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Elementary School Was Just a Few Hundred Feet from Toxic Train Wreck

For Chemical Emergency, Spill, Leak, Fire, Exposure or Accident, Call Chemtrec!

elementary school just feet from site of derailment and spill - look closely and you can see the train crossing in background

While the nation reflects on the horror in a Connecticut elementary school, I would be remiss not to remind people that an elementary school in Paulsboro NJ just dodged a chemical bullet.

This elementary school is a couple of hundred feet south west of the toxic train wreck site.

Had that train derailment occurred a little later in the morning when kids were at school, and had the tanker car been carrying chlorine or other even more deadly chemical gas, we could have lost far more than 27 kids.

Think about it: and then take a look at these photos and think some more:

See emergency response equipment in school yard

see emergency response trailer and firetruck on school grounds

toxic train disaster, Paulsboro. NJ (12/4/12). The rail crossing signs can be seen in background of above school photo.

Unsecured chemical rail cars, carrying unknown toxic chemicals, sit just feet from Paulsboro High School.

rail cars sit in Paulsboro, NJ (12/4/12)

For Chemical Emergency, Spill, Leak, Fire, Exposure or Accident, Call Chemtrec!

maybe the next graffiti writers will be monkeywrenchers

Joint Petition to US Coast Guard and EPA Inspectors General

Review of Evacuation and Health Warnings Confusion, Role of Corporate Consultant

From our friends at PEER:

Trenton —The public health response to a major toxic chemical spill from a train derailment was badly mishandled and should be scrutinized by federal authorities, according to a complaint filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).  The group cites contradictory public health advisories, false information disseminated to the community, lack of a workable emergency response plan and the dominant role played by a corporate consulting firm with a checkered past, among other problems.

In the early morning of November 30, 2012, Conrail freight cars carrying chemicals overturned on a bridge crossing the Mantua Creek in Paulsboro, New Jersey, very close to the Philadelphia International Airport. Three cars fell into the creek. One of the tank cars released approximately 23,000 gallons of vinyl chloride into the air as vapor.  Vinyl chloride, a colorless gas with a sweet odor, is an industrial chemical known to be highly toxic and carcinogenic.  Exposure to very high levels can result in death.

In the hours and days following the spill, a mix of federal and state agencies issued conflicting, confusing and sometimes outright inaccurate information to affected residents.  PEER is calling for a review of –

• Directives that residents “shelter-in-place” rather than evacuate.  Sheltering in place would be demonstrably ineffective in the face of an airborne plume.  Approximately a score of people were hospitalized and as many as 500 were eventually evacuated;

• Assurances from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) that the air was safe when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) monitoring found  vinyl chloride at “periodic exceedances of the level of concern” in the first days after the spill; and

• Confusion at the spill site as to what the level of danger was, whether protective gear was required and who needed to be evacuated.

“The governmental response to the Paulsboro spill was a chaotic mess,” stated New Jersey PEER Director Bill Wolfe, a former long-time DEP analyst, noting that state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, whose district encompasses the spill site, gave the joint command center an “F” for its miscommunications. “We need a high level review of this incident response so that the public will be better protected from the next toxic spill – which is only a matter of when not if.”

The incident joint command consists of an amalgam of entities, led by the U.S. Coast Guard and including the state DEP, local authorities, as well as Conrail and its consultant.  In fact, public health information was assigned to the corporate consultant, The Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health (CTEH), an entity which has been embroiled in a string of environmental disasters from Hurricane Katrina, to the BP Gulf spill, the 2008 coal sludge implosion in Tennessee, Chinese drywall and more.

“The last thing we should outsource is emergency public health responsibilities,” added Wolfe who today asked the Inspector General for both EPA and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Coast Guard, to dissect incident response.  “Including responsible parties and their agents within incident command creates the risk that reducing corporate liability will compete with protecting the public.”

This week the National Transportation Safety Board is expected to release its investigation into the causes of the train derailment.  That report will not, however, address the adequacy of spill response.

###

Read PEER letter to the Inspectors General

Look at EPA vinyl chloride “levels of concern” in Paulsboro

View corporate-run public information site

See Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry (ATSDR) vinyl chloride fact sheet

New Jersey PEER is a state chapter of a national alliance of state and federal agency resource professionals working to ensure environmental ethics and government accountability

Stuck in the Moral Matrix

I just came across this TED talk by Jonathan Haidt, The moral roots of liberals and conservatives.

