Our Planet, Our Home

Jan 18, 2017

Supporting Economic Recovery in Former Automotive Communities

Brownfields Redevelopment, RCRA 0 Comments

By: Greg Rudloff

The Revitalizing Auto Communities Environmental Response trust (RACER) was created by a U.S. Bankruptcy Court to clean up and position for redevelopment former General Motors (GM) properties. EPA and state environmental programs work with RACER to review, approve and undertake response actions to address contamination at each property. Here are a few of our success stories.

Drawing of buildings, a road, and a parking lot

Artist’s concept of the M1 Concourse facility

One redevelopment project is the RACER Pontiac Validation site located in Pontiac, MI. This 87-acre site is a former GM automotive manufacturing and assembly facility. We issued a Prospective Purchaser Agreement (PPA) in 2013 to assist with sale and redevelopment of the property.

Photo of a gray building lined with garage doors

Banks of automotive condos under construction

In 2015, ground was broken for the construction of an auto enthusiast’s development which includes a performance track, more than 250 private garages, restaurants, and an auto-focused shopping village and office space. Over 135 units have been sold and we expect more than 100 workers to be employed at the facility. The facility opened in August, 2016.

Black and white photo of several planes under construction

WW II Bomber Plant

A redevelopment project involving the preservation of history is the RACER Willow Run facility located in Ypsilanti, MI. This facility was a former bomber manufacturing plant that was constructed in 1941. After WWII, operations at the plant switched to the production of automobiles and operations continued until 2010. The facility was demolished in 2014-2015 except for the southeast corner. In 2014, we issued a comfort letter to facilitate the purchase of a 3.4-acre parcel containing the undemolished portion of the plant. On December 5, 2014, we issued a PPA to further facilitate the purchase of the parcel. On October 30, 2014, the Yankee Air Museum completed the purchase of the parcel. Construction is currently underway to enclose this portion of the plant for redevelopment as a historical aircraft museum.

Digital illustration of a hangar filled with different types of aircraft

Yankee Air Museum Concept

Photo of a worker in protective gear operating equipment

Interior of Fuyao plant

A redevelopment project that created a significant number of new jobs is the RACER Moraine facility located in Moraine, OH. This 465-acre former GM facility operated from the 1920s to 2008. Many of the buildings have since been demolished. In 2014, we facilitate Fuyao Glass America, Inc.’s purchase of 95 acres of the facility for construction of an automotive glass plant. In July, 2015, Fuyao unveiled the first automotive windshield produced at the former GM Moraine plant. Fuyao has hired 1,400 new employees to date, and plans to hire an additional 500 employees.

Greg Rudloff has worked at EPA’s Region 5 office since 1991. He has spent his EPA career in the Land and Chemicals Division supporting the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Program as both a Permit Writer and a Corrective Action Project Manager. In recent years, he has also served as the RACER Coordinator for the corrective action program.

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Jan 11, 2017

50,000 Kilowatt Hours of Solar Power

Air, carbon dioxide, electricity, fossil fuel, greenhouse gas, Solar 0 Comments

By Steve Donohue

On a recent sunny Sunday (appropriately enough) the meter for the solar photovoltaic (PV) system on our home showed we had produced 50,000 kWh of clean renewable electricity!

This is a major milestone to me but what does it really mean? The EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator helps translate abstract measurements like these into concrete terms. In our case the carbon dioxide emissions we avoided with our solar panels were equal to the amount captured and stored, or sequestered, by over 33 acres of forest in a year.

That’s a big benefit for the planet and, closer to home, enough “juice” to supply over 85% of our annual electricity needs. We installed the PV system back in July 2010 and I originally wrote about it in 2012 https://blog.epa.gov/blog/2012/07/energy-independence-day/. The table below shows the results of our conservation and efficiency improvements and solar production since we first moved into our house.

Our average annual electricity bill for the last five is about $250 and in 2015 we got it down to $182. Since installation we have also had zero maintenance or operating expenses and with no moving parts I expect our system to last a long time.

That’s good since we still have about another 3 years or so until we re-coup the cost of our initial investment and the system is paid off by our savings.

Sustainability often means taking the long view and in our case it was like paying 10 years of electricity bills upfront so we could get our power from the sun and essentially never pay another bill.

