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  • Above Ground Storage Tank Risk Management Strategies

    AST

    12/9/15 – by Chris Bunbury, eS  – Environmental Risk Managers President:

    From contractors to agriculture, manuifacturers, auto dealer and repair facilities, trucking companies, gas stations… Above Ground Storage Tanks (AST’s) are abundant if our business world.

    Initial reactions generally are AST’s make sense versus Underground Storage Tanks (UST’s).  In talking with insurance professionals I will hear the insured does not really have an environmental exposure because their raw materials are stored in AST’s with secondary containment.  The AST pictured above is in secondary containment.  However as you and I am sure the contractor at this job site can see the integrity of the secondary containment has been compromised.  It is important to annually test the integrity of an AST’s secondary containment.

    More than likely if there is a release from this AST it will breach the secondary containment and allow pollutants to spread.  As a side note this tank is located in an area where local residents get their potable water from wells on their property, no city water supplied.

    I also point out this picture was taken after hours and there was no lock on the tank that would restrict vandals from stealing fuel or just pumping it on the ground for fun.  Regardless, the owner of the tank is responsible if there is a release, even if caused by vandals.

    At least this tank was placed in some type of secondary containment.  I would say more times than not AST’s are just placed on the ground with no secondary containment.  Farmers, like contractors will move AST’s around on their property to conserve fuel.  We see claims for this after it rains and the ground the AST was placed on gets saturated and unstable allowing the tanks to tip and spill its contents.

    Is an AST’s located where natural disasters (tornados, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes…) occur?  Natural disasters can destroy the integrity of the tank releasing its contents?

    While AST’s seem to be a better option than UST’s, when a spill does occur, the contents can spread faster and further than with a UST release.

    Most states do not require financial assurance on AST’s like they do for regulated UST’s.  One benefit to financial assurance is when a loss does occur there are some monies available to address the environmental liability.  AST’s can easily be insured on a standalone basis or using a contractors pollution liability policy or a site pollution insurance policy.

    If you are a AST owner you need to have not only a risk management strategy to reduce your exposure to loss but a financial assurance strategy for when a release occurs.

    As you environmental team member Environmental Risk Managers can assist you in proactively addressing your client’s environmental exposure to storage tanks.

  • Toxic lead removal could be California’s biggest yet

    environmental Strategist, between the lines:  Some of the products you may be using today that contain lead are chocolate, cosmetics, computers and other electronics, construction trade materials, batteries, keels of boats, car and truck tires….

    • Production and use of lead is growing worldwide.
    • Roughly 10 million tons are produced annually with half of that coming from recycling.
    • Lead is usually found in ore with zinc, silver and most abundantly in copper.
    • The United States is one of the world’s top producers of lead.
    • At the current rate of use it’s predicted that lead will run out in just under forty years.

    After reading about a lead issue California is dealing with it should become pretty clear that lead is a huge environmental exposure most people do not think about.

    Workers remove topsoil from homes in the 1200 block of South Indiana Street in Boyle Heights that may have been contaminated by lead from an Exide Technologies plant in Vernon. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

    By: Tony Barboza, LA Times 

    The task of removing lead-contaminated soil from thousands of homes near a closed Vernon battery recycling plant would be the largest cleanup of its kind in California and rank among the biggest conducted nationwide, say environmental officials and experts in toxic remediation.

    The California Department of Toxic Substances Control announced last week that soil testing shows decades of air pollution from the Exide Technologies facility deposited toxic dust across a wider area of southeast L.A. County than previously estimated, possibly fouling as many as 10,000 homes.

    “It is safe to say that no lead cleanup of neighborhoods in California involving DTSC has approached the number of potential properties that could be involved in this case,” department spokesman Sandy Nax wrote in an email.

    Community groups that rallied for the plant’s closure are now urging state officials to dedicate additional funds quickly to expand soil testing and clean more homes. Over the last year, contaminated soil has been removed and replaced at 146 of the homes closest to the facility in Maywood and Boyle Heights, with Exide footing the bill.

    “Every day, week or month that goes by, our children are being exposed to the poison that is lead,” said Mark Lopez, who lives a few miles from the Exide plant in East Los Angeles and heads the group East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. “We hope the next battle is not having to fight DTSC for the cleanup.”

    Lead is a powerful neurotoxin that has no safe level of exposure. It can cause learning disabilities, behavioral problems and diminished IQs in children. Because of its use throughout the years in gasoline, paint and batteries, the metal is one of the most common contaminants at cleanup sites across the nation.

    Exide issued a statement Monday standing by the findings of a report it filed last week with state regulators “that establish the limits of lead impacts from the Vernon facility.”

    The Georgia-based company has said its contributions to lead in the soil are small relative to other sources, such as lead-based paint in older homes, leaded gasoline phased out decades ago and other businesses in the heavily industrial city of Vernon. The report said contamination from the plant was limited to nearby industrial zones and do not extend into residential areas.

    The preliminary results released by the state last week were based on soil samples from 146 additional homes spread over a two-square mile area stretching out from the plant and into Boyle Heights, Maywood, Huntington Park and East Los Angeles. The sampling data were used to predict where similarly elevated levels of lead should be expected.

    Officials with the toxic substances department have not determined how many of potentially thousands of properties will ultimately require soil cleanup, but acknowledged last week that it would be considerably more extensive and costly than anticipated.

    In a deal reached in March with the U.S. attorney’s office, Exide agreed to close and demolish the 15-acre facility to avoid criminal charges stemming from years of environmental law violations. As part of the settlement, the company is required to pay $50 million for a state-supervised pollution cleanup, including $9 million to remove lead contamination from homes.

    Now, the cleanup cost could balloon to tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars.

