Remember those old, clunky TVs and computer monitors? The ones with Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs) people threw out in favor of flat screens? Well, now electronics makers don’t want to recycle them.

Up until this week, California State law directed certified waste recyclers to sell leaded Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) glass from the old clunkers back to CRT makers or smelters.

But now we’re down to just one CRT maker and it’s in India. Neuro-toxic leaded glass started piling up in warehouses or got illegally dumped. So, the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) just issued an “emergency rule. Recyclers can go ahead and just take CRT glass to hazardous waste landfills located in some of the poorest, largely Latino, communities in the state.

Consumers buying TVs pay between six and ten dollars at the point of sale to fund a state program that pays recyclers to recycle. Now, we’ll be paying recyclers to dump more toxins into poor neighborhoods already suffering from high rates of pollution.

Granted, the DTSC had to do something. But this was not the right something.  Exceptions to rules tend to become permanent. And can be abused. This rule should be immediately reversed. Recyclers are already paid to recycle. They can use some of that money to pay a little more for CRT processing. Eventually, the technology will take off and the price will come down.  That’s how markets work.

Under California law, regulators are supposed to encourage new hazardous waste treatment technologies that reduce or eliminate the hazards to human health and the environment, where they can be practically utilized, to improve California’s economic and environmental well-being.

What the DTSC just did was the reverse. “This is knocking the legs out from under the industry that is developing the recycling technologies and making the capital investment,” said Jim Taggart, head of ECS Refining, the second-largest recycler in the country based in Stockton. The state should simply have kept its rules in place, he said. “It’s done by just not encouraging landfill.  You require recycling and the system takes care of it.”

ECS Refining is separating high concentrations of lead from CRT glass and selling it back to smelters.  Lead can be re-used in batteries. It’s selling glass to new customers from insulation to cement makers in other states. And the new technology can be adapted later to other materials as electronics advance.

The impetus for the emergency rule had to come from somewhere, said Taggart.  “Possibly the waste industry or recyclers that stand to benefit from landfilling the glass.” Taggart says that unscrupulous recyclers could end up putting leaded glass in ordinary municipal landfills that charge much less to take waste. And waste management companies that own landfills stand to profit from the boom in business.

“We invested $10 million dollars into this technology,” he said. “What’s a hammer cost?” He said unscrupulous recyclers will just break up CRTs by hand, and throw what they think is harmless glass into cheap municipal landfills. But he says that glass will still contain toxic levels of lead. “The state won’t have any way to control that.  It doesn’t have people at every landfill.”

Instead, regulators should be huddling with California lawmakers to see what can be done to use a chunk of that steady stream of money from consumers for electronics recycling to encourage the new technology. And it doesn’t have to stop there. Sheila Davis, executive director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition says we need a paradigm shift. “We think the HPs, Apples, and Dells should be paying to make sure this stuff is not dumped on poor people but taken back and recycled responsibly.”

California might just want to join the 21st century and pass, like 23 other states have done, an Extended Producer Responsibility Law that makes electronics manufacturers that design, produce or sell a product minimize its environmental impact throughout its life cycle.

We’d shift away from charging consumers a recycling fee and have the manufacturer build the cost into product for its dismantling and recycling. That would be quite an incentive to figure out how to make products that are less toxic and easier to dispose of  in the first place.

Instead, this DTSC is helping to sully the present and landfill the future.

______________________

Posted by Liza Tucker, a consumer advocate with Consumer Watchdog

A broken environmental review system means change is coming – progressives should articulate their vision before one is imposed on them

As Brian explained yesterday a last-minute end of session gut and amend effort to change the California Environmental Quality Act will not move forward. But that doesn’t mean the effort to reform CEQA has come to an end, nor does it mean that the broken system of environmental review can be left to continue to rot. The same coalition that came together this month to push reforms will merely redouble their efforts ahead of a 2013 push to change CEQA. They’ve got the money and the momentum. I would not bet against them.

Many progressive groups across the state mobilized to block this specific reform proposal, charging that it would in fact carve out a series of loopholes to existing laws and help environmentally unfriendly things like offshore oil rigs avoid CEQA review.

These charges are very serious, and if true would indeed mean this proposal wasn’t the right way to reform CEQA. Surely it is the case, as the LA Times argued, that reforms of this importance should be carefully deliberated and not rushed. I agree with that assessment, and shoehorning this into the very end of a legislative session was not a confidence-building move.

