Chemicals in the Elk River

It's a little while now since the spill of toxic chemicals into the Elk River in West Virginia.  For several days, after a storage tank owned by the wonderfully-named Freedom Industries leaked 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, or MCHM, into the river, West Virgina drinking water service was virtually shut down.

Last Sunday, the Washington Post published a useful article with a broader look at regulatory oversight of toxic chemicals.  In fact, Joel Achenbach, the reporter for the piece, leaves the impression that there’s little or none.  He reports that when officials were scrambling to deal with the leak and assess its seriousness, they had next to no information about the chemical contaminating the water supplies.  According to his article, the MCHM safety data sheet that officials were probably looking at anxiously, uses the phrase “no data available” 152 times.

That would seem unacceptable when so much emphasis is placed on the safety of the things we eat and drink.  But a spokesperson for Freedom Industries said the company was, in fact, following stricter European Union standards in the data sheet; under U.S. regulations, she said, they didn’t even need to say that much.

So the Elk River spill points out the need for better information about and regulation of industrial chemicals, right?  Right.  But the most prominent proposed legislation, drafted by the late Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and David Vitter (R-LA), both from states with sizable petro-chemical industries, would, if anything, weaken oversight.  Elk River may have raised the salience of the issue for a while, and prompted an effort towards stricter regulation.  Here’s hoping something comes of it.

Agricultural pollution in drinking water

Farmers and environmentalists often have a hard time being friends.  This is especially true when agricultural fertilizers and pesticides are leaching into groundwater systems and drinking water supplies.  Another instance of this was recently reported in the French department of the Vienne just south of the Loire Valley.
 
A biennial report from the Agence régionale santé (ASR) for the Poitou-Charente Region found dangerous levels of nitrates in several local drinking water supplies.  As a result, some drinking water agencies are considering investing in special treatment systems to remove the contaminants.  The ARS found similar contimination from pesticides.

© La Nouvelle République

The article in La Nouvelle Republique (published in Tours) only reported on the release of the ARS study, not on any corrective measures.  So, absent any action, this appears to be where things will remain.  Farmers will continue current practices and drinking water customers will pay higher rates to cover costs of decontamination, effectively providing another form of agricultural subsidy.

The national consumer organization UFC Que Choisir is reported to have initiated some form of legal action, but the article didn’t provide details.

Nitrates, protests and elections

France's FNSEA (Fédération nationale des syndicats d'exploitants agricoles) brought members into the street this week to protest an E.U. directive on nitrates.  The directive, adopted over 20 years ago in 1991, is intended to improve water quality by reducing the quantities of nitrates entering ground and surface waters from agricultural sources, principally from nitrogen fertilizers.  France faces E.U. sanctions this year if it fails to meet directive requirements.

The country, as required by the directive, has already identified some 18,860 "nitrate vulnerable zones."  If voluntary "best practices" haven't done enough to meet water quality standards, farmers will face compulsory reductions in fertilizer use.  On the face of it, this appears to be what the demonstrations were about.  Farmers in Le Puy, Tours, Rennes, and several other cities, voiced their opposition by driving tractors and wagons into town and dumping manure or old tires or other junk in front of  targeted government offices.

Meanwhile, as it happens, farmers across the country have just received ballots for elections to the chambres d'agriculture and need to put them back in the mail before the end of the month.  Under the law of the Code rural, the chambers have consultative, representative, and professional functions.  And they exist at the departmental, regional, and national levels.  They are a kind of corporate representation for agriculture in governmental affairs.

FNSEA, the largest farm organization, has its candidates for the chambers.  And so do the Confédérataion paysanne (which includes José Bové) and Coordination rurale.  A spokesperson for Coordination rurale was probably not being too cynical when he suggested that the FNSEA demonstrations, timed as they were, may have had more to do with mobilizing support for its candidates than it did with objections to nitrate regulations.

Ilva: constitutional conflict

Earlier this month, I had two posts about the Ilva steel plant at Taranto (Puglia), its health threats for local residents, and the Monti government's efforts to provide for clean up while keeping open what has been Europe's largest steel producer. 

Back in July, in the face of high rates of cancer and respiratory disease and years of inaction on the part of the plant owners, the local public prosecutor seized the plant.  At the beginning of December, the Monti government enacted a "salva Ilva" measure, legislative decree 207, under which the plant is to be permitted to continue to operate while it undertakes clean-up measures.  At the time, the prosecutor had said his office would challenge this measure as interfering with his authority and now he has done so.

On December 20, the Taranto prosecutor filed with the Italian Constitutional Court a plea to set aside the 207 decree.  The prosecutor's office only announced the action yesterday.  The suit maintains that the decree interferes with the magistrates' authority to carry out investigations of Ilva directors and to apply penal sanctions.  A decision from the Constitutional Court is expected within the next six weeks.

The legal issues are serious and deserve to be resolved.  In the meantime, Taranto residents must wonder when their issues will be addressed, let alone resolved.

Plan for Ilva?

