Groups Challenge EPA Over Desert Rock Air Permit

Groups Challenge EPA Over Desert Rock Air Permit
Approval of coal plant threatens public health, air quality, climate
Published on Aug 16, 2008 – 8:01:24 AM

By: Earthjustice

Burnham, NM, Aug. 14, 2008 – The EPA scrapped a rigorous scientific review and pushed through approval of a severely deficient permit for the proposed Desert Rock coal-fired power plant, a coalition of Navajo and conservation groups contend in an appeal of the permit.

In a joint petition filed today, the groups detail how numerous deficiencies in the permit for Desert Rock threaten air quality and public health in the Four Corners region. The groups asked the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board to review the permit decision and grant an extension of time so they can thoroughly document the major problems with the permit. The EPA granted the permit July 31, authorizing construction of the 1,500-megawatt plant on Navajo land near Farmington, New Mexico.

Rather than complete the critical analyses required by law, the EPA was stampeded into granting the permit because of a lawsuit filed by Desert Rock developers, coalition members charge. The EPA granted the permit after Desert Rock’s developers sued the agency. The lawsuit was filed by Jeff Holmstead, Sithe Global Power’s attorney and former head of EPA’s air division under the Bush administration.

“The EPA is abandoning its mission by rushing a permit out the door for political expedience and ignoring the fact that it will emit massive quantities CO2 and other pollutants,” said Nick Persampieri, attorney for Earthjustice who filed the appeal on behalf of the groups.

The coalition said EPA’s permit contains a number of major deficiencies that violate federal clean air and public health laws:

* Failure to do a Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) analysis for hazardous air pollutants.
* Improper analysis of whether the plant violates national ozone standards.
* Failure to include emission limitations for carbon dioxide.
* Failure to consider impacts related to mining, disposal of combustion waste and impacts on the region’s scarce water supplies.
* No consultation with other agencies, as required, on the impacts of the plant on endangered species.

The groups are asking the Appeals Board to withdraw the permit and require EPA to complete all the required analyses, which they contend would ultimately lead to denial of or significant changes to the permit

“This permit is another example of the rush by the agency’s political appointees to hand out gifts to industry before President Bush leaves office,” said Dailan J. Long of Diné CARE, a Navajo tribal group that opposes the plant. “It ignores how emissions from Desert Rock will threaten air quality and endanger the health of people who live in the Four Corners region.”

Communities in the Four Corners already are suffering from dirty air, contaminated land and water from the two existing coal plants, as well as from coal mines, waste disposal areas, and widespread oil and gas operations.

If built, Desert Rock would overwhelm efforts of New Mexico and neighboring states to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and would further poison the air, land, and water of local communities.

Emissions from the coal plant would more than offset commitments to cut pollution from other nearby sources.

Burning coal at Desert Rock also would emit hundreds of pounds of mercury every year, increasing the already high levels of the toxic metal in local rivers and lakes, many of which are already subject to fish-consumption advisories. Mercury is a powerful neurotoxin that can harm the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs and immune systems of people of all ages.