    State and federal officials say the agreement with Exide requires the company to pay the full cost of cleanup, even if it exceeds $50 million. But the toxic substances department said last week it was looking for funds to pay for the work while the agency seeks additional money from Exide and other responsible parties.

    Lead emissions from smelters, mines and battery processing facilities have resulted in extensive cleanups before, many of them through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program to deal with the nation’s most hazardous sites.

    Many of those were the result of pollution from secondary lead smelters, which like Exide melted down used car batteries into raw materials for new ones.

    One of the largest is an EPA cleanup in Omaha, Neb., that has removed soil from the yards of more than 12,000 homes contaminated by an old smelter’s lead emissions. The cleanup has been going on for more than a decade, at a cost of more than $300 million.

    A moderate-sized cleanup is a few hundred homes, said Ian H. von Lindern, who worked for decades as a consultant on environmental cleanups, including the Bunker Hill Superfund Site in northern Idaho, where more than 6,000 properties were cleaned of lead-tainted soil.

    “Ten thousand would be large,” he said.

    Determining the extent of the contamination from a facility like Exide will be challenging and expensive, environmental cleanup experts said.

    Removing the lead could take many years — but would significantly reduce health risks to young children. Those age 6 and under are most vulnerable to lead poisoning because they often play outside and ingest soil and dust.

    The county health department has tested the blood of hundreds of people who live near Exide as part of a free screening program funded by the company. The tests have not revealed any lead poisoning requiring medical intervention, but the program has faced criticism for screening few young children

    Cleaning up a yard takes about a week and costs about $45,000, the toxic substances department said. Contractors dig up and haul away contaminated topsoil and replace it with new dirt.

    Department officials said last week they are studying other major cleanups and believe the lead could be removed from soil in L.A. County at a lower cost.

  • America’s Toxic Mining Pools: Ticking Time Bombs?

    Environmental Strategist, between the lines:  There are hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines littered across the United States.

    Do not fool yourself and think you are in the clear once you get environmental professionals involved.  Below is a simple example of how even “environmental professionals” make mistakes.

    As you will read below, abandoned mines can release an array of environmental contaminants which can cause third party bodily injury, third party property damage, business interruption, investigation and cleanup costs, legal fees…

    This leads to the question “Who are your neighbors?”  What if a neighboring property causes contamination to come onto your property and it happens to be from an old abandoned mine and there is not an identifiable responsible party?  Under Federal law the property owner is responsible for the environmental condition of their property regardless of who caused the environmental problem.  Pollution liability insurance can protect you from pollution liabilities caused by third parties.

    There are over 500,000 abandoned mines in the U.S. containing noxious brews

    Bob Woods, special to CNBC.com

    On August 5, 3 million gallons of toxic sludge gushed out of the long-abandoned Gold King mine near Silverton, Colorado, and into the Animas River. The Tang-colored torrent, percolating with arsenic, lead and other pollutants, was inadvertently unleashed by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) contractors attempting to clean up wastewater that’s been accumulating since the mine closed in 1923.

    Water flows through a series of sediment retention ponds built to reduce heavy metal and chemical contaminants from the Gold King Mine wastewater accident outside Silverton, Colorado, August 14, 2015.
    Brennan Linsley | AP Water flows through a series of sediment retention ponds built to reduce heavy metal and chemical contaminants from the Gold King Mine wastewater accident outside Silverton, Colorado, August 14, 2015.

    The poisonous plume ran downstream into waterways in Utah, New Mexico and the Navajo Nation, but subsequent tests reportedly show that the toxins have dissipated and the water is safe. Regardless, the episode has revealed an even more frightening, long-festering problem: There are an estimated 500,000 abandoned mines nationwide, though mostly in Western states, an unknown number of which contain similarly noxious brews that could potentially be released and contaminate innumerable water systems and adjoining lands.

    The Denver Post‘s Bruce Finley reported that “230 other old mines [in Colorado are] leaking heavy metals-laced muck into headwaters of the nation’s rivers. These old mines have leaked so much for so long, thousands of gallons a minute, that state agencies don’t track the combined toxic flow.” The EPA has calculated that 40 percent of river headwaters in the West are contaminated by acid mine drainage, which occurs when sulfides in mines are exposed to air and water, creating what’s basically sulfuric acid.

    “These are disasters we know are waiting to happen,” said Jennifer Krill, executive director of Earthworks, a Washington-based environmental group that’s been advocating for reform of a 143-year-old federal law seen as a major source of the dilemma. The General Mining Law of 1872, signed by President Ulysses S. Grant during the unbridled building of the West, permitted mining of gold, silver and other hard-rock minerals on public lands for next-to-nothing lease prices, zero royalties (unlike those paid by oil, gas and coal lessees), scant environmental oversight

    Despite numerous attempts, the law remains on the books, but that may soon change. “An entire river system turning bright orange ought to be the wake-up call for Americans that it’s time to stand up and take notice,” Krill stated.

    “If we modernize the 1872 law, we’ll start to reverse what’s going on by making sure the mining industry takes responsibility for its messes.”-Jennifer Krill, executive director, Earthworks

    Perhaps, but while the horrible images remain fresh, Rep. Raúl Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat, has already called for a congressional hearing on his recently proposed legislation to modernize the antiquated law. Essentially, HR 963—the Hardrock Mining Reform and Reclamation Act of 2015—would levy an 8 percent royalty on new and existing hard-rock mines to create a federal fund to supplement the meager public and private money currently spent on cleanup and remediation activities. Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico announced that he will introduce a similar bill in the Senate next month.

