Rachel’s News #41, September 7, 1987
Drinking water regulations for eight toxic chemicals were announced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the FEDERAL REGISTER July 8 (pgs. 25690-25717). EPA established the standards as required by the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. The eight chemicals, and the new standards appear in Table 1, below. In the same Table, we present data from the EPA’s FEDERAL REGISTER notice, showing how many Americans the EPA would expect to die each year from water pollution from five of these eight chemicals if we all drank water all our lives contaminated at the allowed level.* The five chemicals are carcinogens.
Thus the EPA says it expects that, if all our water supplies were to become as contaminated as is allowed under the new EPA regulations, these five chemicals would kill nearly as many people each year as automobiles now kill. One key difference would be that the pollution deaths would be lingering cancer deaths, not abrupt accidents. Another difference is that these deaths will have been sanctioned by the state without “due process” for the victims.
Standards for Eight Toxic Chemicals
Chemical Standard Expected (parts annual per deaths billion) (U.S.)
benzene 5 970 carbon tetrachloride 5 4314 1,2-dichloroethane 5 3065 trichloroethylene 5 448 para-dichlorobenzene 75 1,1-dichloroethylene 7 1,1,1-trichloroethane 200 vinyl chloride 2 30,989
TOTAL EXPECTED ANNUAL DEATHS FROM ALLOWABLE DRINKING WATER POLLUTION……….. 39,786
===============
*Method of calculation: In the FEDERAL REGISTER notice (Table 2, pg. 25700), EPA presents the chemical concentration in drinking water that they estimate would cause one cancer in 100,000 people drinking water contaminated at that level for a lifetime. For each chemical, we simply divided that number into the announced standard, then multiplied the result by the current size of the U.S. population (233 million people) divided by 100,000. For example, EPA’s Table 2 says vinyl chloride at 0.00015 mg/l (0.15 ppb) will cause one death in 100,000 lifetime water drinkers. The established standard for vinyl chloride is 0.002 mg/l (2 ppb). Dividing 0.002 by 0.00015 yields 13.3; this is the number of people expected to be killed among each group of 100,000 water consumers if the water contains 0.002 mg/l (2 ppb) vinyl chloride. How many groups of 100,000 water consumers are there in the U.S. (which has a population of 233 million)? Answer: 233,000,000/100,000 = 2330. Multiplying 2 330 x 13.3 yields 30,989 expected deaths each year. –Peter Montague
EPA RELEASES LIST OF ALL COMPANIES MANAGING HAZARDOUS WASTE ON-SITE
The vast majority (96%) of hazardous wastes are not sent to commercial waste handlers, but are processed on-site by the generators of the wastes. In this case “processed” generally means dumped into an unlined lagoon (nothing more than a pit in the ground) so that volatile organics can evaporate into the local air; it can also mean “burns in an incinerator” or “pumps into the deep earth.” To do these things legally, the generator must have a RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act) permit. We recently asked the federal EPA to send us a listing of all RCRA on-site waste-processing permit holders. They obligingly sent us a list of the names and addresses (and permit number) of 1470 permit holders.
The states with the largest number of on-site waste processors are Texas with 156, followed by Ohio (100); California (84); Pennsylvania (82); Connecticut (77); Indiana (69); Illinois (54); Louisiana (52); Michigan (51); Florida (47); Alabama (40); Georgia (39); New Jersey (38); New York (37); North Carolina (34); South Carolina (33); Kentucky (31); Missouri (30); Oklahoma (29); West Virginia (27); Iowa (27); Washington (26); Virginia (24); Mississippi (23); Massachusetts (21); Colorado (20); Utah (20); Tennessee (19); Kansas (18); New Mexico (18); Puerto Rico (15); Arkansas (15); Oregon (13); Wyoming (12); Maryland (11); Montana (9); Wisconsin (9); Idaho (9); Arizona (6); Nevada (6); Nebraska (6); Maine (5); Minnesota (5); Delaware (5); Hawaii (5); New Hampshire (4); North Dakota (4); Alaska (2); Guam (2); Virgin Islands (1); Rhode Island (0); South Dakota (0); Vermont(0).
We got this 114-page list of all noncommercial on-site waste treatment permitees by sending a Freedom of Information Act request to: U.S. EPA Office of Solid Waste, WH-562A, 401 M Street, SW, Washington, DC 20460; you could ask for a list covering just your state. Who’s managing hazardous wastes on-site in your state? This list will tell you.
To find out who’s processing wastes COMMERCIALLY in your state, see Appendix A (incinerators), Appendix B (land disposal units), and Appendix C (deep well injectors) in the indispensable EPA publication THE HAZARDOUS WASTE SYSTEM (Washington, DC: U.S. EPA Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, June, 1987); get your free copy by phoning the EPA’s RCRA Hotline: (800) 424-9346; in DC, phone (202) 382-3000. –Peter Montague
NY FINES BFI SUBSIDIARY $100,000
The BFI subsidiary, CECOS International, has been fined $100,000 by New York State for environmental violations at its Niagara Falls, NY, landfill. The violations occurred during 1986. For further information, contact R.W. Groneman, NY Department of Environmental Conservation, Room 602, 50 Wolf Road, Albany, NY 12233-1016; phone (518) 457-5400. –Peter Montague
Descriptor terms: bfi; landfilling; cecos international; niagara falls, ny; fines; enforcement; drinking water regulations; sdwa; epa; cancer; benzene; carbon tetrachloride; 1,2-dichloroethane; trichloroethylene; para-dichlorobenzene; 1,1-dichloroethylene; 1,1,1-trichloroethane; vinyl chloride; hazardous waste; on-site disposal; landfilling; ponds; lagoons; incineration; deep well injection; pa; ct; tx; ca; oh; in; il; la; mi; fl; al; nj; ga; ny; nc; sc; ky; mo; ok; wv; io; wa; va; mi; ma; co; ut; tn; ks; nm; pr; ar; or; wy; md; mt; wi; id; az; nv; nb; me; mn; de; hi; nh; nd; ak; ri; sd; vt;
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Rachel’s News was published by Environmental Research Foundation (E.R.F.) from 1986 to 2009. All together, 1000 issues appeared. Unless otherwise noted, they were written by Peter Montague.
Over the years the name of the publication changed slightly, starting as “Hazardous Waste News,” then “Rachel’s Hazardous Waste News,” then “Rachel’s Environment & Health News” and finally “Rachel’s Democracy & Health News.” In this archive, we have simply used “Rachel’s News.”
E.R.F. changed its location over the years from Princeton, N.J., to Washington, D.C. to Annapolis, Md. and finally to New Brunswick, N.J.
To contact E.R.F. or Peter Montague, send email to pm8525@gmail.com.
