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Parties agreed to pay penalty after EPA inspectors documented violations
February 2, 2011

The Iowa Department of Transportation (IDOT) and three of its contractors have agreed to pay a $60,000 civil penalty for violating the terms of a storm water permit issued for the U.S. Highway 30 construction project in Tama County, Iowa.

IDOT, along with JB Holland Construction Inc. of Decorah, Iowa; Peterson Contractors Inc. of Reinbeck, Iowa; and Scheckel Construction Inc., of Bellevue, Iowa, are the respondents named in an administrative consent agreement filed by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 7 in Kansas City, Kan.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (IDNR), as the permitting authority pursuant to the federal Clean Water Act, issued IDOT a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit for the construction project in July 2008, providing coverage through July 2011. The permit, which regards the three contractors as co-permittees, governs storm water discharges associated with construction or land disturbance activity.

EPA inspectors visited the road construction project in September 2009 and documented several violations of the terms of the NPDES permit. According to the settlement, the respondents failed to properly design, install and maintain best management practices to control construction storm water runoff. The respondents also failed to develop an adequate Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) and failed to perform and document site inspections as required by their permit.

Storm water, snow melt, drainage and runoff carries sediment and contaminants from the U.S. Highway 30 construction site into Tama Mud Creek and an unnamed tributary, which flow into the Iowa River.

By agreeing to the settlement, the respondents have certified that the site is now in compliance with all pertinent requirements of the federal Clean Water Act.

Source: U.S. EPA February 2, 2011

environmental Strategist, between the lines: Here is a common, everyday environmental exposure for contractors. What do you do with excess material from job sites?

Environmental Risk Management Thought: Storm water runoff from road ways contains contaminates such as petroleum products, anti freeze, lead, cadmium, asbestos, hydraulic fluids… I hope this construction company at least had the material tested to make sure it did not contain any contaminates before they filled in the wetlands and stream area or this could get real ugly.

What are your contractors doing with their excess material?

Iowa Construction Company to Pay Civil Penalty for Impacting Stream and Wetlands
Company did not have permit for fill activities during highway project
January 5, 2011

A private construction company hired by the Iowa Department of Transportation to work on a section of Interstate 35 in Clarke County, Iowa, agreed to pay a $60,000 civil penalty to the United States for performing unpermitted fill activities that impacted a section of a nearby stream and three acres of adjacent wetlands.

Manatt’s Inc., of Brooklyn, Iowa, did not have a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to perform fill work at the site in June or July of 2009, according to an administrative consent agreement filed by U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 7 in Kansas City, Kan.

Manatt’s approached the owner of private land adjacent to the I-35 construction project to seek permission to use material from the construction site to fill in approximately 1,000 linear ft of an unnamed tributary of White Breast Creek. Although the landowner agreed to the proposed activity, neither the landowner nor Manatt’s obtained a permit from the Corps of Engineers to allow the work within the stream and wetlands, as required by the federal Clean Water Act.

EPA Region 7 issued an administrative compliance order to Manatt’s on December 10, 2009, requiring the company to provide the agency with a plan to restore or mitigate the impacted site. Since that time, Manatt’s has been working with EPA and the Corps to develop a restoration and mitigation plan for the stream and wetlands.

Source: U.S. EPA January 5, 2011

environmental Strategist, between the lines: In a relatively short period of time this will probably go country wide so be proactive and start today to prepare your tribal client’s for more government regulation.

EPA proposes pesticide applicator certification plan for Indian Country in Region 8

Release date: 05/09/2011
Contact Information: Lisa McClain-Vanderpool, 303-312-6077
EPA proposes pesticide applicator certification plan for Indian Country in Region 8

Plan outlines certification process required to apply pesticides in Indian Country in Colo, Mont, ND, SD, Utah and Wyo.; comment period closes June 6

(Denver, Colo. – May 6, 2011)

Contact: Judy Bloom, USEPA Region 8, bloom.judy@epa.gov, 303.312.6395

EPA has proposed a program to certify applicators of restricted use pesticides (RUPs) in Indian Country located within EPA Region 8. RUPs are potentially hazardous chemicals that require special training and techniques to be used safely.

