in the U.S., most of which operate without adequate liners and water quality monitoring, and have been operating as such for decades. Most states do not require coal ash dumps to employ the most basic safeguards required at landfills for household garbage.
State of Failure includes detailed information on basic disposal safeguards, such as groundwater monitoring, liners, isolation of ash from the water table, and financial assurance requirements in 37 states where coal ash is currently generated and disposed.
Coal ash is the toxic remains of coal-fired power plants; enough is generated each year to fill train cars stretching from the North Pole to the South Pole. The ash contains toxic metals, including arsenic, hexavalent chromium, lead, mercury, and selenium. Coal ash is commonly dumped into unlined and unmonitored ponds and landfills. There are well over a hundred documented sites where coal ash has contaminated drinking water or surface water.
The EPA is currently considering a federal proposal to regulate coal ash that includes two options: the first option would classify coal ash as hazardous waste, requiring water quality monitoring, liners and the phase out of dangerous “wet” storage of coal ash, such as the pond that collapsed in Kingston, Tennessee in 2008. The second option would continue to allow states to inadequately regulate coal ash by establishing only guidelines that states are free to ignore. Within the industry, coal ash generators support the weaker option. The EPA, under pressure from industry, has postponed finalizing the coal ash standard until 2012.
But coal ash allies in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives are not content with delay. Two bills currently moving through the House seek to undermine any efforts by the EPA to set federal enforceable safeguards for coal ash disposal. Both bills require EPA to let the states – and the states alone – decide how to regulate ash, with little federal oversight.
“This report proves unequivocally that state programs, without federal mandates or oversight, are a recipe for disaster when it comes to protecting our health and our environment,” said Lisa Evans, senior legislative counsel at Earthjustice and a co-author of the study. “Strong, federally enforceable safeguards are needed to guarantee that our drinking water remains free of arsenic, lead, mercury and other toxic metals found in coal ash. The myth that states are doing a good job protecting Americans from coal ash is busted.”
“The problem with relying on state regulations is that they are not designed for the unique problems of coal ash generally and coal ash impoundments particularly,” said Mike Becher, the Equal Justice Works Fellow at Appalachian Mountain Advocates. “While many coal ash impoundments are regulated by state dam safety programs, these programs were developed to deal with dams holding back water, not toxic substances. State solid waste programs, on the other hand, are not used to dealing with large impoundments and the threat of a catastrophic dam failure like the one seen in Tennessee in 2008.”
Coal ash taints groundwater
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110725/NEWS11/307250034/Coal-ash-taints-groundwater-at-TVA-sites-report-finds
Inspector General report finds nine of TVA’s plant sites have contamination
A new report says groundwater contamination from coal ash has been found at Gallatin and eight of the nine other Tennessee Valley Authority fossil power plant sites where testing is being done.
Levels of toxic substances found at the Gallatin plant site in Sumner County and at the Cumberland site, 50 miles northwest of Nashville, are high enough that they could create a health hazard, the report says. Beryllium, cadmium and nickel levels are above drinking water standards at Gallatin, as are arsenic, selenium and vanadium at Cumberland.
One major surprise also showed up in the review by TVA’s Office of Inspector General: For more than a decade, the TVA had been finding substances in groundwater at its Allen coal-fired plant in Memphis that indicated toxic metals could be leaking from a coal ash pond there.
Arsenic above today’s allowable levels was found repeatedly in a monitoring well on the site, which is in a sensitive location. The plant and its ash ponds lie above a deep, high-quality aquifer that supplies drinking water to Memphis and nearby areas.
“I was not aware of this until today,” Chuck Head, Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation’s senior director for land programs, said Friday after The Tennessean provided a copy of the TVA document.
“We would obviously have liked them to report it to us when they found the arsenic. But now that we have the information, we are going to work with them to try to resolve the problem.”
TVA declined requests for interviews on the topic, but spokeswoman Barbara Martocci sent an email, saying the legal limits for contaminants at Allen were met at the time of the testing.
“Even though some parameters were measured at levels higher than background, there were no exceedances of EPA municipal drinking water limits,” she wrote.
That was the case, up to a point.
TVA quit testing when the EPA tightened its standard — what’s called the Maximum Contaminant Level, the report said. Samples taken before then had showed arsenic levels above the new, higher standard.
“Testing has not been performed since the Maximum Contaminant Level was lowered,” the report said.
The toxic substances typically are found in small amounts — parts per billion. At the Gallatin site, they are likely moving down to and being diluted in the Cumberland River, Head said.
Similarly, at Allen in Memphis, the most likely result is discharge of the groundwater directly into the nearby Mississippi River and a lake there, he said. The threat to the Memphis aquifer is minimal.
Head said the state is set to talk Tuesday to TVA as they work toward a solution.
He said more monitoring wells will likely be needed to determine how large the contaminated plume is underground at the Gallatin plant.
’08 spill was catalyst
The OIG investigation of groundwater contamination at TVA coal ash sites, released June 21, began as a result of questions raised during congressional testimony following the December 2008 ash spill in East Tennessee.
A mountain of damp ash had buckled at TVA’s Kingston plant and 5.4 million cubic yards of the waste, which contains mercury, cadmium, lead, selenium, arsenic and other potentially toxic substances, cascaded into yards, fields and the Emory River.
The event brought national attention to the lack of regulation of coal ash and helped spark proposed rules last year from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that are being argued over today.
The OIG report is considered important on several counts by the Environmental Integrity Project that has been gathering data on coal ash sites.
“The list of plants where monitoring is taking place at TVA is notable for what is missing,” said Russell Boulding, a hydro-geologist and soil scientist working with the environmental advocacy group.
