We need your help! In the last week of the legislative session, polluters may be getting a big gift if last minute legislation is not amended.
Californians can look forward to hazardous waste being “left in place” instead of removed and sent to specially constructed and licensed facilities under last minute amendments to Speaker John Perez’s Assembly Bill 1330. The legislation now calls for meeting environmental targets by “reducing the disposal of hazardous waste.”
That’s like “cleaning up” Prince William Sound by letting Exxon leave oil in the Bay.
The toxic amendment appears to be the brain child of polluters and Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) Director Debbie Raphael. The DTSC has been the subject of whistleblower and consumer complaints that it is falling down on the job, but the last minute amendments would let polluters have a pass on cleaning up their pollution. Among the beneficiaries are Boeing, Chevron, KB Homes, Lockheed Martin and Waste Management, all prolific donors in Sacramento.
No doubt major industry players from Boeing – with its radioactively contaminated Simi Valley land – to KB Homes – and their plans to build on radioactive sites next to industrial factories without adequate clean up, are rubbing their hands together. This legislation disposes of the need for disposal, saving them millions of dollars and making official what the DTSC has already been quietly sanctioning.
Waste that is not removed continues to expose the public to toxins via different pathways from breathing it in to ingesting it through food or water.
Please take a minute to weigh in with your state lawmakers and stop this power grab by polluters.
Posted by Liza Tucker, Consumer Advocate and Author of the Golden Wasteland Report. For more information on Consumer Watchdog and our Toxics Watchdog project, follow us online on Facebook and Twitter.