To ensure the safe handling of hazardous pesticides, federal law requires that EPA approve the certification of all RUP applicators, including those who work in Indian Country. While states employ their own programs, currently, most of Indian Country is not covered by a certification mechanism. To fill this gap, EPA has issued a Proposed Federal Plan for Certification of Applicators of Restricted Use Pesticides within Region 8 Indian Country. This plan will protect human health and the environment within the boundaries of Indian reservations by ensuring that all RUP applicators are certified and trained to apply pesticides safely.

Under the proposed plan, RUP applicators will need to apply for a federal certificate on the date that the plan becomes final. The Plan will allow private applicators to become certified in two ways: either by applying directly to EPA by showing proof of training and completing a questionnaire, or by simply providing a copy of a valid state, tribal or federal certification from an area that is contiguous with the reservation boundary. Commercial applicators can provide a copy of a valid state, tribal, or federal certification from an area that is contiguous with the reservation boundary.

For more information on EPA’s restricted use pesticide certification program, and to provide comments (by June 6, 2011) on the rulemaking, please visit: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2011/2011-9562.htm.

Additional information, including frequently asked questions, is available on EPA’s website at: http://www.epa.gov/region8/toxics/pests/ppap.html.

environmental Strategist, between the lines: Every business is impacted by environmental exposures and 98% of the business in the United States do not have the financial strength to self insure their environmental liabilities.

Below is a random sampling of environmental losses experienced by contractors.

Concrete Contractor

• Laid an undercoat of slag while creating a new runway for a large international airport in the Midwest. After the runway was complete, it was discovered that the slag was contaminated and was leaching pollutants into a tributary of one of the Great Lakes. The claim exceeded $400,000.
• A concrete contractor related a claim where he was driving rebar stakes into the ground at a gas station when setting up concrete forms and he punctured the fuel line. The station did not pick up the leak until later in the day and he was involved in a claim that his insurance denied due to the pollution exclusion.

HVAC Contractor

• Installed a HVAC system in a new office building. Within weeks after opening, the building had to close due to occupants being overcome with breathing problems and headaches. The contactor was one of many parties sued. During discovery, it was determined that the HVAC system was installed exactly as the specs described. However, the contractors had to absorb over $250,000 in uncovered defense costs because he had no environmental coverage, therefore, no defense costs.
• Improper venting of heating system results in carbon monoxide poisoning.
• Damage to compressor by maintenance contractor results in the release of refrigeration gases and the subsequent condemnation of perishable goods by FDA.

Paving Contractor

After laying the “tack” coat of Naphtha in preparation for the final coat of blacktop on a new road job, a heavy rain hit, washing the toxic material into a drainage ditch along the road and, subsequently, into a stream. The clean up of this claim cost over $150,000.

Mechanical Contractor

A contractor was called to a site where an underground storage tank was being removed. He was contracted to loosen a heavy coupling for which the tank removal company did not have the adequate tools. Several days after leaving the site, having shaken the pesky coupling free, the contractor was notified that he was being sued for the tank leaking underground, spilling hundreds of gallons of gasoline into the soil. It seems that the contractor dropped a heavy wrench down the intake spout of the fiberglass tank, cracking the bottom, and causing the leak. Total costs to defend himself (He alleged that there was no way of knowing whether something else caused the leak.) and pay damages exceeded $250,000.

Painting Contractor

While painting the interior of a nursing home, the contractor was sued by over a dozen residents alleging that they were overcome by fumes as a result of inadequate venting. Total claim was over $200,000.

Janitorial contractor

Working at a mall, a cleaning company inadvertently mixed cleaners, one ammonia based, the other chlorine based. The result was a toxic cloud of ammonia chloride that caused respiratory distress in dozens of shoppers. Total cost of this claim: $175,000.

Pipeline contractor

A contractor suffered a large claim when he installed a new storm water drainage system for a municipality in MI. Not long after completion a very heavy rain struck the city, causing a backup of water with human waste into the basements of over 100 high-priced homes. The contractor was sued for installing an inadequate system and the environmental insurance carrier paid over $800,000.