But reform is still needed, and progressives would do well to get out in front by proposing a better way to not only review projects, but to ensure that state and regional planning is done in a way that meets 21st century needs of environmental protection and reducing carbon emissions. Unless progressives actively propose an alternative, however, I fear they will get steamrolled. In this post I explore some reasons for reform and what a progressive solution could look like.

The case for reform remains strong. CEQA reform is going to happen. Its backers have the money, and they have the momentum. They can point to any number of truly egregious examples of wanton CEQA abuse to make their case for them. One is the man who stalled the San Francisco Bike Master Plan for four years with a CEQA suit, on the charge that giving bikes more space on the roads would hurt the environment by causing traffic.

High speed rail advocates have seen CEQA used to delay the environmentally and climate friendly project, with well-heeled Peninsula NIMBYs filing lawsuits under CEQA they keep losing, aside from technical fixes that the project was easily able to make. CEQA has even been used to try and overturn a marijuana dispensary ban (and while I oppose such bans, I also don’t see this as a legitimate use of that law). It’s ridiculous things like that which make a mockery of the law and are simply not affordable in an era of climate crisis.

On the other hand, environmentalists have also pointed to a number of examples that showed how CEQA legitimately stopped environmentally damaging projects that other laws would have allowed. One friend described to me yesterday a pollution-spewing project that was permitted under loopholes in existing laws, only to be stopped by a CEQA suit.

My response was that showed the need for reforming not just CEQA, but California’s whole approach to environmental regulation. A new system is needed, because this one is broken. It doesn’t make sense that one should have to go to court to stop an oil refinery but that someone can use environmental law to stop an electrified passenger train that massively reduces carbon emissions. Something isn’t right here.

Others have reached similar conclusions. In 2006, SPUR issued a report titled Fixing the California Environmental Quality Act. They argued that CEQA has failed to meet its objectives, has actually made environmental problems worse, and that it should be replaced in urban and suburban settings with a statewide planning process:

In the absence of strong statewide planning and in the presence of weak local planning, stopping projects is what California does best. CEQA has become the tool of choice for stopping bad ones and good ones. SPUR has reviewed CEQA from the standpoint of sound planning and environmental quality. We contend that after the law’s 30-plus years of operation, the type and pattern of developments, viewed at citywide, regional, and state scales, are environmentally worse than before. Not all of this can be blamed on CEQA; it has improved individual project design in some cases. Yet viewed broadly, CEQA has contributed to sprawl and worsened the housing shortage by inhibiting dense infill development far more than local planning and zoning would have done alone. To re-form California, we must first reform CEQA….

Our neighbors to the north provide a dramatic model for change. At almost the same moment that California turned to environmental impact reports to protect its environment, Oregon turned to a strengthened planning program, requiring effective local plans and zoning by all jurisdictions. Oregon has protected and greatly improved its natural environment without review of individual projects, but with sound intergovernmental planning. The recent property-rights crusade that passed compensatory zoning at the Oregon ballot box does not lessen the fact that the Oregon environment remains one of the most pristine in the country.

California ought to be moving toward a system where we have statewide land use plans that have regional and even city specificity, emphasizing environmentally friendly projects and mandating carbon emissions reductions. That’s the goal of SB 375, and the basis of a lawsuit by Attorney General Kamala Harris against the San Diego Association of Governments plan which did not meet the state’s greenhouse gas reduction targets and instead favored sprawl. Governor Jerry Brown is very interested in these kinds of modernized plans and that’s good. Harmonizing CEQA with those kinds of state and local plans is smart – as long as those plans are modernized and up to date.

More fundamentally, the current CEQA process is not one that encourages thoughtful design or encourages democratic participation. CEQA relies on lawsuits as its primary enforcement mechanism. But many people in communities affected by the worst environmental impacts don’t have the money to go to court. The existing planning process is often described as “decide-announce-defend” where a government agency or private developer decides to do something, announces it, and then holds public meetings to defend it. A more inclusive process, one that would address environmental and social justice concerns, would still have the courts as a pathway but could rely on more democratic processes of engagement to develop regional general plans that meet statewide carbon reduction requirements and environmental rules. Of course, the details of how that might work matter a lot.

Further, CEQA is inherently biased in favor of the status quo. An existing oil refinery or a freeway doesn’t have to face the CEQA process, but a new wind farm or an electric passenger rail system does, making it harder and more costly to replace the polluting infrastructure with clean infrastructure. There’s got to be a better way – CEQA should help address climate change and clean up the skies, the waters, and the neighborhoods, not make it harder to do that.

