Unlike most of my neighbors in the Boston suburb where I once lived, I never used the services of one of those lawn-care companies that come around with tank trucks to spray customers’ yards. I was philosophically opposed to the practice, and my lawn was remarkably weed free without those questionable chemicals. So why waste the money?

I should have been more concerned. It was very likely that my neighbors’ grass was being treated with 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid. Commonly known as 2,4-D, the herbicide is frequently found in garden products because it kills broadleaf weeds but not grasses. It is also easily transported by wind, which probably accounted for my flawless lawn.

My neighbors weren’t doing me any favors. 2,4-D was a major component of the Vietnam War-era herbicide known as Agent Orange. Today the chemical is routinely applied to athletic fields, golf courses, and farms, as well as lawns. It has been linked to cancers such as non-Hodgkins lymphoma and soft-tissue sarcoma, as well as hormonal disruptions, reproductive difficulties, and birth defects, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Considered “highly toxic” by the EPA, containers of the chemical must bear labels saying “Danger.” In addition, 2,4-D can cause serious eye and skin damage and enter human milk and semen through inhalation and ingestion, as well as through contact with the skin and eyes. The EPA’s own researchers have found higher than normal rates of birth defects in wheat-growing states where 2, 4-D and related pesticides are used in large quantities.

Despite such evidence, not only is the stuff still in widespread use, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture is about to make a decision that will likely lead to a dramatic increase in the application of 2, 4-D.

Just before Christmas, the agency took steps toward final approval of a new variety of genetically modified corn created by Dow AgroSciences. This corn would survive being sprayed with the herbicide, making it possible for farmers to kill weeds in their fields without risking their crops. Pesticide control advocates fear that the use of 2,4-D will soar if Dow is allowed to market the new corn.

There’s plenty of precedent. Advocates point to the example of glyphosate, an herbicide that is marketed under the trade name Roundup. Monsanto began selling GMO corn that could withstand Roundup in the mid-1990s. Since that time, the annual use of glyphosate in the United States has soared more than tenfold, from a little under five million pounds in 2000 to nearly 60 million pounds in 2010 in states surveyed for the USDA’s Agricultural Chemical Use Report. In an interview, Gary Hirshberg, the chairman of Stonyfield Farm and a long-time crusader for organic agriculture, called the USDA’s decision to approve the use of 2,4-D, which could be finalized this spring, “diabolical.”

Suing to Stop Children’s Exposure

In an effort to keep the 2,4-D genie from completely escaping its bottle, the Natural Resources Defense Council (which publishes OnEarth) filed a lawsuit today against the Environmental Protection Agency. The agency has failed to respond to a petition filed more than three years ago, asking that the EPA block the use of 2,4-D due to its environmental and health implications. NRDC is also asking EPA to prevent “2,4-D Ready” crops from being planted.

“Because 2,4-D is used in household ‘weed and feed’ products, it creates the potential for significant exposure to children,” says Gina Solomon, a senior scientist at NRDC who is also a medical doctor. Studies have shown that the chemical is frequently tracked indoors. Outside, 2,4-D dissipates quickly, but in the home, it can linger for months or even years in carpets and dust.

In a 2007 issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, researchers investigating homes in an agricultural area of Iowa reported finding 2,4-D in dust samples from 100 percent of houses they examined, even those belonging to non-farm families. More disturbing, research has also shown that concentrations of 2,4-D can be 10 to 200 times higher inside homes than in the soil around them.

The negative health impacts have also been clearly demonstrated. As early as 1986, National Cancer Institute scientists writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that farmers exposed to 2,4-D for more than 20 days per year had six times the risk of getting non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma than non-farmers. They were also much more likely to suffer from soft-tissue sarcoma, another cancer.