Website: http://www.earthjustice.org

Agencies develop plan to clean up Navajo contamination

Agencies develop plan to clean up Navajo contamination
Posted: July 25, 2008
by: Rob Capriccioso
Click to Enlarge Photo courtesy Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency — Navajo residences are 300 yards downstream of the Northeast Church Rock uranium mine site. The arroyo in the forefront leads back to the waste piles in the center of the photo. This site is located 18 miles northeast of Gallup, N.M. WASHINGTON – Abandoned uranium ore mines in Navajo country have for decades been known to cause health problems. A five-agency coalition is finally doing something about it. The Environmental Protection Agency sent a multifaceted plan in June to the House Committee of Oversight and Government Reform, titled ”Health and Environmental Impacts of Uranium Contamination in the Navajo Nation.” The 46-page report lays out a coordination strategy among the Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the IHS and the BIA over the next five years. It indicates that a combined $161 million from the agency’s budgets will be used in the short term to prevent the spread of radioactive contamination on sites across the Navajo Nation. The total cost, tribal and environmental observers warn, could end up being much more. Chiefly, the plan calls for cleanup of the Northeast Church Rock Mine near Gallup, N.M., as well as a survey of structures and wells for contamination in other parts of the Navajo Nation. Of the more than 500 mines on Navajo Nation, the agencies will work on assessing which mines and structures are most contaminated and those that could cause the most harm to humans due to radiation. ”It’s the first coordinated effort that the five agencies have put together,” said EPA spokesman Margot Perez-Sullivan. ”What’s novel about it is that all of the agencies have sort of been working on the issue independently, but this is the first time that they’ve all come together.” Perez-Sullivan said it’s her understanding from agency people working on the ground that they are ”all working very cooperatively.” The ultimate goal, she said, is to protect the health of the people who live in the region. At the end of the five years accounted for in the plan, Perez-Sullivan said it is the EPA’s hope, at least, to have addressed the most serious threats to public health. She expects that an assessment would occur in 2013 to see how far they’ve come. A big part of the cooperation beyond the five federal agencies involves the Navajo Nation’s own EPA. The division of the tribal government has been working for years to locate abandoned uranium mines, perform site assessments and build staff capacity to conduct its own fieldwork. Stephen Etsitty, executive director of the Navajo Nation EPA, said the plan is significant because it brings a longstanding issue to the forefront of federal attention. ”The problem has always been the lack of … resources in place to begin cleaning up for us to use and for the agencies to use,” he said. ”We’re ready to take on the responsibility of doing the cleanup and leading the effort.” Etsitty said it’s a goal of the Navajo Nation to track down any remaining companies that would potentially be responsible parties for paying for and helping with cleanup. Still, he noted, there will be a substantial need for the federal government to fund the efforts and ”own up to its responsibility.” Many of the mines established in the Navajo region resulted directly from the U.S. government’s attempt to ramp up its nuclear arsenal during the Cold War. Between 1944 and 1986, the government hired private contractors to mine 4 million tons of uranium ore on Navajo lands. He said that past efforts at cleanup and containment came during times when the Navajo Nation had less of an ability to be directly involved with the processes. Some of the past work has also been compromised due to weatherization and other natural processes, so previously treated sites oftentimes need to be re-examined. ”We now have more of the tools and capacity to oversee what’s going on to make sure that all of our concerns are being met,” Etsitty said. The Navajo Nation also recently passed its own version of the federal Superfund law, which allows Navajo officials to monitor and remove hazardous substances, pollutants and contaminants that could endanger the health and safety of residents. Etsitty said the $161 million cost mentioned in the plan is likely just a beginning to the total funds needed to make headway. The tribe had laid down a figure of $500 million to Congress last fall for it to be able to do more of its own environmental work. Much of the money that hasn’t even been widely discussed would involve testing groundwater for radioactive contamination. Chris Shuey, of Southwest Research and Information Center, a nonprofit focused on the environment, said that to date the EPA has been most responsive of the federal agencies in dealing with contamination issues, but he doubts that the EPA and the other agencies have the money to do all that’s needed. At the same time, he noted, the EPA has seen funding reductions that have been especially dramatic under the Bush administration. ”The government is going to have to figure out how it’s going to cover the costs of cleanup and reclamation of many of these sites,” Shuey said. One of the questions he said needs to be asked by the agencies is whether they will need more money from Congress to carry out their mission. ”I don’t think they really know how much they’ll need. In any response to an environmental health type of problem, you’ve got to have an idea of how much it’s going to cost to deal with the problem in order to secure funding at some point in the near or later future.” Shuey feels that the report, which he called somewhat ”shallow,” misses an important opportunity to project future costs. The action plan came as a result of Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the oversight committee, calling for congressional inquiry into the contaminated sites. He had read a series in 2006, published in the Los Angeles Times, which detailed the extent of the problem and noted that Navajo cancer mortality rates have doubled since the mining started in the mid-20th century. Waxman’s committee is scheduled to meet again in September to discuss progress of the plan.

What’s Lurking in Your Countertop?

By KATE MURPHY

Published: July 24, 2008

SHORTLY before Lynn Sugarman of Teaneck, N.J., bought her summer home in Lake George, N.Y., two years ago, a routine inspection revealed it had elevated levels of radon, a radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer. So she called a radon measurement and mitigation technician to find the source.

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Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

TESTING Reports of granite emitting high levels of radon and radiation are increasing.

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Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

DETECTION Using devices like the Geiger counter and the radiation detection instrument Stanley Liebert measures the radiation and radon emanating from granite like that in Lynn Sugarman’s kitchen counters.

“He went from room to room,” said Dr. Sugarman, a pediatrician. But he stopped in his tracks in the kitchen, which had richly grained cream, brown and burgundy granite countertops. His Geiger counter indicated that the granite was emitting radiation at levels 10 times higher than those he had measured elsewhere in the house.

“My first thought was, my pregnant daughter was coming for the weekend,” Dr. Sugarman said. When the technician told her to keep her daughter several feet from the countertops just to be safe, she said, “I had them ripped out that very day,” and sent to the state Department of Health for analysis. The granite, it turned out, contained high levels of uranium, which is not only radioactive but releases radon gas as it decays. “The health risk to me and my family was probably small,” Dr. Sugarman said, “but I felt it was an unnecessary risk.”

As the popularity of granite countertops has grown in the last decade — demand for them has increased tenfold, according to the Marble Institute of America, a trade group representing granite fabricators — so have the types of granite available. For example, one source, Graniteland (graniteland.com) offers more than 900 kinds of granite from 63 countries. And with increased sales volume and variety, there have been more reports of “hot” or potentially hazardous countertops, particularly among the more exotic and striated varieties from Brazil and Namibia.

“It’s not that all granite is dangerous,” said Stanley Liebert, the quality assurance director at CMT Laboratories in Clifton Park, N.Y., who took radiation measurements at Dr. Sugarman’s house. “But I’ve seen a few that might heat up your Cheerios a little.”