Good reforms won’t create new loopholes or allow polluters to escape their responsibilities. Good reforms would preserve the key pieces of CEQA, including court enforcement, while also bringing it in line with laws like AB 32 and SB 375. It would favor green, carbon reducing projects while still holding them to environmental standards. It would not be something that people could abuse for purposes that aren’t related to protecting the environment or reducing carbon emissions.

As I’ve argued before, it won’t work to try and maintain the current status quo. CEQA does need reform and that the status quo isn’t acceptable. I wouldn’t want to see CA progressives wind up in a place of defending the current process from any kind of change.

Without reform, the legislature will keep finding ways to give projects whose backers are politically connected CEQA exemptions or expedited reviews. Farmers Field in LA got a bill passed to expedite their CEQA review thanks in part to those connections. I’m not convinced that’s the best way to reform CEQA, but we will see more of it in the absence of lasting fixes.

We need to close the loopholes but also modernize the law and harmonize it with our climate efforts, rather than letting it undermine those efforts. While this specific plan may be dead, others are out there. Eventually one of them will pass. The other side has a lot more money and they have a solution to a system that is broken. I would not bet against them. It is time for a progressive solution. There’s at least four months in which one can be crafted. I hope that work is now under way.

More than two hours passed at Chevron’s Richmond, CA, refinery between the discovery of a leak and the ignition of a blaze that threatened the health of thousands of nearby residents and sent hundreds to hospital emergency rooms Monday night. At any point during those hours, shutting down the big crude-oil processing unit in which a pipe was leaking could have prevented or greatly limited the disaster.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported details of that excruciating delay Wednesday morning, along with very different accounts of why it happened. The plant’s emergency response managers vaguely said they saw the leak as too minor–just “20 drops a minute” at first, to trigger an emergency or notify anyone. Until, of course, it suddenly got bigger and exploded into a blaze. But workers on the ground saw it differently and told their story to their union’s safety experts:

“From the time they did see the leak, they debated what to do,” said Kim Nibarger, who has investigated refinery accidents nationwide. “It was not so much whether to fix the leak, it was about what could they do to keep the line running and get it fixed.”

Nibarger based his opinion on Monday’s incident after discussions with union representatives at the refinery. The choice, he said, should have been clear.

“When you have hydrocarbons outside the pipe, you are no longer running at a normal condition. It’s time to shut the thing off and fix it, not to try to figure out a way around it.”

The last big fire at the Chevron Richmond refinery, in 2007, started the same way: a leak in the same refining unit, No. 4. Two employees were injured and the refinery was shut for months.

What one local resident said in 2007 sounds like it was today:

“Once those [emergency] sirens sound, you are supposed to shelter in place,” [the resident] said. “That means nobody goes to work, nobody comes to work in the west end of Richmond and no schools open. The cost of that is incredible.”

The costs of shutting down a refining unit to be on the safe side are nothing compared to the costs of shutting down a community, of treating respiratory crises at the emergency room, of higher child asthma rates.

Motorists will also pay. San Francisco and Los Angeles wholesale gasoline prices jumped 30 cents a gallon overnight following Monday’s fire. If recent history is any guide, other West Coast refiners will just grab the extra profit rather than raising production to keep supplies up and prices down. That’s exactly what happened after a major refinery accident in Washington State last year, according to a study commissioned by Sen. Maria Cantwell.

So all Californians will pay something for Chevron’s attempt to keep Unit 4 running even though its own emergency response team knew about the leak.

Safety procedures are also at issue in Chevron’s offhore drilling near Brazil, where 155,000 gallons of oil leaked from undersea cracks. Brazil last month accused Chevron of failing to follow its own procedural manual and dismissing troubling test results when it started production from the well. Chevron is also continuing to pay its lawyers millions of dollars to avoid paying damages to Ecuadoran peasants whose land was ruined by Texaco, which is now part of Chevron.

Chevron is not alone in this mindset.

BP ignored safety and quality questions about sealing cement used to cap a deep offshore well in the Gulf of Mexico two years ago, when it could have ordered the cement contractor, Halliburton, to start over (meaning at least a few days of delay). We all know how well that went. BP also skimped on maintenance and ignored corrosion of its Alaska pipeline near Prudhoe Bay in a 2006 spill of 200,000 gallons that shut down the pipeline. Exxon let a known drunk pilot its giant oil tanker, the Exxon Valdez.