And as my weed-free surban lawn demonstrated, 2,4-D can “drift” — either as wind-blown droplets or vapors from where it is sprayed — and affect unsprayed areas. In fact, its extreme volatility makes the herbicide something of a champion drifter. Studies of homes in Iowa show that 100 percent of houses within 550 yards of sprayed fields were contaminated — even those belonging to non-farmers. 2,4-D has also been found in surface water, where it is toxic to wildlife and wells.

Dawn of the Superweeds

The introduction of 2,4-D-resistant crops will only amplify the problems. The new GMO crops, called Encore by Dow, will be able to survive applications of the herbicide that would kill competing weeds. In a recent issue of the journal BioScience, a group of researchers led by David Mortensen of Penn State University demonstrated a ‘high probability” that drift from sprayed fields would blow over to adjacent farmland. “Once an initial number of growers in a region adopts the resistant traits, the remaining growers may be compelled to follow suit in order to reduce the risk of crop injury,” the paper notes — meaning that if a lot of your neighbors grow GMO crops and spray them with 2,4-D, your crops are likely to be killed by the wind-borne chemical unless you grow resistant crops, too. Broadleaf plants such as soy, potatoes, grapes, and potatoes are all vulnerable.

It’s a marketing twist that only an agrichemical executive could love.

The absurdity doesn’t stop there. The only reason 2,4-D-resistant crops have a market at all is that in the 15 years since crops resistant to Roundup have been available (they now account for two-thirds of the corn and nearly all of the soy grown in the United States), more than 20 species of weeds have mutated in 26 states to become resistant to the popular pesticide. These “superweeds,” including such noxious characters as horsetail, Palmer amaranth, and Johnson grass, render Roundup useless in many parts of the country. The agrichemical and seed companies’ response to this problem essentially is to repeat history, substituting another, more powerful herbicide for the one that has been rendered ineffective. [Read rest of story]

With the auto industry pining for a battery breakthrough to lower electric vehicle costs, Envia Systems has some interesting performance data to share.

The five-year-old company today is expected to disclose technical details of its batteries which executives say could lead to cutting EV battery pack prices in half in three or four years. Envia Systems’ batteries are being evaluated by a number of automakers, including its largest investor General Motors, according to CEO Atul Kapadia.

The lithium ion batteries in cars, such as the Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf, provide ample power to accelerate a car, but the cost and bulk of these batteries has kept initial sales restricted to early technology adopters. Automakers and battery manufacturers are hoping that battery improvements, specifically in cost and energy density, can broaden the appeal of plug-in cars and extend their driving range.

Envia said its batteries were tested at 400 watt-hours per kilogram at a projected cost of $125 per kilowatt-hour, which is more energy dense than most batteries and less than half of what automakers are paying today, according to the company. Its tests have also shown that its batteries perform well after 400 cycles, Kapadia said.

Envia licensed technology from Argonne National Laboratory and was funded with $4 million from the ARPA-E agency in 2009 to develop the high-energy density battery. It also received a grant from the U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium.

To improve battery performance and cost, engineers at Envia Systems designed a new manganese-based cathode, a costly component in a battery cell. Battery cells are wired together and assembled to make a battery pack. The cathode uses a mix of metals produced in a way to create surface properties for better capacity and long life, explained Sujeet Kumar, the chief technology office and president.

"It’s a very complex material yet it can be made using simple reactors you’d find in the biotech industry or furnaces from the ceramic industry, so it can be scaled up easily," Kumar said. [Read rest of story]

A Washington State University researcher has demonstrated that a variety of environmental toxicants can have negative effects on not just an exposed animal but the next three generations of its offspring.

The animal’s DNA sequence remains unchanged, but the compounds change the way genes turn on and off — the epigenetic effect studied at length by WSU molecular biologist Michael Skinner and expanded on in the current issue of the online journal PLoS ONE.

While Skinner’s earlier research has shown similar effects from a pesticide and fungicide, this is the first to show a greater variety of toxicants — including jet fuel, dioxin, plastics and the pesticides DEET and permethrin — promoting epigenetic disease across generations.

