Tag Archives: pollution

Feb 23 at 1pm Truax-Madison #CloseBases Fund the People

Truax Field Madison WI ~ Global Day of Action to #CloseBases ~

Sunday Feb 23 at 1pm

Location: Intersection of Packers & International Lane in Madison

Bring signs and flags and yourself to raise your voice for people not Pentagon.
Close the military bases. Cut the waste. Divest from the machine.

Facebook Event Info:  https://www.facebook.com/share/1B2xUhDKzi/ 

 

Actions at bases near you.

Global Day of Action to #CloseBases

 

—————————————

Take Action
Join a Working Group

https://www.veteransforpeace.org/

No Nukes ~ Back from the Brink ~ Take Action Madison Wisconsin

The Madison Back from the Brink Resolution (Resolution #79719) will be voted on by the  Madison City Council on Tuesday night, 10/3/23 at 6:30 pm

Back from Brink Resolutions call on our federal government to:

• Actively pursue a verifiable agreement among nuclear-armed states to eliminate their
nuclear arsenals. (Download more information)

• Renounce the option of using nuclear weapons first. (Download more information)

• End the president’s sole, unchecked authority to launch a nuclear attack. (Download more information)

• Take U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger (launch ready) alert. (Download more information)

• Cancel the plan to replace the entire U.S. arsenal with enhanced weapons. (Download more information)


Contact Alders by 10/3/2023 

• Email or call your Common Council member. Ask them to vote in support of Resolution #79719

If you are not sure who your alderperson is, you can do one of the following:
o Find Alder by Address
o Find Alder by Map

• Email the entire Common Council using the online contact form.

• Call the Common Council Office at (608) 266-4071 to leave a message for the entire
Common Council.

Letter template for Alder contact 

Background


Register Your Support on 10/2/23-10/3/23
1. Go to www.cityofmadison.com/MeetingRegistration.
2. Select under Meeting: City Council 10/3/23 6:30 pm. Agenda Item is Resolution
#79719.
3. Register your support. You do not need to speak. List your contact info and register.


Read the Mayor of Madison’s recent post about
divesting from nuclear weapons.

This information from Physicians for Social Responsibility

source document 2023-9-27 Action alert 3b____ (1)

Hot Potato: PFAS Forever Chemicals in Madison

Hot potato: PFAS contamination lingers at burn pits as city, county, National Guard contest responsibility

“More than four years after the state Department of Natural Resources warned of toxic “forever” chemicals at former firefighter training sites near the Madison airport, city, county and state officials have yet to begin cleanup amid disputes over who is responsible.

In June 2018, the DNR notified Dane County, the city of Madison and the Wisconsin Air National Guard they may be responsible for PFAS contamination at the sites, which were known as “burn pits” used for firefighter training between the 1950s and 1980s.

Tests of shallow groundwater at the sites found two PFAS compounds at levels thousands of times higher than state standards for drinking water or groundwater, and millions of times what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers safe for drinking water.

The sites on Darwin Road and Pearson Street both drain into Starkweather Creek, which flows into Lake Monona, where health officials have warned anglers to limit consumption of fish because of the chemicals, which have been linked to illnesses including high blood pressure, low birth weight, developmental delays and most recently liver cancer.

The DNR has also ordered the city, county and National Guard to clean up PFAS from other parts of the airport, which is home to Truax Field.



For years, the city and county have deferred to the National Guard, which is investigating PFAS contamination under the federal Superfund law, a process that could take a decade for actual cleanup work to begin.

But when the National Guard Bureau submitted a final plan last spring, the burn pits were not included because the bureau said it was not solely responsible.

Now the DNR is again asking the city, county and Wisconsin National Guard to further investigate the site and determine what, if any, cleanup is required.

‘Hot potato’

The delays come as industry groups have challenged the DNR’s authority to require cleanup of PFAS. A Waukesha County judge ruled in April that the agency must first go through a 2½-year rulemaking process to list the chemicals as hazardous substances, though his order is on hold while under appeal.