Even more good news is that our system today would be about half of what we paid. This is the penalty we paid for being “early adopters” but I am happy to see my neighbors have started to join the bandwagon. In the last year I am seeing panels sprouting on roof tops all over my neighborhood. One family uses their panels to charge their electric car!

And what I’m seeing locally is a microcosm of what is happening in the world. I read that in 2015 for the first time there was more installed renewable power generating capacity, like solar and wind, than any single fossil fuel powered generating capacity. I’m hopeful that we’ve finally reached a tipping point and there is a bright future ahead for renewable power.

About the author: Steve Donohue has been a senior environmental scientist at EPA for over 25 years. Currently, he works in the Office of Environmental Innovation in Philadelphia where he is focused on improving the sustainability and climate change and improving the efficiency of EPA facilities.

Jan 10, 2017

Environmental Justice Comes to Salt Creek

Environmental Justice, Salt Creek, water 0 Comments

By Michael Wenstrom

Several years ago I traveled to Pueblo, Colorado in response to a request from a local resident. I was asked to sit in on a meeting to hear a discussion about the presence of a legally-permitted auto dismantling yard and aluminum smelter in a residential neighborhood. The neighborhood was Salt Creek.

Salt Creek Neighborhood, Pueblo, Colorado

The Salt Creek neighborhood contains about one hundred homes and is predominantly Latino. Most of the residents are third generation Americans of Mexican descent. Someone in the community reached out to the Region 8 Environmental Justice Program to ask for help, not knowing just what “environmental justice” was, but knowing something needed to change.

Among Salt Creek residents, there was little understanding of what government did and how and why they made the decisions they made. In this case, residents knew that things were happening in and around their community that were wrong and they wanted to know what to do to protect themselves.

Salt Creek is flanked by a steel mill which emitted more than forty percent of Colorado’s airborne mercury, and by a major coal-fired power plant and, additionally, was home to the smelter noted above.
As I sat in that meeting, in the basement of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, listening to the community share their concerns, little did I know that this would be the beginning of a fifteen year-long odyssey. This meeting was the first of many.

Over time I learned that Salt Creek residents are strong and proud people. They persisted, even in the face of adversary.

The EJ Program began to work to help the community find its voice. We co-sponsored community meetings and invited local businesses, representatives from the city and county and from law enforcement. We talked (in English and Spanish) about what the community cared most about. In most cases, the invited guests listened and learned. In some cases, they tried to deflect the concerns and occasionally, they attempted to bully or confuse the residents. But, Salt Creek would not be deterred.

Among other things, EPA brought a Collaborative Problem Solving grant to the community, engaged with our RCRA Program to address nearby contamination, facilitated meetings with the steel mill and under an enforcement action, $400,000 in community-based Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEPs) benefitted the neighborhood.

Together, over the years, we saw the steel mill dramatically reduce its mercury emissions, and the local power utility implement ground-breaking emissions controls. Oh, and, yes, the aluminum smelter was moved to a more appropriate location.

In that time, I became friends with some remarkable people, who began to raise their voices and make their community safer, cleaner and healthier. And, on a personal level, I was both proud and humbled by the fact that, together, we were able to make a real difference in the lives of community residents. Through collaboration, persistence and caring, I and my EPA colleagues were able to help a community transform itself.

The attached video is one example of how one Salt Creek resident helped to effect this transformation. Nadine Triste used her common sense, her network of neighbors and, support from the EPA to make a difference. Because of Nadine, and others like her, Salt Creek is forever changed.

About the author: Michael Wenstrom has been working in the Region 8 Environmental Justice Program for almost twenty years. In that time, he has focused on working in communities facing an amazing variety of environmental insults and challenges. Most recently, he has been assisting Region 5 in its ongoing work to assist the residents of Flint, Michigan to address their immediate concerns relating to the water crisis and other threats to their environment and their health.

Jan 5, 2017

Free is free. But Hungry is hungry

food waste, free food, hunger relief, Philabundance 7 Comments

By Mike Frankel

I was in line at the supermarket and two women in front of me were talking about their lack of freezer space. Like many supermarkets, if you spend X dollars by a certain date before Thanksgiving and before Xmas you get a free a turkey, ham or lasagna.