"We didn’t expect them all to have transgenerational effects, but all of them did," Skinner said. "I thought hydrocarbon would be negative but it was positive too."

This tells researchers that the ability to promote transgenerational disease is "not simply a unique aspect for a unique compound" but a characteristic of many environmental compounds.

Researchers tested a pesticide mixture (permethrin and insect repellant DEET), a plastic mixture (bisphenol A and phthalates), dioxin (TCDD) and a hydrocarbon mixture (jet fuel, JP8).

The field opens new ground in the study of how diseases develop. While toxicologists generally focus on animals exposed to a compound, Skinner’s work further demonstrates that diseases can also stem from older, ancestral exposures that are then mediated through epigenetic changes in sperm.

The work also points the way to identify and diagnose exposures through the use of specific epigenetic molecular markers.

"In the future we might be able to use these epigenetic biomarkers to determine your ancestral and personal exposure early in life and to predict your susceptibility to get a disease later in life," Skinner said.

The study was funded by the U.S. Army to study pollutants that troops might be exposed to. Skinner and his colleagues exposed pregnant female rats to relatively high but non-lethal amounts of the compounds and tracked changes in three generations of offspring.

The researchers saw females reaching puberty earlier, increased rates in the decay and death of sperm cells and lower numbers of ovarian follicles that later become eggs. Future studies can use the molecular tools for risk assessment analysis. [Read original article]

A searing new report says the environmental movement is not winning and lays the blame squarely on the failed policies of environmental funders. The movement hasn’t won any "significant policy changes at the federal level in the United States since the 1980s" because funders have favored top-down elite strategies and have neglected to support a robust grassroots infrastructure. Environmental funders spent a whopping $10 billion between 2000 and 2009 but achieved relatively little because they failed to underwrite grassroots groups that are essential for any large-scale change, the report says. Released in late February by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, Cultivating the Grassroots was written by Sarah Hansen, who served as executive director of the Environmental Grantmakers Association from 1998 to 2005.

Environmental funders mainly support large, professionalized environmental organizations instead of the scrappy community-based groups that are most heavily impacted by environmental harms. Organizations with annual budgets greater than $5 million make up only 2 percent of all environmental groups, yet receive more than half of all environmental grants and donations.

The report makes the simple but profound argument that the current environmental funding strategy is not working and that, without targeting philanthropy at communities most impacted by environmental harms, the movement will continue to fail. "Our funding strategy is misaligned with the great perils our planet and environment face," Hansen writes.

"Environmental activists and funders all share a gnawing sense that something has to change. No sensible environmental activist would argue that we, as a field, have done what is needed to respond to environmental degradation," Hansen said in an interview.

Instead of funding community-based groups to generate ideas, strategies and political support for transformative change, environmental donors have thrown their weight behind narrow lobbying campaigns in Washington, D.C. — for example, the failed inside-the-beltway campaign in 2009-2010 to pass "cap and trade" legislation to curb global warming. For their part, mainstream environmental groups hang pleas for environmental change on the apolitical hook of rational appeals, expecting that decision-makers confronted with powerful evidence will do the right thing. But this strategy has not worked because "a vocal, organized, sustained grassroots base is vital to achieving sustained change," the report asserts.

How Does Change Happen?

"In movements throughout history, the core of leadership came from a nucleus of directly impacted or oppressed communities while also engaging a much broader range of justice-seeking supporters." In other words, successful movements for social change — anti-slavery, women’s suffrage, labor rights, and civil rights — have always been inspired, energized, and led by those most directly affected. Yet these are the very groups within the environmental movement that are starved for funds.

Analysis of environmental grantmaking, 2007-2009, reveals that only 15 percent of environmental grant dollars are classified as benefiting marginalized communities, and only 11 percent are classified as advancing "social justice" strategies, such as community organizing. The report makes a distinction between internet activism or getting your neighbor to sign a petition, and real community organizing. "Community organizing builds power by helping people understand the source of their social or political problems, connect with others facing the same challenges and, together, take action to win concrete change." Community organizing is messy and takes time.