It’s a long list. But the common thread is that safety is not a profit center for the oil industry and every penny spent on safety dings the bottom line. Until, of course, cleaning up the mess costs millions or billions.

Posted by Judy Dugan, research director for Consumer Watchdog, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to providing an effective voice for taxpayers and consumers in an era when special interests dominate public discourse, government and politics. Visit us on Facebook and Twitter.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a hazardous vapor spews out of an industrial plant, but no regulator reacts, was there ever a leak?

Well, on July 6, Evergreen Oil workers decided not to stick around to find out. Some 70 workers walked off the job the minute they heard there was a leak at the hazardous waste and used motor oil recycling plant. It was a “self-evacuation,” according to the Alameda County Fire Department. One worker did go to a medical facility, was evaluated for exposure, and later released. Everybody else came back sometime after the leak was contained in the mid-morning.

But no worries, said the Alameda Fire Department. The leak was harmless to people’s health. And Newark City officials patted Evergreen’s plant manager on the back for, get this, reporting the leak properly and quickly. Sadly, that could be a first.

Here’s what we know about Evergreen Oil up in Newark, California in the East Bay area:  It handles hazardous waste materials like anti-freeze and other toxic waste. And it’s the only oil refinery recycling used motor oil here in the West. It employs a couple of hundred workers, generates about $36 million in sales each year, and has been operating since the mid 1980s.

Now, recycling used motor oil is a great idea. We want to live sustainably. And we need to do something about the underbelly of toxic waste in California from chemicals used to make computers to the engine oil you left behind at your last oil change.

The problem is that Evergreen Oil’s operations aren’t safe. It’s a serial toxic polluter with a very long record. The point isn’t just this particular leak on July 6, which was quickly contained. The point is this leak is part of a much bigger problem involving Evergreen’s record of operations, and its ability to negotiate its way out any real accountability.

Since opening in 1986, nearly every agency with the ability to fine Evergreen has done so. Evergreen’s been cited for dangerous levels of cyanide, arsenic, and other harmful chemicals in its wastewater, for violating public health standards, for the toxic gases it has allowed to emanate from the site and that have, on occasion, reached the nostrils of school children, for poisonous fumes and odors at the site, for an explosion, and for illegally handling, treating and disposing of hazardous waste.

Yet, almost every single time, California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control has given Evergreen a pass to stay out of court with wrist-slap fines and promises the company will clean up its act. But somehow, Evergreen is never clean. Since it opened, Evergreen has had at least five major fires at its facility, at least three major oil spills, over 100 hazmat and odor incidents requiring the Newark Fire Department’s response, and thousands of complaints from the community to local authorities. If that wasn’t enough, in March 2011, a huge explosion at the Evergreen facility involving a hydrochloric acid tank and waste oil sent flames hundreds of feet into the air and nearly required an evacuation of the surrounding areas.

It’s understandable that local officials and the community want the jobs. But when it came to land use, local officials didn’t think much about the plant’s location. Evergreen operations are less than half a mile from a housing development. A former Newark City Manager, Alberto Huezo, put it like this to the Oakland Tribune: “This goes back to the fact that it’s an industry we desperately need. But it was put in the wrong place-and the neighbors were there first.”

An alphabet soup of state and local regulators has authority over Evergreen. It has permits for hazardous waste handling, storage, and disposal, air quality, waste water and more. But all these regulators seem to be leaving it to the next guy to figure out what went wrong and who’s responsible for enforcement. There are some boots on the ground investigating, but nothing is bubbling to the surface yet.

The Department of Toxic Substances Control should step in as the lead regulator. Evergreen is a hazardous waste plant, after all. But the department says its permit exempts from regulation the part of Evergreen’s plant involving certified recycled oil since it is no longer considered a “hazardous material.” That’s the part of the plant where the leak allegedly occurred. Never mind that recycled oil still contains toxins. And what leaked wasn’t the oil anyway, it was a hazardous heat transfer chemical used in the refining process.

As the DTSC investigates its own authority to regulate, its first instinct should always be proactive and protective. Because when an Evergreen falls, it definitely gives off smells and sometimes much worse.

Timidity and Fragmented Oversight of Evergreen Oil Plant Hamper Enforcement, Endanger Community, Says Group

New information obtained from emergency responders shows that a July 6th high-temperature leak at the Evergreen Oil re-refining plant in Newark, California involved a hazardous industrial chemical, not just recycled motor oil, as initially reported. Consumer Watchdog called on the chief regulator of the facility to shut the plant down. In a letter sent Tuesday to Debbie Raphael, Director of the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), the consumer organization asked her to convene fragmented regulatory agencies and respond strongly to the latest in a long series of safety violations and accidents at the plant in Newark, CA.

