 Air
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Chemical plants outside of Houston after Hurricane Harvey Photo: AP via New York Post
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Federal Court Rejects EPA Delay of Chemical Plant Air Safety Rule
A federal appellate court in Washington, D.C. on Friday rejected an effort by the Environmental Protection Agency to cut corners in its haste to roll back a rule aimed at preventing accidents at chemical plants. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 require the EPA to put in place regulations for the prevention and detection of accidental releases of regulated substances and for response to such releases by the owners or operators of the sources of such releases. EPA promulgated this rule after several catastrophic accidents occurred, including an April 2013 explosion of a fertilizer plant in West, Texas and the June 2013 explosion of a chemical plant in Geismar, Louisiana. In the West, Texas disaster, a fire and explosion crushed buildings and sent projectiles into neighboring communities, killing twelve first responders and two members of the public and causing $230 million in damage, and the Louisiana accident involved a fire and explosion that killed two workers and injured many more people.
The chemical industry did not like the Obama rule and persuaded former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt last year to delay the rule — the decision at issue in Friday’s ruling — and Pruitt then proposed earlier this year to repeal many of its main provisions. In their opinion, the judges scolded EPA saying that its action, “makes a mockery of the statute” and that “there is no textual basis for EPA’s current interpretation” of the law. The opinion goes on to say that, “[b]y delaying the effective date, EPA has delayed compliance, reduced or eliminated the lead-up time to achieve the compliance that EPA had earlier found necessary, and thus has delayed life-saving protections.”
Why This Matters: It was the third loss last week for Team Trump in federal court. As we reported earlier, judges also threw out the Administration’s hasty and ill-conceived rollback of the Clean Water Act rule defining what water bodies are covered (the so-called WOTUS rule) and its failure to ban the toxic pesticide chlorpyrifos. Environmental challengers should be emboldened by this string of court victories. But in this case, the judges who wrote the opinion were both appointed by Democrats. Interestingly, Judge Kavanaugh, whose nomination to the Supreme Court is pending, heard arguments in the case but did not participate in the decision because after his nomination he stopped deciding cases. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is confirming conservative judges for federal court vacancies at a breakneck pace, which will recast the courts as a conservative bastion for decades. So these sort of legal victories may be harder and harder to achieve as the pool of federal judges becomes increasingly conservative.
To Go Deeper: You can read the full opinion of the D.C. Appellate Court here.
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The Geismar explosion was investigated and this is video shows the explosion and the government’s findings.
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 Forests
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Children Who Live Near Forests Eat Healthier
A new study published last week shows that kids all over the world who live in rural areas that are near forests have healthier diets. The first-of-its-kind study of children in 27 developing nations found more than just a correlation between proximity to forests and better nutrition for kids. The lead author of the study, said lead author Ranaivo Rasolofoson, of the University of Vermont (UVM), said in a press release, “We show that forests cause these improvements.” How? The authors found numerous pathways including providing a range of foods gathered in forests, benefits from wild pollinators that live in forests, income from forests products to buy food, and more productive use of mothers’ time–all of which can promote greater dietary diversity. These nutrition benefits are over and above other health improvements caused by proximity to forests and nature. Four studies released late last year showed that interacting with nature makes the brain stronger and soothes the psyche to boot.
Why This Matters: The study’s authors concluded that their study results “turn on its head the common assumption that improving nutrition in poorer countries requires clearing forests for more farmland–and, instead, suggest that forest conservation could be an important tool for aid agencies seeking to improve the nutrition of children.” Malnutrition is a problem for more than 2 billion people who lack micronutrients–like vitamin A, sodium, iron and calcium. In children, this is extremely harmful — it can result in brain damage, stunted growth, and even death. The authors recommend forest conservation to promote better nutrition in developing countries, rather than clear-cutting forests for more farmland.
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This story was brought to you by the National Wildlife Federation. To learn more about how the National Wildlife Federation can help you connect your family with the outdoors, click here.
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 Land
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Photo: Stuart Palley/NatGeo
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Californians Oppose Clear-Cutting Forests
Last week Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, announced his plan to fight California wildfires by increasing logging throughout the state’s forests without making any mention of climate change which is making conditions hotter and drier. In a Fox Business interview, Zinke stated that the fires are increasing in intensity because forest management has “been held hostage by environmental groups” and that climate change is entirely “irrelevant” when it comes to wildfire prevention and preparedness. As Vox pointed out, if Zinke is looking for someone to blame, he may want to look at his own boss. For the second year in a row, the Trump White House proposed eliminating the Joint Fire Science Program, a research initiative across six agencies, including the Interior Department, to improve forest management and help firefighters.
Furthermore, there is a big difference between clearing forests of dead trees and dry vegetation and clear-cutting them of healthy trees. As the Sacramento Bee reported, with clear-cutting, an extreme form of logging, all trees in an area are cut down, then herbicides applied before new seedlings are planted. That might be the most efficient and lucrative method for timber companies, but it is certainly not environmentally sound. Live, old-growth trees are the most resistant to fire and disease. And before cutting live trees, there are plenty of dead trees across California – more than 129 million – to harvest first. Last Thursday, the Trump administration announced a plan to reduce wildfire risk through “preventative forest treatment” in partnership with states and local governments but the plan lacked detail or funding commitments from the federal government.