Maria Powell, founder of the Madison Environmental Justice Organization, which helped bring the burn pit pollution to light, said city, county and military leaders have been playing “hot potato” with the burn pits since pollution was first documented in the 1980s.

Powell said it would be “almost comical” if not for the “complete disregard” for people — many of them low-income people of color — who live downstream and eat the contaminated fish.

“It’s not funny,” she said. “It’s criminal.”

Long practice

The Darwin Road site was used from 1953 until 1987 to train firefighters with the National Guard, city of Madison, and Dane County, as well as volunteer fire departments, according to a 1989 Corps of Engineers report.

Jet fuel, kerosene and other flammable liquids would be spilled on the ground, set on fire and then extinguished. The report documented an array of hazardous chemicals in the groundwater, though there were no tests for PFAS.

A former firefighter training area, known as a burn pit, on Pearson Street is one of two sites near the Dane County Regional Airport with high levels of PFAS. Both sites drain into Starkweather Creek, which flows into Lake Monona, where anglers have been warned to limit consumption of fish because of contamination.
JOHN HART, STATE JOURNAL

 

A second burn pit on Pearson Road was used by various fire departments starting in the late 1980s.

In 2018, the DNR notified the city, county and Guard that the sites were likely contaminated with PFAS and requested an investigation.

DNR spokesperson Sarah Hoye said the agency “didn’t have actual soil or groundwater data from the fire training areas demonstrating a release of a hazardous substance,” which it needs to require a cleanup.

In 2020, an environmental contractor found combined levels of two chemicals — PFOA and PFOS — at more than 68,000 parts per trillion in groundwater at the Darwin Road site and in excess of 20,000 ppt at the Pearson Street site. While Wisconsin does not regulate PFAS in groundwater, the standards for surface water is 8 ppt for PFOS and 95 ppt for PFOA.

City’s stance

Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway told the DNR in 2019 that the city should not be responsible for the burn pits, but the DNR maintains that the city provided firefighting services for Truax Field and owned the Darwin Road site until 1974, when the federal government required the use of PFAS foams at military bases.

In March the City Council approved an agreement with the county and Guard to split the cost of a $30,000 investigation — not into the extent of PFAS contamination but “historical PFAS use” at the training areas.

According to the resolution, “a more complete understanding about the historical use of PFAS-containing firefighting materials at the Airport, including at and near the Burn Pits, will be helpful to the parties.”

Rhodes-Conway’s chief of staff, Mary Bottari, said the city is not contesting its responsibility for the site, though its share “has yet to be determined.”

“The city would still like to ultimately see a complete picture of the historical PFAS use at the airport, including at the two firefighting training areas, which a historical investigation could help develop,” Bottari said. “We do know, for example, that other local fire departments trained at the facilities. If we are able to identify those parties, they can help build a complete picture of historic use on the site.”

A former firefighter training area, known as a burn pit, on Darwin Road is one of two sites near the Dane County Regional Airport with high levels of PFAS. Both sites drain into Starkweather Creek, which flows into Lake Monona, where anglers have been warned to limit consumption of fish because of contamination.
CHRIS HUBBUCH, STATE JOURNAL

It’s not clear when that investigation began or how long it will take.

Bottari said it wouldn’t be “appropriate” for city staff to comment on cleanup plans because the land is owned by the county, which will play the “lead role.”

Update pending

County officials declined to be interviewed about the cleanup plan.

In a written statement, airport spokesperson Michael Riechers said the city, county and Guard are developing “a plan to further investigate the firefighting training areas that will incorporate several facets including investigative efforts already completed and the pilot projects currently underway at the airport.”

Riechers said the county intends to update the DNR next week.

The state Department of Natural Resources has asked the city of Madison, Dane County and the Wisconsin National Guard to clean up firefighter training areas on Pearson Street, above, and Darwin Road that are contaminated with toxic PFAS chemicals.
JOHN HART, STATE JOURNAL

Maj. Leslie Westmont, a spokesperson for the Air National Guard, referred questions about the burn pits to the National Guard Bureau, the federal agency that excluded them from its cleanup plan for the rest of the base.