According to Consumer Watchdog, regulators are unclear about who is the lead regulator overseeing the facility, with DTSC’s own enforcers acknowledging they are uncertain of the department’s authority over the whole plant, which processes used motor oil. They were also not aware of what actions other agencies might be taking.

“The DTSC, which should be the leader in any event involving this serial safety violator, seems almost to be looking for reasons not to get involved,” said Consumer Watchdog advocate Liza Tucker. “This is an opportunity for the new director to show strong leadership and creativity in a department that appears to have faltered for years.”

The letter sent Tuesday said in part:

“Such holes in oversight must be filled for the safety of all Californians.  Rather than parsing its ability to regulate this portion and not that portion of a toxic waste plant, the DTSC should put itself at the forefront of saying that this is one dangerous accident too many….. ”

“On its face, the idea that the DTSC would have authority to regulate one part of a hazardous waste plant but not another is absurd, particularly when the release on July 6 was hazardous enough to warrant an evacuation, whether the dangerous leak was in the re-refinery area of the plant or not. ”

Download the entire letter here with a timeline of events

On July 6, a pipe leak spewed a hazardous vapor filled with “heat transfer” chemicals used in re-refining. That  triggered an emergency evacuation of the facility.  The company and Newark police warned the surrounding community, including a nearby elementary school, to expect a wave of “strong chemical odors” from the leak.

See link to CAL-EMA public record of initial report here.

The DTSC said that the leak on July 6 took place in a portion of Evergreen’s facility where recycled oil is processed.  A DTSC official stated that the department’s hands are tied because the permit issued to Evergreen does not cover the part of the facility where the leak occurred. According to DTSC, once the waste oil has been partially treated, it is no longer considered a “hazard.”  But the heat transfer liquid used to control refining temperatures is hazardous, according to the Alameda County Health and Environmental Agency.

“Evergreen’s long history of repeated and serious safety violations has to come to an end,” said Tucker. “The department has to take control of the situation, including coordination with other regulators, for the sake of the community surrounding the Evergreen plant, and to set an example for all Californians.”

The July 6 accident markeds the latest in a string of problems at the plant that includes a burst pipe and major fire in March 2011 and repeated citations by the DTSC for safety violations and carelessness.  Yet the DTSC has let the company off the hook with consent decrees and hand-slap fines for at least a dozen years, said Consumer Watchdog.  The group said now is the opportune time for new leadership at the DTSC to rethink its approach to regulating hazardous waste and recycling facilities.

Click here for more.

Read Consumer Watchdog’s July 16 letter to DTSC Director Debbie Raphael here.

Also read Consumer Watchdog’s April 9 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee.  

State Department of toxic Substances Control Must Send “Strong Message” to Evergreen Oil Re-Refiner Over Repeated Safety Lapses, Accidents

Consumer Watchdog called on the Director of the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, Debbie Raphael, to indefinitely close the Evergreen Oil waste-oil re-refinery in Newark, Ca. in a letter sent today. On July 6, a pipe leak spewed “superheated oil” and triggered an emergency evacuation of the facility. The company and Newark police warned the surrounding community, including a nearby elementary school, to expect a wave of “strong odors” from the leak.

Read today’s letter to Raphael here

Consumer Watchdog cited repeated problems at the facility as an example of DTSC’s failure to take tough action against toxic industries that continue to operate after repeated safety violations near homes and schools in testimony and a letter presented at Debbie Raphael’s State Senate confirmation hearings in April.

The confirmation letter said several companies, including Evergreen, “appear to have manipulated or ignored the DTSC and other agencies to the detriment of concerned and frustrated local residents.”

The accident marks the latest in a string of problems at the plant that re-refines used motor oil, including a burst pipe and major fire in March 2011 and repeated citations by the DTSC for safety violations and carelessness.

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“Consumer Watchdog is appalled to learn of yet another accident at the Newark-based used oil recycler Evergreen Oil,” said Liza Tucker, an advocate at Consumer Watchdog. “We call on the DTSC to shut this refinery down indefinitely. Evergreen needs to know that sloppy safety procedures, and refusal to fix or replace shoddy infrastructure, is simply unacceptable.”