Why This Matters: The Trump administration has been friendly to the logging industry which has given environmental groups cause for concern that “preventative forest treatment” means it will become incredibly easy for timber companies to cut down healthy trees under the guise of fire prevention. For example, the U.S. Forest Service is moving to allow commercial logging of thousands of healthy pine trees – for the first time in decades – across 2,800 acres in the Los Padres National Forest north of Los Angeles. The agency doubled the annual timber production target from 200,000 cubic feet of wood last year to 400,000 this year, and is moving ahead without first conducting formal environmental impact reviews of the potential damage to wildlife, including the federally endangered California condor.
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 Climate Change
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Photo: Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle
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Harvey Victims Demand a Climate Plan
This past weekend a town hall co-hosted by the Houston Climate Movement and the Union of Concerned Scientists brought together Houstonians to discuss climate change effects in flood-prone areas of Houston. As the Houston Chronicle described, members of the community expressed their frustration at the city for not sticking to climate change commitments and not attending to hurricane clean up efforts more quickly. Sarahy Garcia wasn’t afraid to ask tough questions despite the visible discomfort of those on the stage. “It’s environmental racism,” she alleged, saying that poor minority neighborhoods had been neglected as the weeks turned into months after Harvey hit. The former nurse said she has seen children with rashes and sores that do not heal, parents with unexplained breathing problems, people with odd neurological symptoms — all since the storm. Even those whose homes did not flood are struggling with health problems, she said, simply because the air is so contaminated from debris, some of which is still not been picked up nearly a year later. Toxic floodwater contaminated the poorest parts Houston after Harvey and it’s unclear how many people became sick as a result.
Texas Southern University sociologist Robert Bullard explained that black and Latino families tend to benefit less from recovery programs, such as FEMA grants, small-business loans, and insurance payouts after hurricanes strike. Climate change is going to make hurricanes more intense and poorer Americans will continue to pay the price despite not being responsible for the bulk of CO2 emissions–which underscores the need to address this inequality.
Why This Matters: In many cities, poorer communities tend to live in areas with increased flooding risks as a result of more lax zoning laws. In Houston, this is especially true and the Huffington Post explained that as the city expanded outward, lands that once absorbed rainwater were turned into parking lots, roads and developments. There are no environmental zoning laws, only deeds that allow property owners to dictate how the land is used. In wealthier ― which, in a city where Jim Crow once reigned, usually translates to whiter ― areas, residents invited flood safeguards, such as dikes and berms, and spurned hazards such as chemical plants and refineries. Environmental justice is a critical part of preparing ourselves for life on a warming planet and marginalized communities shouldn’t have to suffer disproportionately from climate change just because they lack political capital and the ability to relocate.
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 Energy
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Spittelau Waste Incineration Plant, Vienna, Austria
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Waste To Energy Is A Way of Life in Vienna
With China and other nations, such as Thailand and Vietnam, now refusing to take the U.S.’s trash, we need to find alternatives for disposing of all that garbage that we cannot compost, re-use or recycle here at home. Large cities in Europe that are space-constrained have turned to another option — waste to energy facilities. In Vienna, the Spittelau Waste Incinerator Plant looks more like a modern art museum than a place where they burn trash to make energy. The state of the art facility located in an upscale part of the city, whose façade was redesigned by eco-architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser following a major fire in 1989, is a unique melange of waste, energy, and art.
The plant is a major tourist attraction — visitors (many of whom are local school children) get an insight into Vienna’s impressive waste, recycling and disposal system, as well as the plant’s environmentally-friendly generation of thermal heat and hot water. The facility produces enough steam to provide heat and hot water to 350,000 Vienna apartments, around a third of the city’s total, according to CityLab, and in the winter, 120,000 Viennese homes are being kept warm with trash that otherwise would have been shipped to a place like China. As for air pollution from the plant, thanks to state of the art controls, it produces 90 percent less pollution than the legal annual limit for emissions and is also climate-friendlier than leaving waste unburnt in a landfill site. One other cool feature of Vienna’s approach to waste disposal — the City actually sifts through the trash, reclaims usable items, and sells them in a retail store called 48er Tandler for a profit.
Why This Matters: Waste to energy facilities have been controversial in the U.S. due to lax air pollution controls in the past, but the Clean Air Act’s current standards (unless changed by Team Trump) are strict. Many also argue that such facilities discourage or prevent recycling — because they need a constant stream of trash, people feel less obliged to recycle or re-use. Vienna’s model shows that it is possible to do both recycle and incinerate — these solutions are not mutually exclusive with public education and good policies in place. There is also a NIMBY effect, but if properly designed like in Vienna or a new facility under construction in Copenhagen that will have a ski hill on top of it, these facilities can be a plus for a neighborhood. With markets for our waste plastic closing all around the world, waste to energy may be a better alternative than landfills at home.
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 Sustainability
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One Chic Thing: Reebok’s New Plant-Based Sneaks
Reebok is taking sustainable footwear to a whole new level with its newest product. Their latest shoe, dubbed Cotton + Corn, debuted last week and is made entirely of plant-based materials — the top is all cotton and the soles are made of a corn-based rubber substitute. The company is also working with the compost manufacturing industry to develop a totally biodegradable shoe that will decompose within 6 months of being put in a compost bin – the industry standard. Their hope is to make shoes that are sustainable at both ends of their life cycle. Americans toss into the trash more than 300 million pairs of shoes each year and they take 30-40 years to decompose and shoes made of plastic materials take even longer, so making shoes that are easily biodegradable will be a huge benefit to the environment. These shoes are a HUGE “step” in the right direction — and they look great too!
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