Excavation & Grading

• A grading contractor is working on a site preparation project. During the rough grading of the site, the contractor was spreading soil throughout the site to the engineers specifications. Unknowingly, the contractor spread a pocket of highly concentrated contamination in the process of rough grading. The entire site was now covered with one inch to one foot of contaminated soil. The site owner files a suit against the contractor for spreading the contamination. The one million dollar claim was denied by the general liability carrier due to a pollution exclusion.
• One general contractor was asked to move dirt at a Railroad yard. He took it as directed to a landfill.
• Later he was pulled into a claim as the soil was polluted by a cargo spill in the past that the contractor had no knowledge of. He was dismissed from the claim, but his legal expenses were uninsured.
• While completing the finish grading after installing a UST gas tank, the contractor operator ran over a riser of another existing gas tank creating a slight leak. This went undiscovered over the weekend. Our reserves are $50,000 plus.

Street and Road

• A street and road contractor is working on a road widening project in a suburban area. The contractor is excavating soil along a two mile stretch of highway. The soil was not tested prior to working on the site. The contractor’s employees are unknowingly being exposed to elevated levels of lead which are contained in the soil adjacent to the road. The elevated levels of lead are due to years of automobile exhaust that until the late 1970s contained lead. A worker begins to feel sick and seeks the consultation
• of a family doctor, who immediately diagnoses that the worker has elevated lead levels, the source of which is traced to the jobsite. The worker files a workers compensation claim which is covered under the contractor’s standard workers compensation policy. The worker also files a suit against the state for negligence and improper working conditions. The contractor’s general liability insurance, with a limited pollution endorsement, denies the claim because it is a non-sudden/gradual claim, as well as a third party action over situation, both of which are excluded under standard limited pollution endorsements.

Residential Contractor

A residential contractor is constructing new homes in a suburban area. The residential contractor is acting as the prime contractor, and has numerous subcontractors working on site, as is the case in any typical residential development construction project. Unknown to the prime contractor, a subcontractor had disposed of a half-full container of solvents containing a large concentration of toluene at the project site. The subcontractor placed the container in a municipal waste dumpster located on the project site on a Friday afternoon. On Sunday, two children from the neighboring community are playing on the project site. The two children open the dumpster and jump inside, becoming asphyxiated immediately from the toluene vapors that had concentrated over the past two days. The children were pronounced dead later Sunday evening after they were found in the closed dumpster. The prime contractor is sued by the families of the deceased children for over two million dollars. The prime contractor’s general liability policy has a limited pollution endorsement; however, the claim is still denied because the accident was deemed to be the subcontractor’s fault, and the limited pollution endorsement excludes the activities of subcontractors.

Sheetmetal Contractor

A sheetmetal contractor is replacing ductwork in a hospital. The contractor had removed the old ductwork composing the return air plenum and stored the metal waste in a designated room in the hospital. While removing and storing the old ductwork, a bacteria known as aspergillus is released into the atmosphere. Aspergillus is a bacteria that most of us breathe daily without a problem; however, immuno-suppressed people cannot be exposed to this type of bacteria. The now-airborne bacteria entered the heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system and was dispersed through the hospital. The bacteria made its way to the area of the hospital where immuno-suppressed patients are kept. The exposure to the bacteria killed two children. The source of the bacteria was traced to the sheetmetal which was removed by the contractor. Claims in excess of five million dollars were the resultant of this scenario. The general liability carrier denied the claim due to a pollution exclusion.

Electrical Contractor

Another contractor who was an electrician indicated that he had environmental problems when he ran into asbestos while drilling holes to run line. He was remodeling one store at a strip mall type of shopping center. He had to stop work and call in an asbestos contractor. Even though his exposure was incidental, the store occupying the retail space next to his work was closed for a day. He had a liability claim for the business interruption losses of the adjacent store.

Utility Contractor

• A utility contractor is installing electrical lines and poles. The contractor is utilizing an auger for pole installation. The auger hits an underground municipal sewage line during construction. The sewage line spills onto neighboring commercial properties and causes a small residential area to be evacuated. The cleanup of the spill cost over one hundred thousand dollars per day and lasts for three days. The business interruption suits total one half a million dollars. The impeding claim is denied by the general liability carrier due to a pollution exclusion.
• A utility contractor is involved with removal and replacement of residential gas meters. Three months
  after the contractor had completed the operations, a small amount of mercury is discovered in one of
  the homes. The family is evacuated and treated by a doctor for the exposure to mercury, which is very
  harmful to the brain and kidneys. The EPA tests all homes in the area and seven more turn up with
  mercury contamination. Eventually after a long investigation involving more than six public agencies,
  the original house is demolished and disposed of as hazardous waste. The claims expenses have yet to be
  finalized.