That includes the absence of testing at the ash impoundment at TVA’s closed Watts Bar Plant coal-fired plant, 60 miles southwest of Knoxville. No monitoring is done around Watts Bar, where an old, unlined ash pond is located.
Spokeswoman Martocci said it’s not required.
“It is not an active plant, and there were no solid waste permits (or other regulations) that required groundwater monitoring for the site,” she wrote.
The legacy ash pond there is under study for permanent closure, which, when officially closed, could require monitoring by the state.
Coal ash, once viewed as harmless, contains a variety of heavy metals in low concentrations. Without proper protection, they can leach into groundwater and move to drinking water sources, such as well water, posing “significant public health concerns,” according to an EPA report.
Some of the substances can also move up the food chain.
Martocci said TVA’s coal ash sites pose no threat.
“The small amount of heavy metals or other potential contaminants identified in groundwater at the fossil sites are confined to the TVA reservation and do not impact off-site drinking water sources,” Martocci wrote. “Moreover, there are no potable water supplies down-gradient from these sites.”
Data gap frustrating
The Environmental Integrity Project is among groups that have been advocating for the EPA to regulate coal ash, but a lack of monitoring nationally in the past means little data is available.
“This has been a big source of frustration for those of us who are looking at the impacts of disposal practices,” Boulding said.
At least in Tennessee there is some information, he said. Data, including this new report, is growing in the wake of the Kingston spill, and more is forthcoming. TVA voluntarily put in 29 groundwater monitoring wells last year at its power plant coal ash sites. Results from samples are expected this year.
In Colorado and some other states, the group can find virtually no data despite a large number of coal-fired plants pumping out coal ash, Boulding said.
Still, the EPA has found about 70 cases where coal ash has caused fish kills, sullied wells and tainted land in a 2007 report. The EIP, Earthjustice and the Sierra Club have put out reports on scores of other cases.
Time of reckoning
Coal, which has long provided cheap electricity nationwide, has also generated vast quantities of ash in Tennessee and around the country. After burning, the leftover chunks and flakes have generally been flooded with water for sluicing to ponds where the ash settles out. The water is then pumped into a river or lake. Coal ash has been left in the ponds, mounded beside rivers, placed in old coal mines and loaded into gravel pits.
Some has been spread on roadways or used to make walking paths. And some has been recycled in asphalt or other products .
Since at least the 1980s, with growing coal ash wastes and disasters environmentalists have been pressing for regulation.
Coal industry representatives have said federal regulation would be cumbersome and costly and want to leave it to states.
TVA officials have said they’re getting ahead of the curve. They announced plans earlier to convert to more costly but preferred dry ash disposal, which experts say makes ash easier to manage and less likely to contaminate groundwater. It also leaves materials available for recycling.
Though monitoring hasn’t been required, TVA carried out voluntary testing at the Allen plant ash ponds in Memphis from 1988-2008, according to the OIG report.
Elevated levels of boron and sulfate — which indicate ash releases from the impoundments there — and also arsenic “have been historically higher than the background data,” the report said.
“According to TVA personnel, these levels have not been reported to (the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation) because the testing was not required,” it said.
The report gave specific data for a few plant sites, but not for Allen. It did say that arsenic levels measured in the past were above today’s current safe limit.
Experts discuss likely sources of the rare blood illnesses in the three-county area
http://www.tnonline.com/2011/jun/16/it-radon-fly-ash-or-something-else
Thursday, June 16, 2011
By DONALD R. SERFASS dserfass@tnonline.com
Is it radon, fly ash or something else?
DONALD R. SERFASS/TIMES NEWS Dr. Jeanine Buchanich, University of Pittsburgh, stresses the importance of participating in studies aimed at targeting the cause of a rare blood disease. Buchanich was one of several speakers at a public forum held Wednesday at the Tamaqua Community Center. Also shown are Tom Murphy, Hometown, health and environmental advocate, and Dr. Henry Cole, Maryland.
Is radon the culprit in an unusually high number of cases of a rare blood illness in Schuylkill, Carbon and Luzerne counties? Or is it fly ash? Or maybe something else?
Those possibilities are being examined, along with a variety of other scenarios as part of $8.8M in research and investigations.
At Wednesday’s public meeting, sponsored by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) and the Tri-County Polycythemia Vera (PV) Community Advisory Committee, an expert said significantly high levels of radon have been seen in studies here.
Robert K. Lewis, manager, hazardous sites cleanup, Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH), told 50 in attendance at the Tamaqua Community Center that one environmental analysis of air quality has turned up an area of concern.
“We sampled radon in homes. Fifty percent of homes were 4 picocuries or higher,” noted Lewis, who explained that 48 different locations were tested. One area tested was where a high incidence of PV cases has been identified.
“We were requested to sample along Ben Titus Road,” said Lewis.
In terms of water analysis, Lewis said testing was done on “a combination of well water and commercial water supplies such as the Tamaqua Water Authority.”
Lewis said results indicate that Tamaqua residential drinking water appears to have no problem with contaminants. However, “we didn’t (test for) radon in water,” he added. That is one area that would need to be looked at, said Lewis.
Lewis indicated that drinking water testing turned up only two lead results and two nitrate.
“The department doesn’t feel that drinking water is a problem here, but we should go back and look for radon.”
One expert said the entire effort is multipronged.
“You have an interdisciplinary group of scientists working on these studies,” said Dr. Henry Cole of Maryland, who has been working with Tom Murphy, Hometown, a founder of the CAC group.
The meeting featured updates by the Pa. Department of Environmental Protection, the agency sampling drinking water, dust and soil at the homes of study participants.
In addition, workers are testing water and sediment at the McAdoo Superfund site and cogeneration plants in the area.
A team from Drexel University is trying to identify risk factors for the disease, while researchers at the University of Pittsburgh are studying the frequency of PV cases.