The DTSC has let the company off the hook with consent decrees and hand-slap fines for at least a dozen years, said Consumer Watchdog. The group called for the new leadership at the DTSC to send toxic industries a strong message that there is a new sheriff in town who won’t allow careless endangerment.

The letter sent today to Director Raphael said in part:

“Your department has repeatedly cited Evergreen Oil for cracks and gaps in waste container storage and transfer areas, failing to track contaminated petroleum waste coming in and out of the facility, careless soil contamination, and omissions in its own inspection system.

“Still, the DTSC fined this company that generates some $36 million in annual revenues less than $60,000 under six separate consent decrees between 2006 and 2011. This practice of accepting promises that Evergreen will police itself, instead of taking the company to court, has been an abject failure. The DTSC has cited the company for failure to follow even its own simple safety procedures.

“At the same time, members of the local community say that for 25 years Evergreen has ignored federal and state laws and polluted their neighborhoods.”

The department has a special responsibility to working and middle class families in the small cities where companies produce and recycle toxics including PCBs, dioxin, and heavy metals near homes and schools, Consumer Watchdog said. Too many of these companies have mastered the arts of delay to avoid fixing leaks, improving infrastructure, and following adequate internal safety controls.

“Evergreen Oil has proven repeatedly that it cannot be trusted,” said Tucker. “The DTSC and other regulators need to put community safety first and show zero tolerance for such polluters.”

Consumer Watchdog has previously described problems at several hazardous waste sites, and also called for reforms at the DTSC to address a lack of transparency, a disconnect between inspection and enforcement, and a preference for weak settlements instead of more aggressive prosecution of serial violators.

Read Letter to Director Raphael

Also read Consumer Watchdog’s April 9 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee

State Department of toxic Substances Control Must Send “Strong Message” to Evergreen Oil Re-Refiner Over Repeated Safety Lapses, Accidents

Consumer Watchdog called on the Director of the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, Debbie Raphael, to indefinitely close the Evergreen Oil waste-oil re-refinery in Newark, Ca. in a letter sent today.  On July 6, a pipe leak spewed “superheated oil” and triggered an emergency evacuation of the facility.  The company and Newark police warned the surrounding community, including a nearby elementary school, to expect a wave of “strong odors” from the leak.

Read today’s letter to Raphael here

Consumer Watchdog cited repeated problems at the facility as an example of DTSC’s failure to take tough action against toxic industries that continue to operate after repeated safety violations near homes and schools in testimony and a letter presented at Debbie Raphael’s State Senate confirmation hearings in April.

The confirmation letter said several companies, including Evergreen, “appear to have manipulated or ignored the DTSC and other agencies to the detriment of concerned and frustrated local residents.”

The accident marks the latest in a string of problems at the plant that re-refines used motor oil, including a burst pipe and major fire in March 2011 and repeated citations by the DTSC for safety violations and carelessness.

“Consumer Watchdog is appalled to learn of yet another accident at the Newark-based used oil recycler Evergreen Oil,” said Liza Tucker, an advocate at Consumer Watchdog.  “We call on the DTSC to shut this refinery down indefinitely.   Evergreen needs to know that sloppy safety procedures, and refusal to fix or replace shoddy infrastructure, is simply unacceptable.”

The DTSC has let the company off the hook with consent decrees and hand-slap fines for at least a dozen years, said Consumer Watchdog.  The group called for the new leadership at the DTSC to send toxic industries a strong message that there is a new sheriff in town who won’t allow careless endangerment.

The letter sent today to Director Raphael said in part:

“Your department has repeatedly cited Evergreen Oil for cracks and gaps in waste container storage and transfer areas, failing to track contaminated petroleum waste coming in and out of the facility, careless soil contamination, and omissions in its own inspection system.

“Still, the DTSC fined this company that generates some $36 million in annual revenues less than $60,000 under six separate consent decrees between 2006 and 2011.  This practice of accepting promises that Evergreen will police itself, instead of taking the company to court, has been an abject failure. The DTSC has cited the company for failure to follow even its own simple safety procedures.

“At the same time, members of the local community say that for 25 years Evergreen has ignored federal and state laws and polluted their neighborhoods.”

The department has a special responsibility to working and middle class families in the small cities where companies produce and recycle toxics including PCBs, dioxin, and heavy metals near homes and schools, Consumer Watchdog said.  Too many of these companies have mastered the arts of delay to avoid fixing leaks, improving infrastructure, and following adequate internal safety controls.