One of the women demanded, “Why can’t they just give us cash? I still have the free turkey from Thanksgiving, and we go to my daughters now for the holidays. So what am I going to do with another 13-lb. bird?”

“Well, you could take the ham,” her buddy suggested. “But I understand. And at our age who needs the salt. Besides, my freezer is just as jammed. But free is free!!”

There isn’t a lot of privacy in the checkout line. And as I looked ahead, I saw the banner across the inside store window: “A Proud Partner – Philabundance,” my area’s largest hunger-relief
organization serving nearly 90,000 meals a week. “Ladies, excuse me. What about donating those free freezer fillers to Philabundance?”

I explained that while their kitchens were well-stocked, one-in-six people in Philadelphia and one-in-seven across the country don’t know where their next meal is coming from and are “food insecure.” At the same time, the average American family wastes nearly 400 lbs. of food a year. And as a country we waste a staggering 38+ million tons of food each year. And when you throw food into a landfill it rots quickly and produces toxic gases that are
bad for the environment and contribute to climate change.

By this point, the cashier had stopped ringing and was joining the conversation. “Yes — the store gives a lot of food each week to Philabundance, and some other local food cupboards. If you’d like, I can ask the manager to send your free birds along with this week’s shipment.”

They looked a little skeptical. I chimed back in. “You could also ask your clergy if they know of families or charities in need of food this holiday season and every day.” This seemed like a good idea and my new acquaintances asked how I knew so much about hunger and food donation.

“Well, I work for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and part of my job is to help spread the word about food donation and food recovery – not usually in checkout lines – but if it works…In fact I have met the owners of this store through my job and they – like thousands of other stores, colleges, stadiums and people – are doing their part to protect the environment, save money and stamp out hunger. Now you can help too.”

About the author: Mike Frankel just celebrated his 20-year anniversary at EPA. He works as a Communications Coordinator in EPA’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Office and works on a variety of programs including the Food Recovery Challenge (www.epa.gov/frc).

Jan 4, 2017

Finding Value(s) in our Stories and Waters

Habitat Conference, Urban Waters, Urban Waters Federal Partnership, Urban Waters Program, water 1 Comment

By Emily Simonson

I’ve never had so many people wanting to talk to me in my life than I did while working the USA booth at the Habitat III conference in Quito, Ecuador. Drawn in by the flag towards the outside of our booth space, people browsed the EPA materials on the Urban Waters Federal Partnership, the Agency’s efforts on climate change, and guidebooks on protecting drinking water sources, materials from USAID and the State Department. A steady stream of people – the general public and conference go-ers perusing the displays at the conference exhibition – were keeping me busy.

“I love New York. I used to study there.”
“In Mexico, water is an important women’s issue, but we need to find ways to engage men.”
“I want to learn how rural and urban governments can work together to manage water here in Ecuador.”
“What can you do for the river in my city?”

While the topics ranged from polite conversation to details on projects and technical information, a few themes struck me. Boiling it all down, each conversation was about values: opportunity, equity, participation and democracy, striving to do better.

Coming from my ORISE fellowship with the Urban Waters Program at EPA, I was in Quito to learn, volunteer at the USA booth, and support a program partner, the Caño Martín Peña Community Land Trust (CLT) from San Juan, who had just won the 2016 World Habitat Award. I got even more out of the experience than I’d hoped.

As part of the group that scheduled the programming for the USA areas, I’d arranged for members of the CLT to present their work in the exhibition space. The CLT’s story of community members organizing to grant land tenure to those living along the Martín Peña channel while working with partners to reclaim the channel from decades of pollution really reflected the values people had expressed all day. Several of those in the audience stuck around to talk with members of the CLT, because their story resonated with challenges they were facing in their own communities.

The CLT’s story and mission reminds me that water is central to both urban livability and sustainability. When people envision a better community they often talk about access to water for recreation, drinking, health and sanitation, and business. The ways people access and interact with water (especially in our cities) can reveal so much about the progress we’re making towards building cities that reflect the values we can all agree upon.

I really appreciated that our booth and the rest of the exhibition spaces were open to the public. The candid conversations happening there revealed just as much, and possibly more, as the high level conference sessions about what it’s going to take to realize the equitable, sustainable, and democratic cities of tomorrow that our communities deserve.