    “The federal estimate for cleaning up contaminated mines is $54 billion, which I think is low-balling,” Grijalva said. “While this [Gold King] incident was a mistake by EPA, the underlying problem is the huge number of abandoned hard-rock mines that are effectively ticking time bombs threatening our rivers and our lands. Congress must provide robust funding to clean up these mines, which is exactly what my [bill] does.”

    “No one is arguing that there isn’t clearly a problem,” said Luke Popovich, vice president of external communications for the Washington, D.C.-based National Mining Association. Yet changing the 1872 law is not the solution, he said, adding that “it is just a predictable way to exploit this accident by raising a completely irrelevant issue.” He cited several post-Earth Day laws—including the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act—that have addressed environmental concerns over mining. “We’re probably the most heavily regulated industry in the U.S.,” he said.

    Instead, the mining industry favors so-called Good Samaritan legislation, which would allow for private groups and mining companies to clean up toxic sites, but at no liability in case of spills like those into the Animas River. “We’ve discussed royalties on new mines,” Popovich said, “if they’re reasonable.” He declined to suggest a figure.

    Earthworks, meanwhile, will continue its push for reform of the mining law. “The government shouldn’t be paying for the cleanup,” Krill said, noting the EPA’s related shoestring budget. “If we modernize the 1872 law, we’ll start to reverse what’s going on by making sure the mining industry takes responsibility for its messes.”

    More Related Articles:

     

  • Matson settles Hawaii’s claims over molasses spill for $15M

    What is a pollutant?  environmental Strategist describes a pollutant as any material, substance or product which is introduced into an environment for other than its intended use or purpose. There are numerous examples of fresh water, milk, cheese, fruit juice, beer, etc… all being classified as pollutants, and insurance coverage for pollution incidents  being denied by the General Liability carriers due to total pollution exclusions.  As the article below points you can add Molasses to the list of pollutants.

    In today’s transparent business environment, successful businesses balance managing and transferring their environmental exposures to drive their growth and profits. Environmental Risk Managers (ERMI) has a cornucopia of educational resources to coach you and your client’s on managing and transferring their environmental exposures.

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    This Sept. 12, 2013 file photo shows various kinds of dead marine life on the dock fronting the La Mariana Sailing Club in Keehi Lagoon in Honolulu. A major shipping company will pay the state more than $15 million for a 2013 molasses spill in Honolulu Harbor, Hawaii’s attorney general said Wednesday, July 29, 2015. (AP Photo/Eugene Tanner, File)
    Jul. 29, 2015 10:15 PM EDT

    HONOLULU (AP) — A major shipping company has agreed to pay more than $15 million to compensate for a 2013 molasses spill in Honolulu Harbor, Hawaii’s attorney general said Wednesday.

    Attorney General Doug Chin called the settlement with Hawaii-based Matson Navigation Co. one of the largest for an environmental violation in Hawaii’s history. The settlement includes a combination of cash, restoration efforts and funding for environmental programs, he said.

    Matson is also agreeing to cease its molasses operation in Hawaii and pay for removal of its molasses tanks and any remaining molasses, Chin said.

    The company will pay $5.9 million to the state, and the costs related to ending the molasses operation are estimated between $5.5 million and $9.5 million, which would put the total settlement amount between $11.4 million and $15.4 million, Matson Inc. said in a statement.

    “The range Matson provides in its press statement appears to reflect a desire to report a smaller loss to its investors for its next earnings report,” Chin said in response. “I have received assurances and the evidence strongly indicates that it will in fact cost $9.5 million for Matson to terminate its molasses operations in Hawaii. The state will make sure that Matson spares no costs and cuts no corners.”

    The 1,400 tons of molasses that spilled into the harbor in 2013 killed more than 26,000 fish and other marine life. Enough molasses to fill about seven rail cars oozed out from a section of pipe Matson thought had been sealed, suffocating marine life and discoloring the water as the sticky substance sunk to the bottom of the harbor.

    The spill, in an industrial area about 5 miles west of Waikiki’s hotels and beaches, shut down much of Honolulu Harbor for nearly two weeks.

    Reaching a settlement allowed the state to avoid a lawsuit that would have taken eight to 10 years to resolve in court, Chin said.

    The $5.9 million paid to Hawaii includes money to re-grow a coral nursery to help replace coral that had been damaged or destroyed. It will also reimburse the state for cleanup efforts and other costs, including nearly $2 million in legal fees. There will also be a contribution to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s World Conservation Congress, which is being hosted by Hawaii next year.

    Matson executives said previously that they were not prepared for the possibility of a spill, despite transporting molasses from the pipeline for about 30 years.

    Matson2
    In this Monday, Sept. 16, 2013 photo, a Maston ship sits in Honolulu Harbor near the site of a molasses spill. A major shipping company will pay the state more than $15 million for a 2013 molasses spill in Honolulu Harbor, Hawaii’s attorney general said Wednesday, July 29, 2015. (AP Photo/Oskar Garcia)

    Earlier this year, Matson Terminals Inc. pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges for illegally releasing the molasses into the harbor without a permit on Sept. 9 and 10, 2013. As part of a plea deal, Matson agreed to pay fines and restitution totaling $1 million, including $600,000 that went to the Waikiki Aquarium and Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii.

    Matson is the biggest company that ships goods to Hawaii from the mainland.

    “Matson has been a member of the community for more than a hundred years, and the company’s leadership understands the damage the molasses leak caused,” Gov. David Ige said in a statement. “The resolution allows reparations to occur now and helps see to it that such an environmental disaster does not happen again in Hawaii.”

    Now that there’s a settlement with Hawaii, the company doesn’t face any other pending claims, said Matson spokesman Jeff Hull.

    “Environmental stewardship is a core value in our company, so this event was a blow to all of us at Matson,” President and CEO Matt Cox said in a statement. “We can’t take back what happened, but we’ve done our best to make it right.”