Transportation

For transportation, the typical auto policy does not have pollution coverage’s. The Business Auto policy pollution exclusion and a copy of the MSC 90endorsement (as many contractors auto policies have this endorsement on their policy) limit pollution coverage. The MCS 90 endorsement will pay the third party for the environmental loss, but that the money paid must be refunded and returned to the Insurance company by the CONTRACTOR, if there was no pollution coverage on the underlying auto policy.

Renovation Contractor

A contractor is renovating the façade of a five story building. The new outer façade material is a portland cement based material requiring an epoxy curing compound for weather sealing. The contractor applies a concrete sealant to the building per the material requirements. Months later, employees working in the building begin to complain of headaches and nausea. It is determined that the concrete curing compound was the source of vapors which were seeping through windows and cracks in the inner façade. The contractor is sued for causing an indoor air quality hazard, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in bodily injury claims and over one million dollars in business interruption claims. The contractor’s general liability policy denies the claims citing an absolute pollution exclusion in the policy. The contractor must defend and pay the claims.

Environmental loss examples supplied by American Safety Insurance Services, Inc.

environmental Strategist, between the lines: With our aging infrastructure, utility services (water, power, sewer & storm water systems, waste water treatment….) causing environmental liabilities are becoming more and more common. Do your utility clients have the financial resources available to self insure or does it make more fiscal and financial sense to transfer their environmental liabilities for fractions of a cent on the dollar to a third party insurance carrier?

When money / budgets are tight, the ability to self insure is greatly reduced.

Connecticut Town to Pay Penalty, Fix Wastewater Infrastructure

Penalty comes almost six years after ruptured sewage lines dumped millions of gal of raw sewage into harbor

May 2, 2011

Under a settlement between United States, Connecticut and Greenwich, Conn., officials, the town of Greenwich will pay a $200,000 penalty and rehabilitate a critical wastewater collection system that serves three of the town’s major wastewater pump stations. The agreement settles allegations of the town’s Clean Water Act violations from two major ruptures of a sewage system.

On Oct. 14, 2005, the Old Greenwich Common Force Main ruptured and released 14.5 million gal of raw sewage into the Cos Cob Harbor, a tributary to the Long Island Sound. The same force main ruptured again on Dec. 16, 2008, releasing 28 million gal of raw sewage into Cos Cob Harbor.

In the event of another rupture to the force main, the agreement requires the town to pay additional penalties and replace some or all of the older sections of the force main—depending on the circumstances of the rupture.

“Environmental Protection Agency [officials] expect all municipalities to pay particular attention to critical elements of their wastewater infrastructure,” said EPA Regional Administrator Curt Spalding. “As this situation showed, a failure in the system can result in millions of gallons of untreated sewage being released directly to the environment.”

Source: EPA May 2, 2011

environmental Strategist, between the lines: This is a mini BP, just $500,000,000 and counting, States. I wonder which contractors and sub-contractors are being sued?

Clean-up continues through winter as oil spill damage lingers

By CAROL THOMPSON
LANSING – Cleanup efforts are still underway more than six months after 819,000 gallons of heavy crude oil spilled into Talmadge Creek near Marshall and into the Kalamazoo River, covering wildlife and the nearby environment with sludge.

Remediation efforts have slowed for the winter by the clean-up crew will continue to sample sediment and water for benzene and other harmful toxins, said Mark Durno, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deputy incident commander for the spill.

Containment boom lines were removed because of freezing weather conditions but below-freezing temperatures actually help with some clean-up like oil removal because oiled soils are solidified and easier to remove, according to the EPA.

Low-lying sites are also more accessible in the cold.

The ruptured pipeline, operated by Houston-based Enbridge Energy Partners, carried crude oil 286 miles from Griffith, Ind. to Sarnia, Ontario.

The Ceresco spill was the largest ever recorded in Michigan, according to the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment (DNRE).