The report also distinguishes between "national organizations that might parachute into local communities for one-time policy campaigns versus authentic, local organizations that not only work on those same short- term campaigns but, just as importantly, build long-term leadership and capacity in the community to amplify change in the future."

The report points out that the U.S. is growing racially and ethnically more diverse each year and by 2042 will be majority people of color. "New immigrants may come from countries with robust histories of social change movements that, combined with the increasing racial diversity of America’s communities, provide an opportunity to diversify the ethnic composition of the environmental movement," the report says.

And: "Unlike many of the professional advocates in Washington, D.C., people of color, immigrants, poor people and young people often are living face to face with the devastating impacts of environmental degradation. These growing communities have the self-interest to do something and, increasingly, the collective power to potentially make real change but may lack the support or resources to organize."

"In this context, it is arguable that any push for environmental change which fails to prioritize communities of color is a losing strategy," the report says. And, "Until the broader concerns… of all communities are on the radar of environmentalists, it will be hard for environmentalists to be on the radar of all communities."

In a stunning revelation, the report offers evidence that, compared to the average of all philanthropic donors, environmental funders avoid supporting disadvantaged people: "There is a seemingly contradictory correlation: analysis shows the greater a funder’s commitment to the environment, the less likely it is to prioritize marginalized communities or advance social justice in its environmental grantmaking."

Advice for Environmental Funders

The report offers a four-point roadmap for "funding the grassroots to win:"

1. Fund work that benefits communities of the future

Environmental funders should earmark somewhere between 20 and 50 percent of their total giving to underserved communities. Nearly half of all children in the United States today are black, Latino or Asian American and by 2042, a majority of Americans will be people of color. This is a powerful new constituency ready to take action on environmental issues, the report says. "Prioritizing funding for lower-income communities of color is not only strategic given that these communities are becoming the majority and support environmental change, but also because change that targets the most impacted populations has a multiplier effect for society as a whole," Hansen writes. [Read rest of article]

Cattle used to be left alone on the fields to fatten on grass. But now, once cattle are  full-grown, they are brought in to feed lots, where they are stuffed with grains to increase their weight before they are slaughtered. Huge quantities of cattle eat huge quantities of grain, and that’s the problem.

We consider meat a major source of protein, but it takes a disproportionate amount of energy to bring it to the dinner table. It takes 54 units of fossil fuel energy to raise the grain and perform all the other operations required to provide 1 unit of protein. Chickens come out a lot better: for poultry, the ratio of energy input to protein output is 4:1.

But that would not be the only benefit. When cattle are raised on grass, their manure and their urine falls widely distributed on the fields where cattle graze and fertilizes them. When cattle are fed on feed lots, their manure has to be collected in ponds and processed. In rains and in accidents, the ponds leak and their contents get into the water supply. The nitrates feed algae in the ponds and rivers and contributes to algal blooms and other causes that destroys fish and other aquatic life.

The same is true for poultry. The huge factory farms where thousands of birds are crowded in huge hen houses create the same problems of runoff and water pollution. This is minimized when chickens are brought up outdoors, free-range.

Another benefit is that cattle who are raised on grass and chickens who are raised in yards large enough to have plenty of room are much less likely to be sick and don’t need antibiotics, which are given prophylactically to crowded animals.

But not even grass-fed cattle and free range chickens minimize the amount of water used by the animals we raise for food. Animal agriculture is one of the biggest users of water in the U.S.  It takes 100,000 liters of water to raise a kilo of cow. Chickens are much better, water-wise, but a kilo of white meat still requires 3500 liters of water be expended to produce it. Compare that to the 900 liters it takes to produce a kilo of wheat.

