On her way out the door, after 30 years with the Environmental Protection Agency, Elizabeth Southerland left a scathing note detailing why she quit. She was, most recently, the director of science and technology in the Office of Water. Her farewell letter was posted publicly by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility [PEER]. Her letter reflects concerns expressed by many other scientists about the anti-science, anti-environment policies that threaten the core mission of EPA and the health of the U.S. populace.

Here are some highlights from her very gutsy letter:  [my emphasis added]

On the agenda of Trump’s new EPA director, Scott Pruitt

…In his first address to EPA staff, the new Administrator admonished us for acting outside legal mandates and running roughshod over states’ rights. The Administrator subsequently assured the states that he will initiate a cooperative federalism approach in which the power to govern is finally shared between EPA and the states. In fact, EPA has always followed a cooperative federalism approach…

…All the federal environmental statutes set national standards for protection of public health and the environment because Congress recognized that some states might be willing, for economic or other reasons, to tolerate much less protection than their neighboring states…

 Under the new federalism, however, the President’s FY18 budget proposes cuts to state and tribal funding as draconian as the cuts to EPA, while at the same time reassigning a number of EPA responsibilities to the states and tribes. If they want to maintain their current level of monitoring, permitting, inspections, and enforcement, states will have to increase taxes and establish new user  fees.

On the Trump administration’s one in, two out policy on regulations:

…the President goes further by requiring that any new regulation be accompanied by repeal of two existing regulations of equal or greater cost. To implement this “regulation trading” program, EPA will have to choose which Congressional law to ignore, and face litigation through costly citizen suits. This poses a real Sophie’s choice for public health agencies like EPA. Should EPA repeal two existing rules protecting infants from neurotoxins in order to promulgate a new rule protecting adults from a newly discovered liver toxin?

…Unfortunately, even existing protections will not remain in place since the administration has also launched a repeal, replace, modify initiative which is not tied to issuing new rules. Any environmental protection rule promulgated at any time in the past may be repealed by this administration, as well as any science or technical document ever published by EPA.

The new EPA Administrator already has repeals of 30 rules under consideration, one of which is the steam electric rule promulgated in 2015 after EPA spent years collecting data on power plants, millions of dollars conducting engineering and economic analyses of those data, and months responding to extensive public comment. The final rule required for the first time that the highly toxic wastes of coal fired electric plants be treated rather than poured untreated into large holding ponds where the toxic chemicals seep into ground water and overflow into surface water, contaminating public water supplies and private wells and poisoning fish and wildlife.

…The major budget cuts to EPA, state and tribal environmental programs and the potential repeal of many existing regulations and science documents is not a cooperative federalism approach. It is an industry deregulation approach based on abandonment of the polluter pays principle.

On the folly of short-term savings

Environmental catastrophes have often occurred when there was a decision to roll the dice and achieve a short term gain at the risk of disastrous long term costs —Hurricane Katrina where small savings in flood protection levees resulted in one of the most catastrophic flooding and environmental disasters in U.S. history and Flint, Michigan where minimal costs for corrosion control or an alternative water supply were dwarfed by the subsequent lead contamination of children.

On myth vs. fact

…Today the environmental field is suffering from the temporary triumph of myth over truth. The truth is there is NO war on coal, there is NO economic crisis caused by environmental protection, and climate change IS caused by man’s activities.

…It may take a few years and even an environmental disaster, but I am confident that Congress and the courts will eventually restore all the environmental protections repealed by this administration because the majority of the American people recognize that this protection of public health and safety is right and it is just.

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The director of Atomic Homefront calls her documentary “the feel-bad movie of the year.” That’s how Rebecca Camissa described it at a special advance showing last night in St. Louis, and she wasn’t kidding. The movie chronicles the sad and infuriating story of people who live near the Bridgeton West Lake Landfill in a northern St. Louis suburb, where, underground, a smoldering garbage fire is metastasizing, creeping ominously close to radioactive waste dumped nearby in the 1970s and 80s.

