Tag: pollution

Which Countries Pollute The Most Ocean Plastic Waste?

Millions of metric tons of plastic are produced worldwide every year. While half of this plastic waste is recycled, incinerated, or discarded into landfills, a significant portion of what remains eventually ends up in our oceans.

In fact, many pieces of ocean plastic waste have come together to create a vortex of plastic waste thrice the size of France in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii.

Where does all of this plastic come from? In this graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Freny Fernandes and Louis Lugas Wicaksono used data from a research paper by Lourens J.J. Meijer and team to highlight the top 10 countries emitting plastic pollutants in the waters surrounding them.

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The Biden Administration Is Helping Norfolk Southern Block Workers’ Lawsuits

Alooming Supreme Court decision could end up making it easier for the railroad giant whose train derailed in Ohio this month to block lawsuits, including from victims of the disaster.

In the case against Norfolk Southern, the Biden administration is siding with the railroad in its conflict with a cancer-stricken former railworker. A high court ruling for Norfolk Southern could create a national precedent limiting where workers and consumers can bring cases against corporations.

The lawsuit in question, filed initially in a Pennsylvania county court in 2017, deals with a state law that permits plaintiffs to file suit against any corporation registered to do business there, even if the actions that gave rise to the case occurred elsewhere.

In its fight against the lawsuit, Norfolk Southern is asking the Supreme Court to uphold the lower court ruling, overturn Pennsylvania’s law, and restrict where corporations can be sued, upending centuries of precedent.

Oral arguments in the case were held last fall, and a ruling is expected from the Supreme Court in the coming months.

If the court rules in favor of Norfolk Southern, it could overturn plaintiff-friendly laws on the books in states including Pennsylvania, New York, and Georgia that give workers and consumers more leeway to choose where they take corporations to court — an advantage national corporations already enjoy, as they often require customers and employees to agree to file litigation in specific locales whose laws make it harder to hold companies accountable.

Limiting lawsuits is exactly what the Association of American Railroads (AAR), the industry’s primary lobbying group, wants. The organization filed a brief on the side of Norfolk Southern in the case, arguing that a ruling in favor of the plaintiff would open up railroads to more litigation.

It is also apparently what the Biden administration wants — the Justice Department filed its own brief in favor of Norfolk Southern.

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‘Trust the Government’ EPA Chief Tells Worried East Palestine Residents

The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) went to the scene of the freight train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, on Thursday and told the community he was from the government and was there to help in the wake of the disaster.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan saw a creek that still reeks of carcinogenic chemicals following the toxic train derailment in the town earlier this month. He sought to reassure skeptical locals the water is fit for drinking and the air safe to breathe in surrounds where just under 5,000 people make their homes near the Pennsylvania state line.

“I’m asking they trust the government. I know that’s hard. We know there’s a lack of trust,” Regan said, according to AP “We’re testing for everything that was on that train.”

Regan’s visit came in the wake of Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) who discovered what appeared to be residual contamination in the water of a creek in the same area, as Breitbart News reported.

“So I’m here at Leslie Run, and there’s dead worms and dead fish all throughout this water,” Vance said in a video posted to his Twitter account on Thursday. “Something I just discovered is that if you scrape the creek bed, it’s like chemical is coming out of the ground.”

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Biden admin turns down Ohio’s request for disaster assistance after toxic derailment

The Biden administration turned down a request for federal disaster assistance from Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine in the aftermath of the train derailment in the state earlier this month that led to a large release of toxic chemicals.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) told Ohio’s state government that it was not eligible for disaster assistance to help the community recover from the toxic spill, Dan Tierney, a spokesperson for DeWine, told Fox News Digital on Thursday. Tierney explained that FEMA believed the incident didn’t qualify as a traditional disaster, such as a tornado or hurricane, for which it usually provides assistance.

“The DeWine Administration has been in daily contact with FEMA to discuss the need for federal support, however FEMA continues to tell Governor DeWine that Ohio is not eligible for assistance at this time,” DeWine’s office said in a statement earlier in the day. “Governor DeWine will continue working with FEMA to determine what assistance can be provided.”

FEMA said that its team is in constant communication with DeWine’s office, but didn’t comment on the request for federal relief.

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Ohio Residents Bear Witness to Environmental Disaster Cover-Up

Residents of the Ohio town of East Palestine say authorities have kept them in the dark about the risks of a chemical spill on a nearby railway line, while they suffer unexplained health problems and witness wildlife dying out.