    Matson shares climbed 51 cents, or 1.3 percent, to close Wednesday at $40.07, and they were up 1 cent in after-hours trading.

  • Silica – The Workplace Killer

    environmental Strategist, between the lines:  If you are not familiar with the pollutant Silica, please keep reading. Some of the businesses impacted by exposure to Silica are agriculture, real estate developers, excavators, road builders, manufacturers, mining operations, and municipalities with dirt roads…. Pollution liability insurance can protect you for silica exposure.

     

    Silica: Setting a Standard

    After decades of fighting for better worker protections against silica, new standards finally are within reach.

    Aug 5, 2015 | EHS Today

    Two years ago, Alan White of the United Steelworkers Local 593 testified in support of new silica standards during public hearings held by the U.S. Department of Labor.

    White, who had worked at a foundry in Buffalo, N.Y. for nearly two decades, found out six years ago that he would die from exposure to silica in his workplace.

    Despite his smoke-free, alcohol-free lifestyle, simple activities like walking the mile home from work became too difficult as a result of the onset of silicosis – a chronic lung disease caused by the inhalation of silica particles.

    “When I got my first job at the foundry, I made more than $60,000 the first year and thought I was set. I was ready and willing to give my all to work. But I never realized that that included my life,” White said during his testimony. “Now I know that my lifestyle probably won’t benefit my long-term health because of the devastating effects of silica exposure.”

    Today, White still is working, still fighting a battle he knows he can’t win against a disease brought on by unsafe work conditions.

    He is not alone.

    The American Lung Association estimates that 2 million U.S. workers, particularly those in mining, quarrying, sandblasting, pottery making, rock drilling, road construction, stone masonry and tunneling, are exposed to free crystalline silica dust and thus are at risk for developing silicosis.

    About 100 people die from silicosis each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And, while that number has decreased dramatically (85 percent) in the past 50 years, deaths among younger people (those aged 15-44) are still occurring, a trend the CDC attributes to new jobs that place workers at risk for silicosis like hydraulic fracturing, sandblasting denim and engineered stone countertop fabrication and installation.

    The effects of silica dust have been known for centuries, yet it continues to be a workplace killer.

    That’s because the silica standards in place by OSHA were set 40 years ago and attempts to delay updates to those standards have stalled the process, said Peg Seminario, safety and health director for the AFL-CIO.

    “It’s still a problem because it’s not controlled and it’s not controlled both because the standards are out of date and aren’t sufficiently protective and also are hard to oversee and enforce. It’s still a problem because too many employers aren’t installing safeguards,” Seminario said.

    However, after years and multiple attempts to set new standards, change could finally be on the horizon. OSHA as soon as early 2016 could pass new standards for worker protection from silica.

    A Time for Change

    The new standards proposed by OSHA – one for general industry and maritime and one for the construction industry – would set a new universal permissible exposure limit: an 8-hour time-weighted average of 50 micrograms of respirable crystalline silica per cubic meter of air. The standards, which also suggest control measures and precautions, would replace the existing standard set in 1971 that is based on calculations and differs by industry.

    “It’s not just limiting the amount, it’s really putting in a different approach that actually helps you get controls in place,” Seminario said.

    With the new standards in effect, nearly 700 lives could be saved each year, OSHA estimates. And another 1,600 new cases of silicosis per year could be prevented.

    “My health will not improve, but as OSHA moves forward with this silica standard other workers will be able to enjoy their time with their grandchildren,” White said.

    The new standards would align OSHA with the recommended exposure limit (REL) that NIOSH proposed in 1974, said Stephanie Stevens, a health communication specialist for NIOSH.

    Despite the lack of formal protections, however, some industries are taking steps of their own to manage the hazard.

    The Silica/Asphalt Milling Machine Partnership, for example, developed the Best Practice Engineering Control Guidelines to Control Worker Exposure to Respirable Crystalline Silica during Asphalt. The document established recommendations for the use of ventilation controls and of water sprays to help industry lower silica exposures.

    The effort, led by the National Asphalt Pavement Association, was 10 years in the making and involved collaboration between labor, industry and government groups.

    “It’s not as though there haven’t been efforts made by some employers; there have. The voluntary efforts haven’t been sufficient,” Seminario said. “It’s not become a widespread practice.”

    Instead, companies and foundries like the one from which White developed silicosis focus on “obvious safety hazards” like trips and falls, lifting, heat exposure and plant traffic.

    “But they did not tell us about the unseen dangers. They never told me about silica and the health effects that breathing it can cause,” White said.

    Some industry groups are arguing that the new standards proposed by OSHA are too restrictive.

    The Construction Industry Safety Coalition, a group of 25 national trade associations, in March said that the new standards would cost the industry $5 billion per year – 4.5 billion more than OSHA estimated – and would cut 52,700 jobs from the national economy.

    Jeff Buczkiewicz, president of the Mason Contractors Association of America, said that “the current silica rule has done a fantastic job of reducing related illnesses.”

    “Our industry needs a rule that is based on real-world construction site scenarios that is not technologically and economically infeasible to implement,” he said.

    But Seminario said the AFL-CIO doesn’t believe the current standards are protective and partially attributes the decline in the number of silica-related deaths to the nature of work and how workers are more transient, thus less likely to have health problems identified as silica-related.

    “The [fact] that we still have so many in industry saying the current standard is fine, that we just need more enforcement, that to me is just criminal and so dishonest. It just demonstrates that there really is no interest in protecting workers,” she said.