It’s a difficult story to tell for several reasons. First, to understand the current situation, you have to delve into a complicated history that starts in the 1940s, when a St. Louis chemical company was commissioned to dispose of radioactive waste generated by the creation of the atomic bomb. The waste was transported [often in open, spewing truck beds] and dumped in several locations, mixed with soil, then dug up and moved again. The routes and the amounts were kept secret for many years. It was only decades later, when a local resident began to realize that many of her school classmates, who lived in areas near the landfill, had developed cancer, that people in the area began to wonder what was going on.

In addition, the personal stories of cancer victims make this an emotionally difficult film. Several people featured in the film’s most poignant scenes have subsequently died, and others are still mourning friends and family. They contend that the cancer and the presence of radioactive waste—not just in the landfill but also in Coldwater Creek, where many children played [and still do]—are linked. It is very tough to watch, but a necessary piece of the narrative.

Atomic Homefront also arouses anger. The film follows a group of concerned citizens, known as Just Moms STL. Spurred to action by the problem in their own neighborhood, they juggle family responsibilities with strategy sessions, activist training, community forums and meetings with government officials. In one segment, we see Dawn Chapman, one of the initiators of Just Moms STL, sweeping her kitchen floor while talking on the phone with a state legislator. It is an authentic, un-glamorous, un-staged, everyday moment in the life of someone who never envisioned herself as an activist. [The contrast with filmmaker Michael Moore’s phony, ambush encounters in his films is stark.]

It’s the meetings with government officials that really make your blood boil. Time after time, officials from agencies, ostensibly charged with protecting the environment,deny that a problem exists, make excuses, offer empty promises and become suddenly unavailable when Just Moms STL leaders show up at their offices.

We see several situations in which officials deliver, with a straight face, absurd statements that are totally divorced from reality. One representative of the US Environmental Protection Agency presents what he calls “a simplified equation of the effects of radiation,” which, when displayed, turns out to be anything but simple, prompting derisive laughter from the audience. In another instance, an EPA official says that the landfill is safe, and that the fire will “self-extinguish.” A representative of the US Army Corps of Engineers states that the agency doesn’t think it is necessary to put up health-warning signs along Coldwater Creek. A manager of the smoldering, acrid-smelling landfill tells a Just Moms activist that the stench is “landfill perfume.”

The film also captures the powerful moment when community residents, previously unaware of the smoldering landfill and the nearby radioactive waste, receive notices from the local school district about a newly created emergency plan, which would be activated “in case of a radioactive event at the landfill.” Taken completely by surprise, they justifiably fear for their children and turn out in droves to a hastily convened community meeting. In one jaw-dropping scene from the meeting, a woman addresses the crowd, demanding action as she reveals that she moved to the area 20 years earlier—from Chernobyl—to save her children, only to find out that she is now living in another highly toxic neighborhood.

Atomic Homefront creates an admirable balance among four key aspects of the Bridgeton Landfill story: history, human impact, local activism, and government response. I found a few stylistic choices to quibble about: It spends a bit too much time on mood-setting; it includes too much un-narrated and visually unappealing exposition. But I applaud the director’s effort to tackle this complex subject and to get it right for the people who have worked so hard to get justice and push for a remedy.

Unfortunately, you can’t leave this film feeling much hope. In the credits, Camissa offers a list of too many elected officials and agency representatives who did not agree to appear in the film. Their absence is a sad commentary on government responsiveness. And keep in mind that the film ends in November 2016, just after the election of Donald Trump. If you think the Obama-era officials who stonewalled and delayed action during the three years covered in this film were bad, remember that the new head of EPA is Scott Pruitt, an avowed anti-environmental zealot who is dismantling the agency’s mission as you read this article. You can’t help but feel bad for Dawn Chapman, Just Moms STL, and the people living in the neighborhood.

[Atomic Homefront received funding from HBO and is scheduled to appear on that network later in 2017 or early in 2018.]

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The EPA’s Office of Science and Technology [OST] no longer includes the word science in its mission statement. That’s a big effing deal, says the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative [EDGI], a group of scientists and academics who track changes to about 25,000 federal government webpages. [Okay, EDGI didn’t say effing…]

The New Republic published EDGI’s latest findings on March 7. To document its point, EDGI provided screenshots comparing OST’s previous mission statement to its Trump-era revision.  [I have transcribed the screenshot copy here.]