Half of the grain raised in the U.S. and nearly 40% of the grain raised in the rest of the world is devoted to satisfying out taste for meat, rather than being directly consumed by people. As more countries transition from Third World toward First World living, their meat consumption rises. Yet, at the same time, food prices are increasing so rapidly that a estimated third of the world’s people are not getting enough food.

Going to grass-fed cattle and free-range chickens are unlikely to solve the problem by letting us eat grain-free meat. As they are more costly per kilo to raise, it is unlikely more than a small segment of farmers will raise them. It looks like the human race will have to consider a more vegetarian diet if it is going to prevail.

So Newt Gingrich walked into South El Monte this past week and said we should do away with the EPA. Newt, who is a student of American government, had better check his history.

He was standing above one of four toxic plumes contaminating the San Gabriel Valley’s water supply. Yup, we are home to the largest Superfund site in the country – and the South El Monte Operable Unit is one of them.

And in my years of dealing with the EPA, I can’t pretend the agency was quick to act or even efficient. But I can say the agency has put the screws to polluters who treated the Valley as a dumping ground for toxic chemicals and is making them pay. These cancer-causing solvents and metals seeped into the groundwater and polluted pockets of our water wells – like a slow leak under your house for decades that takes an army of bulldozers to dig up.

“Groundwater contamination in the Valley is a legacy of the chemical use and disposal practices common until the 1970s and 1980s, when the Superfund law and other federal and state environmental laws and regulations went into effect,” reads the EPA document on the South El Monte area contamination.

That’s just the start of how the EPA is helping our Valley and, in particular, places at the business end of environmental injustice. Usually, where Mexican immigrants live or moved from L.A. to settle – (other areas where groundwater is polluted include: Azusa, Irwindale, Baldwin Park, El Monte, Covina, West Covina) is where the highest concentration of pollution is found. Not a coincidence. The folks on the west side of Los Angeles County always used our Valley as a dumping ground.

The other day, I heard a Republican environmental consultant (nope, it’s not an oxymoron) give a talk about where all those onerous environmental laws GOP candidates balk about came from. They came from Republican administrations, said Leonard E. Robinson, a former Cal-EPA acting chief and now consultant with Strategic Counsel in Sacramento.

He was speaking to an Industry group at the county Sanitation Districts in Avocado Heights around the same time Newt was traipsing around South El Monte.

“A Republican president started the U.S. EPA. A Republican governor started Cal-EPA. A Republican governor started the greenhouse gases initiative (AB 32 legislation),” he began. [Read rest of story]

Besides making fuel efficient cars and using leading clean manufacturing processes, Honda and Toyota have something else to crow about: the Honda Civic, Honda CR-Z and Toyota Prius have the highest indoor air quality in the industry.

Car interiors are filled with a host of toxic chemicals that off-gas from parts such as the steering wheel, dashboard, armrests and seats. We experience these chemicals as that “new car smell” but they cause a variety of acute and long-term health issues.

Since the average American spends more than 1.5 hours in the confined space of a car every day, toxic chemical exposure inside vehicles are a major source of indoor air pollution.

The Ecology Center released its fourth consumer guide to toxic chemicals in cars after testing 200 of the most popular 2011- and 2012-model vehicles for chemicals: bromine (associated with Brominated Flame Retardants); chlorine (indicating the presence of polyvinyl chloride, or PVC and plasticizers); lead; and heavy
metals.

These chemicals have been linked to a wide range of health problems such as allergies, birth defects, impaired learning, liver toxicity, and cancer. Automobiles are particularly harsh environments for plastics, as extreme air temperatures of 192°F and dash temperatures up to 248°F can increase the concentration of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s) and
break other chemicals down into more toxic substances.

“Since these chemicals are not regulated, people have no way of knowing the dangers they face. Our testing is intended to expose these dangers and encourage manufacturers to use safer
alternatives,” says Jeff Gearhart, Research Director at the Ecology
Center.

