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Dozens of Texas water systems exceed new federal limits on “forever chemicals”

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Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. In Texas, 49 public water utility systems have reported surpassing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s first-ever limits for five “forever chemicals” in drinking water, according to data submitted to the federal agency. Experts say there are likely more since not all water systems have submitted their data. PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are widespread and long lasting in the environment. They are called “forever chemicals” because they don't break down and can persist in water and soil, and even human blood indefinitely. The chemicals have been used since the 1940s to repel oil and water and resist heat. They have been included in thousands of household products from nonstick cookware to industrial products like firefighting foam. There are more than 12,000 types of individual forever chemicals, but new EPA standards announced last week set new limits for five of them: PFOA and PFOS have a limit of 4 parts per trillion while PFHxS, PFNA, and HFPO-DA have a limit of 10 parts per trillion. One part per trillion is equivalent to a single drop of water in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The new standards will require water utilities to meet them within five years. The EPA estimates that the new limits, which are legally enforceable, will reduce exposure for 100 million people nationwide and help prevent thousands of deaths and illnesses, including from cancer. One study found the chemicals in the blood of nearly 97% of all Americans. Exposure to PFAS has been linked to cancer, causing low birth rate and birth defects, damage to the liver and immune system, and other serious health problems. In 2022, the EPA issued health advisories that said the chemicals were much more hazardous to human health than scientists originally thought. “Drinking water contaminated with PFAS has plagued communities across this country for too long,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a press release last week. “That is why President Biden has made tackling PFAS a top priority, investing historic resources to address these harmful chemicals and protect communities nationwide.” EPA estimates that between about 6% and 10% of the 66,000 public drinking water systems subject to this rule may have to take action to reduce PFAS to meet these new standards. The new standards will require all public water utility systems to submit PFAS data to the EPA. So far, only about 24% of them have submitted this data nationally. EPA expects all data to be submitted by 2026. In Texas, more than 420 public water systems have submitted PFAS results to the federal agency and 113 of them detected some level of PFAS in the water. Of those, nearly 50 public water systems reported at least one exceedance of any of the five chemicals that the EPA targeted. Some of the cities on that list include Abilene, Arlington, Baytown, Deer Park, Fort Worth, Grapevine, and Dallas (the full list can be found at the end of this story). “These are very harmful chemicals. It's even more important for [water systems] to address this in the drinking water to minimize the exposure of people in Texas,” said Maria Doa, a senior director of chemicals policy for the environmental nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, after looking at Texas’ PFAS results. Public water systems will have three years to complete their initial monitoring for these chemicals and will be required to inform the public of the level of PFAS measured in their drinking water. Fort Worth’s water system has already done both. Fort Worth’s water testing found three of the five newly-regulated contaminants exceeding limits. In the city’s North and South Holly water treatment plants, located on the west side near the city’s botanic garden and the zoo, PFHxS levels ranged from 12.2 to 25.8 parts per trillion, compared to the new federal limit of 10 parts per trillion. PFOA levels at both plants ranged from 4.2 to 8.3 parts per trillion, above the new limit of 4 parts per trillion. According to the city's website, the water system serves more than 1.3 million people in Fort Worth and surrounding communities. “Even though the rule does give us more time to come into compliance, we're not delaying our plans or anything,” said Mary Gugliuzza, a media relations and communications coordinator for the Fort Worth Water Department. Gugliuzza said that as soon as the city started seeing results come in last year it began the process of soliciting proposals for how to treat the chemicals. City officials expect to award a