As of mid-December, cleanup workers from Enbridge and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had collected 13,750,922 gallons of oily water, the EPA said. The company estimates that 699,000 gallons of oil will be salvaged and put back into commercial use.

“All the oil that could be put back in commercial use went back to the Enbridge facility,” said Durno.
Immediate cleanup after the spill involved collecting and refining oil, decontaminating riverbanks, building a wildlife rehabilitation center that cleaned more than 2,000 animals, monitoring the environment for toxins and hiring more than 2,000 contract workers, Enbridge public information officer Kevin O’Connor said.
In spring when the ice begins to thaw, Enbridge will replace containment boom lines, continue monitoring for toxins and erosion, and check the river bottom for submerged oil, Durno said.

Enbridge and the EPA will also develop work plans to determine when to remove any residual oil that’s found and when to leave it to avoid further environmental disturbances that may harm wildlife.

So far, spill cleanup has gone well, Enbridge’s O’Connor said.

“The process that’s been involved to get this back to where it is has been is pretty astounding,” O’Connor said. “We certainly had issues here and there, but by and large it’s gone really well.”

Those clean-up efforts certainly don’t come cheap.

Durno said, “The EPA alone has spent over $20 million, which we billed to Enbridge. I can only imagine what Enbridge’s costs are.”

The company’s first estimate came to about $400 million before government fines and lawsuits. New estimates reached $550 million, Enbridge project director John Sobojinski said.

The cause of the spill remains unknown. The National Transportation Safety Board is scheduled to finish studying the pipe’s rupture and interviewing Enbridge employees to get a clear picture of the events leading up to the spill this year. And the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is completing a long-term damage assessment to evaluate the ecological damage to the Talmadge Creek and Kalamazoo River systems.

Federal and state agencies will continue to oversee Enbridge’s assessment, monitoring and remediation until the environment has been restored to what it was before the spill, according to Durno of the EPA.
Durno anticipates that clean-up work will continue throughout the spring and summer, and possibly even longer.

“Our hope is that the ecosystem recovers within a couple years,” Durno said. Overall, he said he’s optimistic about the response to the spill, which he called nationally significant.
Monitoring the environment for damage will continue for at least the next several years, said DNRE public information officer Mary Detloff.

The area’s groundwater flows into the river, making monitoring easier, and tests have shown no groundwater contamination yet,” Detloff said, but added, “There are groundwater issues we’ll be monitoring for years.

“We would hope that within the next five years there’s a complete recovery of the ecosystem there,” she said.
Carol Thompson writes for Great Lakes Echo.

© 2011, Capital News Service, Michigan State University School of Journalism. Not to be reproduced without permission.

environmental Strategist, between the lines: My question is not about the penalty imposed on the city of Farmington but the resulting liability that can impact the farmers where the sludge was applied. I hope the farmers or their insurance agents made sure the City of Farmington had pollution insurance to protect the farmers from this environmental liability.

City of Farmington, Mo., Agrees to Civil Penalty

Penalty will settle Clean Water Act and NPDES violations
March 14, 2011

The city of Farmington, Mo., agreed to pay a $61,566 civil penalty to the U.S. to settle violations of its wastewater discharge permits and the Clean Water Act related to nickel levels in sewage sludge that was applied to farms in four area counties, and ammonia levels in wastewater discharged from the city’s treatment plants.

During a 2009 EPA inspection of Farmington’s East and West Wastewater Treatment Plants, a review of records noted that on 266 occasions between October 2006 and November 2008, sewage sludge from those facilities that was applied to agricultural land contained levels of nickel ranging from 59% to 791% above the regulatory ceiling level of 420 mg per kg, as specified by the Clean Water Act.

All told, the 266 sludge applications occurred at 29 different properties in Madison, Perry, St. Francois and St. Genevieve counties, involving more than 660 acres of agricultural land. Owners of properties that received the sludge were notified of the high nickel levels last year by the city of Farmington’s Public Works Department.

Although nickel content in Farmington’s 266 separate sludge distributions exceeded ceiling standards, EPA’s calculations do not indicate that the cumulative level of nickel that ultimately reached the 29 properties was exceeded.