I’ve seen him discuss his book on Bill Moyers, and was not impressed so did’t read the book.

But, I was impressed  with this TED talk, and sometimes find myself often trapped in what Haidt calls “The Moral Matrix”.

I often write about government regulation, usually based on science, law, and public policy (but obviously reflecting my own unstated moral values and premises).

Within Haidt’s moral framework, my take on regulation is something I view as grounded in what Haidt describes as the moral values of liberals – prevention of harm, care, compassion, and fairness/equity/reciprocity  –  as opposed to the conservative oriented morals of in group loyalty, authority/respect and purity/sanctity.

So, I found the discussion on  the moral aspects of the what is referred to as the commons fascinating (starts at time 11:30 – source of chart above).

Listen closely – he makes the moral case for regulation – which is a form of coercion, authority, order, and “punishment” to protect the “purity” of the air and water of the in-group’s “homeland”! – all conservative moral values!

So, environmentalists would seem to have common cause with conservatives, if they could find a way out of the Moral Matrix and somehow frame issues to reflect conservative oriented values.

Something to think about – from one inside the Moral Matrix!

(BTW, I’ve always loved Bosch – but from a 1960’s perspective, not a Christian one)

(and I still think Senator Oroho is a gun loving ALEC controlled corporate wing nut, waging a war on women, immigrants, gays, workers, the Highlands and Global Warming science!  A real toxic package.)

There, now I feel better!

Failure to Include Climate Change Makes Mockery of FEMA Policy

Lack or Reliable Flood Maps Suggests Need for Rebuild Moratorium

FEMA just released new flood maps in the wake of Sandy (see the AP story:  FEMA – NJ Coastal flood risk worse than thought).

The maps are interactive and you can view them here.

The maps make a mockery of FEMA’s “Climate Change Adaptation Policy Statement” issued on Jan. 23, 2012. That Policy states:

While the scope, severity, and pace of future climate change impacts are difficult to predict, it is clear that potential changes could afffect our Agency’s ability to fulfill its mission. The challenges posed by climate change, such as more intense storms, frequent heavy precipitation, heat waves, drought, extreme flooding, and higer sea levels could significantly alter the types and magnitudes of hazards faced by communities and the emergency management professionals that serve them. […]

The need to address risks associated with future disaster-related events, including those that may be linked to climate change, is inherent to FEMA’s long-term vision of promoting physical and economic loss reduction and life saving measures. Working within existing statutes and authorities, FEMA will strive to be consistent in the Agency’s incorporation of climate change adaptation actions and activities in on-going plans, policies, and procedures.

The FEMA policy statement includes changes to FEMA Policy and Procedure that pledge to incorporate climate change adaptation in, among others, the following critical FEMA programs and functions, including:

• FEMA will continue to study the impacts of climate change on the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and incorporate climate change considerations in the NFIP reform effort
• … FEMA will evaluate the potential impact climate change may have on existing risk data and the corresponding implications for Threat Hazard Identification Risk Assessment

The updated FEMA maps did not comply with this FEMA policy.

[Update – and fail to reflect the most recent NOAA science on extreme weather as well (h/t Bill Neil):

NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported Tuesday in its “State of the Climate” for September that the Climate Extremes Index for the period January-through-September was over the highest ever — and over twice the average value — since record-keeping began in 1910.

NOAA’s Climate Extremes Index (year-tod-date) is at the highest level ever.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (aka NOAA), which put out a news release explaining how global warming drives extreme weather in North America:

“Our research reveals a change in the summer Arctic wind pattern over the past six years. This shift demonstrates a physical connection between reduced Arctic sea ice in the summer, loss of Greenland ice, and potentially, weather in North American and Europe,” said [NOAA’s James] Overland, an oceanographer who leads the laboratory’s Coastal and Arctic Research Division.

The shift provides additional evidence that changes in the Arctic are not only directly because of global warming, as shown by warmer air and sea temperatures, but are also part of an “Arctic amplification” through which multiple Arctic-specific physical processes interact to accelerate temperature change, ice variability, and ecological impacts.

The public should take these new FEMA maps with a major grain of salt, because the maps are fatally flawed and will promote and allow rebuilding in hazardous locations and at elevations that scientists know will be wiped out by future sea level rise and climate change driven storms.

