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In push to mine minerals, clean energy advocates ask what going green really means; protecting industrial workers from toxic chemicals; microplastics pose human health risks.

In push to mine for minerals, clean energy advocates ask what going green really means

A traveler crossing the expanse of northern Nevada desert known as Thacker Pass might see a wasteland – nothing but scrubby sagebrush out to the rim of the caldera, where the mountains cut the horizon.

But for local tribal members, the land they call Peehee Mu’huh, or “Rotten Moon,” is a hallowed place of remembrance and a sacred burial site. In 1865, US cavalrymen massacred their ancestors at the site, including children and elders. Members of the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe visit often, praying and sharing food together in the windswept wilderness.

Now, a contingent of forces that includes the US government and a large Canada-based mining corporation are pushing to make Thacker Pass a gateway to the future– they seek to carve into the landscape, extracting massive quantities of lithium for use in batteries that could power one million electric vehicles (EVs) per year. The mineral deposit at Thacker Pass is considered the largest known lithium source in North America, making it an important resource for “clean energy” technology that mitigates harmful climate change by curbing fossil fuel dependence.

Staunch opposition has formed around the project from local tribes as well as environmental advocates who argue the mining operation would threaten vulnerable wildlife and dangerously pollute the air and water just as similar mining project have in the past. But earlier this month a US District Court judge largely upheld the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM)’s 2020 decision to approve the mine.

Though opponents vow to keep fighting, the court ruling allows Canada-based Lithium Americas to advance construction plans for the $2.2 billion project, and General Motors Co. (GM) recently announced plans to invest $650 million in the mine.

The Biden administration last year announced a series of incentives aimed at boosting supplies of lithium as well as other minerals such as nickel and cobalt deemed “critical” for use in electric vehicle production and other renewable energy needs, saying increasing supplies will help “improve America’s energy independence, strengthen national security, support good-paying jobs…”

But the battle over Thacker Pass illustrates just how complicated the issue is as environmental advocates find themselves presented with these thorny questions: What does “going green” really mean? What is the true cost of the clean energy revolution? And will vulnerable communities inevitably pay that price? (Read the rest of the story.)

Guest column: Protecting industrial workers from toxic chemicals

February started with news that’s all too familiar in the United States: An incident involving highly toxic industrial chemicals sparked a large fire, threatening an explosion, forcing evacuations, and putting workers and community members directly in harm’s way. In this case, the danger came from a derailed train in Ohio that was hauling cancer-causing vinyl chloride, used to make certain types of plastic; toxic phosgene, an industrial chemical that was also used as a chemical weapon in World War I; and other substances.

This chemical disaster posed a threat to rail workers, first responders, and community members, and after a controlled burn to prevent an explosion, reported fish kills, and the discovery of additional toxic chemicals in some of the train cars, lingering questions remain about the long-term hazards facing community residents. It’s one of many high-profile fires, spills, leaks, explosions, and other industrial incidents to have made the news over the years. But extreme, acute threats like the Ohio derailment aren’t the only toxic chemical dangers facing workers and surrounding communities.

Many chronic, lower-level exposures happen in workplaces every day, posing significant but far more hidden risks to workers, their families, and their communities. Toxic exposures in industrial facilities and other settings can cause a range of health problems. These include nervous system effects like headaches, dizziness, confusion, and memory loss; cancer; breathing problems including coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, and asthma attacks; skin irritation and rashes; and reproductive and developmental effects such as infertility, birth defects, and other health problems.

Neither extreme, short-term hazards nor longer-term exposures are evenly distributed across the country. States with high concentrations of chemical plants, such as Texas, Louisiana, and Ohio, have the largest number of workers affected by toxic chemicals. In other states, including Virginia, workers are exposed to toxic chemicals in a variety of industries, including chemical plants, refineries, and other industrial facilities. The Delaware River Basin in Pennsylvania is also home to facilities like these.

These states also have a higher incidence of cancer and other health problems related to chemical exposures, and such harms often impact overburdened and historically marginalized communities to a greater extent than other, more affluent cities, towns, and counties. Over the next couple of years, we’ll be digging into these issues and seeing how they impact workers and overburdened communities at industrial facilities in Pennsylvania and the Delaware River basin.

But how do risky chemical exposures happen and lead to these problems? Many industrial facilities produce and use a wide range of substances, and facility workers are often directly exposed to toxic chemicals during the manufacturing process. As the Ohio train derailment made all too clear, such exposures can also happen during catastrophic industrial and infrastructure failures and when transporting toxic chemicals. (Read the rest of the guest column.)

An “urgency to this” — microplastics posing human health risks, report warns

Growing plastic pollution not only poses a threat to wildlife and the environment, but increasingly also to human health due to pervasive microscopic plastic particles that people are ingesting through their diet, according to a research report released Monday.

These microplastics appear to be contributing to fertility problems and poor respiratory health, and to induce biological changes that can lead to cancer in the digestive track, according to the findings.

Microplastics – generally defined as particles smaller than 5 mm (5,000 microns) – result from the breakdown of larger plastic products as well as from the manufacture of miniscule plastics used in cosmetics, industrial cleaners and other products. Most first-generation plastics are made from fossil fuels.

Though there is little research on the human health impacts of microplastics, human exposure has been well documented in recent years. Microplastics have been found in stool samples of people around the world as well as in blood samples and in human lungs.

“There is an urgency to this,” said Tracey Woodruff, professor and director of  the University of California San Francisco’s Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE), which helped lead the review of nearly 2,000 studies that formed the basis for the new report.

“The science around plastics in general is kind of in its early period,” Woodruff said. “We suspect we’re just going to continue to find more problems with these microplastics. It’s not surprising that something that is made up of chemicals that are toxic would be toxic to human health.”

The report, titled “Microplastics Occurrence, Health Effects, and Mitigation Policies: An Evidence Review for the California State Legislature,” was developed at the request of the California Senate Committee on Environmental Quality and the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources.

The work was done through the California State Policy Evidence Consortium (CalSPEC), an initiative that taps various University of California experts to produce reports on topics of concern for the state legislature. (Read the rest of the story.)