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Quote of the Week
“This
permit elevates working at cross purposes to an insane degree.
Massachusetts cannot have both a PFAS emergency and a business-as-usual
permitting policy.”
—Tim Whitehouse, Executive Director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)
While
the state is spending millions of dollars on PFAS clean-up efforts, and
a new bill in the legislature would label the situation an "emerging
crisis", the MaDEP and regional EPA office have just issued a permit
allowing the town of Lowell to accept leachate containing high levels of
PFAS from a landfill in New Hampshire — and dump it in the Merrimack River, a public drinking water supply. Read more in the press release from PEER.
Our view is that the permit approval by the state DEP is hard to
fathom, given that the cleanup costs will fall on state taxpayers, but
approval by the EPA is sadly unsurprising. Since August, the New England
regional office has been led by the former top lobbyist for Dow Chemical, who, when reporting to Washington, does so to Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist.
Conservation Calendar
Venison Donation Program: Info Session
Friday, Nov. 8, 5:00 — 6:00 pm, West Tisbury.
Island Grown Initiative, the Ag Society, and other non-profits host a
conversation at the West Tisbury Library about a promising new program
to distribute healthy venison to islanders in need, while encouraging a
reduction in the local deer herd.
Deer reduction is the most effective strategy for combating the
epidemic of tick-borne illness, but it is also of significant
conservation importance. Habitat fragmentation in general leads to the
creation of ideal deer habitat, and the resulting loss of biodiversity as the deer eat everything in sight.
Open House for New Food Co-Op
Co-op makes Zero Waste shopping easy!
Thursday, Nov. 14, 5:00 — 7:00 pm, Vineyard Haven.
A new organic food co-op was just launched this September, offering at
cost pricing for bulk organic goods. Learn all about this exciting
opportunity at next week's open house at their office, located at
Merchant's Circle on State Road; for more info and exact directions, see
website.
Big Clothing Swap Event!
Saturday, Nov. 16, 1:00 — 4:00 pm, Edgartown.
This is another huge Zero Waste opportunity, and a lot of fun too!
Bring your contributions to the Edgartown Library children's room
through Nov. 15 during regular hours, and you'll receive a voucher to
attend the Swap. Acceptable items include kids and adult clothes,
costumes, backpacks, accessories, and jewelry in new or slightly used
condition. At the swap on the 16th there will be raffles, refreshments,
and face-painting, but please remember that you must bring your voucher
to participate! For more info, call the library at 508-627-4221 and ask
for Elyce.
Three Climate Talks from ICAN
Emergency Preparedness
Thursday, Nov. 7, 6:00 — 7:00 pm.
Russ Hartenstine, Emergency Manager for West Tisbury, will go over how
to prepare for extreme weather events, what to do when it happens, and
what services will be available afterwards. A free talk at the Vineyard
Haven Library.
Adaptation
Tuesday, Nov. 12, 4:00 — 5:00 pm.
Elizabeth Durkee, Oak Bluffs’ Conservation Agent, will speak about
adapting to the impacts that the climate crisis will have on the Island.
Sea level rise, extreme weather events, and increased flooding will
require changes to our infrastructure, economy, and other aspects of
Island life. This free presentation at the West Tisbury Library will be
repeated on Nov. 23 at 2:30 at the Oak Bluffs Library.
School Building Performance
Monday, Nov. 18, 5:00 — 6:00 pm.
Building performance engineer Marc Rosenbaum (of South Mountain Company,
and the VCS board of directors) will talk about his experience working
with the Plainfield School in New Hampshire, which was able to
dramatically reduce their energy usage while fixing other facility
challenges. That school is also a rural public school, so the lessons
learned should prove valuable to addressing the future needs of our
Island's school buildings. A free presentation at the West Tisbury
Library.
The Island Climate Action Network
(ICAN) is a volunteer organization made up of individual community
members, town officials, and nonprofit organizations including VCS.
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Winter Walks Return
Join your friends at VCS this winter for the always fun and informative
Winter Walks series. Get outdoors, take in the Island's scenic beauty,
and learn the interesting conservation history of some of our local
ecological treasures. Winter Walks usually begin at 10 am, but please
check newspapers or our website for times and directions. All walks are
free – and usually, with cider and cookies afterward, even better than
free!
Sunday: Building Community at the State Forest
This Sunday, the series kicks off with a return to the Manual Correllus
State Forest. Join us at 10 am at the Headquarters building off Barnes
Road for a hike guided by MCSF superintendent Chris Bruno and Friends of the State Forest
organizer Bob Woodruff. Chris and Bob will share their knowledge of the
ecology and geologic history of the Island’s largest, and most
important, conservation property – home to more than 40 rare species and
their supporting habitat, including globally rare frost bottoms and
pine oak barrens.
Prior to the walk, we will get a brief introduction to the ongoing
project by the Friends group to construct an outdoor classroom and
interpretive center for the Forest. Read more about the pavilion
project (inspired by an ancient French marketplace) and see the rest of
the 2019-20 Walks schedule here. We hope to see you on Sunday!