Moments like the ones I experienced do not just put into perspective that the issues we work on at EPA transcend the country’s boundaries. The knowledge and models we contribute at events like Habitat III are shared in a language that also crosses borders and is spoken by people of many citizenships– it’s the language of our values, our daily patterns of living, and our aspirations and actions for our communities.

The Habitat III Conference focuses on the future of our planet’s cities and how to implement the New Urban Agenda, a document on urban sustainability created by contributions from governments and civil society organizations from around the world. EPA lent expertise to this document on several topics, including lead, water, and food waste issues.

About the author: Emily Simonson is an ORISE Participant with the Urban Waters Program in EPA’s Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds. Emily enjoys travel, hiking (urban and scenic), running, and reading.

Dec 20, 2016

From Contaminated to Revitalized: The Story of The Yards

Anacostia River, contamination, drinking water, Human Health, riverfront, Storm Water, water 2 Comments

By Barbara Smith

Have you ever wondered how visions like this become realized?
This is the story of how the U.S. Government is partnering with private sector developers to transform a once-contaminated property on the Anacostia River in Washington, DC, into a vibrant riverfront destination/community.

Believe it or not, the vision for a vibrant riverfront community came from this brown space, the Washington Navy Yard (WNY).

Image provided by EnviroMapper by EPA

In early 1960’s, the WNY, located in southeastern Washington, DC, was recommissioned from its former use as a weapons manufacturing site to its current use as a Navy office/administration location. As part of the transition, in 1963, the WNY transferred 55 “excess” acres to the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) to develop into federal office space. The GSA named its new acquisition the Southeast Federal Center (SEFC).

However, the 55 acres had been heavily industrialized, with many abandoned factory buildings where ship boilers and large naval guns were manufactured from pre-World War One to post-World War Two. When GSA received the property in 1963, there were no regulations governing the clean-up of contaminated properties or how to identify and investigate contamination on these properties. Without funding to transform the former industrial site into office space, GSA made little progress in developing the SEFC site to its full potential.

Then, in 2000, Congress passed the SEFC Public/Private Development Act to assist GSA in developing the area. The Act allowed GSA to partner with private sector developers to plan and develop the SEFC parcels for eventual sale or lease. GSA’s master plan shifted from creating federal offices to creating office, residential, retail and public uses for the site.
Since the federal government works to protect human health and the environment, GSA worked with us to properly assess the property and any contamination found. This assessment is in accordance with the requirements of the Resource Conversation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
GSA conducted a site-wide investigation and continues to clean up any contamination found on the individual parcels prior to development.
The investigation, conducted under our RCRA Corrective Action Program, found that previous intensive industrial use had left contaminants in the soil. The picture above shows soil testing taking place at the site to see which contaminants are present.

Several soil removals have been completed, including removing PCB-contaminated sediment from storm sewers and on-site soil contaminated with petroleum and metals. GSA continues to remove contaminated soil from the surface and at depth from parcels being prepared for development.

GSA removed an old wooden seawall on the Anacostia River and replaced it with a modern concrete and steel pier.

Image provided by Kea Taylor/Imagine Photography

The above picture is the first parcel that was developed and sold, known as the “Department of Transportation (DOT) Parcel.” During the site investigation, groundwater contaminated with gasoline was found at levels above EPA drinking water standards. The sources of this contaminated groundwater were leaking underground storage tanks from an off-site former gas station and possibly some on-site contamination.

The groundwater has been treated and contaminant levels are stable or declining. The office building has a moisture/vapor barrier and is supplied by public water which ensures that workers and pedestrians are not exposed to contaminants.

Image courtesy of Capitol Riverfront BID

The other developed portions of the SEFC are known as ‘The Yards’. The Yards is a part of the revitalization and redevelopment of properties along the Anacostia River in Washington, DC known as the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative, which includes the Nationals Baseball Stadium just down river, adjacent to The Yards. The Yards Park (shown above) is located within The Yards and includes an entertainment/performance area, boardwalk and now a marina. This public park was made possible by GSA, the developer, Forest City Washington and the city of Washington, DC.

