Aggregator

Time to see what your neighbors are doing to help us all in #WhatYouAreDoingAboutIt.

by Kiah Collier and Maya Miller

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

This article is co-published with The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans. Sign up for The Brief Weekly to get up to speed on their essential coverage of Texas issues.

Elected officials in the Texas-Mexico border town of Laredo have begun taking steps to conduct air monitoring after a ProPublica and Texas Tribune investigation revealed that toxic pollution from an industrial facility has increased the cancer risk for about half of the city’s residents.

This month, the Laredo City Council approved $105,360 to purchase equipment and hire a full-time technician to oversee a new air monitoring program. The Webb County Commissioners Court also gave $35,000 to an environmental coalition as part of a larger effort to conduct air monitoring at the five schools that are closest to the plant.

Owned by Missouri-based Midwest Sterilization Corporation, the facility uses ethylene oxide, a cancer-causing chemical, to sterilize medical equipment. An unprecedented ProPublica and Tribune analysis of five years of industry self-reported emissions data found that the facility released enough ethylene oxide from 2014 to 2018 to elevate the estimated lifetime cancer risk for nearly 130,000 Laredoans, including more than 37,000 children. A company spokesperson said that the plant’s emissions are within legal limits.

“I’ve read all this literature, and this is some pretty nasty stuff,” Commissioner John C. Galo said before the Monday vote. “Even if they are in legal limits, if you’re exposed to that day in and day out, you know, say 300 days out of the year, there are a lot of people that are not tolerant to that.”

A written statement from Midwest said the company “takes its regulatory compliance seriously and expects to remain in compliance.” The statement says that the company uses ethylene oxide to provide critical medical sterilization services, calling the chemical an “important tool in protecting patient health.”

“Midwest is taking all steps necessary to ensure that patients across the nation and residents locally remain safe,” the statement read.

The company declined to answer questions about what those steps are.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this month listed Midwest’s Laredo plant, along with another facility the company owns in Missouri, among 23 high-risk commercial sterilizer facilities. The agency, which spent the past year analyzing emissions data from such facilities, announced plans to “engage and inform” nearby communities about the risks.

A community meeting is planned in Laredo on Sept. 15. The public meeting comes years after the EPA initially identified the Midwest plant as high-risk and directed its regional office to inform residents.

Last year, ProPublica and the Tribune contacted more than 100 Laredo residents to ask if they were aware of the risk posed by the plant. All but one said they didn’t even know the plant existed.

Upon learning of the public health risks posed by the Midwest plant from reporters, the city’s nonprofit environmental group, the Rio Grande International Study Center, spearheaded the creation of the Clean Air Laredo Coalition. The coalition’s membership includes the environmental group, concerned community members and elected officials. This month, the group began asking local governmental entities for money to conduct air monitoring at five school campuses closest to the plant, an initiative it says will cost roughly $115,000.

With the $35,000 approved by county commissioners, the group will begin taking air samples at Julia Bird Jones Muller Elementary School, which is less than 2 miles from the plant. The school is in an area that has an estimated elevated lifetime cancer risk of 1 in 3,700. That’s nearly three times higher than the maximum 1 in 10,000 risk level the EPA considers acceptable, making it the most at-risk school in Laredo and one of the most at-risk in the country.

The coalition plans to seek the remaining funding for the air monitoring effort from the Laredo City Council and the city’s two public school districts.

Two weeks ago, the board of trustees of Laredo’s United Independent School District voted unanimously to begin examining the cost of air monitoring at its schools, starting with Muller. While the school district did not allocate funding, board President Ramiro Veliz said in an interview that he believes there’s enough support among trustees to pay for air monitoring at one or more campuses.

City Council member Vanessa Perez, whose district includes the Midwest plant and who has been working closely with the coalition, said there’s been widespread interest in air monitoring since the community learned about the toxic air pollution from the facility.

“You could be sitting in your backyard and be breathing in ethylene oxide without knowing it,” Perez said of the odorless and invisible gas. With more air monitoring, she said, the chances of that happening again would plummet because officials would know for certain that there are unsafe levels of the chemical in the air and could take action.

An ethylene oxide sterilizer plant in the Chicago suburb of Willowbrook closed in September 2019 after EPA monitoring found that emissions levels at various sites were higher than what the agency considers safe. But air monitoring doesn’t always lead to such action. In Calvert City, Kentucky, ProPublica found that state and federal regulators did little to stop pollution despite air monitors registering high levels of a cancer-causing chemical for years.

Perez hopes her colleagues on the City Council will support providing funding to the coalition in addition to the steps the city has already taken to develop its own air monitoring program.