“Evergreen Oil has proven repeatedly that it cannot be trusted,” said Tucker.  “The DTSC and other regulators need to put community safety first and show zero tolerance for such polluters.”

Consumer Watchdog has previously described problems at several hazardous waste sites, and also called for reforms at the DTSC to address a lack of transparency, a disconnect between inspection and enforcement, and a preference for weak settlements instead of more aggressive prosecution of serial violators.

Read Letter to Director Raphael

Also read Consumer Watchdog’s April 9 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee

– 30 –

State Department of toxic Substances Control Must Send “Strong Message” to Evergreen Oil Re-Refiner Over Repeated Safety Lapses, Accidents

Consumer Watchdog called on the Director of the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, Debbie Raphael, to indefinitely close the Evergreen Oil waste-oil re-refinery in Newark, Ca. in a letter sent today.  On July 6, a pipe leak spewed “superheated oil” and triggered an emergency evacuation of the facility.  The company and Newark police warned the surrounding community, including a nearby elementary school, to expect a wave of “strong odors” from the leak.

Read today’s letter to Raphael here

Consumer Watchdog cited repeated problems at the facility as an example of DTSC’s failure to take tough action against toxic industries that continue to operate after repeated safety violations near homes and schools in testimony and a letter presented at Debbie Raphael’s State Senate confirmation hearings in April.

The confirmation letter said several companies, including Evergreen, “appear to have manipulated or ignored the DTSC and other agencies to the detriment of concerned and frustrated local residents.”

The accident marks the latest in a string of problems at the plant that re-refines used motor oil, including a burst pipe and major fire in March 2011 and repeated citations by the DTSC for safety violations and carelessness.

“Consumer Watchdog is appalled to learn of yet another accident at the Newark-based used oil recycler Evergreen Oil,” said Liza Tucker, an advocate at Consumer Watchdog.  “We call on the DTSC to shut this refinery down indefinitely.   Evergreen needs to know that sloppy safety procedures, and refusal to fix or replace shoddy infrastructure, is simply unacceptable.”

The DTSC has let the company off the hook with consent decrees and hand-slap fines for at least a dozen years, said Consumer Watchdog.  The group called for the new leadership at the DTSC to send toxic industries a strong message that there is a new sheriff in town who won’t allow careless endangerment.

The letter sent today to Director Raphael said in part:

“Your department has repeatedly cited Evergreen Oil for cracks and gaps in waste container storage and transfer areas, failing to track contaminated petroleum waste coming in and out of the facility, careless soil contamination, and omissions in its own inspection system.

“Still, the DTSC fined this company that generates some $36 million in annual revenues less than $60,000 under six separate consent decrees between 2006 and 2011.  This practice of accepting promises that Evergreen will police itself, instead of taking the company to court, has been an abject failure. The DTSC has cited the company for failure to follow even its own simple safety procedures.

“At the same time, members of the local community say that for 25 years Evergreen has ignored federal and state laws and polluted their neighborhoods.”

The department has a special responsibility to working and middle class families in the small cities where companies produce and recycle toxics including PCBs, dioxin, and heavy metals near homes and schools, Consumer Watchdog said.  Too many of these companies have mastered the arts of delay to avoid fixing leaks, improving infrastructure, and following adequate internal safety controls.

“Evergreen Oil has proven repeatedly that it cannot be trusted,” said Tucker.  “The DTSC and other regulators need to put community safety first and show zero tolerance for such polluters.”

Consumer Watchdog has previously described problems at several hazardous waste sites, and also called for reforms at the DTSC to address a lack of transparency, a disconnect between inspection and enforcement, and a preference for weak settlements instead of more aggressive prosecution of serial violators.

Read Letter to Director Raphael

Also read Consumer Watchdog’s April 9 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee

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State Department of toxic Substances Control Must Send “Strong Message” to Evergreen Oil Re-Refiner Over Repeated Safety Lapses, Accidents

Consumer Watchdog called on the Director of the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, Debbie Raphael, to indefinitely close the Evergreen Oil waste-oil re-refinery in Newark, Ca. in a letter sent today.  On July 6, a pipe leak spewed “superheated oil” and triggered an emergency evacuation of the facility.  The company and Newark police warned the surrounding community, including a nearby elementary school, to expect a wave of “strong odors” from the leak.

Read today’s letter to Raphael here

Consumer Watchdog cited repeated problems at the facility as an example of DTSC’s failure to take tough action against toxic industries that continue to operate after repeated safety violations near homes and schools in testimony and a letter presented at Debbie Raphael’s State Senate confirmation hearings in April.