The Good News

The good news is overall vehicle ratings are improving. The best vehicles today have eliminated hazardous flame retardants and PVC. Today, 17% of new vehicles have PVC-free interiors and 60% are produced without BFRs.

The Honda Civic, which leads the industry, is free of bromine-based flame retardants, has PVC-free interior fabrics and interior trim; and has low levels of heavy metals and other metal allergens.

Honda says it voluntarily reports on the steps they’re taking to reduce and eliminate chemicals in its annual North American Environmental Report.

The Mitsubishi Outlander, which got the lowest scores, contains bromine and antimony-based flame retardants in the seating and center console; chromium treated leather on several components; and over 400 ppm lead in seating materials. [Read rest of story]

One citizen out of five dies from environment-associated diseases in the WHO European Region. The environmental burden of ill health varies significantly across the Region, however, ranging from 14% to 54%. Within countries, the poor can be exposed to environmental risks five times more often than their wealthier peers, a new WHO report concludes.

The report on environmental health inequalities in Europe is the latest product of WHO/Europe’s  European Centre for Environment and Health, which today launches its expanded operations in Bonn, Germany, 10 years after its opening in 2001.

“We live in a constantly changing environment that prompts us to be innovative in our work and adapt our strategies to it. That’s why we are grateful to the German Government for supporting enhanced work on environment and health, as this is a priority for WHO,” says Ms. Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO Regional Director for Europe. “I envisage the renewed Centre as a regional hub of excellence, supporting European countries in providing healthy environments to all their people – and, I emphasize, to all their people, equally.”

"We are increasing our financial support to the European Centre because the environment has a major impact on human health. We want WHO to be even more active in this field and support our policy-making with data analysis and recommendations,” says Dr Norbert Röttgen, Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety of Germany.

“Preventive health protection requires that we act today, so that coming generations will have a healthy world tomorrow. To this end, we must include all stakeholders so as to identify joint measures and strengthen our health care systems. The expanded WHO Centre in Bonn is an important step in this direction,” says Mr Daniel Bahr, Federal Minister of Health of Germany.

New WHO European Centre for Environment and Health (ECEH)

Over the years, the Bonn office has coordinated the collection and analysis of scientific evidence on exposure to environmental risks and health effects, to underpin policy-making. It:

• estimated that, on average, each European citizen loses 8.6 months of life expectancy due to levels of air pollution higher than those recommended by WHO;
• concluded that traffic-related noise accounts for over 1 million healthy years of life lost annually in western Europe; and
• found that inadequate housing accounts for over 100 000 deaths per year in the European Region.

The WHO guidelines produced by ECEH support policy-making in Europe and other regions of the world.

Thanks to the additional funding from Germany, ECEH is broadening the scope of its work on four main areas: climate change and sustainable development, exposure to key environmental risks (air pollution, noise, chemicals, radiation, inadequate working conditions and poor housing), environmental health intelligence and forecasting, and the management of natural resources, including water and sanitation.

The programmes addressing these areas will strengthen their work on the nature and magnitude of current and emerging environmental health hazards, to assist European countries in making and carrying out policies to address them, including during environmental emergencies.

ECEH provides scientific and organizational support to the European process on environment and health initiated by the First Ministerial Conference in Frankfurt, Germany in 1989. For over 20 years, the process has ensured political commitment from all countries to address environmental hazards and lead policy development and action.

The poor: greatest exposure to dangerous environmental factors

In a time of financial constraints and broadening sociodemographic inequalities, a unique area of ECEH’s work is to offer countries new evidence and policy options to tackle the unequal distribution of environmental health risks.

All European countries show disparities in exposure to environmental factors between the rich and the poor. WHO’s new report on environmental health inequalities enables countries, for the first time, to identify priorities for national action based on concrete data. For example, within the European Union (EU) alone, around 80 million people live in relative poverty: with incomes below 60% of the national median income level (1). Many of these people live in damp housing, with insufficient heating and inadequate sanitary equipment. In the new EU countries, the lowest-income population reports having no bath or shower at home 13 times more often than the richest, and almost 7 million poor people have this problem in the EU as a whole. Worse, however, over 16 million people in relative poverty cannot afford to heat their homes in winter. Similar results are found for exposure to noise and second-hand smoke, and the incidence of various injuries.