     

    RELATED

    Working with Silicosis: Alan White’s Story

    President Obama Should Veto Safety Cuts, ‘Poison Pills,’ Safety Groups Say

    OSHA and NIOSH: Protect Workers from Silica Exposure during Countertop Installation

  • Legionnaires Outbreak – Are your clients properly insured?

    environmental Strategist, between the lines:  Legionnaires Disease is a bacteria that can create an environmental liability for those using central air conditioning systems, fountains, room-air humidifiers, ice-making machines, whirlpool spas, water heating systems, showers, misting systems typically found in grocery-store produce sections, cooling towers used in industrial cooling systems, evaporative coolers, nebulizers, humidifiers, windshield washers….As you can see, Legionnares disease has the potential to be a very large exposure for businesses. Are you clients properly insured in the event of an outbreak?

    A little background:  Legionnaires is a bacteria that got its name after a 1976 outbreak at an American Legion Convention in Philadelphia.  221 people contracted the bacteria and 34 died.

    Below is information on a recent Legionnaires outbreak in New York City which sickened more than 120 people and killed 12. What risk management strategy are you implementing to address exposure to Legionnaires Disease for your client’s?  Pollution liability insurance can protect property owners or those with an insurable interest for their exposure to Legionnaires and any 3rd parties that might be impacted.

    legionnaires-disease

    New York to deploy teams to test cooling towers amid deadly Legionnaires’ disease outbreak

    Associated Press
    By JONATHAN LEMIRE, Associated Press

    NEW YORK (AP) — State health teams will deploy to the Bronx to help collect and test samples from cooling towers amid a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease as the number of those sickened grew by one to 101, officials said Friday.

    Teams will begin work Saturday, and state officials have said they’ll pay for the testing. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio earlier this week ordered that within the next 14 days, all buildings with cooling towers that haven’t been tested in the last 30 days be tested and any towers found contaminated be disinfected. Failure to comply is a misdemeanor. The bacteria were found in five buildings within a few blocks of one another in the South Bronx, but there is no indication that Legionella has contaminated water systems in buildings.

    “A situation like this requires a great deal of detective work. Clearly this is a sleuth mission to find out where this is happening,” said State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker.

    So far, 10 people have died since the outbreak surfaced last month, making it the deadliest in city history, health officials said. The victims were adults with underlying medical conditions. The disease is a form of pneumonia caused by breathing in mist contaminated with the Legionella bacteria.

    City Health Commissioner Mary Bassett said officials have a good handle on the outbreak, and the frequency of diagnoses is decreasing.

    “We have fewer new cases. People are seeking care promptly and getting treatment promptly. We’re optimistic that we’ve seen the worst of this outbreak, and that our remediation efforts are having an impact,” she said in a statement.

    Gov. Andrew Cuomo had asked representatives from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to come help, and he ordered a long-term review on how the outbreak is being handled.

    Dr. Claressa Lucas of the CDC defended the city’s response.

    “The timing of it (the response) has been very typical,” she said. “I think that they have done a very good job to mobilize their resources. I think they are taking this very seriously, and I am encourages by this response.”

    In a television interview Friday, Cuomo touted the state’s response to prevent future outbreaks, declaring, “We can’t go through this again.”

    When asked to weigh in on de Blasio’s response to the outbreak, Cuomo demurred, saying only that the “situation became critical” and warranted state assistance.

    On Friday, a homeless man who contracted Legionnaires’ disease in the Bronx filed notice with the city that he intended to file a $10 million lawsuit. Marvin Montgomery, 36, remains hospitalized and says he contracted the disease last month while passing out fliers in front of a hospital.

    His attorney, Adam Slater, said he believes the city was negligent by “failing to adequately test and monitor to look for Legionella.”

    “What you see going on right now is very reactive, which is great and hopefully prevents future outbreaks, but it shouldn’t let their past negligence off the hook for the injured people, like my client,” Slater said. “He has constant headaches, dizziness, he can barely walk and his muscles have deteriorated so much that he can’t even pick up a fork by himself.”

    A spokesman for New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer said his office closely reviews all claims.

    On average, there are about 540 cases of Legionnaires’ disease a year in New York state. The CDC estimates that 8,000 to 18,000 people are hospitalized annually with the disease in the U.S. Officials at a Cleveland hospital said Friday that a 53-year-old Ohio woman had died from the disease a day earlier.

    Source of Deadly NYC Legionnaires’ Outbreak Identified

     Marc Santia reports ~ Thursday, Aug. 20, 2015

    Updated at 8:06 PM EDT on Thursday, Aug 20, 2015

    Health officials have identified a cooling tower at the Opera House Hotel as the source of the Legionnaires’ spike that has sickened more than 120 people in the Bronx, killing 12 of them, since July, marking the largest outbreak of the disease in New York City history.

    The tower at the Opera House Hotel was disinfected Aug. 1, authorities said. The last case reported in connection with the outbreak was reported two days later. Local, state and federal officials tested samples from 25 patients linked to the outbreak, including some who died, and in each case found a match to the strain of Legionella found in the cooling tower at the Opera House Hotel.

    Health Commissioner Mary Bassett made the announcement at an afternoon news briefing Thursday as she declared the outbreak was “over.”

    Since July 10, 128 cases of Legionnaires’ have been reported. No new cases have been reported in nearly three weeks.

    “We have not seen anyone become sick in the area of the outbreak since Aug. 3 and we are now well past the incubation period of the disease,” Bassett said.

    City, state and federal officials canvassed more than 700 sites in the south Bronx, where the outbreak was focused, in their search for the source. In total, 14 of 39 buildings with the type of cooling towers that lend themselves to Legionella growth were found to be contaminated.

    The Opera House Hotel said in a statement that it was disappointed to learn its cooling tower was the source of the outbreak.