Research updates target PV incidence
The session provided a broad range of updates from a variety of sources:
Ÿ Elizabeth Irvin-Barnwell of the ATSDR said a total of 1,150 persons were screened for the JAK2 mutation, found in those who develop PV. In addition, 3,500 DNA samples were analyzed for the mutation.
“We can link each person’s test with demographic factors … it’s a groundbreaking study,” said Irvin-Barnwell.
Ÿ Dr. Lora Siegmann Werner of the ATSDR outlined initiatives in health education, such as developing literature to address “What does it mean if you have PV?” A comprehensive list of physicians has been completed because there is great need to get information to doctors, she said. She also lauded work by the CAC support group and Michelle Greshner.
Ÿ Dr. Jeanine Buchanich, University of Pittsburgh said, “We’re working with the Department of Health to do an expansion of the original study.” She said 372 cases are included in the study, all from the Pennsylvania Cancer Registry. She said as many folks as possible should take part.
“We’re hoping CAC members will convey how important it is to participate in the study. The success of the study depends on getting people to participate.”
Ÿ Dr. Carol Ann Gross-Davis of Drexel University reported on a case control study of 147 people.
“Of the cases, we have 24 consented who have PV. We had 10 percent who declined to participate, which is their right,” she said, adding, “We’re doing it through the Geisinger system, coordinating through the University of Pittsburgh.”
Ÿ Dr. Jim Logue, Pennsylvania DOH principal investigator for the myeloproliferative neoplasm program, said he’s been involved in cancer analyses since 2004. He announced success with a partnership.
“We secured two contracts with the University of Pittsburgh.”
Ÿ David Marchetto, the department’s program manager, said progress is being made.
“The pieces are coming together,” he said. “We’re working with state, federal and local partners.” Marchetto also said, “Misclassification of the disease is a concern to us. There are cases reported to the cancer registry that aren’t PV, not only here but in southwestern and central Pa. as well.”
Similarly, sometimes PV cases do not get reported, he stated.
It was noted that Dr. Peter Jaran, environmental engineer from New Jersey, will look at groundwater and potential sources of contamination.
Local residents had several questions for the experts.
Irene Genther, a Nesquehoning resident and former educator with extensive background in the sciences, asked for clarification as to whether susceptibility to PV can be attributed to heredity. Irvin-Barnwell said heredity itself isn’t seen as a factor. Still, family history and ethnicity are areas being examined.
Genther advised attendees that contaminants such as fly ash dust and radon aren’t found only in the ground, but are airborne.
Some said a solution isn’t coming fast enough.
“It’s been eight years and we still don’t have an answer,” said PV patient Merle Wertman, Tamaqua. Wertman was on hand with wife Linda. The two have been staying on top of developments with the disease. Wertman was diagnosed in 2003. He has no family history of cancer.
Dr. Cole had words of praise for Murphy, a community volunteer who devotes himself to the role of environmental and health activist.
“Joe has put so much into this,” said Cole. “He’s been the guiding light. He put his whole heart and soul into this.”
Those in attendance gave Murphy a round of applause for his role in coordinating activities of the CAC.
Agency action would cut transport of air pollutants from Pa. power plant
EPA Proposes to Grant Clean Air Act Petition to Improve Air Quality in New Jersey
WASHINGTON (March 31, 2011) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today proposed to grant a petition submitted by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to limit sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions from a Pennsylvania power plant that are adversely impacting air quality in four New Jersey counties. The proposed rule, when final, would require the Portland Generating Station in Northampton County, Pa. to reduce its SO2 emissions by 81 percent over a three-year period. Exposure to SO2 can aggravate asthma and cause other respiratory difficulties. People with asthma, children, and the elderly are especially vulnerable to these effects.
Under the Clean Air Act, when a facility impacts air quality in another state, the affected state can petition EPA and request that the facility be required to reduce its impact. In a September 2010 petition, New Jersey asked EPA to find that the Portland power plant is impacting the state’s air quality and to require the facility to reduce its SO2 emissions. These emission reductions can be achieved using proven and widely available pollution control methods.
New Jersey conducted several air quality modeling analyses to evaluate SO2 levels in the state. These analyses show that the level of SO2 in the air is exceeding the agency’s 1-hour national air quality standard and that the Portland plant is the main source of emissions. EPA also conducted its own modeling analyses and found the same results.
Typically a mix of sources from multiple locations is responsible for air quality issues in a specific area. However, in this case, the extensive analysis shows a clear connection between the emissions from the Portland plant alone and the elevated level of SO2 in New Jersey.
EPA will accept comment on this proposal until May 27, 2011. The agency is also holding public hearing on this proposed rule on April 27, 2011 in Oxford, N.J. The hearing will provide stakeholders with the opportunity to submit written or oral comments in person. A written record of the hearing will be compiled and submitted to the docket. Any questions posed at the hearing will be replied to in a response to comment summary issued with EPA’s final response to the petition.
More information on the petition and public hearing: http://www.epa.gov/ttn/oarpg/new.html
Contacts: Terri A. White, EPA Region 3, (215) 814-5523, white.terri-a@epa.gov
Elias Rodriguez, EPA Region 2, (212) 637-3664, Rodriguez.elias@epa.gov
Fly ash contamination report sparks concern
http://www.hometownannapolis.com/news/top/2011/01/04-38/Fly-ash-contamination-report-sparks-concern.html
Fly ash contamination report sparks concern
Leopold calls for more testing of wells, but development continues
By ERIN COX and PAMELA WOOD, Staff Writers
Capital Gazette Communications
Published 01/04/11
In 2007, fly ash is dumped and spread at a pit off of Evergreen Road in Gambrills. A report about fly ash contamination has sparked concern over the safety of drinking water in the area.