The details for the city’s program, including locations for air monitoring, are still being worked out but should be finalized sometime this fall, according to Dr. Richard Chamberlain, director of the city Health Department. Chamberlain said the city plans to hire someone to oversee the new air monitoring program when funding becomes available on Oct. 1.

“Air quality and water quality monitoring are essential to ensure good health of an individual and community,” he wrote in an email.

The Health Department submitted an application in March for the EPA’s Enhanced Air Quality Monitoring for Communities program in hopes of securing $400,262 to support its efforts. It has not yet heard back from the agency.

Chamberlain said the city will proceed with monitoring regardless of whether it receives funding from the EPA. He said if the city gets the money, some of it could go to support the coalition’s air monitoring efforts. While the initiatives are separate, he said the city plans to provide logistical support to the coalition and share data.

The program will monitor for not only ethylene oxide but a variety of other air pollutants, Chamberlain said.

Air monitoring efforts are pivotal, said Sara Montalvo Saldaña, who has been helping take care of her nephew, Juan Jose, or JJ, Nevares since he was first diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia in 2018. The cancer has been linked to ethylene oxide exposure. At the time, JJ was just one month shy of his sixth birthday and had been attending Julia Bird Jones Muller Elementary.

“It’s a blessing,” Saldaña said, expressing relief at learning that Muller is slated to receive air monitors.

JJ, who is looking forward to celebrating his upcoming 10th birthday, returned to Muller as a fourth grader this month. He is still undergoing chemotherapy at home every day and travels to The Children’s Hospital of San Antonio for more intensive treatment every six weeks. If all goes well, doctors expect that he may reach remission in May.

Ozzy Osbourne has opened up on his and his wife Sharon's decision to move back to their native U.K. after having long lived in Los Angeles. "Everything's f***ing ridiculous there,"…

Source

The fastest game on Earth.   HOCKEY: Faster Than Ever explores the science behind ice hockey. Technology, physics and other topics highlight the advances of

The post Hockey: Faster Than Ever appeared first on Explore St. Louis.

The 2022 MTV Video Music Awards took place Sunday night. Here are the rock artists who took home a Moon Person: As was previously announced before the show, Red Hot…

Source

Gusty winds, small hail, and quick-hitting downpours are possible.

The project will cause some lane closures.

Democrats have suddenly racked up some remarkable accomplishments. Is it a good start on a progressive agenda?

Toxic blue-green algae appears in lakes across the Midwest during the summer and can sicken people and animals. But few states have routine testing programs.

ALTON - State Representative Amy Elik (R-Fosterburg) earned the ‘Freshman of the Year’ award for her positive voting record in support of economic opportunity and free enterprise in Illinois. Elik was the only freshman member of the Illinois House of Representatives to receive the highest honor during the 102nd General Assembly. The Illinois Chamber of Commerce presented the 2022 Champion of Free Enterprise and Freshman of the Year Award to Rep. Amy Elik in correspondence with the release of their 102nd General Assembly Legislative Ratings. This award is given by the Illinois Chamber of Commerce to legislators who work toward the advancement of economic opportunity for all Illinoisans and to those who have made special contributions to the defense and furtherance of free enterprise in our state. “As a lawmaker and CPA, supporting policy that helps grow our economy, cut red tape, and improve our job climate is a good recipe to make Illinois more prosperous,”

Continue Reading

This weekend, the annual event will welcome more than 400 mural artists as they fill a two-mile stretch of the downtown flood wall with graffiti art.

The ramp closures will impact drivers using Washington-Elizabeth and West Florissant Avenue interchanges.

The restaurant is temporarily closed for the next few weeks but is slated to reopen in the fall.

We’ve noted a few times how there’s an absolutely historic amount of money being thrown at the U.S. broadband “digital divide” this year. The broadband infrastructure bill alone designates $42 billion to expanding broadband access. Billions more in COVID relief money started flowing this week courtesy of the Treasury Department. But there’s a tiny problem. Despite a […]

The Bears are back at Washington University and return for a new school year Monday morning.

CARLINVILLE – One of the larger music festivals in small-town Illinois music festival returns this year with an array of musical genres. The 2022 SamJam Music and Brewfest will be held on Saturday, Sept. 24, from noon until 10 p.m. at the Macoupin County Fairgrounds, just north of Carlinville. The event will feature everything from R&B to country and rock and roll, jazz, and American folk. “We’ve become known for top-quality music,” said Sam’s father, Peter Oswald, who has spearheaded the SamJam events. “Every year, our fans tell us how good our music is, and how much they enjoy listening to it. “Creating that type of fan experience is really important to us, and every year new people come and join us,” continued Oswald. “Even the vendors tell us they want to come back. We take a lot of pride in how people view the SamJam experience.” SamJam was created in 2014 to honor Sam, who has endured years of struggle with neurofibromatosis

Continue Reading