Image courtesy of Capitol Riverfront BID

The Anacostia River Trail is also a result of the redevelopment. This picture shows a section of the River Trail located by The Yards Park.

Almost half of The Yards development parcels are complete, with total build out scheduled for 2025. What was once an urban, industrial environment is now a revitalized area, anchored by redevelopment.

Our RCRA Corrective Action program continues to oversee the environmental investigation and clean-up process to ensure that development and future land use will be protective of human health and the environment.

About the author: For the last 15 of her 25 years with EPA Region 3, Barbara Smith has been working in the RCRA Corrective Action group, working with Facilities in transforming their contaminated properties into cleaner, safer places to live and work. Barbara looks forward to living in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere someday.

Dec 9, 2016

From My Lake to All Lakes: EPA’s National Lake Assessment

Human Health, Lakes, National Lakes Assessment, Nutrient pollution, Stormwater, Wastewater, water 1 Comment

By Sarah Lehmann

As I do every year, this summer I spent my vacation on my favorite lake – Rainy Lake. Rainy is a 228,000-acre lake harboring more than 2,200 islands; it straddles the U.S./Canada border between Minnesota and Ontario. For me, it’s a place for family and friends to get together and fish, swim, watch wildlife, pick wild blueberries and generally relax without the buzz of cell phones, email, or internet.

This year we had an especially large gathering of family and friends. We all enjoyed fishing for walleye, northern pike and small mouth bass — and then eating our fresh catch within hours; jumping off “High Rock” into the lake below; seeing bald eagles fly overhead; and hearing the haunting sounds of loons call in the evening.

Unfortunately, according to EPA’s recently published National Lakes Assessment, four out of ten lakes in the U.S. suffer from nutrient pollution. Excess levels of the nutrients phosphorus and nitrogen from sources such as fertilizer, stormwater runoff, wastewater and even airborne industrial discharges can cause drops in dissolved oxygen and harmful algal blooms. These conditions pose a threat to fish and wildlife, as well as human health. The assessment also finds an association between excess nutrient levels and degraded communities of biological organisms such as the small aquatic insects that are an important part of the lake food chain.

Here at EPA, we are working with our federal, state and local partners to reduce nutrient pollution through a mix of regulatory and voluntary programs. Just a few of these actions include working with states to identify waters impacted by nutrient pollution and develop plans to restore waters by limiting nutrient inputs; supporting efforts by landowners to adopt stream and shoreline buffers that slow erosion and protect waters from nutrient overload; and providing funding for the construction and upgrading of municipal wastewater facilities.

My grandparents purchased this rustic Rainy Lake getaway for my family more than 40 years ago. I know that our ability to enjoy this amazing gift – and to pass it down in the same condition to future generations – depends on maintaining the lake’s clean water and healthy, natural shorelines. The National Lakes Assessment provides information we can use to protect and restore all the Rainy Lakes around the country that are so precious to us all. To learn more, please visit the National Lakes Assessment website including our innovative interactive dashboard to delve into additional findings and learn more about your conditions in your region.

About the author: Sarah Lehmann works in the USEPA’s Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds and is the team leader for the National Aquatic Resource Surveys (NARS). The recently released National Lakes Assessment is the latest in the NARS series.

Nov 18, 2016

Bronx River Greenway Groundbreaking

Bronx River, groundbreaking, river, urban water, water 4 Comments

By Abu Moulta-Ali

“A Tree Grows, A River Flows”

Descending the stairs at the West Farms Sq/E. Tremont Ave stop on the 2 train, I thought I had gotten off at the wrong stop. I was told this was the closest stop to Starlight Park where a groundbreaking event was being held to celebrate a multi-million dollar project to restore the Bronx River. I asked a school crossing guard for directions to Starlight Park but she looked at me like I was crazy, so I asked her “Do you know how I can get to the Bronx River?” She said, “There’s no river around here, but behind the school there’s a stream.” While she didn’t know it, that stream was really a tributary of the Bronx River.

A tree may grow in Brooklyn, but a river flows in the Bronx. The Bronx River is New York City’s only freshwater river. The Bronx River, once a community amenity and center for recreation, quickly became an open water sewer for industrial and residential wastes as New York City’s population exploded during the 19th and 20th centuries. But, in 1974, a band of community activists formed Bronx River Restoration and began the arduous process of cleaning up and restoring the river. Once a dumping ground for abandoned cars, the Bronx River now attracts 5,000 recreational paddlers and rowers each year and serves as an outdoor laboratory to educate local students and the public about the river, and train volunteers to monitor the river’s conditions.