Opponents of a $275 million Gambrills shopping center to be built atop a fly ash dump have called in experts to bolster their case.
The findings sparked new concerns about the safety of drinking water in the area, but the companies working to redevelop the dump say the worries are overblown.
A new review of data by a Johns Hopkins University researcher shows groundwater contamination has spread outside the system designed to contain it. A companion study by a Tufts University researcher predicts contamination could seep deeper into the ground, reaching the source of Gambrills-area wells in 15 years and seeping into public water supplies within a half-century.
“You don’t know if the plume capture system they have in place is capturing the contamination,” said the study’s author, Edward Bouwer, chair of the Geography and Environmental Engineering Department at Johns Hopkins. “I think there’s been lack of oversight.”
Both studies were commissioned because of a lawsuit designed to halt development of Village South at Waugh Chapel, but the report has drawn a public response from county officials.
Concerned about undetected contamination, County Executive John R. Leopold has asked state environmental officials to keep a closer watch on drinking wells.
Despite warnings that groundwater contamination concerns should be resolved first, the county has not taken any steps to slow development of the 80-acre Village South at Waugh Chapel complex, which will include shops, office space and homes.
Brian Gibbons, developer of the project, said the county has no reason to take any such steps.
He said his company and others involved in redeveloping the area have installed all the safeguards demanded by state environmental officials. Building the project, he said, will create a cap that stops stormwater from dissolving the fly ash buried below.
The Maryland Department of Environment required monitoring wells to track and contain contamination. Agency spokeswoman Dawn Stoltzfus said protecting drinking water is a top concern of the MDE, and that’s why the agency has a legal promise from the site owners they will fix the problem.
She said the agency’s technicians will review the new study and take additional steps, if warranted.
The group fighting the Village South at Waugh Chapel development said the MDE’s system for monitoring and cleaning up the contamination does not do enough to ensure public safety. The new study used data sent to the MDE to conclude that contamination is spreading. Once a sprawling shopping center is built atop the fly ash, they argue, it will be more difficult to fix environmental woes.
“Clean it up and then do the development,” said G. Macy Nelson, a Towson lawyer representing Crofton resident Robert Smith and the Patuxent Riverkeeper organization.
Nelson’s clients are suing the county, the state, developer Greenberg Gibbons, fly ash owner Constellation Energy and former dump owner BBSS Inc. to delay the development. The lawsuit was filed over the summer. No hearings have been set.
“Our goal is not to stop this development, our goal is to get a cleanup before they do the development,” Nelson said.
Filled with fly ash
The land proposed for 1.2 million square feet of development along Route 3 was once a sand-and-gravel mine. Constellation Energy filled it in with fly ash – a grainy byproduct of burning coal for electricity – for about a decade beginning in 1995.
Fly ash contains sulfates, chlorides and a host of heavy metals that easily dissolve in water. Those contaminants can harm human health. In 2006, the county detected the contaminants in drinking wells near the pit in Gambrills.
The finding sparked a county ban on burying fly ash elsewhere and actions by the Maryland Department of the Environment, including a $1 million fine for Constellation. The dump’s neighbors won a multimillion-dollar legal settlement that also set terms for cleaning up the site and eventually building on it.
The County Council unanimously renewed a one-year ban on new fly ash landfills in the county last night, although a permit is pending to dump fly ash at a site off Hawkins Point Road near the Baltimore City-Anne Arundel County line
Kevin Thornton, a spokesman for Constellation, said his company has been diligent in remedying the problems.
“We’re doing everything at the site we said we would do. We’re meeting all the requirements of the consent decree and we’re moving forward with remediation,” he said.
Other motives?
Gibbons, president of Greenberg Gibbons Commercial, said his company also has done its part to help the environment and he suspects the lawsuit stems from other motives.
The Village South at Waugh Chapel project will be anchored by a nonunion Wegmans grocery store, and Gibbons alleged union officials are bankrolling the lawsuit in order to stop a nonunion shop.
He said the opponents’ lawyer, Nelson, has been involved in union-funded fights over grocery store projects in Prince George’s and Howard counties. “They don’t care if we create 5,500 new jobs. They’re just trying to stop Wegmans,” he said.
When asked how a homeowner and an environmental group could afford to pay for scientific studies and piles of legal paperwork, Nelson said his staff has gotten very good over the years at researching cases at a low cost.
Not an issue
Community activist Torrey Jacobsen, who also has professional connections to a grocers’ union and is not involved in the lawsuit, said the Wegmans had nothing to do with the lawsuit.
“The fly ash issue was being fought before the Wegmans was even an option,” Jacobsen said. “There are a lot of people with wells out there.”
Those concerns prompted Leopold to write last week to the MDE’s acting secretary, Robert Summers, asking him to take action to better track the contaminants flowing out of the pit.
“There is no evidence that the public water supply has been affected by the groundwater contamination at the fly ash site,” Leopold wrote. “However, the request for additional monitoring wells is a measure being taken to protect public health and to assure the public that municipal water supply wells will remain unaffected by contamination.”
ecox@capitalgazette.com
pwood@capitalgazette.com
Farmers, pecan growers say coal plant kills plants
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_VEGETATIVE_WASTELAND?SITE=PALEH&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-12-28-06-48-37
Farmers, pecan growers say coal plant kills plants
By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI
Associated Press
BASTROP, Texas (AP) — Along a stretch of Highway 21, in Texas’ pastoral Hill Country, is a vegetative wasteland. Trees are barren, or covered in gray, dying foliage and peeling bark. Fallen, dead limbs litter the ground where pecan growers and ranchers have watched trees die slow, agonizing deaths.
Visible above the horizon is what many plant specialists, environmentalists and scientists believe to be the culprit: the Fayette Power Project – a coal-fired power plant for nearly 30 years has operated mostly without equipment designed to decrease emissions of sulfur dioxide, a component of acid rain.