In addition to the sludge issue, EPA’s 2009 inspection found that from February 2007 to May 2009, on a total of 43 occasions, Farmington’s wastewater treatment plants exceeded the levels of ammonia in their discharges of treated wastewater. Those exceedances, in violation of limits set by the facilities’ respective NPDES permits, ranged from 7% to 2,013%, the inspection noted. Farmington’s East Wastewater Treatment Plant discharges its treated wastewater to the Kennedy Branch of Wolf Creek, while the West Wastewater Treatment Plant discharges to an unnamed tributary of the St. Francois River.

Source: U.S. EPA March 14, 2011

A blowout at a Pennsylvania natural gas well late Tuesday could heighten concerns about the safety of a controversial process to extract gas from shale rock.

The accident comes at a sensitive time for energy drillers, exactly one year after an explosion that led to the massive BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and just as regulators mull whether to allow the technique in New York state.

The well in Bradford County, operated by Chesapeake Energy, spewed thousands of gallons of drilling fluid used in hydraulic fracturing, county emergency management officials said.

The process, also called fracking, releases natural gas from shale rock by blasting it with water, sand and chemicals.

Local residents were evacuated from Leroy Township, about 25 miles from the New York border, though Chesapeake said no one was hurt.

“An equipment failure occurred during well-completion activities, allowing the release of completion fluids,” Chesapeake said in a statement.

The fluid initially spilled into a nearby waterway but tests found no adverse affects on aquatic life as yet, said a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

Environmentalists and residents have complained that fracking can pollute water supplies. That has raised calls for increased regulation on the use of the process to produce natural gas, which is a cornerstone fuel of the Obama Administration’s energy policy.

Advances in drilling technology such as fracking have revolutionized U.S. energy markets, opening up the potential of vast reserves of natural gas in shale deposits. Surging production from these areas have pushed natural gas prices down, making it relatively cheap compared to oil.

Gas drilling in Pennsylvania, and in particular in the Marcellus Shale, has drawn the attention of major energy companies due to estimates that the region holds enough gas to meet total U.S. needs for a decade or more.

Chesapeake Energy stems flow from blown Pennsylvania gas well

Chesapeake Energy has stemmed the flow of leaking drilling fluids from a natural gas well that suffered a blow-out late on Tuesday in Pennsylvania and prompted the company to suspend a controversial gas production technique in the state.

Chesapeake, one of Pennsylvania’s biggest shale gas producers, used a mix of plastic, ground-up tires and heavy mud to plug the well — an operation that echoes BP’s “top kill” effort to seal its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well last year.

“Late Thursday afternoon, efforts to seal the leak and regain control of well pressure were successful,” Chesapeake said in a statement on Thursday evening.

The company said it still did not know the cause of the blowout nearly two days after it occurred. It was planning to start an investigation into the accident, the statement said.

The blowout in northeastern Pennsylvania, which spilled toxic fluid into a local waterway, has stoked an already fierce debate in the United States over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking – a process to release gas trapped in shale formations by blasting a mix of water, sand and chemicals into the rock.

Proponents say extracting shale gas through fracking will slash U.S. reliance on foreign oil and cut carbon emissions. President Barack Obama has made natural gas the cornerstone of his energy policy, in part thanks to the huge reserves unlocked by the use of fracking. Shale gas now accounts for 23 percent of U.S. natural gas production, rising from a negligible amount in 2004.

But environmentalists and residents complain that fracking can pollute water supplies, raising calls for increased regulation on natural gas production.

May 9, 2011

Ann Arbor, MI – Air pollution from industrial sources near Michigan public schools jeopardizes children’s health and academic success, according to a new study from University of Michigan researchers.

The researchers found that schools located in areas with the state’s highest industrial air pollution levels had the lowest attendance rates—an indicator of poor health—as well as the highest proportions of students who failed to meet state educational testing standards.

The researchers examined the distribution of all 3,660 public elementary, middle, junior high and high schools in the state and found that 62.5 percent of them were located in places with high levels of air pollution from industrial sources.