Allegations that granite countertops may emit dangerous levels of radon and radiation have been raised periodically over the past decade, mostly by makers and distributors of competing countertop materials. The Marble Institute of America has said such claims are “ludicrous” because although granite is known to contain uranium and other radioactive materials like thorium and potassium, the amounts in countertops are not enough to pose a health threat.

Indeed, health physicists and radiation experts agree that most granite countertops emit radiation and radon at extremely low levels. They say these emissions are insignificant compared with so-called background radiation that is constantly raining down from outer space or seeping up from the earth’s crust, not to mention emanating from manmade sources like X-rays, luminous watches and smoke detectors.

But with increasing regularity in recent months, the Environmental Protection Agency has been receiving calls from radon inspectors as well as from concerned homeowners about granite countertops with radiation measurements several times above background levels. “We’ve been hearing from people all over the country concerned about high readings,” said Lou Witt, a program analyst with the agency’s Indoor Environments Division.

Last month, Suzanne Zick, who lives in Magnolia, Tex., a small town northwest of Houston, called the E.P.A. and her state’s health department to find out what she should do about the salmon-colored granite she had installed in her foyer a year and a half ago. A geology instructor at a community college, she realized belatedly that it could contain radioactive material and had it tested. The technician sent her a report indicating that the granite was emitting low to moderately high levels of both radon and radiation, depending on where along the stone the measurement was taken.

“I don’t really know what the numbers are telling me about my risk,” Ms. Zick said. “I don’t want to tear it out, but I don’t want cancer either.”

The E.P.A. recommends taking action if radon gas levels in the home exceeds 4 picocuries per liter of air (a measure of radioactive emission); about the same risk for cancer as smoking a half a pack of cigarettes per day. In Dr. Sugarman’s kitchen, the readings were 100 picocuries per liter. In her basement, where radon readings are expected to be higher because the gas usually seeps into homes from decaying uranium underground, the readings were 6 picocuries per liter.

The average person is subjected to radiation from natural and manmade sources at an annual level of 360 millirem (a measure of energy absorbed by the body), according to government agencies like the E.P.A. and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The limit of additional exposure set by the commission for people living near nuclear reactors is 100 millirem per year. To put this in perspective, passengers get 3 millirem of cosmic radiation on a flight from New York to Los Angeles.

A “hot” granite countertop like Dr. Sugarman’s might add a fraction of a millirem per hour and that is if you were a few inches from it or touching it the entire time.

Nevertheless, Mr. Witt said, “There is no known safe level of radon or radiation.” Moreover, he said, scientists agree that “any exposure increases your health risk.” A granite countertop that emits an extremely high level of radiation, as a small number of commercially available samples have in recent tests, could conceivably expose body parts that were in close proximity to it for two hours a day to a localized dose of 100 millirem over just a few months.

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Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

A radiation detection instrument.

Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

A Geiger counter.

David J. Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University in New York, said the cancer risk from granite countertops, even those emitting radiation above background levels, is “on the order of one in a million.” Being struck by lightning is more likely. Nonetheless, Dr. Brenner said, “It makes sense. If you can choose another counter that doesn’t elevate your risk, however slightly, why wouldn’t you?”

Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking and is considered especially dangerous to smokers, whose lungs are already compromised. Children and developing fetuses are vulnerable to radiation, which can cause other forms of cancer. Mr. Witt said the E.P.A. is not studying health risks associated with granite countertops because of a “lack of resources.”

The Marble Institute of America plans to develop a testing protocol for granite. “We want to reassure the public that their granite countertops are safe,” Jim Hogan, the group’s president, said earlier this month “We know the vast majority of granites are safe, but there are some new exotic varieties coming in now that we’ve never seen before, and we need to use sound science to evaluate them.”

Research scientists at Rice University in Houston and at the New York State Department of Health are currently conducting studies of granite widely used in kitchen counters. William J. Llope, a professor of physics at Rice, said his preliminary results show that of the 55 samples he has collected from nearby fabricators and wholesalers, all of which emit radiation at higher-than-background levels, a handful have tested at levels 100 times or more above background.

Personal injury lawyers are already advertising on the Web for clients who think they may have been injured by countertops. “I think it will be like the mold litigation a few years back, where some cases were legitimate and a whole lot were not,” said Ernest P. Chiodo, a physician and lawyer in Detroit who specializes in toxic tort law. His kitchen counters are granite, he said, “but I don’t spend much time in the kitchen.”

As for Dr. Sugarman, the contractor of the house she bought in Lake George paid for the removal of her “hot” countertops. She replaced them with another type of granite. “But I had them tested first,” she said.

Where to Find Tests and Testers

TO find a certified technician to determine whether radiation or radon is emanating from a granite countertop, homeowners can contact the American Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists (aarst.org). Testing costs between $100 to $300.

Information on certified technicians and do-it-yourself radon testing kits is available from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Web site at epa.gov/radon, as well as from state or regional indoor air environment offices, which can be found at epa.gov/iaq/whereyoulive.html. Kits test for radon, not radiation, and cost $20 to $30. They are sold at hardware stores and online.

The New York Times