    “It’s particularly disappointing because our system is 2 years old, has the most up-to-date technology available and our maintenance plan has been consistent with the regulations that both the city and the state are putting in place,” the statement said. “We have worked closely with both the city and the state since this issue first arose and have done everything requested to address the situation.”

    Concerns about prevention and safety prompted the city to develop and pass new legislation to regulate cooling towers, one of the locations where Legionella, the bacteria that causes the potentially severe pneumonia-like disease in people who are exposed to it, is likely to grow.

    Under the new legislation, cooling towers across the city must be tested regularly for Legionella bacteria; any found to be contaminated must be disinfected immediately. The regulations specify penalties for violations, and the legislation makes New York City the first major city in the United States to regulate cooling towers.

    Prior to the recent outbreak, no city records were kept as to which buildings had cooling towers.

    New York is now requiring the testing and inspection of building cooling towers across the state to combat Legionnaires’ disease following an outbreak in New York City that killed 12 people, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday. Ida Siegal reports (Published Monday, Aug. 17, 2015)

    The Opera House Hotel said it fully supports the new regulations.

    “We believe they are appropriate and will enhance the protection of public health. That said, we intend to go beyond the requirement to test our cooling tower every 90 days by testing every 30 days when the tower is in operation,” the statement said. “Given recent evens, we have decided to be especially cautious going forward.”

    Legionnaires’ disease usually sets in two to 10 days after exposure to the bacteria and has symptoms similar to pneumonia, including shortness of breath, high fever, chills and chest pains. People with Legionnaires’ also experience appetite loss, confusion, fatigue and muscle aches.

    It cannot be spread person-to-person and those at highest risk for contracting the illness include the elderly, cigarette smokers, people with chronic lung or immune system disease and those receiving immunosuppressive drugs. Most cases can be treated successfully with antibiotics.

    An outbreak last hit the Bronx in December. Between then and January, 12 people in Co-op City contracted the potentially deadly disease. Officials said a contaminated cooling tower was likely linked to at least 75 percent of those cases. No one died in that outbreak.

     

  • Earth’s Degradation Threatens Major Health Gains: Study

    environmental Strategist, between the lines:  Sustainability has become an abused, catch all phrase in today’s business environment.  Regardless of how you want to spin “Sustainability” the bottom line is if we do not take care of our natural resources, our natural resources will not be able to continue taking care of us or future generations.

    The strategy for sharing the attached article is simply to give you some baseline information so as you continue on your sustainable path, you are able to better understand why we all need to be on the same page about better protecting our natural resources, human health and the environment.

    Environmental Economics will assist us in moving out of our current slash and trash economic model.  This transition will have a broad impact in better protecting human health and the environment once the masses get environmentally educated.  www.estrategist.com was developed to educate the masses.

     

    Degradation

    AFP July 15, 2015

    The unprecedented degradation of Earth’s natural resources coupled with climate change could reverse major gains in human health over the last 150 years, according to a sweeping scientific review published late Wednesday.

    “We have been mortgaging the health of future generations to realize economic and development gains in the present,” said the report, written by 15 leading academics and published in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet.

    “By unsustainably exploiting nature’s resources, human civilization has flourished but now risks substantial health effects from the degradation of nature’s life support systems in the future.”

    Climate change, ocean acidification, depleted water sources, polluted land, over-fishing, biodiversity loss — all unintended by-products of humanity’s drive to develop and prosper — “pose serious challenges to the global health gains of the past several decades,” especially in poorer nations, the 60-page report concludes.

    The likely impacts on global health of climate change, ranging from expanded disease vectors to malnourishment, have been examined by the UN’s panel of top climate scientists. But the new report, entitled Safeguarding Human Health in the Anthropocene Epoch, takes an even broader view.

    The “Anthropocene” is the name given by many scientists to the period –- starting with mass industrialisation -– in which human activity has arguably reshaped Earth’s bio-chemical make-up.

    “This is the first time that the global health community has come out in a concerted way to report that we are in real danger of undermining the core ecological systems that support human health,” said Samuel Myers, a scientist at Harvard University and one the authors.

    Danger of Bee Decline 

    A companion study on the worldwide decline of bees and other pollinators, led by Myers and also published in The Lancet, illustrates one way this might happen.

    The dramatic decline of bees has already compromised the quantity and quality of many nutrient-rich crops that depend on the transfer of pollen to bear fruit.

    Pollinators play a key role in 35 percent of global food production, and are directly responsible for up to 40 percent of the world’s supply of micro-nutrients such a vitamin A and folate, both essential for children and pregnant women.

    The complete wipe-out of pollinating creatures, the study concludes, would push a quarter of a billion people in the red-zone of vitamin A or folate deficiency, and cause an increase in heart disease, stroke and some cancers, leading to some 1.4 million additional deaths each year. A 50 percent loss of pollination would result in roughly half that impact, the researchers found.

    Scientist are still debating exactly why pollinators are dying off, but there is no disagreement that all the possible causes— pollution, insecticides, land-loss — are related to human activity.

    A second companion study examines for the first time the impact of decreased zinc levels in staple crops such as wheat, rice, barley and soy caused by higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the main driver of global warming.

    Already, nearly a fifth of the world’s population is at risk of zinc deficiency, which can cause pre-mature delivery, reduce growth and weight-gain in children, and compromise immune functions. By 2050, projected CO2 emissions could place an additional 150 million people at risk, according to the study published in Lancet Global Health.

    “Our civilizations may seem strong and resilient, but history tells us that our societies are fragile and vulnerable,” Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet and a co-author of the main report, said in a statement.

    Introducing the concept of planetary health, the report calls for urgent action, starting with a paradigm shift in the way we understand the relationship between our environment, social or economic progress, and human health.