Progress on the pavilion has been
impressive so far – but much work remains to be done! It will be framed
with timbers milled from storm-damaged trees at the State Forest. The
above photo of the team is by Michael Berwind, who has helped lead the
milling work.
Innocent Until Proven Guilty
PFAS Concerns Illuminate a Weakness in Environmental Protections
For anyone looking to better understand the recent explosion of concern
about PFAS (per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, a large class of
several thousand chemicals), the most recent episode of the public radio
program “Science Friday” is an excellent introduction.
Ira Flatow’s guests Robert Bilott and Sharon Lerner discuss the history
of the issue (which feels at once very recent, yet not so: before
DuPont's Teflon became a household name in the 1980s, its wonder
chemical, PFOS, had been in use for decades – and would continue to be
used for two more decades, until being replaced by DuPont’s
“Gen-X” in 2009) and the current situation, which sees a race between
scientists and activists on one side and industry on the other.
How dangerous are PFAS? Can chemicals that are found in so many everyday products really cause serious health problems? In short, to demonstrate conclusively that environmental contamination by any chemical causes human disease is a very high bar to clear. Even scientists who agree on the facts
on any given chemical may reasonably disagree on whether those facts
show a causal link rather than a correlation. (It is always possible
that some other factor – poverty, for example – explains both
the disease and the PFAS exposure). Despite that challenge, the evidence
against DuPont’s original PFOS, as well as 3M’s rival PFOA, has by now
become nearly impossible to deny, and the companies have begun to phase
them out. (However, their replacement, “Gen-X” aka “C8,” is also associated with many of the same health problems;
proving a causal link here may be just a matter of time and resources.)
Worse, these chemicals readily find their way into groundwater and are
extremely persistent in the environment, leading to their recent moniker
of “Forever Chemicals” – an accurate description that cleverly
references the fluorine-carbon bonds that define the group’s chemistry.
Locally, the subject of PFAS first arose last year when the chemicals
were detected in groundwater near the airport, caused by past use of
firefighting foams for training exercises. (These foams are one of the
most common causes of documented PFAS contamination, which has led to
many US military sites showing up on the interactive map linked in the
Science Friday story).
Last month, the planned installation of artificial turf at the MV
Regional High School drew new scrutiny following reporting (in the Boston Globe, as well as a story by Lerner for the Intercept)
on PFAS contamination of a wetland in Franklin, MA, likely caused by
the Town’s disposal of an artificial turf carpet next to it. (The Intercept’s
version of the story is the more entertaining of the two because it
includes details on the Town’s shifty behavior regarding the
mysteriously disappearing and reappearing turf – which they claim to
have never known anything about in the first place.)
The MVRHS artificial turf proposal is currently before the Oak Bluff’s
Planning Board, and, as we have on numerous occasions throughout this
process, VCS has offered written testimony
in opposition. Our letter lays out many other environmental objections
to plastic grass on our Island, but in light of the recent revelations
and resulting controversy, we thought it important to explain the
complicated (and often cryptic, as companies are not required to
disclose their ingredients or processes) issue of PFAS and artificial
turf –
__________
PFAS
are a class of chemicals used in industrial manufacturing, most
frequently as stain repellents, paints, and other coatings. It is
important to understand that PFAS share not just chemistry, but also
physical properties. Therefore, when clear evidence emerges that a
certain compound is harmful to human health (as has been demonstrated
with PFOS and PFOA), the offending chemical can often be replaced by a
different PFAS compound that will accomplish the same industrial
purpose. New PFAS compounds (and non-PFAS alternatives, which may
accomplish the same purposes, but in turn may also prove toxic) are
continually being developed. In our regulatory system, if a new chemical
has not yet been demonstrated to cause harm, that is sufficient to
allow its use in production.
Naturally, the artificial turf industry touts the safety of the new
chemicals that are developed to replace the previous unsafe ones;
likewise, public health and environmental advocates (including VCS) view
these replacement chemicals with suspicion. We understand the lack of
information on new, and often undisclosed, chemicals presents a dilemma
for decision makers. What we urge, though, is that assurances of safety
from the turf industry – which continues to promote materials that are
known carcinogens (such as crumb rubber) – should be met with
skepticism.
__________
PFOS, PFOA, and all the other PFAS were created to do a job, and they do
that job well. Unfortunately, it is reasonably likely that the same
properties that make PFAS effective are also what make them toxic.
Chasing the perfect PFAS alternative may never pan out, while in the
meantime, environmentally persistent toxic chemicals continue to pile
up. To live without the toxicity associated with PFAS, we – not just as
individuals, but together, as a society – may just have to live without
some things: stain-resistant carpets, leak-proof paper plates, fried
eggs that slide off a dry skillet, and football fields of plastic grass.
That doesn’t seem so terrible, now does it?
Photo by Steve Cylka for his baked skillet eggs recipe (which honestly looks really good right now!) |
