Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Cosmoflex, Inc., to Pay $80,000 Civil Penalty for Community Right-to-Know Violations at Hannibal, Mo., Manufacturing Plant
U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, Region 7
901 N. Fifth
St., Kansas City, KS 66101
Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Nine Tribal
Nations
Cosmoflex, Inc., to Pay $80,000 Civil Penalty
for Community Right-to-Know Violations at Hannibal, Mo., Manufacturing
Plant
Contact Information: Chris
Whitley, 913-551-7394, whitley.christopher@epa.gov
Environmental
News
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
(Kansas City, Kan.,
April 3, 2012) - Cosmoflex, Inc., a manufacturer of rubber and plastic hoses and
belts, has agreed to
pay an $80,000 civil penalty to the United States to settle a series of
violations of environmental regulations related to the public reporting of toxic
chemicals at its manufacturing facility in Hannibal,
Mo.
According
to an administrative consent agreement filed by EPA Region 7 in Kansas City,
Kan., the Agency conducted an inspection of Cosmoflex’s facility at 4145
Industrial Drive in Hannibal in February 2011. Among its findings, the
inspection noted that the company had failed to make timely reports to EPA and
the State of Missouri on certain quantities of toxic chemicals that were
manufactured, processed or otherwise used at the facility during 2007, 2008 and
2009.
More specifically, the
inspection found that the facility:
- Failed to conduct Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) reporting for antimony, barium and zinc compounds for calendar years 2007, 2008 and 2009.
- Was late in filing inventory reports for dioctylphthalate and lead compounds for calendar years 2007, 2008 and 2009.
- Failed to maintain documentation for lead compounds during calendar years 2007, 2008 and 2009.
- Had a data quality error in its reporting of lead compounds for calendar year 2007.
Cosmoflex uses more than one million pounds of
dioctylphthalate, a carcinogen, in its plastic manufacturing operations each
year. Several thousand pounds of lead-containing PVC is also used at the
facility as a raw material. Antimony, barium, zinc compounds, dioctylphthalate
and lead compounds are toxic chemicals that can have negative impacts on human
health and the environment. General information about potential health concerns
and environmental effects associated with releases of and exposures to toxic
chemicals is available at www.atsdr.cdc.gov/substances/index.asp.
Submission of the annual toxic chemical reports is a requirement of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA). Under EPCRA regulations, companies of certain size are required to submit annual reports to EPA and state authorities listing the amounts of regulated chemicals that their facilities release into the environment through routine activities or as a result of accidents. The reports provide an important source of information to emergency planners and responders, and residents of surrounding communities.
Submission of the annual toxic chemical reports is a requirement of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA). Under EPCRA regulations, companies of certain size are required to submit annual reports to EPA and state authorities listing the amounts of regulated chemicals that their facilities release into the environment through routine activities or as a result of accidents. The reports provide an important source of information to emergency planners and responders, and residents of surrounding communities.
EPCRA was enacted by Congress in 1986 as an outgrowth of concern over
the protection of the public from chemical emergencies and dangers. After the
catastrophic accidental release of methyl isocyanate at Union Carbide’s Bhopal,
India, facility in December 1984, and a later toxic release from a West Virginia
chemical plant, it was evident that national public disclosure of toxic release
inventory information was needed.
# # #
EPA to Fund Projects to “Green” Restaurants, Supermarkets and Hotels in New Jersey and New York
EPA to Fund Projects to “Green” Restaurants,
Supermarkets
and Hotels in New Jersey and New
York
Contact:
John Martin (212) 637-3662, martin.johnj@epa.gov
(New York, N.Y. – April 2, 2012) The U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency has awarded a total of $441,860 in grants to
fund projects in New Jersey and New York that protect people’s health and the
environment by preventing pollution.
“Pollution
prevention is some of the most important work being done to protect the
environment,” said EPA Regional Administrator Judith A. Enck. “The EPA Pollution
Prevention grants help businesses, colleges and state agencies identify
strategies to reduce the use of toxic materials, save energy, protect human
health and save money. These grants support programs that reduce or eliminate
waste at the source, preventing the need to treat it after it is
generated.”
The EPA provided the New York State Restaurant
Association Educational Foundation an $83,800 grant to expand its pollution
prevention training program for New York City restaurants to restaurants in
Nassau and Westchester County, New York. The restaurant association will provide
group training sessions at restaurants on pollution prevention techniques such
as using water-saving devices, cleaning products and energy-efficient equipment.
It will disseminate the results through case studies and a green restaurant
workbook to restaurants throughout New York State.
The New Jersey Institute of Technology will use
a $178,060 grant to develop an online toolkit that will provide training to
supermarkets on ways to reduce energy through lighting improvements and heating,
ventilation, and air conditioning controls, and reduce the release of hazardous
materials from cooling system leaks. NJIT will disseminate the toolkit to
supermarket chains throughout New Jersey and provide training to the supermarket
staff through direct outreach and webinars.
The
EPA is providing the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection with an
$180,000 grant that will be used to promote sustainability in New Jersey’s hotel
industry by providing training on ways to increase energy and water efficiency,
reducing the use of hazardous materials and saving money. NJDEP will train hotel
owners and managers on methods to achieve efficiency in their lighting, space
health/cooling, water heating, refrigeration and appliances. This project will
target small to medium-sized hotels in Cape May and Atlantic counties, which
have the largest concentration of hotels in the state. NJDEP will provide
outreach through four workshops, hotel job training at Atlantic Community
College, as well as direct mailings to all hotels in New Jersey.
These
grants are part of the approximately $4 million in grants that the EPA awards
each year aimed at preventing pollution across the nation. For more information
on the EPA pollution prevention program, visit http://www.epa.gov/region02/p2/.
Follow
EPA Region 2 on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/eparegion2 and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/eparegion2.
12-046
# # #
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Uranium Mines Dot Navajo Land, Neglected and Still Perilous
Excerpt from an article in
The New York Times
Sunday, April 01, 2012
Uranium Mines Dot Navajo Land, Neglected and Still Perilous
By LESLIE MACMILLAN
CAMERON, Ariz. — In the summer of 2010, a Navajo cattle rancher named Larry Gordy stumbled upon an abandoned uranium mine in the middle of his grazing land and figured he had better call in the feds. Engineers from the Environmental Protection Agency arrived a few months later, Geiger counters in hand, and found radioactivity levels that buried the needles on their equipment.
The abandoned mine here, about 60 miles east of the Grand Canyon, joins the list of hundreds of such sites identified across the 27,000 square miles of Navajo territory in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico that are the legacy of shoddy mining practices and federal neglect. From the 1940s through the 1980s, the mines supplied critical materials to the nation’s nuclear weapons program.
For years, unsuspecting Navajos inhaled radioactive dust and drank contaminated well water. Many of them became sick with cancer and other diseases.
The radioactivity at the former mine is said to measure one million counts per minute, translating to a human dose that scientists say can lead directly to malignant tumors and other serious health damage, according to Lee Greer, a biologist at La Sierra University in Riverside, Calif. Two days of exposure at the Cameron site would expose a person to more external radiation than the Nuclear Regulatory Commission considers safe for an entire year.
The E.P.A. filed a report on the rancher’s find early last year and pledged to continue its environmental review. But there are still no warning signs or fencing around the secluded and decaying site. Crushed beer cans and spent shell casings dot the ground, revealing that the old mine has become a sort of toxic playground.
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