contract for PFAS treatment this summer. “To be honest, there's not a lot of technologies available for [treatment] and the cost to implement the technology is going to be very expensive,” Gugliuzza said. One method Fort Worth is considering using activated carbon, which is commonly used to filter contaminants from water. The activated carbon would attract and hold the PFAS for removal. The EPA has approved the use of activated carbon, reverse osmosis (purifying water using pressure) and ion exchange systems (a chemical process) to remove PFAS from drinking water. To help cities treat their water for PFAS, the EPA has allocated $9 billion through the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. But Gugliuzza said securing funding doesn’t mean everything will be paid for and some of the cost may be passed on to city water customers. Gage Zobell, a partner at the international law firm Dorsey & Whitney, has been following the EPA’s PFAS regulations closely. The firm, which has an office in Dallas, represents some Texas utilities as well as 3M, a company that has been a major contributor to the production of PFAS. Zobell said the federal funding will not come close to covering the cost of removing PFAS from drinking water, which leaves water utilities with two options: charging their customers more to pay for upgrades required to meet the new standards, or suing the companies responsible for the PFAS in their water. Several cities are already seeking to sue chemical manufacturers. Last year, Fort Worth and Dallas rejected two class action settlements with chemical manufacturers 3M and DuPont, which faced hundreds of legal claims by U.S water providers that the companies polluted public drinking water with the chemicals. 3M had agreed to pay $10.3 billion and DuPont agreed to pay $1.2 billion. But the water systems in the neighboring North Texas cities said the settlements were “inadequate” and decided to opt out of the settlement so that they could file their own lawsuits against the chemical manufacturers. “The need for easy access to water is becoming expensive,” Zobell said. “This is only going to be adding to the expense … especially [in] dry and hot states like Texas, where rates already have to be high for your water.” The American Water Works Association released a study last year estimating the national cost for treatment systems to reduce just two of the five chemicals, PFOA and PFOS, to meet the EPA standards would surpass $3.8 billion per year. Viraj deSilva, a PFAS expert and senior treatment process leader at Freese and Nichols, a consulting and engineering firm, said Texas had been a bit slow to pursue PFAS treatment because the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state’s environmental agency, was waiting for federal limits to be finalized. He said companies that provide treatment for PFAS will now be in high demand and cities must take action now. Texas water utilities that have reported one or more PFAS chemical exceeding the new federal standard: Abilene Northeast and Grimes Water Treatment Plant Town of Anthony Arlington Pierce Burch Water Treatment Plant Baytown Area Water Authority Big Springs Water Plant Clear Lake Water Authority Childress Water Plant Cockrell Hill Water Plant Coupland: Manville Water Supply Corporation Dallas Water Utility Eula Water Supply Cooperation in Clyde Deer Park Surface Water Treatment Plant Duncanville Water Treatment Plant Edinburg Wastewater Plant City of Farmers Branch Town of Flower Mound Wastewater Treatment Fort Bend County Municipal Utility District No. 133 Fort Bend County Municipal Utility District No. 41 Fort Worth North and South Holly Water Treatment Plant Gastonia Scurry Special Utility District Georgetown San Gabriel Park Water Treatment Plant Grapevine Water Treatment Plant Greenville Water Treatment Plant Haltom City Harris County Municipal Utility District No. 119 Harris County Municipal Utility District No. 8 Houston: Spencer Road Public Utility District Hudson Oaks Lakeshore Plant Huntsville Palm Street Water Plant Irving MacArthur Pump Station Katy: Big Oaks Municipal Utility District Killeen: West Bell County Water Supply La Feria Water Treatment Plant City of Lake Worth City of Livingston Midland Water Purification Plant Prosper Custer Pump Station Port Lavaca Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority Water Treatment Plant San Antonio Water System Castle Hills City of Seagoville Seguin: Springs Hill Water Supply Corporation Temple Water Treatment Plant Terrell North Texas Municipal Water District City of Tye Weatherford Water Treatment Plant West University Place Plant 1 and 2 Tickets are on sale now for the 2024 Texas Tribune Festival, happening in downtown Austin Sept. 5-7. Get your TribFest tickets before May 1 and save big!