Under “What We Do,” OST previously said:

OST is responsible for developing sound science-based standards, criteria, health advisories, test methods and guidelines under the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. We work with partners and stakeholders to develop the scientific and technological foundations to achieve clean water through national programs that protect people and the aquatic environment.

Now, “What We Do,” says:

OST works with states, tribes and other stakeholders to develop recommended safe water quality levels for toxins, nutrients and pathogens to help ensure our nation’s waters can be used for fishing, swimming and drinking water. OST also develops national economically and technologically achievable performance standards to address water pollution from industry.

What’s the difference? It’s all just a bunch of bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo, right? Wrong, says EDGI’s Gretchen Gehrke, in an article in the New Republic.

“This is probably the most important thing we’ve found so far,” said Gehrke, who works on EDGI’s website tracking team. “The language changes here are not nuanced—they have really important regulatory implications.”

The New Republic explains the differences this way:

The EPA’s Office of Science and Technology has historically been in charge of developing clean water standards for states. Before January 30 of this year, the website said those standards were “science-based,” meaning they were based on what peer-reviewed science recommended as safe levels of pollutants for drinking, swimming, or fishing. Since January 30, though, the reference to “science-based” standards has disappeared. Now, the office, instead, says it develops “economically and technologically achievable standards” to address water pollution.

Gehrke says removing “science” from OST’s missions and replacing it with “technologically achievable” means the EPA is moving toward more technology-based standards, where polluters just have to install certain types of technology.

The Union of Concerned Scientists, a science advocacy organization, agrees. Moving towards what companies claim is feasible for them would mark a “major change in direction” and could signal that the EPA is turning to see their job “as being a support for business as opposed to safeguarding public health.”

The change reflects a major movement from working with scientists to guarantee safe water for citizens of the US, writes Andrew Griffin in The Independent:

…decisions could just be made based on the technology that is available. Even more, the wording could be used to reduce the regulations that currently apply.

Environmentalists often argue that clean water should be assessed by scientists on a performance basis, who check for the amount of certain pollutants that are found in water. But instead, the technological approach could just require companies to install certain pieces of equipment – whether or not that equipment makes the water clean enough to drink or swim in.

The wording change at OST is, of course, just the tip of the [now-and-for-the-forseeable-future dirtier] iceberg. Using OST as a template, we can look forward [actually, backward] to science-based decision-making going missing at other government agencies we’ve relied on for half a century or more: the Federal Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture, the Centers for Disease Control, and others.

We are in trouble.

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Did you know that 40 percent of our food is thrown into landfills every year? That shocking statistic comes to us courtesy of the number crunchers at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Believe it or not, that means we’re throwing out the equivalent of $165 billion worth of nutritious and not-so-nutritious junk food. Imagine just for a moment the size of that fetid pile.  Imagine, too, that while we Americans waste almost half our food supply, 800 million people go hungry every day and two billion—a number representing more than one-third of the population of the planet—suffer from malnourishment.

Is it likely we’ll wake up one morning and discover we’ve experienced en masse an epiphany of compassion and responsibility, or we’ll suddenly decide to curb our profligate ways? I doubt it. Still, our wasteful food habits may be changing in the not so distant future. And you can bet that change won’t happen voluntarily. It may be foisted upon us unintentionally by some of the world’s largest corporations— Bayer (Germany), Monsanto (St. Louis), and Syngenta (Switzerland).  Together, the big bad three produce a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids and other insecticides, pesticides, and fungicides that scientists believe are creating a toxic witches’ brew that’s killing bee populations across the globe and threatening our food supply.

And how big is the industry that produces and distributes these poisons?  In the U.S. alone the industry is worth more than $12.5 billion annually, and there are approximately 350,000 pesticide products produced and used in our food supply, in our home gardens, and on our greener-than-green weed-free lawns and golf courses.

Do you feel your progressive antennae beginning to twitch?  You should. After all, mentioning positive social change in the same sentence as the corporate world is surely anathema to the progressive spirit. But like it or not, here’s what could happen if the steady increase in chemical controls in agriculture isn’t halted. We’ll be forced to follow the path of Southern Sichuan, China, where pears and apples have been hand pollinated since the 1980s, when the uncontrolled use of pesticides killed off the province’s honeybee population.  If that’s the future of agriculture in the U.S., you can be sure the diversity of our food supply will shrink, and with the attendant price spikes, we might finally be forced to curb our wasteful ways.