The plant’s operator and the state’s environmental regulator deny sulfur dioxide pollution is to blame for the swaths of plant devastation across Central Texas. But evidence collected from the Appalachian Mountains to New Mexico indicates sulfur dioxide pollution kills vegetation, especially pecan trees. Pecan growers in Albany, Ga., have received millions of dollars in an out-of-court settlement with a power plant whose sulfur dioxide emissions harmed their orchards.
Now, extensive tree deaths are being reported elsewhere in Texas, home to 19 coal-fired power plants – more than any other state. Four more are in planning stages. In each area where the phenomenon is reported, a coal-fired power plant operates nearby.
The Fayette Power Project sits on a 10-square-mile site about 60 miles southeast of Austin, near where horticulturalist Jim Berry, who owns a wholsesale nursery in Grand Saline, Texas, describes a 30-mile stretch of Highway 21 as a place where “the plant community was just devastated.”
“There was an environmental catastrophe,” Berry said recently.
“It wasn’t just the pecan groves,” he said after driving through the area. “It was the entire ecosystem that was under duress.”
Pecan grower Harvey Hayek said he has watched his once-prosperous, 3,000-tree orchard in Ellinger, just south of the Fayette plant, dwindle to barely 1,000 trees. Skeletal trunks and swaths of yellowed prairie grass make up what had been a family orchard so thick the sun’s rays barely broke through the thick canopy of leaves.
“Everywhere you look, it’s just dead, dead, dead,” Hayek said.
The grove that had produced 200,000 pounds of pecans annually yielded a mere 8,000 pounds this year. Hayek said as the family’s business decreased, he watched his father-in-law, Leonard Baca, fade. Baca, 73, died after shooting himself in the head.
Retired University of Georgia plant pathologist Floyd Hendrix, who has done extensive research on sulfur dioxide damage to vegetation, said he has reviewed photographs and test results from Hayek’s grove.
“From what I’ve seen so far, there’s not any doubt in my mind that it’s SO2 injury,” Hendrix said.
Sierra Club chemist and botanist, Neil Carman also has visited the ranch. Aside from the decreased nut production, the orchard’s leaves bore telltale brown spotting associated with damage, Carman said.
The Lower Colorado River Authority, which operates the Fayette plant, argues there is no scientific link between its emissions and the dying trees, noting the region also has suffered significant droughts.
But the authority is investing nearly $500 million to install two “scrubbers” designed to decrease pollution. A third, newer boiler has a built-in scrubber. The equipment should be in place by early 2011 and will decrease the plant’s sulfur dioxide emissions by about 90 percent, said authority spokeswoman Clara Tuma.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality says air monitors indicate the Fayette plant “is not the likely cause” of the area’s vegetative die-off. The plant operates under a state permitting program that was disapproved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in June. The EPA argues Texas’ permits do not allow for accurate air monitoring and violate the federal Clean Air Act. Texas has challenged the disapproval in court.
The EPA’s criminal investigation branch, meanwhile, has toured properties and interviewed pecan growers near Ellinger. The agency’s civil division has been asked to review the information, according to e-mails obtained by The Associated Press. Other e-mails indicate the U.S. Department of Justice’s environmental wing also investigated the matter, though a spokesman said he could not “confirm or deny” an ongoing probe.
The Fayette plant is far from a lone source of concern. From Franklin – a town about 100 miles north that is surrounded by coal-fired facilities – to Victoria – 80 miles to the south and near the Coleto Creek power plant – Texas ranchers say orchards and trees of all varieties are dying.
Charlie Faupel said his Victoria pecan trees are native plants that have grown along a creek bed for seven generations, supplementing a family income that also relied on cattle, real estate and publishing. When Faupel was a teenager, he would collect and sack the pecans, using the extra money to buy a car or go out.
Now, the few pecans that grow are bitter or thin.
On Dec. 9, Faupel filed a formal air pollution complaint against the Coleto Creek plant and demanded the state environmental commission investigate the emissions.
“I have noticed for over 20 years how the Coleto Creek power plant’s sulfur dioxide has been damaging hundreds of the trees on our property – live oaks, white oaks and pecans,” Faupel wrote. “Most of the white oak trees are already dead. The surviving trees don’t have as much foliage and they’re becoming more diseased, I believe, from the plant’s sulfur dioxide weakening the trees over time.”
The Coleto Creek Power Plant did not respond to repeated requests for comment. .
Faupel said some tree canopies recently appeared to be thickening and believes it’s because Coleto Creek put a “bagging system” on its boilers, decreasing emissions. But the plant plans to add a second boiler that is expected to add some 1,700 tons of sulfur dioxide pollution to the air annually.
“I’m not one of these fanatic environmentalists,” Faupel said. “But when you are a seventh generation rancher, you are taught to be a good steward of the land . and you want the things on it, the cattle and the vegetation, to be healthy. And they’re not.”
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A debate over fly ash disposal
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10350/1109210-114.stm
A debate over fly ash disposal
Thursday, December 16, 2010
By David Templeton and Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Piles of fly ash sit atop a hill at the Matt Canestrale Contracting Inc. disposal site in La Belle, Fayette County.
Before Penn Power created Little Blue Lake in 1975, the company circulated fliers advertising a picturesque recreation area where people could boat and ski on blue waters.
So 35 years later, where are all the boats and skiers?
And, for that matter, where’s the lake?
The so-called “lake” in Beaver County’s Greene Township, near the boroughs of Georgetown and Hookstown, was created as a disposal pit for calcium sulfate and fly ash generated at the 2,390-megawatt Bruce Mansfield Power Plant in nearby Shippingport.