On October 6, 2016, with over $40 million in planning and building, and significant coordination of federal, state, and city agencies under the Urban Water Federal Partnership, about 75 community members, advocates and elected officials came out to celebrate the groundbreaking of Phase 2 of the Bronx River Greenway. Phase 2 will provide pedestrian access from Starlight Park to Concrete Plant Park in the South Bronx. A pedestrian bridge will be built over the Amtrak Acela line (at 172nd Street and Bronx Avenue) which will provide access to nine acres of improved parkland, as well as the river itself. This will mark the completion of a one-mile bike and pedestrian link in a trail system that will run the full 23 miles of the river from Westchester County to Hunts Point.

After the groundbreaking while walking back to the train station, I ran into the same crossing guard. She asked if I found the “river” (New Yorkers like me can spot sarcasm a mile away). When I showed her a video of the groundbreaking event I captured on my cell phone, her mouth fell open. In the video you can see kids from Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School canoeing down the river collecting water samples, hundreds of bunker fish swimming, and joggers running along the newly built Bronx River National Water Trail.

She said she lived only 10 blocks from Starlight Park but had never been there. She thanked me and said she would check it out when she got off work. Now if we can spread the word to the other 400,000 South Bronx residents who live, work, and play within walking distance of the river, the Bronx River could be the 2nd biggest attraction in the Bronx. Sorry…nothing will ever top the House that Ruth Built.

Special thanks to NYC Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver,Congressman Jose Serrano, Lisa Pelstring from the US Department of Interior who leads the Urban Water Federal Partnership, Amtrak, Bronx River Alliance, Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice and the Bronx Council for Environmental Quality.

About the author: Abu Moulta-Ali is an Environmental Scientist in EPA’s Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds where he works on wetland regulations. When he’s not at work he can be found mountain biking, snowboarding, and camping with his wife and two daughters.

Nov 4, 2016

EPA Participates at the 3rd Annual Latino Medical Student Association (LMSA) Policy Summit in Washington DC

agricultural workers, Annual Latino Medical Student Association, environmental health, Environmental Protection Agency, Farmworkers, Hispanic health care disparities, LMSA, Office of Pesticide Programs, Office of Public Engagement, office of research and development, pesticide safety, Recognition and Management of Pesticide Poisonings, Worker Protection Standard, WPS 1 Comment

By Ana Rivera Lupiañez

As a proud Latina, working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), I always look for opportunities to volunteer at activities that promote the Agency’s mission, particularly those initiatives aimed at protecting vulnerable populations.

On October 22, I volunteered to participate at the third annual Latino Medical Student Association (LMSA) Policy Summit. The conference, for medical students nationwide, was sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges in Washington D.C. The goal of the policy summit was to provide students with tools to become involved in health policy processes in order to address and improve health disparities facing the Latino community.

Kathy Sykes, Senior Advisor for Aging and Public Health of EPA’s Office of Research and Development, gave a presentation on the agency’s efforts toward “Closing the Gap on Hispanic Health Care Disparities”. Students were very impressed to learn about EPA’s involvement in developing environmental health policy regulations aimed at improving health disparities faced by the Latino population.

After the workshop sessions, the students had the opportunity to stop by the exhibitors’ booths to ask questions and gather informational brochures. I joined Kathy Sykes (Office of Research and Development), and Melissa Vargas (Office of Public Engagement) to staff our booth. Medical students were delighted to receive copies of EPA’s Recognition and Management of Pesticide Poisonings: 6^th Edition manual. The manual is an excellent tool for healthcare providers and serves as a quick reference resource for the best toxicology and treatment information for patients with pesticide exposures.

It was very rewarding to see many students, particularly those hailing from agricultural areas of California and Texas, very interested in the recent revisions to EPA’s Agricultural Worker Protection Standard (WPS). The WPS is aimed at reducing the risk of pesticide poisoning and injury among agricultural workers and pesticide handlers. The revised WPS puts in place stronger protections for the nation’s two million agricultural workers and their families working on farms, forests, nurseries, and greenhouses, and will afford farmworkers similar health protections to those already afforded to workers in other industries.

