Community residents are one of our best lines of defense in the assault on our communities from the use and disposal of toxic chemicals. The goal of the Center's Environment Watch Program is to provide technical and organizing support to individuals and groups working to prevent toxic exposures in their communities.
Current Environment Watch efforts with the community include:
Air Toxics
The Oregon Center for Environmental Health has joined a coalition of groups, the Columbia Clean Air Coalition, to address unregulated mercury emissions from large emitters including the Boardman coal-fired power plant and the Ash Grove Cement kiln in Durkee, Oregon. The coalition is pushing to strengthen weak DEQ rules now being revised to comply with federal standards which also fail to protect public health and the environment. To read our proposal to DEQ for controling mercury emissions from these two sources click here. To find out how you can provide your own comments to DEQ read our action alert. Visit our articles page for news pertaining to this issue.
Owens Corning Gresham Plant
The Center recently celebrated a victory in a lawsuit against the fiberglass company, Owens Corning. In 2005, the Center joined the Northwest Environmental Defense Center at Lewis and Clark Law School and the Sierra Club in a lawsuit to stop the company from building an insulation plant in Gresham without the required permits. The plant would have emitted 250 tons of HCFC-142b, an ozone-depleting greenhouse gas. As a result of the suit, Owens Corning agreed to a settlement in which the company can never use HCFC-142b in the Gresham plant and it must donate $300,000 to environmental projects. Please read the history of the Owens Corning suit for further details. Visit our Articles page for all the news pertaining to this issue.
Safe Drinking Water
In June of this 2003, the Center filed a lawsuit against Pioneer Mobile Home Park in Boring, Oregon, for what state records revealed to be over 100 violations for failure to test and for failure to report in compliance with the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act. According to state records, the system was also responsible, for repeatedly serving water contaminated with coliform bactera, and for failing to report exposures to park residents.
The Center settled the case through a court-mandated mediation process, and has followed up by alerting the residents to the complaints in the suit and by educating them about how they can monitor further compliance on their own through the state’s website.
Community Action Against Medical Waste Incineration
Since March of 2004, the Center has been working with our members and the affected community to protest Marion County Solid Waste Advisory Council's proposal to lift the cap on medical waste accepted for incineration at the Covanta facility without first considering the full the environmental and health implications to the community. As a result of community pressure through public testimony, letters to officals and information presented to the advisory council, a new proposal is being created with public input that aims to protect public health and the environment by reducing the amount of PVC plastic that is being burned at the incinerator.
Mattel/Tyco Corporation Responsible for 25-year Groundwater Contamination
In 1998 Mattel/Tyco Corporation discovered the industrial solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) at more than 300 times federal standards for allowable levels in their drinking water storage tank. This water was drawn from groundwater aquifers contaminated for over 25 years by the company’s practice of dumping their industrial waste in the leach field, directly adjacent to the drinking water supplies.
When it became clear through press reports that the company was going to deny any potential health impacts from these exposures, the Oregon Center for Environmental Health intervened on behalf of the affected workers. Since this time, the Center has worked as an advocate for former employees. Our efforts resulted in comprehensive media coverage, and pressure on the company that yielded full notification to all employees, free health screenings and federal funding for a limited health study. The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) admits that these 20,000+ employees are the most highly contaminated group in the nation for trichloroethylene (TCE) and yet for eight years no comprehensive, large-scale study has been initiated. A preliminary study conducted by the Oregon Department of Human Services, formerly the Oregon Health Division found a four fold increase in kidney caner and three fold increase in pancreatic cancers among former workers
It is the Center’s goal to use the results of the full health study to help get TCE banned for all uses in the U.S. We also hope that the truth about the severity of the health impacts suffered by this worker population will finally be told and that they will have their day in court. We recently conducted a public records request from the state health department and turned over all the documents to a law firm representing the injured workers.