    The report was released by The Rockefeller Foundation-Lancet Commission on Planetary Health.

  • Financial Business Model for Colleges

    environmental Strategist, between the lines:  Financial business models for colleges & universities depend upon grants & donations to meet their bottom line.  Grants & donations can and do create environmental exposures for colleges and universities.  It’s critical that colleges and universities have a financial assurance strategy to make sure environmental exposures faced through grants & donations do not blow up their bottom line.

    The financial assurance strategy must also take into account the communities that have grown up around colleges and universities.  This means their financial assurance strategy must address not only clean up of pollutants but third party bodily injury, third party property damage, third party business income, natural resource damages, legal fees, investigation costs…  environmental Strategist™ call this development and execution of an environmental Management Strategy (eMS).  For more on eMS to drive growth and profits in today’s business environment, go to www.estrategist.com.

    The LEHR site in Davis, seen in 1976, once performed radiation research on animals. Wells there are showing rising levels of chromium-6, which was not part of the research. UC Davis
    The LEHR site in Davis, seen in 1976, once performed radiation research on animals. Wells there are showing rising levels of chromium-6, which was not part of the research. UC Davis

    Toxic metal levels rise on UC Davis property – scientists confounded

    BY EDWARD ORTIZ

    Levels of the carcinogen chromium-6 are rising in groundwater at a UC Davis site used as an animal-testing laboratory during the Cold War, and university officials are at a loss to explain why.

    Currently, 42 of the 100 monitoring wells at the former Laboratory for Energy-Related Health Research, or LEHR, do not meet state standards for safe levels of chromium-6, a heavy metal also known as hexavalent chromium.

    Exposure to chromium-6 can lead to skin irritation, occupational asthma, and kidney and liver damage, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The carcinogen came to the fore in the 2000 film “Erin Brockovich,” in which the lead figure sued Pacific Gas and Electric over chromium-6 found in a Mojave Desert community’s drinking water.

    Many wells at the LEHR site – where the effects of low-level radiation were tested on laboratory animals – have five times the state standard of 10 parts per billion for chromium-6.

    The chemical is but one of many found at the LEHR site, where research on the biological effects of radiation was conducted for agencies including the U.S. Department of Energy from 1960 to 1989, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The 15-acre location off Old Davis Road south of Interstate 80 has been a federal Superfund site since 1994, and millions of dollars have gone toward cleanup efforts.

    Research at the site involved exposing hundreds of beagles to strontium-90, dousing them with cobalt-60 and injecting them with radium-226 to determine how humans might survive nuclear exposure. But chromium wasn’t involved.

    “This is a conundrum for us,” said Sue Fields, environmental manager at UC Davis. “There is really no indication that there was any dumping of chromium at the LEHR site.”

    Fields believes the answer will not be found anytime soon.

    “Part of the problem is, the more we look the more we find,” she said.

    Chromium-6 is typically found in areas where there has been a lot of industrial activity, such as electroplating. That type of activity has never occurred at the LEHR site or in Davis, Fields said.

    Moreover, the pattern of wells with high chromium levels at LEHR do not match areas where toxic waste was disposed at the site.

    “We’re finding that chromium-6 seems to be more widespread than just our disposal areas at the site,” Fields said.

    UC Davis has enlisted Stanford University expert Scott Fendorf to help solve the puzzle.

    “It’s not easy to identify the source, but the distribution of chromium-6 does not parallel other known contaminants introduced at the LEHR site,” said Fendorf, who has been studying chromium for 25 years.

    “As such, it seems more likely that it is of natural origin,” Fendorf said.

    However, naturally occurring chromium-6 cannot fully explain the rising levels at the LEHR, Fields said.

    One theory she believes is that changes are happening in the soil where naturally existing chromium-3 is mixing with sludge dumped into three landfills at the site over the years.

    Another theory is that chromium-6 may have been introduced into the ground or the groundwater by years of dumping rust inhibitor chemicals used to clean out underwater pipes serving the many cooling and heating towers on the UC Davis campus.

    “The reality is, we’ve not found any evidence of any such kind of release on the campus,” Fields said. “If someone had dumped a bunch of chromic acid or corrosion inhibitors into the ground, it would still be in the soil.”

    Fields said UC Davis is doing remediation on the LEHR site where it is extracting groundwater from wells and treating it at a nearby wastewater plant so that it can be converted to naturally occurring chromium-3.

    The university has spent $20 million on cleaning up the site since the early 1990s, Fields said. The University of California system has spent an additional $6 million. The university shares the cleanup costs at LEHR with the Department of Energy.

    While workers and visitors at the LEHR site do not face exposure risks, the danger is that chromium-6 could contaminate aquifers and groundwater in the rural area nearby. Fields said most farms there likely use deeper wells that do not have chromium-6 problems, but there is not much data because those wells are private.

    Establishing why chromium-6 levels are rising at LEHR may shed some light on why the toxic metal is being found in groundwater regionally, Fields said.

    New state standards for chromium were set in 2014 and apply to public wells and drinking water. The new standards put the majority of Davis’ drinking wells over the limit for chromium-6. The city is joining Woodland in building a new surface-water project that will tap the Sacramento River for drinking water by the end of 2016.

    One private well in the Binning tract area of Davis has recorded five times the standard set by the state. Property owner Martha Daschbach said that she is no longer able to use the well on her property because of the high chromium-6 levels and is forced to use bottled water to replace well water.

    Wells in Woodland and Dixon are also over state standards, according to data provided to The Sacramento Bee from the State Water Resources Control Board.

    Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to an area in Davis as the Benning tract. The correct name is the Binning tract.


    Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/investigations/the-public-eye/article22711758.html#storylink=cpy

  • eRMI article featured on InCite Performance Group Blog

    We have a great article up on the InCite Performance Group’s Blog. This is an excellent read for all commercial insurance professionals. Please read and contact us with any questions or to discuss further.

    “GROWING SALES, WHILE PROTECTING YOUR E&O WITH ENVIRONMENTAL LIABILITY INSURANCE” – Read here

     

  • Are You A Property Owner? How Are You Managing Your Vapor Intrusion Exposure?

    environmental Strategist, between the lines:  Vapor intrusion is such a huge environmental exposure for property owners, that ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials ) the society that developed Phase I and Phase II site assessments has developed ASTM 2600 which deals specifically with vapor intrusion. If you are a property owner you must have a strategy in place to address your exposure to vapor intrusion which can result from both onsite or migrating offsite contamination. Relying on the at fault party/s to make you whole is a very weak strategy. Pollution liability insurance can protect property owners from vapor intrusion.

    What is Vapor Intrusion you ask? In Laymans terms, Vapor Intrusion occurs when volatile chemicals migrate from contamination in the soil or groundwater up into a building’s interior space. Vapor Intrusion can pose a potential health threat to the occupants of the building, especially to sensitive populations such as children. The diagram below is an excellent illustration of how vapor intrusion typically occurs.

    courtesy of www.epa.gov

    Vapor Intrusion: An Emerging Risk that Could Cost Property Owners

    Posted on March 4, 2015 by Eugene Wingert

    Years after property owners thought they had completed the clean-up and environmental remediation of old contaminated sites, vapor intrusion has emerged as a risk that could result in additional clean-up costs and liability exposures.

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines vapor intrusion as the “migration of volatile chemicals from the groundwater or soil into an overlying building.”  Some building owners or managers may not be aware that they have a potential vapor intrusion problem at their property. In urban districts, many buildings are built in areas where soils or groundwater have elevated levels of contaminants.  However, even in areas with newer construction, the subsurface conditions could create bodily injury, remediation, or property damage exposures. In many situations, historical property uses may have impacted soils and groundwater. In a non-industrial setting, common sources of sources of volatile chemicals can include: dry cleaners, service stations or auto body shops, or leaking underground fuel storage tanks. Contaminants that are commonly found at impacted properties include:

    • Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPH), including Benzene
    • Chlorinated Volatile Organic Compounds (CVOCs) such as Perchloroethylene (PCE), Trichloroethylene (TCE), 1,1,1 –Trichloroethane (1,1,1-TCA) and Vinyl Chloride
    • Landfill gas (methane)

    Volatile chemicals can diffuse and migrate through the subsurface. When the vapors reach an obstruction (such as pavement, concrete foundation, or slab) they can collect.  As cracks develop in these obstructions, the pressure difference between the building and the subsurface allows the vapors to migrate upward into the buildings.  The vapors may accumulate in work spaces or living areas within buildings to levels that pose hazards affecting properties,, acute health effects or odors. In some cases, such as residences with low concentrations of these vapors, chronic, long-term exposure may also present a risk.

    Vapor intrusion first became an issue because of several high profile Superfund cleanups.  While many of the thousands of contaminated sites in the United States have been cleaned up, vapor intrusion issues may emerge when these sites undergo post-remediation inspections. The EPA and state environmental regulatory agencies are required to perform post-remediation inspections on a regular basis to determine whether a site, which had been cleaned up and was granted a “No Further Action” decision, remains within acceptable state.

    In many cases, vapor intrusion was not considered in the original risk assessment and remediation planning. Most states have dozens if not hundreds of sites that will be re-examined.  To add to the concern, there is debate among regulators, including environmental and safety professionals, as to what can be considered safe concentrations of volatile chemicals in breathing spaces.  Inconsistent interpretation of the chemical exposures and response actions creates an uncertainty in a property owner’s risk management strategy.

    A recent development in the enforcement of levels to which a party must cleanup the contaminants highlights the regulatory inconsistency across the country.  For example, in 2014, the EPA in Region 9 (California) recently set strict guidelines for trichloroethylene (TCE) levels in buildings caused by vapor intrusion. The guidelines cover sites that are listed on the National Priorities List (Superfund list) and call for a tiered cleanup and response.  Depending on the concentration of TCE in the building, the stricter requirements could potentially require evacuation of buildings if TCE levels are deemed too high.  Under prior guidance, installation of a vapor instruction remediation system may have been sufficient.   The impact on safety concerns, as well as the costs from loss of use of a building, could have significant effect on property owners and insurers alike.

    In addition to those sites that are monitored by regulators, there are a significant number of properties that may still have undiscovered vapor intrusion conditions. This is common in many commercial buildings where occupants or neighboring properties (past and present) used volatile chemicals as part of their operations.  A common example would be dry cleaners.  Most dry cleaners use tetrachloroethene (PCE).  The PCE and some of its by-products (trichloroethene, dichloroethylene, and vinyl chloride) can contaminate soils and groundwater and accumulate beneath a building foundation.  This accumulation can occur over time, and may not be discovered until years after the dry cleaning operations ceased.

    A recent example of this occurred in a commercial building in New York.  There, a dry cleaner’s antiquated equipment had numerous releases and caused contamination to soil at the building.  Over time, the state regulator determined that the contamination from these releases had spread beneath multiple properties, and was migrating toward several additional commercial and residential properties.  As a result, the regulator is performing environmental studies to determine the extent of the contaminant plume.  The ultimate cleanup cost may become the responsibility of the owner of the property that leased the space to the dry cleaner, but property owners affected by the contaminant plume may also incur costs to ensure the vapors are not impacting their properties.