Two residents of the US state of Ohio have born witness to the government cover-up of an unfolding environmental disaster.

A train hauling tanks of the flammable, cancer-causing chemical Vinyl Chloride derailed near the small town of East Palestine, Ohio, on Friday February 3, causing an explosion that created a huge black mushroom cloud over the area.

Firefighters later conducted a controlled burn of the remaining chemicals, releasing tons of acidic hydrogen chloride and phosgene — an extremely toxic, heavier-than-air gas used as a chemical weapon in the First World War — into the environment.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials evacuated some residents from the area on the Pennsylvania border, between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. The agency later told them to return home, claiming there was no long-lasting or dangerous contamination.

But locals say the spill has left hundreds of wild animals dead around the town.

Authorities have been reticent to answer questions about the accident. Journalist Evan Lambert was even wrestled to the ground and handcuffed at a press conference with Ohio Governor Mike DeWine.

“The governmental regulators are saying everything’s fine, guys just go home,” Misty Winston, a political activist, told Sputnik. “And that’s absurd.”

“The chemicals that were in these railcars are no joke,” she stressed, pointing out that vinyl chloride, used to make PVC, boils at eight degrees Fahrenheit (-13 Celsius) and that hydrogen chloride combines with water — including vapour in the atmosphere — to form hydrochloric acid.

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Derailed train spills about 2,000 gallons of diesel near Yaquina River

A train derailment at the Georgia-Pacific Mill in Toledo, Ore. spilled about 2,000 gallons of diesel Friday and state officials said some of it entered a slough that feeds into the Yaquina River. 

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality responded to the emergency Friday. Officials said some of the spilled diesel may have entered a storm drain that flows into the nearby Depot Slough, which feeds into the Yaquina River.

The Oregon DEQ does not know how much fuel entered the storm drain or how much was absorbed into the ground near the spill site. 

“This is a difficult number to calculate because there is no easy [way] to measure how much fuel is in soil or how much fuel was recovered from the stormwater system versus how much made it beyond the containment measures,” Oregon DEQ spokesperson Dylan Darling explained. 

On Friday, crews placed a barrier in the slough to prevent the fuel from spreading. They also used an oil-absorbing boom and other absorbent materials within the barrier and around the spill site to prevent additional fuel from spreading. 

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Multiple Trains Derail In Texas & South Carolina, One Carrying ‘Hazardous Materials’

Two more trains, one carrying “hazardous materials,” derailed in Texas and South Carolina on Monday.

A Pacific Union train derailed in Houston, Texas as the result of a collision with an 18-wheeler, killing the driver.

And there were “hazardous materials on site,” according to the Splendora Police Department.

From Houston Public Media:

The crash between an 18-wheeler and Union Pacific train occurred shortly before 7:30 a.m. Monday along Interstate 69/U.S. 59 near its intersection with Fostoria and Midline roads, between the towns of Splendora and Cleveland, according to Lt. Troy Teller of the Splendora Police Department. He said 21 train cars were derailed in the collision and that a hazardous materials team from Union Pacific was on site and monitoring air quality as a precaution.

Union Pacific spokesperson Robynn Tysver confirmed that its hazmat crews were on site, adding that an estimated 100 gallons of diesel fuel was released by the truck involved in the crash.

“From what we’re being told and shown, there’s no major chemicals to be concerned about,” Teller said. “It’s more so household chemicals on board for retail purposes. It’s not a large quantity from what we’re being told.”

Hours later, a train also derailed in Enoree, South Carolina, on Monday, with no reported fatalities, and CSX Transportation, which owns the railway, is on site along with emergency crews.

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“Get The Hell Out Of There” – Ohio’s Apocalyptic Chemical Disaster Rages On

While the US government is dispensing millions of dollars in resources to treat balloons as an existential crisis, a small town in Ohio finds itself engulfed in what actually looks like the apocalypse. Perhaps by design, all of the drama surrounding violations of US airspace by Chinese spy initiatives has done well to keep what is becoming one of the worst environmental disasters in recent memory from getting any headlines.

The chaos began early last week when a train of more than 100 cars derailed in East Palestine, Ohio near the state’s border with Pennsylvania with roughly 5,000 residents. The accident launched fifty of those hundred freight cars from the tracks. Twenty of the freight cars on the train were carrying hazardous materials, ten of which were detailed. While the accident had no fatalities, of those ten cars, five contained pressurized vinyl chloride, a highly flammable carcinogenic gas.

