Login
EPA Walks Back Proposal to Limit Water Pollution From Meat and Poultry Plants
In a move celebrated by U.S. meat and poultry producers but mourned by environment and health advocates, federal regulators are walking back a proposed rule that would have strengthened water pollution standards for slaughterhouse operators. The move to withdraw the proposed rule was published September 3 in the Federal Register.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concluded that “it is not appropriate to impose additional regulation on the [Meat and Poultry Products] industry, given Administration priorities and policy concerns, including protecting food supply and mitigating inflationary prices for American consumers.” Additional regulations on the industry’s wastewater would also result in increased air pollution and solid waste, the EPA wrote.
Slaughterhouses and rendering facilities have long come under fire from health and environmental advocates for polluting U.S. rivers and streams with nitrogen and phosphorus, nutrients which can contaminate drinking water and cause harmful algal blooms that are harmful to humans and animals.
It’s Possible to Remove the Forever Chemicals in Drinking Water. Will It Happen?
A new study finds that technologies installed to remove forever chemicals from drinking water are also doing double-duty by removing harmful other materials — including some substances that have been linked to certain types of cancer. The study, published Thursday in the journal ACS ES&T Water, comes as the Trump administration is overhauling a rule mandating that water systems take action to clean up forever chemicals in drinking water.
Last year, the Biden administration finalized a rule establishing the first-ever legal limits of PFAS in drinking water, setting strict limits for six kinds of PFAS chemicals and mandating that water utilities needed to clean up drinking water under these limits by 2029. But in May, the Environmental Protection Agency said it would be reconsidering regulations on four of the six chemicals in the original rule and extend the deadline by two years.
The changes come after widespread outcry from water utilities, who say that the costs of installing PFAS filtration systems would be far beyond what the agency originally estimated.
Another US State Prohibits Cancer-Causing Ingredient From Cosmetics… After Gel Nail Polish Product Is Banned
Another U.S. state has banned a cancer-causing ingredient from being used in all cosmetics and personal care products. The move comes as a growing number of beauty and bathroom items are facing increased scrutiny for the harm they could pose to human health.
In Europe this week, health officials banned a key ingredient used in gel nail polish (trimethylbenzoyl diphenylphosphine oxide) after studies linked the chemical to long-term fertility issues.
Now, Washington State is clamping down on formaldehyde and formaldehyde releasers, which are commonly used to extend the shelf life of beauty products like shampoos, eyelash glue, nail polishes, and hair relaxers, even though formaldehyde is also a known carcinogen.
Formaldehyde toxins can escape from products as a gas over time, a process known as ‘off-gassing’ — especially when they come into contact with heat. If these fumes are inhaled repeatedly, they can lead to anything from minor side effects like eye and respiratory irritation to major health issues like an increased risk of head and neck cancers.
New Mexico Will Soon Release Rules for New Bans of Everyday Products That Use ‘Forever Chemicals’
New Mexico will soon release an initial draft of rules to ban consumer products that contain so-called “forever chemicals,” the state’s top environment official told lawmakers Tuesday. Earlier this year, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed House Bill 212, passed by lawmakers to institute the gradual phasing out of intentionally added per-and-polyfluouroalkyl substances in everyday items.
Lawmakers also passed a second bill, House Bill 140, to allow the New Mexico Environment Department to regulate and manage cleanup for firefighting foams containing PFAS on military bases, which have caused contamination in groundwater around the state.
“Both of these laws work together to keep PFAS out of our economy, out of our drinking water and out of people’s bodies,” Environmental Secretary James Kenney told lawmakers during an interim Radioactive Materials and Hazardous Waste interim committee meeting.
New Mexico is the third state to enshrine a ban in state laws to address the use of PFAS in consumer products, joining Maine and Minnesota. This class of manmade chemicals is often used in waterproofing and is able to withstand breaking down in water, oil and sunlight. As a result, PFAS can be found across a range of products, including cookware, takeout containers, dental floss, cleaning supplies, cosmetics, menstrual products, textiles and upholstered furniture.
Why Iowa Chooses Not to Clean up Its Polluted Water
In the town of Remsen, in Northwest Iowa, Steven Pick spent 34 years working at City Hall. As the city clerk, he rebuilt Remsen’s ball fields and swimming pool and served as president and vice president of the chamber of commerce. He managed a local baseball team, played third base and pitched.
Pick’s proudest endeavor, though, was his determined effort to protect the water supply for Remsen’s 1,600 residents. He’s the first to admit it didn’t succeed. In Iowa, which by some measures has the most polluted water in the U.S., people who advocate for the environment are widely scorned as enemies of farming. Outside the cities and universities, few dare criticize the state’s $50 billion agricultural industry — the farmers, food processors, tractor makers, chemical companies and ethanol producers that reign supreme in this Kingdom of Corn.
Like much of agricultural rural America, Remsen is saturated with pollution from pesticides, hanging in the air as aerosolized particulates or lurking in the dust kicked up by thundering combines. Many, such as glyphosate, the world’s most heavily used weed killer and the active ingredient in Roundup, are suspected of causing cancer and other diseases. But while pesticides are subject to federal health and safety regulations, chemical fertilizers, by far the biggest source of farm pollution, contaminate the water and air virtually unchecked.
In Iowa, farmers spread 2.3 billion pounds of nitrogen fertilizer annually on crops, plus almost all the state’s nitrogen-rich manure output of about 50 million tons a year.