The EPA set its first-ever drinking water limits for five types of PFAS chemicals, and nearly 50 of Texas public water systems have reported exceeding the new limits for at least one.

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

In Texas, 49 public water utility systems have reported surpassing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s first-ever limits for five “forever chemicals” in drinking water, according to data submitted to the federal agency.

Experts say there are likely more since not all water systems have submitted their data.

PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are widespread and long lasting in the environment. They are called “forever chemicals” because they don't break down and can persist in water and soil, and even human blood indefinitely. The chemicals have been used since the 1940s to repel oil and water and resist heat. They have been included in thousands of household products from nonstick cookware to industrial products like firefighting foam.

There are more than 12,000 types of individual forever chemicals, but new EPA standards announced last week set new limits for five of them: PFOA and PFOS have a limit of 4 parts per trillion while PFHxS, PFNA, and HFPO-DA have a limit of 10 parts per trillion.

One part per trillion is equivalent to a single drop of water in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

The new standards will require water utilities to meet them within five years. The EPA estimates that the new limits, which are legally enforceable, will reduce exposure for 100 million people nationwide and help prevent thousands of deaths and illnesses, including from cancer.

One study found the chemicals in the blood of nearly 97% of all Americans. Exposure to PFAS has been linked to cancer, causing low birth rate and birth defects, damage to the liver and immune system, and other serious health problems. In 2022, the EPA issued health advisories that said the chemicals were much more hazardous to human health than scientists originally thought.

“Drinking water contaminated with PFAS has plagued communities across this country for too long,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a press release last week. “That is why President Biden has made tackling PFAS a top priority, investing historic resources to address these harmful chemicals and protect communities nationwide.”

EPA estimates that between about 6% and 10% of the 66,000 public drinking water systems subject to this rule may have to take action to reduce PFAS to meet these new standards.

The new standards will require all public water utility systems to submit PFAS data to the EPA. So far, only about 24% of them have submitted this data nationally. EPA expects all data to be submitted by 2026. In Texas, more than 420 public water systems have submitted PFAS results to the federal agency and 113 of them detected some level of PFAS in the water.

Of those, nearly 50 public water systems reported at least one exceedance of any of the five chemicals that the EPA targeted. Some of the cities on that list include Abilene, Arlington, Baytown, Deer Park, Fort Worth, Grapevine, and Dallas (the full list can be found at the end of this story).

“These are very harmful chemicals. It's even more important for [water systems] to address this in the drinking water to minimize the exposure of people in Texas,” said Maria Doa, a senior director of chemicals policy for the environmental nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, after looking at Texas’ PFAS results.

Public water systems will have three years to complete their initial monitoring for these chemicals and will be required to inform the public of the level of PFAS measured in their drinking water. Fort Worth’s water system has already done both.

Fort Worth’s water testing found three of the five newly-regulated contaminants exceeding limits. In the city’s North and South Holly water treatment plants, located on the west side near the city’s botanic garden and the zoo, PFHxS levels ranged from 12.2 to 25.8 parts per trillion, compared to the new federal limit of 10 parts per trillion. PFOA levels at both plants ranged from 4.2 to 8.3 parts per trillion, above the new limit of 4 parts per trillion.

According to the city's website, the water system serves more than 1.3 million people in Fort Worth and surrounding communities.

“Even though the rule does give us more time to come into compliance, we're not delaying our plans or anything,” said Mary Gugliuzza, a media relations and communications coordinator for the Fort Worth Water Department.

Gugliuzza said that as soon as the city started seeing results come in last year it began the process of soliciting proposals for how to treat the chemicals. City officials expect to award a contract for PFAS treatment this summer.

“To be honest, there's not a lot of technologies available for [treatment] and the cost to implement the technology is going to be very expensive,” Gugliuzza said.

One method Fort Worth is considering using activated carbon, which is commonly used to filter contaminants from water. The activated carbon would attract and hold the PFAS for removal.

The EPA has approved the use of activated carbon, reverse osmosis (purifying water using pressure) and ion exchange systems (a chemical process) to remove PFAS from drinking water.

To help cities treat their water for PFAS, the EPA has allocated $9 billion through the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. But Gugliuzza said securing funding doesn’t mean everything will be paid for and some of the cost may be passed on to city water customers.

Gage Zobell, a partner at the international law firm Dorsey & Whitney, has been following the EPA’s PFAS regulations closely. The firm, which has an office in Dallas, represents some Texas utilities as well as 3M, a company that has been a major contributor to the production of PFAS.

Zobell said the federal funding will not come close to covering the cost of removing PFAS from drinking water, which leaves water utilities with two options: charging their customers more to pay for upgrades required to meet the new standards, or suing the companies responsible for the PFAS in their water.