The confirmation letter said several companies, including Evergreen, “appear to have manipulated or ignored the DTSC and other agencies to the detriment of concerned and frustrated local residents.”

The accident marks the latest in a string of problems at the plant that re-refines used motor oil, including a burst pipe and major fire in March 2011 and repeated citations by the DTSC for safety violations and carelessness.

“Consumer Watchdog is appalled to learn of yet another accident at the Newark-based used oil recycler Evergreen Oil,” said Liza Tucker, an advocate at Consumer Watchdog.  “We call on the DTSC to shut this refinery down indefinitely.   Evergreen needs to know that sloppy safety procedures, and refusal to fix or replace shoddy infrastructure, is simply unacceptable.”

The DTSC has let the company off the hook with consent decrees and hand-slap fines for at least a dozen years, said Consumer Watchdog.  The group called for the new leadership at the DTSC to send toxic industries a strong message that there is a new sheriff in town who won’t allow careless endangerment.

The letter sent today to Director Raphael said in part:

“Your department has repeatedly cited Evergreen Oil for cracks and gaps in waste container storage and transfer areas, failing to track contaminated petroleum waste coming in and out of the facility, careless soil contamination, and omissions in its own inspection system.

“Still, the DTSC fined this company that generates some $36 million in annual revenues less than $60,000 under six separate consent decrees between 2006 and 2011.  This practice of accepting promises that Evergreen will police itself, instead of taking the company to court, has been an abject failure. The DTSC has cited the company for failure to follow even its own simple safety procedures.

“At the same time, members of the local community say that for 25 years Evergreen has ignored federal and state laws and polluted their neighborhoods.”

The department has a special responsibility to working and middle class families in the small cities where companies produce and recycle toxics including PCBs, dioxin, and heavy metals near homes and schools, Consumer Watchdog said.  Too many of these companies have mastered the arts of delay to avoid fixing leaks, improving infrastructure, and following adequate internal safety controls.

“Evergreen Oil has proven repeatedly that it cannot be trusted,” said Tucker.  “The DTSC and other regulators need to put community safety first and show zero tolerance for such polluters.”

Consumer Watchdog has previously described problems at several hazardous waste sites, and also called for reforms at the DTSC to address a lack of transparency, a disconnect between inspection and enforcement, and a preference for weak settlements instead of more aggressive prosecution of serial violators.

Read Letter to Director Raphael

Also read Consumer Watchdog’s April 9 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee

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Fracking for natural gas is perceived as an issue east of the Rocky Mountains – Texas, North Dakota, and the Marcellus Shale. California runs on natural gas and hydropower. Fracking is happening in California, but it’s a secret.

How much of a secret? The state literally doesn’t know:

Its actual words were: “The Division is unable to identify where and how often hydraulic fracturing occurs within the state.” It also said that “the Division has not yet developed regulations to address this activity.”

A February 2012 report (PDF) by the Environmental Working Group found that the state has long turned a blind eye to fracking. Its regulators have simply asked the frackers, nicely, to make voluntary disclosures. In Ventura County, the voluntary disclosures show that one well has been fracked, but the state estimates that virtually all of the 240 wells in a local field have been fracked.

The state is planning a new set of regulations. For now, it’s wiped its website clean of fracking information. It’s holding workshops up and down the state, ostensibly to listen to the concerns of Californians before crafting new regulations.

I attended the one of the first workshops, held on May 30 in Ventura. A reporter estimated 175 people in attendance; I counted about 25 speakers in opposition to some degree (mostly calling for a ban), and 3 people (all involved in the industry) favoring fracking. By an interesting coincidence, every person who specified a desired regulation was asked to submit comments in writing, but every person who opposed fracking entirely was simply thanked with a pained smile and glazed eyes.

A Culver City workshop on June 12 had an even stronger response: the standing room only crowd of several hundred wanted a total ban. In Salinas on June 29, the strawberry growers’ industry – not normally perceived as environmentally friendly – joined with greens to query fracking safety.  A Santa Maria workshop will take place tonight, with the final workshop July 25 in Sacramento.

There’s a lot of reasons why fracking anywhere is a bad idea. There’s a lot more specific reasons why a water-intensive process that may cause earthquakes is a bad idea in California. California has showcased alternatives, from distributed generation (rooftop) solar to massive desert solar. People who show up at workshops are speaking. Are the regulators listening?