Today it looks like moonscape.
Coal waste, 400 feet deep and even deeper, extends across the state line into West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle and covers about 1,000 acres on a site that is 2 square miles. The 100 million tons of waste includes 60 million tons of calcium sulfate — generated by the scrubbing process to remove sulfur dioxide from smokestack emissions — and 40 million tons of fly ash, which is a byproduct of the coal-burning process to produce electricity.
The only sign of life on a late-summer day was a flock of Canada geese walking — not swimming — across the weird surface.
As one of the nation’s largest coal-waste disposal sites, Little Blue is a centerpiece of a nationwide debate about the safety of such impoundments and whether fly ash should be designated as hazardous waste.
Heavy metals in fly ash, including arsenic, lead, mercury, cobalt and thallium, should be designated as hazardous, environmental groups say.
But the power industry says such a designation will hinder beneficial uses for fly ash, including in concrete. Calcium sulfate is used in wallboard, but its dust can irritate eyes, skin, mucous membranes and the upper respiratory tract. Dust periodically has been a concern at the site.
Critics question whether the millions of tons can remain sealed on site or if their heavy metals leach into groundwater and damage the environment and public health.
The more immediate debate centers on whether leaching already has begun.
Site owner FirstEnergy Corp., based in Akron, Ohio, says its “first of its kind” disposal site is safe. Up to 3.2 million gallons of sludge are sent daily to the site through seven miles of overland pipes.
“It’s been operating for 34 or 35 years safely with all the structural integrity it is designed to have,” said Ellen Raines, spokeswoman for FirstEnergy, which always has owned Little Blue but previously under the name Penn Power.
The state Department of Environmental Protection supports that conclusion.
“Coal-ash facilities in the region have to manage the waste, so they figure out how much waste they have and how long they can use the site and how to plan for continued disposal,” said Diane McDaniel, DEP facilities chief for waste management. “It’s nothing unusual.”
But the Environmental Integrity Project, working on behalf of concerned Greene Township residents, says Little Blue already is posing risks to the environment and residents’ health.
Lisa Graves Marcucci, an Integrity Project official who’s been studying Little Blue for years, points to problems she says the company and DEP have refused to remedy them.
“[FirstEnergy has] 10 of 69 monitoring wells on site showing elevated spikes for arsenic — and that’s as recent as the first and second quarters of this year,” she said. “The monitoring wells are the sentinels that say there’s a problem at the site, and if not addressed, will leave the site.”
A report issued by the Integrity Project, the Sierra Club and Earthjustice in September says 39 coal-ash dump sites in 21 states, including Little Blue, “are contaminating drinking water or surface water with arsenic and other heavy metals.”
The report also says state governments aren’t adequately monitoring the sites and encourages the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to enact new regulations designating fly ash as a hazardous waste to protect the public.
Every coal-ash site equipped with groundwater monitoring wells, it says, has concentrations of heavy metals — arsenic and lead included — that exceed federal drinking-water standards.
But Jeff Smith, a DEP geologist and expert on Little Blue Run and the disposal site, said quarterly data from monitoring wells at and surrounding the impoundment reveal no excess levels of primary contaminants. “That has been proven with the data and in all the residential samples I’ve collected,” he said.
Sporadic elevations in arsenic levels in 2009 and 2010 were traced to fertilizer FirstEnergy was using to plant grass over areas of the impoundment. Arsenic levels declined once the company changed fertilizers, Mr. Smith said.
In the 1970s, Penn Power built its earthen dam across Little Blue Run near the point where it enters the Ohio River, just north of Chester, W.Va., and across the river from East Liverpool, Ohio.
Initially, the company thought coal waste would sink to the lake bottom and harden into low-grade concrete, leaving the surface pristine and available for recreation. But it soon became apparent that the lake never could be open to the public, Ms. Raines said.
The entire disposal site now is encircled by a chain-link fence.
Unregulated waste
The American Coal Ash Association, which promotes beneficial uses for coal-combustion products, said the United States in 2007 produced 131 million tons of such materials, of which 75 million tons not used in concrete and other products had to be disposed of in 1,300 fly-ash dumps nationwide.
Most are not monitored or regulated.
Recent collapses of waste-impoundments display potential for health and environmental consequences when such systems fail.
The wall of a large impoundment of red sludge at the Hungarian Aluminum Production and Trade Co. collapsed Oct. 4 and sent the sludge flowing through a Hungarian town. Nine people died.
Fly-ash disposal became a domestic concern on Dec. 22, 2008, when a disposal cell at the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee collapsed and released 5.4 million cubic yards of ash slurry (ash mixed with water) onto 300 acres, polluting nearby Emory and Clinch rivers in the process.
A neighborhood had to be evacuated due to heavy-metal contamination and three homes were destroyed by the wave of water and ash.
Although soil samples contained arsenic, cobalt, iron and thallium levels that exceeded “residential Superfund soil-screening values,” the EPA ultimately ruled that the waste was not hazardous.
But the collapses have spawned fresh concern about Little Blue.
The dam, standing 400 feet high, looms over the Ohio River and represents that largest earthen dam in the eastern United States. In 2009 the EPA designated that the dam has “High Hazard Potential,” which means failure would lead to loss of life.
Ms. Raines of FirstEnergy said the dam’s height alone was reason for EPA’s hazard rating. She said the dam is safe: “It is inspected by our contractors twice a year and by DEP once a year.”
The dam, built with 9 million cubic yards of rock, has a base 1,300-feet thick and a top that’s 2,200 feet across, or about two-fifths of a mile. No one lives in the area between the dam and the Ohio River, Ms. Raines said.
Monitors are built into the dam to detect any movement. “This is not something taken lightly,” she said. “Safety has been the emphasis from the beginning.”