Several cities are already seeking to sue chemical manufacturers. Last year, Fort Worth and Dallas rejected two class action settlements with chemical manufacturers 3M and DuPont, which faced hundreds of legal claims by U.S water providers that the companies polluted public drinking water with the chemicals. 3M had agreed to pay $10.3 billion and DuPont agreed to pay $1.2 billion.

But the water systems in the neighboring North Texas cities said the settlements were “inadequate” and decided to opt out of the settlement so that they could file their own lawsuits against the chemical manufacturers.

“The need for easy access to water is becoming expensive,” Zobell said. “This is only going to be adding to the expense … especially [in] dry and hot states like Texas, where rates already have to be high for your water.”

The American Water Works Association released a study last year estimating the national cost for treatment systems to reduce just two of the five chemicals, PFOA and PFOS, to meet the EPA standards would surpass $3.8 billion per year.

Viraj deSilva, a PFAS expert and senior treatment process leader at Freese and Nichols, a consulting and engineering firm, said Texas had been a bit slow to pursue PFAS treatment because the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state’s environmental agency, was waiting for federal limits to be finalized. He said companies that provide treatment for PFAS will now be in high demand and cities must take action now.

Texas water utilities that have reported one or more PFAS chemical exceeding the new federal standard:

Abilene Northeast and Grimes Water Treatment Plant
Town of Anthony
Arlington Pierce Burch Water Treatment Plant
Baytown Area Water Authority
Big Springs Water Plant
Clear Lake Water Authority
Childress Water Plant
Cockrell Hill Water Plant
Coupland: Manville Water Supply Corporation
Dallas Water Utility Eula Water Supply Cooperation in Clyde
Deer Park Surface Water Treatment Plant
Duncanville Water Treatment Plant
Edinburg Wastewater Plant
City of Farmers Branch
Town of Flower Mound Wastewater Treatment
Fort Bend County Municipal Utility District No. 133
Fort Bend County Municipal Utility District No. 41
Fort Worth North and South Holly Water Treatment Plant
Gastonia Scurry Special Utility District
Georgetown San Gabriel Park Water Treatment Plant
Grapevine Water Treatment Plant
Greenville Water Treatment Plant
Haltom City
Harris County Municipal Utility District No. 119
Harris County Municipal Utility District No. 8
Houston: Spencer Road Public Utility District
Hudson Oaks Lakeshore Plant
Huntsville Palm Street Water Plant
Irving MacArthur Pump Station
Katy: Big Oaks Municipal Utility District
Killeen: West Bell County Water Supply
La Feria Water Treatment Plant
City of Lake Worth
City of Livingston
Midland Water Purification Plant
Prosper Custer Pump Station
Port Lavaca Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority Water Treatment Plant
San Antonio Water System Castle Hills
City of Seagoville
Seguin: Springs Hill Water Supply Corporation
Temple Water Treatment Plant
Terrell North Texas Municipal Water District
City of Tye
Weatherford Water Treatment Plant
West University Place Plant 1 and 2

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Read the full story here.