Private insurance companies and financial institutions surely know of these risks, so they may be reluctant to finance dangerous rebuilding, regardless of new FEMA maps.

Just to be clear – as the AP story corrrectly noted, the updated FEMA maps do NOT include sea level rise:

The maps do not incorporate projections that the sea level will rise at an accelerating rate.

That means they they probably also don’t incorporate the more frequent and intense storms that climate change models predict.

[Yikes! The Asbury Park Press reports that in addition to failure to consider sea level rise and climate change, the maps don’t even address Sandy elevations!

The maps, which have been in the planning process for two years, do not include data from Sandy, as they were completed before the storm struck New Jersey on Oct. 29.

These FEMA mapping failures to included “projected conditions” resulting from climate change are no accident.

FEMA regulations actually prohibit consideration of “future condtions“:

§ 65.6   Revision of base flood elevation determinations.

(3) Revisions cannot be made based on the effects of proposed projects or future conditions.

So FEMA knows that their Climate Change Adaptation Policy Statement is a Sham and that if they are serious, that their regulations must change.

FEMA regulations also restrict the ability of academics and public interest groups to petition FEMA for map and base flood elevation changes.

FEMA must get serious and not just issue unenforceable policy statements and incorporate the latest climate change projections in their maps and other programs – if not, they give the public a dangerous false sense of security and invite further future disaster. 

Newsflash: Important New Office Formed – Will Control $37 Billion! 

From Czar to Office – In One Drewniak Spincycle

Rebuild Czar meets with Christie Cabinet - look closely to see the Reagan bio on the table. This is no doubt a shameless Christie propaganda effort to look historic and presidential (Source: Governor’s Office/Tim Larsen)

We are closely following (and criticizing) Gov. Christie’ s “Rebuild Czar” – in fact, on December 10, we wrote a detailed post about the strong contrasts between President Obama and Gov. Christie’s approach to the rebuilding issues.

So, in big news to us, the  Press of Atlantic City story cavalierly reported today – actually, they just mentioned it in passing – that Governor Christie has created a new Office of Recovery and Rebuilding:

Drewniak said the governor’s newly formed Office of Recovery and Rebuilding is working with a disaster recovery consulant to formulate rebuilding policies and that multiple other stakeholders, including local and county officials, business and real estate analysts, and other experts are being consulted.

Office? News to me. I thought it was a Czar.

That new Office will have enormous power and control billions of dollars (more than the entire NJ annual State budget).

The Office has such a low profile, it almost seems like they’re trying to keep it a secret.

(and has it undergone Red Tape Review by Lt. Gov. Guadagno? Sounds like a new bureaucracy to me! Has it survived “common sense” “regulatory relief” review and cost benefit analysis under Christie’s Executive Order #2? Steered clear of “unfunded mandates” under Christie EO #4? No doubt it is consistent with and a logical culmination of Gov. Christie’s Privatization initiative under EO #17)

And I am very curious about the timing.

So, when was this Office of Rebuilding and Recovery created by the Governor? When did the Czar become an Office?

I must have missed the press release and Executive Order.

What kind of staff and budget do they have? Was money appropriated or shifted from another account? From what account? What is the mission of the Office? What’s the Rebuild Plan?

The original Christie November 28 press release on appointment of the “Rebuild Czar” said nothing about any new Office of Rebuilding and Recovery.

In fact, just the opposite: it said the Czar would “manage” the storm recovery and be working with Christie’s cabinet.

So, Drewniak might be spinning this big time. The press corps should find out! And I would expect a strong legislative interest as well.

The timing is curious in light of yesterday’s enviro’ press event. Did Enviro’s play a collaboration game and keep their powder dry until after the Gov acted? Or did the Gov respond to enviro recommendations? Or to criticism here?

I’ll look for the press release and background on this new Office.

I see it first mentioned in a December 10 Christie release, where the Czar himself mentions it – as casually as getting a haircut.  But nothing specific. Very curious. 

Something this big would typically involve at least a press release and open announcement or event showing cooperation with the legislature.

But my research suggests a low profile on this. Why?

Oh wow! the Gov. announced the Office to business leaders on 12/11 and posted a photo 12/13 on his bog! (so if the Gov. posts a photo on his website, does that means that deals are not cut behind closed doors?)

Is that how King Christie governs?