But Ms. Graves Marcucci said water seeps through the dam from the impoundment. But seepage is an expected consequence of the dam’s design, FirstEnergy said, noting that it collects the water and pumps it back into the impoundment.
Because the lake is full, the company has been filling sausage-shaped “geotubes” with dry waste since 2006 and stacking them atop the lake. FirstEnergy anticipates using Little Blue for five to eight more years. In time, it will be covered with mulch to promote vegetation growth. Only time will tell if the 1,300-acre impoundment can ever be used for anything other than a disposal pit.
“Keep in mind that this is a cement-like substance that hardens to a low-grade concrete” due to the presence of calcium sulfate, Ms. Raines said. “It dries up and sets. The situation in Tennessee was wet fly ash. That’s not the situation in Little Blue.”
DEP’s Mr. Smith said Little Blue’s white semi-solid surface is like putty; it’s not low-grade concrete but more substantial than a gel. The putty-like substance would help prevent heavy metals from leaching, he said.
Ms. Raines said FirstEnergy has tested well water on residential properties 70 times without discovering problems that can be traced to the impoundment.
But Ms. Graves Marcucci said the 100 million tons of sludge is pressing down on aquifers, creating pressure that potentially could cause heavy metals to leach into groundwater. Greene Township residents have no access to public water and rely on wells.
A University of Pittsburgh study, led by Conrad Dan Volz from Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health, is studying water quality in Greene Township but results are not yet available.
Neighbors’ concerns
West Virginians living near the impoundment face their own set of problems. Water has begun seeping from hillsides surrounding the impoundment, raising fears that water from Little Blue could be moving off site.
One woman’s sloping lawn is rolling up like carpeting due to hillside seepage.
Two other people have thyroid and respiratory illnesses they link to exposure to the impoundment over the hill from their home. They say a FirstEnergy official advised them against eating vegetables from their backyard garden, but company officials said no such advisory was ever issued.
At the home of John Reed Jr. within 1,000 yards of Little Blue, FirstEnergy’s water-well testing showed arsenic levels above safe drinking water limits. The company and DEP confirmed the high levels in one reading, but attributed it to a bad well casing that allowed the natural arsenic from soil to infiltrate the well.
DEP officials said seeps from the hillsides around the impoundment are under investigation.
Mark Durbin, a FirstEnergy spokesman, said the seep issue is “something we’re aware of and have discussed with residents. “We are hoping to move soon to take care of it,” he said.
Another concern is FirstEnergy’s proposal to build a new dry-waste disposal site with a double clay liner in Greene Township. FirstEnergy already owns 23 percent of the township, and supervisors said they don’t want another waste dump.
Health link?
Ultimately, the issue focuses on whether health impacts can be linked to Little Blue. Residents have done informal health surveys that have scared them.
“We seem to have a high rate of cancer,” said Sandra Wright, Greene Township secretary-treasurer. “On any road you have two or three people living with cancer daily.”
The township wants air monitors to determine the extent of air pollution from local and downwind sources. It also is awaiting results from the Pitt study before deciding on a next step.
The Post-Gazette’s ecological study of mortality rates for heart and respiratory disease and lung cancer shows elevated rates for the combined area of Greene Township, Hookstown and Georgetown.
Heart disease deaths there were 46 percent higher than the national rate. The total of 88 deaths from all three diseases is 42 percent higher than the predicted number of 62 deaths, based on national rates.
Scientific studies say these diseases can be linked to air pollution, but there are no studies suggesting a direct link to heavy-metal or fly-ash exposure.
David Templeton: dtempleton@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1578. Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.
First published on December 16, 2010 at 12:00 am
Waste material OK’d for Hazleton mineland
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Waste_material_OK_rsquo_d_for_Hazleton_mineland_12-13-2010.html
Waste material OK’d for Hazleton mineland
A company spokesman sees job creation, but a critic fears a hazardous waste dump.
STEVE MOCARSKY smocarsky@timesleader.com
HAZLETON – The state on Monday approved the use of waste material from coal-fired electric generation plants as fill for some abandoned mineland in southern Luzerne County.
Edwardsville-based Hazleton Creek Properties began the controversial reclamation project five years ago at the 277-acre site bounded by state routes 93, 309 and 924.
Some have opposed using certain types of fill at the site, believing they could harm local water supplies.
Hazleton Creek Properties spokesman Frank Keel said the privately funded reclamation project is arguably the most vetted of its kind in the state. He is sure the application was thoroughly examined and reviewed by the state Department of Environmental Protection and looks forward to the project moving ahead.
“Not only will the HCP project provide much-needed jobs for Hazleton area residents, it will also safely reclaim one of the most dangerous abandoned mines in Pennsylvania and turn it into developable land that will spur the local economy and create still more local jobs,” Keel said.
Todd Wallace, acting director of DEP’s Bureau of Waste Management, said the work will improve public safety and the environment by eliminating about 1.2 miles of dangerous highwalls and reducing acid mine drainage.
Under the terms of the permit, Hazleton Creek Properties will use up to 550,000 cubic yards annually of a mixture of dry flue gas desulfurization waste and coal ash to reclaim 53 acres of the site.
Dry flue gas waste is produced when a lime powder spray mixes with sulfur dioxide emissions in the air pollution control systems of coal-fired power plants.
“This permit will allow Hazleton Creek Properties to begin reclaiming a portion of the site and return it to productive use,” Wallace said.
The project does have detractors.
Bill Lockwood, president of local environmental group Save Us From Future Environmental Risk (SUFFER), said he was not surprised by DEP’s approval, given the agency’s past approval of other site permits despite opposition from environmentalists and some elected officials such as state Rep. Todd Eachus, D-Butler Township.
“It looks like instead of being the future site of an amphitheater, it’s going to be nothing but a hazardous waste dump,” Lockwood said.