Finally, the Monti government says it has a way to deal with the Ilva steel mill at Taranto (Puglia).  Last Thursday, the Council of Ministers adopted a decree which the government says will allow the mill to continue to operate and will ensure that it engages in a cleanup that will meet health and environmental standards.  The key appears to be the terms of a autorizzazione integrata ambientale, an authorization for the mill to operate provided environmental standards are met.  The Minister of Health, Renato Balduzzi, said that this authorization includes

“stricter prescriptions than in the past and it’s crucial that for the first time explicit indicators of public health conditions were included to be followed by a real health plan for Taranto and by the already announced monitoring agency established in conjunction with the Puglia Region” ["prescrizioni più rigide del passato, ed è determinante che per la prima volta siano state inserite esplicite indicazioni di tipo sanitario" alle quali "farà seguito un vero e proprio Piano salute per Taranto e la già annunciata costituzione dell'Osservatorio in raccordo con la Regione Puglia.”]

This weekend, however, the national secretary of the association of prosecuting magistrates (Associazione Nazionale Magistrati) expressed concern that the decree could violate constitutional protections of magistrates' authority.  At issue, I think, is the decree's ability to set aside the Taranto magistrate's July order taking control of the facility to prevent further health risks.  Prime Minister Monti, Minister of Health, Balduzzi, and others in the government have responded, saying that they consulted widely before adopting the decree and that they are confident of its constitutionality.

So there we are.  The steel plant is still operating; for the moment the magistrates are standing by their authority over it; and the government is standing by its decree.  It looks like there will be some serious discussions in the next few days.  But even if questions of authority get cleared up, there will still be issues of how the cleanup is to be paid for and how serious the monitoring will be.  The current owners and managers do not have a record that inspires great trust.

Ilva at Taranto

Besides Sunday's primary for the Partito democtratico, one of the top news stories in Italy at the moment involves a steel mill at Taranto, in Puglia, closed by court order because of toxic emissions.  Italian newspapers have been carrying the story for several months but the situation has recently become more acute.  On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that workers had stormed the locked gates at the Ilva mill site in Taranto and that 1,000 workers at a sister facility in Genoa had taken to the streets.  Meanwhile, the Monti government is looking for a way to keep the plant open and at the same time make sure it's no longer a health threat.
 
Back at the end of July, local prosecutors had ordered the plant closed for health reasons; additionally 150 "injured parties" had health-related claims pending against the company.  The prosecutors charged that the Ilva plant, the largest steel mill in Europe, was emitting dust particles containing dioxin and PCBs, which had been settling on the city and surrounding countryside.  Although the company claimed to be complying with environmental rules, investigators had shown that it only did so during the daytime.  Italian newspapers at the time also recalled that several years earlier some 2,200 cows and goats on nearby farms had to be killed after they and their milk products were found to contain dangerous levels of toxic materials.
 
In August, a report to the Minister of Health found serious health problems in Taranto.  Rates of lung cancer were 30 percent above those for Italy generally; for respiratory illnesses rates were 50 percent higher for men and 40 percent higher for women.  It that point, almost three months ago, it was expected the national government would take the lead in finding a way to keep the plant operating while it was cleaned up.  There was talk of a total cost of 336 million euros, of which 98 percent would come from public funds.  Somehow, though, nothing happened.  And the Monti government is still trying to find a way out of the mess.


One might wonder how a steel mill came to be located in an area without much, if anything, in the way of necessary raw materials.  According to historian Paul Ginsborg (A History of Contemporary Italy), the original investment at Taranto followed designation by the Cassa del Mezzogiorno, a development agency for southern Italy, as a poli di sviluppo (development center).  Pressure from local Christian Democrat politicians helped the agency to commit to providing generous public assistance: straight-out grants of up to 20 percent of the  initial investment costs, plus loans of up to 70 percent at 4 percent interest for 15 years.  Given this early history, it's not surprising that the government would be heavily involved now to keep the plant operating and the workers employed.

Toxic clothing

This bit of news is a nice transition from my time in fashion-oriented Italy back to policy-oriented Washington D.C.  The fashion industry issued to being called frivolous; one wonders how it will react to being called toxic.  Greenpeace means this literally.  Earlier this week, the environmental organization staged a fashion show in Beijing and released a report entitled “Toxic Threads: The Big Fashion Stitch-Up.”  I love the cover.

 The publication reports the results of chemical analyses of 141 clothing items from 20 global companies manufactured in 18 different countries.  The clothing included jeans, slacks, t-shirts, dresses and underwear.

In many cases analysts found high levels of cancer-causing phthalates and hormone-affecting nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs).  The U.S. has banned phthalates from use in clothing and children’s toys.  The European Union has restricted use of NPEs, which are lethal for aquatic animals.  Offenders included Giorgio Armani, Calvin Klein and Zara.  The report praised H&M and Levi’s for efforts to detoxify their clothing.

The report doesn’t mention J. Crew or Patagonia, but, of the things I'm wearing right now, at least I know my jeans are trying to be toxin free.