The majority of the most-polluted sites in Michigan are in the southern half of the state’s Lower Peninsula, although several places in the Upper Peninsula fall into the most-polluted category. In the Lower Peninsula, the most-polluted locations form a horseshoe-shaped band stretching from the Thumb region south to the Ohio border, then west to Lake Michigan and north to Grand Rapids and Muskegon. Locations with the highest levels of industrial air pollution include the Detroit metropolitan area, the Grand Rapids area and the Muskegon area.

The authors conclude that Michigan and other states should require an environmental-quality analysis when education officials are considering sites for new schools.

Geographic information system software was used to digitally map the 3,660 schools and to then overlay industrial air pollution data from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk-Screening Environmental Indicator data base.

Though the study focused primarily on the effects of industrial air pollutants, nearly identical patterns were found when the researchers analyzed data from the 2005 National Air Toxic Assessment, which includes on-road mobile sources such as cars, trucks and buses, as well as non-road mobile sources such as airplanes, tractors and lawnmowers.

What explains this pattern of schools located near industrial pollution sources?

The authors suggest that the large amount of land that a school requires and the costs of land acquisition probably mean that officials searching for new school locations focus on areas where property values are low, which may be near polluting industrial facilities, major highways and other potentially hazardous sites.

Half of all states, including Michigan, do not require any evaluation of the environmental quality of areas under consideration as sites for new schools, nor do they prohibit building new industrial facilities and highways near existing schools.

Children are known to be more vulnerable than adults to the effects of pollution. Exposure to environmental pollutants during important times of physiological development can lead to long-lasting health problems, dysfunction and disease, the experts said.

The authors offer four policy recommendations to address the problem:

1. All potential school sites should be thoroughly analyzed, including tests of soil, water and air quality.
2. Policies should be enacted to insist on a minimum distance between sources ofpollution and school locations.
3. Environmental mitigation policies should be adopted to reduce children’s potential exposure to pollution.
4. Oversight and enforcement at the national, state and local levels needs to ensure better school environments.

Ninety-five percent of the estimated industrial air pollution around schools comes from 12 chemicals: diisocyanates, manganese, sulfuric acid, nickel, chlorine, chromium, trimethylbenzene, hydrochloric acid, molybdenum trioxide, lead, cobalt and glycol ethers.

These pollutants come from a variety of sources, including the motor vehicle, steel and chemical- manufacturing industries, power plants, rubber and plastic products manufacturers, and lumber and wood products manufacturers. The 12 chemicals are suspected of producing a wide variety of health effects, including increased risk of respiratory, cardiovascular, developmental and neurological disorders, as well as cancer.

SOURCE: University of Michigan researchers

By CHARLES WILSON
Associated Press Writer
April 4, 2009

INDIANAPOLIS

Indiana’s methamphetamine epidemic is leaving property owners stuck with the cleanup bill long after the meth labs have been dismantled by police.

An Indiana law that took effect two years ago says the cost of cleanup falls to property owners even though they likely had nothing to do with cooking the illegal drug.

That tab, said Phil Ball of Aegis Environmental Inc. in Greenwood, can run anywhere from $5,000 to $35,000.

More landlords are liable to face such bills. Indiana State Police and other agencies uncovered 1,092 labs in the state in 2008, a 31 percent increase from 2007 and the second-highest number since state police began tracking the statistics in 1995.

Homes, apartments, house trailers, hotels and motels all can be havens for meth labs, which often use common household chemicals. Many of the ingredients can be dangerous if inhaled, and others can cause severe burns. “They’re refining household chemicals. There’s a reason these household chemicals have warning labels on them,” Ball said.

They’re still dangerous after they’re mixed together and “cooked.” Even short-term exposure to vapors and residue where the drug is smoked or cooked can cause eye and skin irritation, vomiting, rashes, asthma problems and other respiratory issues.

The fumes soak into virtually every porous surface in the home and then are gassed off over time. That means the danger remains long after the meth is gone.

Exposure can lead to nausea, headache, malaise and memory loss, said Tara Still, an environmentalist with the Elkhart County Health Department’s Environmental Health Division.

A state law that took effect in March 2007 sets strict standards for cleanup and says properties where meth was made cannot be sold, rented or occupied until they’re deemed safe by a state-certified inspector.

An owner can try to cut some of the cost by doing the work himself or having an employee do it. That’s what Rex Crump of Plymouth, who manages more than 200