In Northwest, wood stoves run afoul of EPA
When setting out to explain the difficulty in improving the region’s air quality, InvestigateWest’s Robert McClure and Katie Campbell of EarthFix and KCTS found that old wood stoves, with an assist from fireplaces and their ilk, produce half the soot fouling Puget air during still winter days – a contribution five times great than that of heavy industry. It’s a common problem in the Northwest, where wood is a cheap (free, for many rural residents) alternative to electric or oil-fueled heaters.
Those old wood stoves are to blame, in large part, for putting Tacoma, Wash., and other cities in violation of the Clean Air Act. With the potential for tighter federal regulations to be drafted in 2012, the pressure is on for local governments to take on local wood burners, an unpopular prospect in tough economic times, especially in regions with little appetite for government interference and federal regulation.
Where There’s Smoke, There’s Sickness from EarthFix on Vimeo.
Restricting use of wood stoves that heat so many homes across the Northwest is a difficult proposition, though, because many people can get wood for cheap or for free, and using a wood stove can greatly reduce electricity and natural-gas bills that run wild in the winter. Installing a new clean-burning stove typically costs $2,000 or more – and many argue that it’s lousy timing to launch an expensive campaign to clean the air, federal standards or no federal standards.
Yet that’s the recommendation of a task force representing local governments, industry, the military and others involved with soot pollution levels in and around Tacoma. Last week the group voted to recommend removal of all wood stoves that don’t meet current government standards by 2015 in the area violating the Clean Air Act.
Currently, the Clean Air Act requires that cities like Tacoma clean up their soot by 2014, but the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency is already, in the reporters’ words, “counting on” the EPA to extend the deadline “until as late as 2019.” That agency’s director says, given the costs involved, “This is a Western problem, and we need federal help.”
That’s because of the size of the task. The Puget Sound agency estimates it needs to persuade or force some 15,000 of the 24,000 owners of uncertified wood stoves to remove them in order to comply with the Clean Air Act.Just to remove and patch up the walls where those 15,000 stoves now stand would cost about $7.5 million – and at least some families would need to install a new wood stove at a cost of $2,000 or more each.
According to McClure and Campbell, the sooty particles of that winter tradition we used to call “The Inversion” in Boise can contribute to “heart attacks, strokes, high blood pressure, asthma attacks and premature death – in addition to cancer.”
In Washington, the state Ecology Department estimates that sooty pollution from sources including wood smoke and diesel exhaust contributes to 1,100 deaths and $190 million in health costs annually.
Ecology says a conservative estimate of the annual number of deaths attributable to soot pollution in Pierce County alone is 140.
Related
- On patrol with the smoke police, The Bakersfield Californian
- A Burning Issue, California HealthCare Foundation Center for Health Reporting & Chico Enterprise-Record
Blame trucks, not just factories, for industrial pollution in Seattle
Spurred by a few recent studies, InvestigateWest’s Robert McClure and KCTS-Seattle’s Jenny Cunningham launched an investigation to figure out just what has made Puget Sound’s air some of the most toxic in the nation. Their work centered on the heavily polluted, industrial Seattle neighborhoods of Georgetown and South Park, where residents “face an onslaught of toxic airborne pollutants that according to a recent study exceed regulatory caution levels by up to 30 times.”
Where is this toxic air coming from? The answer may surprise you. The majority of the pollution, government regulators and scientists say, comes not from the large concentration of industrial facilities in South Park and Georgetown. Rather, it’s from the cars, trucks and buses whizzing by these neighborhoods – especially those with diesel engines. Fumes from ships in Elliott Bay and the Duwamish, as well as diesel-powered equipment at the Port of Seattle and elsewhere, add to the toxic mix. In the fall and winter, wood smoke from fireplaces becomes a significant contributor.
The problems here have implications in other neighborhoods, too: Anywhere people are living close to major roadways, they’re likely breathing unhealthy air, studies show. Anyone living within about 200 yards of a major roadway is thought to be at increased risk, with the first 100 yards being the hottest pollution zone.
Watch the full episode. See more KCTS 9 Connects.
Reporters looking to localize the story will probably want to scroll first to the “The Effects” section, which gets into the practical science of how this sort of pollution takes its toll. You’ll probably also enjoy Cunningham’s sidebar on what she learned in reporting the piece (it’s at the bottom of the page). If you’re also looking to understand the regional and national regulatory structure which governs diesel and related emissions, the “Solutions” subheading is also worth a pit stop.
For more on the big picture issues impacting health in South Seattle, see Carol Smith’s recent piece on the related Superfund site.
Sapien wins award for natural gas impact coverage
An investigation into the environmental impact of natural gas drilling, conducted by AHCJ member Joaquin Sapien and his ProPublica colleagues Abrahm Lustgarten and Sabrina Shankman, earned a second place, print, Kevin Carmody Award for Outstanding Investigative Reporting in the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Awards for Reporting on the Environment.