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The researchers are exploring ways to incorporate the film into lighter, higher-precision night-vision glasses.“This film considerably reduces weight and cost, making it lightweight, portable, and easier to integrate,” Xinyuan Zhang, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE). “For example, it could be directly worn on glasses.”The heat-sensing film could also have applications in environmental and biological sensing, as well as imaging of astrophysical phenomena that emit far-infrared radiation.What’s more, the new lift-off technique is generalizable beyond pyroelectric materials. The researchers plan to apply the method to make other ultrathin, high-performance semiconducting films.Their results are reported today in a paper appearing in the journal Nature. The study’s MIT co-authors are first author Xinyuan Zhang, Sangho Lee, Min-Kyu Song, Haihui Lan, Jun Min Suh, Jung-El Ryu, Yanjie Shao, Xudong Zheng, Ne Myo Han, and Jeehwan Kim, associate professor of mechanical engineering and of materials science and engineering, along with researchers at the University Wisconsin at Madison led by Professor Chang-Beom Eom and authors from multiple other institutions.Chemical peelKim’s group at MIT is finding new ways to make smaller, thinner, and more flexible electronics. They envision that such ultrathin computing “skins” can be incorporated into everything from smart contact lenses and wearable sensing fabrics to stretchy solar cells and bendable displays. To realize such devices, Kim and his colleagues have been experimenting with methods to grow, peel, and stack semiconducting elements, to fabricate ultrathin, multifunctional electronic thin-film membranes.One method that Kim has pioneered is “remote epitaxy” — a technique where semiconducting materials are grown on a single-crystalline substrate, with an ultrathin layer of graphene in between. The substrate’s crystal structure serves as a scaffold along which the new material can grow. The graphene acts as a nonstick layer, similar to Teflon, making it easy for researchers to peel off the new film and transfer it onto flexible and stacked electronic devices. After peeling off the new film, the underlying substrate can be reused to make additional thin films.Kim has applied remote epitaxy to fabricate thin films with various characteristics. In trying different combinations of semiconducting elements, the researchers happened to notice that a certain pyroelectric material, called PMN-PT, did not require an intermediate layer assist in order to separate from its substrate. Just by growing PMN-PT directly on a single-crystalline substrate, the researchers could then remove the grown film, with no rips or tears to its delicate lattice.“It worked surprisingly well,” Zhang says. “We found the peeled film is atomically smooth.”Lattice lift-offIn their new study, the MIT and UW Madison researchers took a closer look at the process and discovered that the key to the material’s easy-peel property was lead. As part of its chemical structure, the team, along with colleagues at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, discovered that the pyroelectric film contains an orderly arrangement of lead atoms that have a large “electron affinity,” meaning that lead attracts electrons and prevents the charge carriers from traveling and connecting to another materials such as an underlying substrate. The lead acts as tiny nonstick units, allowing the material as a whole to peel away, perfectly intact.The team ran with the realization and fabricated multiple ultrathin films of PMN-PT, each about 10 nanometers thin. They peeled off pyroelectric films and transfered them onto a small chip to form an array of 100 ultrathin heat-sensing pixels, each about 60 square microns (about .006 square centimeters). They exposed the films to ever-slighter changes in temperature and found the pixels were highly sensitive to small changes across the far-infrared spectrum.The sensitivity of the pyroelectric array is comparable to that of state-of-the-art night-vision devices. These devices are currently based on photodetector materials, in which a change in temperature induces the material’s electrons to jump in energy and briefly cross an energy “band gap,” before settling back into their ground state. This electron jump serves as an electrical signal of the temperature change. However, this signal can be affected by noise in the environment, and to prevent such effects, photodetectors have to also include cooling devices that bring the instruments down to liquid nitrogen temperatures.Current night-vision goggles and scopes are heavy and bulky. With the group’s new pyroelectric-based approach, NVDs could have the same sensitivity without the cooling weight.The researchers also found that the films were sensitive beyond the range of current night-vision devices and could respond to wavelengths across the entire infrared spectrum. This suggests that the films could be incorporated into small, lightweight, and portable devices for various applications that require different infrared regions. For instance, when integrated into autonomous vehicle platforms, the films could enable cars to “see” pedestrians and vehicles in complete darkness or in foggy and rainy conditions. The film could also be used in gas sensors for real-time and on-site environmental monitoring, helping detect pollutants. In electronics, they could monitor heat changes in semiconductor chips to catch early signs of malfunctioning elements.The team says the new lift-off method can be generalized to materials that may not themselves contain lead. In those cases, the researchers suspect that they can infuse Teflon-like lead atoms into the underlying substrate to induce a similar peel-off effect. For now, the team is actively working toward incorporating the pyroelectric films into a functional night-vision system.“We envision that our ultrathin films could be made into high-performance night-vision goggles, considering its broad-spectrum infrared sensitivity at room-temperature, which allows for a lightweight design without a cooling system,” Zhang says. “To turn this into a night-vision system, a functional device array should be integrated with readout circuitry. Furthermore, testing in varied environmental conditions is essential for practical applications.”This work was supported by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Chemicals

Energy

Nature

President of Eugene wood treatment plant gets 90-day prison term for lying to DEQ inspectors

"There has to be some accountability," U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane said.