The enthusiasm on the faces of these young students and their eagerness to serve the vulnerable and underrepresented minorities represents a promising step forward toward closing the gap on Hispanic health care disparities. They would certainly make any Latina mother proud! I’m very hopeful that these young students will continue working to improve the health and environment of Hispanics throughout our nation.

About the author: Ana Rivera Lupiáñez is an Environmental Protection Specialist with the Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Pesticides Programs, Field and External Affairs Division, Certification and Worker Protection Branch in Washington, D. C.

Nov 2, 2016

How RCRA Has Transformed America: A Photo Blog

hazardous waste, RCRA, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, solid waste 0 Comments

By Liz Sundin

When I began working at EPA earlier this year, I’ll admit I knew little about the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Solid waste and hazardous waste were huge terms with very specific parameters that I had trouble wrapping my brain around. However, as my time in the Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery grew, I started to see how RCRA’s various programs permeate so many parts of my everyday life. We’ve ensured our country handles, disposes of and recycles waste properly. This includes making sure hazardous waste is safely handled and managed both here in America and when imported from or exported abroad. We’re also leading the collaborative effort to halve food loss and waste in the U.S. by 2030 and making sure communities have a voice in the permitting process of hazardous waste facilities.

Now I see RCRA everywhere I go. I see it when I walk by our local dry cleaner and realize that my neighborhood is safer because RCRA requires strict handling of waste chemicals. When I pass our community garden’s compost barrel and the recycling cans lined up outside every house on trash day, I think of the program’s focus on sustainably managing materials. My life is affected by RCRA every day, I just never knew it until now.

As we celebrate 40 years of RCRA this month, I want to take us on a walk down memory lane to remind everyone what our country looked like before RCRA. In the 1970s, EPA hired photographers to capture images of environmental challenges around our country; the series was called the Documerica Project. Below are some of the amazing photos from the Documerica Project which show snapshots of our country before the passage of RCRA.

America has always been a nation full of beauty and natural wonders worth protecting.

Utah – Canyonlands National Park, May 1972

Rangeley Lake in the Mountains of Western Maine, Seen from Route 4 June 1973

In the years leading up to the passage of RCRA, Americans began to realize the need for better standards for landfills and pollution to keep our environment safe and clean.

Solid Waste Is Dumped Into Trenches at This Sanitary Landfill April 1972

Litter on Gulf Coast Beach, May 1972

Landfill Operation Is Conducted by the City of New York on the Marshlands of Jamaica Bay. Pollution Hazards and Ecological Damage Have Called Out Strong Opposition May 1973

Dimensions of the Littering Problem Are Suggested by This Heap of Cold Drink Cans, Salvaged by Girl Scouts at Islamorada in the Central Florida Keys. (circa 1975)

Seagulls Scavenge at Croton Landfill Operation along the Hudson River August 1973

Dumping Garbage at the Croton Landfill Operation, August 1973

Open Garbage Dump on Highway 112, North of San Sebastian February 1973

The conditions in the images above motivated concerned citizens, forward thinkers, and business leaders to push for regulations and fight for the passage of RCRA.

Along Route 580, near San Francisco. October 1972

Dumping Prohibition Is Ignored on This Hunter’s Point Creek Adjacent to the John F. Kennedy Airport, May 1973

Cleaning Up the Roadside in Onsetm May 1973

Stacked Cars In City Junkyard Will Be Used For Scrap, August 1973

Young People Filling Bags with Litter, May 1972

Children in Fort Smith Are Learning That Protecting the Environment Will Take More Than Awareness, June 1972

On October 21, 1976, President Ford signed RCRA, ushering in a new era of stricter environmental protections in the handling, management and disposal of waste. From that day forward, we worked to protect human health and the environment.

This is the first part in a three part blog series. Be on the lookout for the next blog discussing what RCRA has achieved in the last 40 years.

For more information on RCRA, visit www.epa.gov/rcra

Follow our RCRA 40th Campaign on social media: #ProtectPreventPreserve

About the author: Liz Sundin is a Public Affairs Specialist in EPA’s Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery.

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