Photo by arimoore via Flickr
In its announcement of the award, SEJ cited four particular entries in the extensive series (64 parts!), including Sapien’s “With Natural Gas Drilling Boom, Pennsylvania Faces an Onslaught of Wastewater.”
This exhaustive ProPublica series into the environmental impact of natural gas drilling on water resources raised public awareness of an important, but largely overlooked, environmental issue and helped to spur politicians to action. The methodical and well-written stories were easily understandable, neatly melding the human experience with the investigative paper chase. Importantly, the series exposed not just problems, but also pointed to solutions.
Safe drinking water tops Americans’ concerns
A new Gallup poll shows that half of Americans are worried about the pollution of drinking water. Other health-related worries include toxic waste in soil and water (44 percent) and air pollution (38 percent).
The poll shows Americans’ concern about environmental problems has mainly decreased but the pollution of drinking water has topped the list of concerns since 1990.
Get information about ground water and drinking water from the Environmental Protection Agency.
These two stories about how reporters investigated contaminated water and the related resources also might be helpful to reporters looking into similar issues:
- Reporter finds efforts to monitor groundwater contamination leave much to be desired
- Paper’s investigation reveals contaminated drinking water
(Hat tip to Al Tompkins)
Group’s tours highlight pollution in West Oakland
California Watch’s Ali Winston writes that to increase awareness of both legacy and ongoing sources of toxins in their venerable neighborhood, the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project is offering “toxic tours” of the area’s most polluted locations.
Crane unloading shipping containers in West Oakland. Photo by oso via Flickr.The tour focuses on the neighborhood’s industrial legacy and includes West Oakland’s own federal Superfund site, where a chemical company “left a deposit of cancer-causing vinyl chloride in the soil and groundwater” as well as the largest recycling smelter west of the Mississippi and the docks where lines of cargo ships and big rigs sit idling every weekday as they wait for containers to be loaded and unloaded.
Related
In their series “Shortened Lives,” Suzanne Bohan and Sandy Kleffman profiled people from different (though nearby) ZIP codes, finding wide disparities in their expected life spans, based on where they live, their social status and the toll of chronic stress. The series explains the effect these disparities have on health care costs, as well as how they are caused and how they might be addressed. Bohan and Kleffman wrote about the project in a piece for AHCJ members and we have included additional resources for those interested in exploring disparities in health care in their own communities.
Overwhelmed sewage systems spread pathogens
Thousands of sewage systems around the country have been overwhelmed and dumped “human waste, chemicals and other hazardous materials into rivers and lakes and elsewhere,” according to Charles Duhigg in the latest installment of The New York Times series, “Toxic Waters.”
Despite more than $60 billion distributed to cities to upgrade sewer systems in the 1970s and 1980s, the Times‘ analysis of data from the Environmental Protection Agency shows that – in the past three years – more than 9,400 of the nation’s 25,000 sewage systems have violated the Clean Water Act of 1972. Fewer than one in five were fined or penalized.
Duhigg cites research that suggests as many as 20 million people a year get sick from water contaminated by bacteria and pathogens as well as a study showing that the number of children who visited one Milwaukee hospital with serious diarrhea rose when local sewers overflowed.
Related
- Paper’s investigation reveals contaminated drinking water
- Reporter finds efforts to monitor groundwater contamination leave much to be desired
Bowser, Parsons win SEJ awards
Two AHCJ members earned honors in the Society of Environmental Journalists Awards for Reporting on the Environment.
WTAE-Pittsburgh’s Jim Parsons, Kendall Cross and Michael Lazorko won the Outstanding Story, Television, Small Market category with “Drill Baby Drill,” described by SEJ as “the kind of outstanding environmental journalism that every newsroom should commit to report.” The story examined the impact natural gas drilling has on water volume in creeks and streams.
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer’s Betty Ann Bowser, Patti Parson and Catherine Wise took second in Outstanding Story, Television, Large Market for their “Louisiana Landfills Report,” which helped put a personal face on the complicated consequences of Hurricane Katrina and accompanying rebuilding efforts.
Topics in the news: food safety, coal ash
Some resources that could be helpful in reporting on a couple of hot topics today:
Peanut butter is suspected in an outbreak of salmonella that appears to have affected about 200 people in 42 states, prompting a recall of two kinds of peanut butter. Thomas Hargrove of Scripps Howard News Service wrote about foodborne illness outbreaks in a 2007 article for AHCJ. He found that some states did a good job of diagnosing and tracking down the causes of outbreaks, while other states “are virtually blind in detecting outbreaks of food illness.” Read more about the findings and get links to some related resources.
Following the failure of a retention pond for the TVA Kingston Fossil plant, dumping fly ash over 400 acres in Tennessee, Sen. Barbara Boxer has said she plans to file legislation calling on the federal Environmental Protection Agency to regulate coal fly ash ponds across the country. The National Library of Medicine has information about potential effects of fly ash exposure on human health following the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant Coal Ash Spill in December 2008.
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