A federal judge Tuesday sentenced the president of Eugene’s J.H. Baxter & Co. wood treatment plant to 90 days in prison for lying about the company’s illegal handling of hazardous waste at the site.U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane called Georgia Baxter-Krause, 62, an “absent president” who took little responsibility for what occurred.“The fact that you lied when confronted suggests you knew the practice was not ‘above board,’” McShane said. “There has to be some accountability.”He also ordered Baxter-Krause and the company to pay $1.5 million in criminal fines. The plant is now a potential cleanup site under the federal Superfund program.J.H. Baxter & Co. Inc. pleaded guilty to illegally treating hazardous waste and Baxter-Krause pleaded guilty to two counts of making false statements in violation of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act governing hazardous waste management.The company so far has paid $850,000 of its $1 million share of the fine, and Baxter-Krause has paid $250,000 of her $500,000 share, their attorney David Angeli said.Much of the debate at the sentencing focused on whether Baxter-Krause should go to prison for lying to investigators.According to court documents, J.H. Baxter used hazardous chemicals to treat and preserve wood. Water from the process was considered hazardous waste. The company operated a legal wastewater treatment unit, but for years when there was “too much water on site,” the company essentially would “boil” off the wastewater, allowing discharge into the air through open vents, according to court records.Photograph sent to Georgia Baxter-Krause on July 8, 2019, depicting the inside of a J.H. Baxter container after weeks of boiling hazardous waste, according to federal prosecutors.U.S. Attorney's OfficeAngeli argued that the violations at the Eugene plant were “less egregious” than other criminal environmental damage cases and that “everyone” on the premises thought the hazardous waste handling was OK. He sought probation for Baxter-Krause.“Every person said she never directed or managed this activity,” Angeli said. “She was rarely even in Eugene.”But Assistant U.S. Attorney William McLaren said Baxter-Krause blatantly lied when inspectors from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality requested information about the company’s practice of boiling off the wastewater.Baxter-Krause provided false information when questioned about the extent of the illegal activity and failed to disclose that the company kept detailed logs that tracked it, according to prosecutors.The plant illegally boiled about 600,000 gallons of wastewater on 136 days from January to October 2019, McLaren said.The government didn’t seek the maximum fine for the environmental violations, which would have been $7 million for each day a violation was found, he said. A separate civil class-action suit is pending against the company filed by people living near the West Eugene plant. They allege gross negligence that allowed “carcinogenic and poisonous chemicals’’ to be regularly released into the air and groundwater. Baxter-Krause told an investigator that the company didn’t keep records on the boiling dates and claimed it occurred only occasionally during the rainy season, records said.“Those were not minimal or immaterial slip-ups,” McLaren said. What the company was doing was “known for years on end” and it was occurring every month, he said.“Despite alerts about equipment failure and the need for capital upgrades, the evidence reflects those warnings went unheeded by J.H. Baxter’s leadership for years,” McLaren said. “And by early 2019, this illegal boiling became the company’s sole method for treating their hazardous wastewater.”Baxter-Krause, who took over the company in 2001 after her father’s death, apologized to the community around the plant and to her friends and family. She now lives in Bend but had lived in California throughout her tenure as company president and visited the Eugene facility about three times a year, according to her lawyers.“I should have been honest,” she said. “To the West Eugene community who was impacted by my careless actions, I apologize. Not a day goes by that I don’t feel remorse. I am ashamed of what I have done. I feel I have truly let you down.”She acknowledged that as president, “the buck stops with me. I should have been more proactive in fully understanding the facility’s permits, the day-to-day operations and ensuring full compliance with environmental laws.”J.H. Baxter treated wood products at the plant from 1943 to 2022. Chemicals used to treat wood, such as creosote and pentachlorophenol, also known as “penta” or PCP, have contaminated the soil and groundwater and are an ongoing concern for surrounding neighborhoods, according to the government.The chemicals remain in tanks at the site and the environmental contamination has not been addressed, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.The company has spent more than $2 million since the plant’s closure to secure the facility and work on complying with environmental regulations, but it has been unable to sell the property because of the historical contamination, according to court records.The judge said it will be up to the Federal Bureau of Prisons where to send Baxter-Krause to serve the sentence. The defense said it would request that she be placed in a community corrections setting.Baxter-Krause was ordered to surrender on July 17. She wondered aloud in the courtroom after her sentencing how she would maintain the compliance reports.Her lawyers explained that the Environmental Protection Agency is on site daily working to fully shut the property down.The EPA is still working to determine how to handle and remove chemicals from the site. It collected soil, sediment, and water samples in May 2023 from both the facility and the surrounding areas. These samples will determine the environmental and potential public health impacts of chemicals that have migrated from the site and from air pollution from its operations.-- Maxine Bernstein covers federal court and criminal justice. Reach her at 503-221-8212, mbernstein@oregonian.com, follow her on X @maxoregonian, on Bluesky @maxbernstein.bsky.social or on LinkedIn.