How important are pollinating bees to our food supply?

One-third of our food supply (or one in every three mouthfuls) depends on bee pollination.  Do you crave blueberry pancakes or strawberry jam on toast? Bees are trucked in to pollinate Maine’s blueberry crop and Florida’s fields of blueberries and strawberries. Snacking on almonds for their health benefits? It takes 1.5 million bee colonies to pollinate California’s 750,000 acres of almond trees. Do you look forward to grandpa’s hot-out-of-the-oven, crusty apple pie every autumn? The quintessential American pie and the apple orchards of New York and Washington states might become a nostalgic memory if bee die-off isn’t reversed.

And how seriously has the bee population shrunk?  The number of hives in the U.S. is the lowest in fifty years. Since 1990 25 percent of the managed bee population has disappeared. This year in the U.S. alone annual colony loss is estimated at 40  to 90 percent (depending on location) of the bee population.

Bees shmees. They’re just a nuisance, so who cares?

Bees are about so much more than just the occasional painful encounter in the flowerbed.  It’s time to think seriously about what will happen when our bee-loud places go silent.  Colony-collapse disorder, or bee die-off, represents one of those connect-the-dots moments when we need to think about the big picture.  In order to see the big picture, you sometimes have to start small and personal.

And you can’t get more personal than the foods you love. Visualize some of the seasonal ingredients in your perfect summer meal. Maybe it would include a salad of sliced avocados topped with sweet spring onions and some almonds.  Slices of run-down-your-chin fuzzy peaches.  A bowl of deep red cherries with some sugary watermelon slices stuck in along the edge.  Hefty servings of moist apple-walnut-cinnamon layer cake or an old-fashioned blueberry buckle.

What would summer be without such pleasures to look forward to?  Imagine you could no longer afford to buy about one-third of the foods you now consume, including more than forty fruits, vegetables, nuts, and grains. And shall we even dare to mention that most sacred of foodstuffs—chocolate—and how bees pollinate the cacao beans that feed our indulgence?

When the bees disappear and they’re no longer around to do the pollinating work for us, the price of food will skyrocket.  One group, the British Beekeepers Association, has considered the consequences. If the British bee population were to suddenly disappear and people were to take over the task of hand pollinating, it’s estimated that Britain would need a workforce of thirty million dexterous individuals.

Will we muster the political will to save the bees and preserve our food supply?

The story of an earlier pesticide, DDT, is instructive.  After its introduction in 1939, DDT became the most widely used pesticide in the world.  It took twenty years, but  concerns about human health and damaging biological effects finally resulted in the banning of DDT in eighty-six countries—not including the U.S.  The U.S., always a regulatory laggard because of the outsized influence of the agribusiness lobby, followed suit in 1972. Today it looks like history might be repeating itself.

This month, reflecting concerns about the danger of colony collapse, fifteen of the twenty-seven members of the European Union voted to pass a two-year, EU-wide ban on the use of three neonicotinoids manufactured by Bayer and Syngenta while additional studies on their impact on bees can be conducted.

Commercial beekeepers in the U.S., fearing for the viability of their industry, are starting to take action as well. The beekeepers recently filed an emergency petition with the EPA to suspend the use of pesticides linked to honey bee deaths.  Their action followed upon the conclusions of more than thirty peer-reviewed studies linking the class of neonicotinoids that attack insects’ nervous systems to the shrinking numbers of bees.

In July Representatives John Conyers (D-MI) and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) introduced the Save America’s Pollinators Act (H.R. 2692).  The act calls for suspension of the use of neonicotinoids until full scientific review can demonstrate no harmful impact on pollinators.

These efforts to rein in the most harmful effects of the industrial chemical complex are commendable.  But will it prove to be too little, too late? When the bees are no longer around to do their work, the fruits and vegetables we take for granted will become so pricey that only the wealthiest among us will be able to enjoy them.  Can’t you just see it?  A marketing campaign in the bee-deprived future might feature labels that declare “Food for the 1%.” That’s a cure for our wasteful ways I’m sure none of us will welcome.

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