A spokesman for Eachus, who has vehemently and vociferously opposed the use of dredged and other materials as fill from the project’s inception, did not return a call seeking comment.
This is the fourth permit regulating fill that DEP has issued. Since 2006, Hazleton Creek Properties has been using regulated fill material such as concrete, bricks, blocks and dredged material to build rail sidings and access roads, and to cap two old landfills at the site.
Two other permits issued this year authorize Hazleton Creek Properties to accept dredged materials, coal ash, and cement and lime furnace dust, as well as crushed construction and demolition material for use as fill.
Hazleton Creek Properties applied for the flue gas desulfurization permit in June. DEP held an informational meeting Aug. 31 and accepted public comment through the end of September.
EPA Gets an Earful at Coal Ash Disposal Hearings
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2010/2010-09-09-092.html
EPA Gets an Earful at Coal Ash Disposal Hearings
DALLAS, Texas, September 9, 2010 (ENS) – Concerned about the health and environmental dangers of coal ash dumps, hundreds of residents from four states packed a U.S. EPA hearing in Dallas Wednesday, urging the agency to adopt the stronger of two plans to regulate the waste from coal-fired power plants.
The agency’s proposed regulation is the first national effort to ensure the safe disposal and management of ash from coal-fired power plants, which generate some 136 million tons of coal ash every year.
Texas burns more coal than any other state and also produces more coal ash. Power companies can bury it in landfills or store it in impoundment ponds, or they sell it as a component of building materials, roads or pavement.
“EPA must protect the public health by regulating this waste.” said Travis Brown of the Neighbors for Neighbors group in Texas. “Because coal ash is being dumped into unlined mining pits in our community, we are concerned that the groundwater we depend on may become contaminated.”
“Without federal oversight,” he said, “the state of Texas will continue to put profits before people and allow companies to escape cleaning up their own messes.”
“Doctors and scientists are just beginning to learn how the hazardous substances found in coal ash detrimentally affect human health,” said Dr. J.P. Bell, an emergency room physician from Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Coal ash is composed primarily of oxides of silicon, aluminum, iron, calcium, magnesium, titanium, sodium, potassium, arsenic, mercury, and sulfur plus small quantities of the radioactive elements uranium and thorium.
“I learned that radioactive coal ash dumps are like sleeper cells, causing chaos down the road,” said Dr. Bell. “The health of citizens not affected until they become patients 20 years later.”
“In my personal experiences with citizens in Arkansas and Oklahoma battling against these huge waste pits, I have seen the negative consequences firsthand. Common sense dictates that the EPA should protect citizens when industry and the states refuse to.”
Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said, “It’s been an inspiring day, seeing so many people from the region taking action to protect their air, their water, their health.”
The public hearing is one of seven the EPA is holding across the nation through the end of September on its plan to regulate coal ash. EPA will hold one additional public hearing in Knoxville, Tennessee during the week of October 25, 2010, the exact date to be announced.
The need for national management criteria and regulation was highlighted by the December 2008 spill of coal ash from a surface impoundment at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tennessee. TVA, a public utility owned and operated by the federal government, local, state and federal agencies continue to work on recovery and cleanup of the millions of tons of ash that buried a valley and spilled into the Clinch and Emory rivers.
EPA has proposed two main coal ash management approaches. The stronger one treats coal ash as a hazardous waste. It would phase out surface impoundments and move all coal ash to landfills. Each state would have to individually adopt this version of the rule, which would be enforced by state and federal governments.
Protective controls, such as liners and ground water monitoring, would be required at new landfills to protect groundwater and human health, under the stronger proposal. Existing landfills would have no liner requirements, but groundwater monitoring would be required.
The weaker proposal would continue to allow coal ash to be disposed in surface impoundments, but with stricter safety criteria. New impoundments would have to be built with liners.
Existing surface impoundments would also be required to install liners and companies would be provided with incentives to close these impoundments and transition to safer landfills which store coal ash in dry form. Existing impoundments would have to remove solids and retrofit with a liner or close the dump within five years of the rule’s effective date.
This weaker proposal would apply across the country six months after final rule takes effect, but there would be no state or federal enforcement. Citizens or states would have to enforce this version of the rule through the courts.
The coal industry prefers the weaker proposal, which treats the ash as as a non-hazardous product.
Thomas Adams, executive director of the American Coal Ash Association, told the EPA hearing in Denver last week that by labeling it as a toxic, the EPA would jeopardize a successful recycling industry for coal ash products such as bricks and concrete that uses nearly half the coal ash produced.
In advance of the public hearings, the Environmental Integrity Project, Earthjustice and Sierra Club issued an extensive report on the nationwide scope of the coal ash disposal problem.
The report, “In Harm’s Way” pinpoints 39 previously unreported sites in 21 states where coal waste has contaminated groundwater or surface water with toxic metals and other pollutants.
Their analysis is based on monitoring data and other information available in state agency files and builds on a report released in February of 2010, which documented similar damage at 31 coal combustion waste dumpsites in 14 states.
When added to the 67 damage cases that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has already acknowledged, the total number of sites polluted by coal ash or scrubber sludge comes to at least 137 damaged sites in 34 states.
“At every one of the 35 sites with ground water monitoring wells, on-site test results show that concentrations of heavy metals like arsenic or lead exceed federal health-based standards for drinking water,” the report states.
“For years nobody, including the Environmental Protection Agency, has had a full picture of how much of this toxic waste is out there, where it is, or if it is safely contained. It has been dumped with no federal oversight, and utterly inadequate state policies,” said Dr. Neil Carman, Clean Air Program director with the Lonestar Chapter of Sierra Club. “Now that we’re aware, we are finding contamination everywhere we look.”