Chemicals

Conservation

Government

Suggested Viewing

Unacceptable Risk: Dr. Margaret Kripke on Cancer and the Environment

Unacceptable Risk tells the story of a prominent cancer researcher who rethinks her assumptions about the causes of cancer and the true burden of environmentally-induced cancers.

Chemicals

Science

Health

Toxic Business

A documentary on the profits international chemical companies are gaining in Africa at cost of the health of small-scaled-farmers and consumers.International chemical companies sell high toxic agro-chemicals in Kenya, which are banned since long in Europe. They are banned because their ingredients cause cancer and have a major negative impact on the nature and environment. Anyhow – in developing countries like Kenya those toxic chemicals are sold without any regulations through small agro-shops all over the country. The small scaled farmers do believe in the promises of better and safer harvest those companies give. Today, the use of pesticides even inside the villages is already a daily business. Furthermore many of them already depend on hybrid seeds, old and resistant seeds supplants. Most of the consumers do not have the knowledge, how dangerous those agro-chemicals are: the WHO announced that annually 346.000 people die, caused by accidentally poisoning with those chemicals, 2/3 of them within developing countries.In the face of world food, industry is trying to push its way into the markets. On the contrary, statistics and alternative farming methods in East Africa show that it no longer needs chemicals and hybrid seeds to feed the world, but a general rethinking.

Agriculture

Chemicals

Business

Sprayed

An exploration of what happens when whole communities get exposed to toxins: Naled sprayed on Miami residents to fight Zika virus, Agent Orange sprayed on the Vietcong, and release of GMO mosquitoes in Brazil with pyriproxyfen added to drinking water to fight dengue. What are the results for nature and humanity? We meet Agent Orange survivors at Vietnamese detoxification and rehabilitation centers, parents of babies born with microcephaly from Zika virus, and Florida residents dealing with efforts to kill mosquitoes carrying Zika virus. Perspectives of doctors, scientists, and politicians are balanced with voices of ordinary citizens and victims to explore concerns about the potential impact on current and future generations.

Chemicals

Health

Science

Bag It

Bag It examines our society’s use and abuse of plastic. The theme of the film focuses on plastic as it relates to our society’s throw away mentality, our culture of convenience, and our over consumption of throwaway products and packaging—things that we use one time and then, without another thought, we throw them away. Bag It offers a candid view of the disturbing realities of our culture. And, it suggests concrete solutions to our plastic addiction. The film will raise public awareness on the many issues related to plastic and inspire change, both on the individual level and on the public policy level.

Chemicals

Waste

Culture

We Trees

Ever wonder what trees think of us now that we have created a climate disaster? This 2-minute film answers that question. As Bill McKibben recently tweeted about the film, “Who speaks for trees? In this short and elegant video, the trees themselves.” It has been screened at Green Fest (Serbia), The Colorado Environmental Film Festival, The Wildlife Conservation Film Festival and Winner of Merit at the Nature Without Borders Film Festival.

Forests

Chemicals

Climate

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Dozens of Texas water systems exceed new federal limits on “forever chemicals”

Related News

The Trump Team Wants to Boost Birth Rates While Poisoning Children

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President of Eugene wood treatment plant gets 90-day prison term for lying to DEQ inspectors

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Join us to forgea sustainable future

sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Join us to forge
a sustainable future