The report indicates, as priorities for national action, environmental health risks that are greater and more unequally distributed in one country than in others. [Read rest of story]

The air we breathe in Lee County has improved significantly since 2005.

The amount of toxic air pollution released in Lee has dropped by about 80 percent since 2005, according to the most recent data available from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory program.

In 2005, the EPA’s TRI program reported the total on-site toxic releases for all chemicals in Lee County was 114,593 pounds.

By 2010 – the most recent year figures are available – that number had fallen to 18,883 pounds.

The releases were allowed under permits the companies were required to obtain from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

TRI contains data on disposal or other releases of more than 650 toxic chemicals from thousands of U.S. facilities and information about how the facilities manage those chemicals through recycling, energy recovery, and treatment.

The EPA stressed information gleaned from the TRI database reflects releases and other waste management activities of chemicals, not whether – or to what degree – the public has been exposed to those chemicals.

In Lee County, toxic chemicals noted included styrene, formaldehyde, methanol, phenol, mercury and naphthalene.

The EPA says formaldehyde is a chemical used by industry in manufacturing. It is a colorless, pungent-smelling gas that can cause watery eyes, burning sensations in the eyes and throat, nausea, and difficulty in breathing in some humans exposed at elevated levels. High concentrations may trigger attacks in people with asthma.

In 2005, companies listed as releasing these substances in varying amounts included Munters Corp., the Fort Myers power plant, HPBC Inc. and Corinthian Marble.

Munters, which makes systems for removing contaminants from industrial emissions, was listed in 2005 and 2006 for the release of phenol, methanol and formaldehyde.

The company had an air permit that allowed for the release of specific levels of such toxins during the manufacturing process.

Elizabeth Mynhier, with the human resources office at Munters in Fort Myers, said a change in the manufacturing process changed the company’s need for an air permit. [Read rest of story]

This move has been effective because the country is focused on the "jobs" mantra, with the idea that the only thing that is preventing every American from being employed is a plethora of government regulations, especially those set out by the Environmental Protection Agency. The Tea Party of California are currently circulating a ballot initiative that would repeal ALL state environmental laws. While Californians defeated Proposition 23, which would have suspended the"Global Warming Act of 2006," or Law AB32 in 2010, things could change. AB 32 requires that greenhouse gas emission levels in the state be cut to 1990 levels by 2020 starting in 2012. It is a broad and beneficial law, one that would be sorely missed in California’s progress toward better air.

While large-scale repeals of environmental laws are not taking place, the Tea Party is having a great deal of effect locally. Local chapters are bringing out their troops and defeating local initiatives. In Maine, they got the governor, Paul le Page, to back down on a project to ease congestion on the state’s main coastal corridor, Route 1.

Even this not-particularly-green initiative was seen as part of a dastardly UN plot, Agenda 21. Agenda 21 is a 1992 UN resolution designed to encourage nations to use fewer non-renewable resources and conserve open land by focusing development in cities — a world-wide trend that is proceeding all on its own. It is, like many, if not most UN resolutions, a well-meaning book of suggestions not binding on or adopted by any state. The Tea Party, however, egged on by Fox News, sees it as part of a long-term conspiracy to destroy rights and control lives, part of a "one-world order."

The solution, of course, is for the majority of Americans, who are pro environment, to take the trouble to attend local meetings and let their legislators know that the national sentiment supports laws that protect us, even if they curtail, as they must, our ability to foul the water and the air around us. It is the rest of us, truly a too-silent majority,that is not heard above the loud Tea Party voices. If we fail to speak out, we will find that our lives are indeed being controlled, but for the worse.