In order to address the volatile scenario around the crash site, the Ohio Emergency Management Agency executed its plan of venting the toxic gas with a controlled burn in order to evade an uncontrolled explosion which presented the risk of catastrophic damage. “Within the last two hours, a drastic temperature change has taken place in a rail car, and there is now the potential of a catastrophic tanker failure which could cause an explosion with the potential of deadly shrapnel traveling up to a mile,” Gov. Mike DeWine warned in statement explaining the decision to take action to avert widespread devastation.

However, that operation sent large plumes of smoke containing vinyl chloride, phosgene, hydrogen chloride, and other gases into the air as the flames from the controlled burn raged on for days. Phosgene in particular is a highly toxic gas that can cause vomiting and respiratory trouble. The toxicity of phosgene gas is so potent that it was previously used as a chemical weapon during the First World War.

The hazardous airborne chemicals prompted officials to issue mandatory evacuation and shelter-in-place orders within a one-mile radius of where the train derailed. Those orders forced nearly 2,000 residents of East Palestine out of there homes. Despite the public safety risk in proximity to the crash site, over 500 people within the parameters of the evacuation order refused to leave their homes. However, those orders were lifted on February 8th, allowing residents to return to the area adjacent to the disaster.

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Biden Promotes EV Hummer That Pollutes More Than Gas-Powered Sedan

President Biden’s 70-person social media team tweeted a photo of the president in the new Hummer EV. They celebrated the president’s push to ‘electrify and greenify’ America.

The president has signed an Executive Order that sets a new target to make about half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 zero-emissions vehicles. The main idea behind the EV push is to “cut emissions,” according to the Executive Order. 

Though there’s a dirty side to clean energy, one of these inconvenient truths is the very EV the president is sitting in pollutes more than a typical gasoline-powered sedan, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). 

ACEEE revealed the inconvenient truth about the Hummer EV in a report last year: 

Emissions per mile driven are lower for EVs than for similarly sized gasoline-powered cars, but they are not zero. The Chevy Bolt EV is responsible for about 92 grams of carbon dioxide (CO2) per mile when accounting for emissions from the electric grid. (The CO2 calculations are based on the national average, but electric grid emissions vary considerably across the country.) The gasoline-powered Chevy Malibu causes over 320 grams per mile. Comparing larger vehicles, the original Hummer H1 emits 889 grams of CO2 per mile and the new Hummer EV causes 341 grams, demonstrating that behemoth EVs can still be worse for the environment than smaller, conventional vehicles.

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Recipient of $200M Federal Grant to Help Build Electric Vehicle Batteries in U.S. Must Pay $33.5M Fine for Pollution Overseas

Fires associated with EVs – including bikes and trucks – continue to be reported in the U.S. as well as worldwide.  Of course, there are numerous other issues associated with EVs – some of them environmental.  Nevertheless, the Biden Administration continues to promote EVs as environmentally friendly as well as fund their manufacturing, maintenance, and operation in the U.S.  We can only hope that some of the federal funding provided for a future EV battery plant in St. Louis, MO will be spent to prevent a situation like what already happened in Israel.

From St. Louis Today:

Company planning St. Louis expansion hit with $33 million fine for pollution overseas

The Israeli company planning an expansion to help build electric vehicle batteries in St. Louis reached an agreement last month to pay a $33.5 million fine for pollution in Israel — the largest such penalty in the country’s history, according to some reports.

ICL Group — which makes a range of chemicals, fertilizers, and industrial products — announced that the Dec. 14 settlement agreement between one of its subsidiaries and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority resolves issues sparked in 2017, when an evaporation pond wall collapsed at one of its fertilizer plants in southern Israel.

The incident spilled over 26 million gallons of highly acidic water across more than 12 miles of the surrounding desert and watershed, causing contamination and, according to Israeli news reports, killing a third of a local herd of rare ibex — a kind of wild goat known for long, curved horns.

In the aftermath, Israel’s Ministry of Environment launched a criminal investigation into the plant’s owner and ICL, its parent company.

“All the plants and animals in the valley during the tsunami of acid were probably highly damaged, probably dead,” said Oded Netzer, an ecologist for the ministry, Reuters reported in 2017. “In the long term, there will be soil damage and large functional ecological problems.”

Through the new settlement, ICL’s subsidiary agreed to pay for restoration of the contaminated area and other things, such as legal expenses. The financial impact on ICL “is not expected to be material,” the company said in a recent summary posted to its website.

ICL did not respond to requests for an interview.