The National Guard Bureau did not respond to questions.

Federal process

The bureau is overseeing the base cleanup under the federal Superfund law, a process that could take up to a decade for actual cleanup to begin.

The military has spent about $2 million so far investigating the extent of PFAS contamination at the base and expects the next phase of the investigation will cost almost $2 million more.

Lance Green, co-chair of the Friends of Starkweather Creek and a member of the Sustainable Madison Committee, said he’s been frustrated for years by the lack of action.

“PFAS is fairly new, but everybody knows about sucking the water out of the ground and getting the PFAS out,” Green said. “We need stronger action now to start lowering the contamination. That’s simple.”

DNR spokesperson Sarah Hoye said there’s not enough data to determine if the pollutants have spread from the site, but environmental watchdogs say there’s no reason to believe the highly-mobile chemicals would stay put.

“It can only spread,” Green said. “That’s the thing it does: spread.”

Green said it will take years to reduce PFAS levels in the lakes and fish, but only if the city, county and Guard take immediate action to eliminate the source.

“It continues to move out and it continues to get fish full of PFAS,” he said.

The city council has approved spending $425,000 on a treatment system for one East Side well that was shut down in 2019 because of PFAS contamination, though the Madison Water Utility contended that Truax Field — not the burn pits — is the likely source of that contamination.


Discarded deadlines let polluted plume from military base spread unchecked | Local Government | madison.com


County sues

Earlier this year Dane County sued foam manufacturers in an attempt to recover “substantial costs” associated with cleanup of the airport.

The suit claims the defendants knew — or should have known — that using the foam, required by the Department of Defense and Federal Aviation Administration, would release PFAS to the air, soil and groundwater.

The lawsuit notes the chemicals, which can damage the liver, kidneys and nervous system, spread quickly in the environment, “contaminating soil, groundwater, and surface water” and are “readily absorbed in animal and human tissues.”

In emails with the county’s outside attorney, obtained through an open records request, assistant corporation counsel Amy Tutwiler discusses formulating media “talking points” for “how to respond to the concern that the health effects alleged in the complaint suggest pfas remediation should be occurring at a more rapid pace.”

Those talking points were not provided in response to the records request.


With PFAS cleanup years in the future, National Guard says its moving ‘quickly’ on Truax investigation | Science & Environment | madison.com


The county has since sued the DNR in an effort to strike conditions included in the airport’s stormwater permit intended to measure and limit PFAS in water that drains into Starkweather Creek.

The county contends the conditions are illegal because the DNR has already required cleanup under the remediation program and that they would be too costly.

County officials have said they did not know what the additional testing would cost, but according to documents obtained through an open records request it would be about $8,000 a year.

That case is on hold while the DNR conducts an internal review of the permit.”


More on PFAS Forever Chemicals

  1. Home – Madison Environmental Justice (mejo.us)
  2. About 3 — Military Poisons
  3. For decades, polluters knew PFAS chemicals were dangerous but hid risks from public | Environmental Working Group (ewg.org)

Urge Passage of the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics, PACT Act

from Buzz Davis,

Save Our VA – Vets for Peace in Tucson
813 S. Deer Meadow LoopTucson, AZ 85745

How burn pits may have raised veterans’ risk of rare cancers and respiratory illnesses

Twenty-five Republican senators who previously supported a bipartisan bill to expand health care for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits reversed their stance on Thursday.

Background:  Honoring our PACT Act of 2021


Another vote is scheduled in Senate – this week 

SEND YOUR SENATORS A MESSAGE TO VOTE YES

DAV | Contact your Senator to Vote “YES” on S. 3373, the Honoring Our PACT Act (quorum.us)

Whether it is Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan or on US base water supplies (PFAS) across America, the generals at DOD and many politicians in America do not seem to care if we kill both our own soldiers and their families along will millions of other humans


From: Andrew Marshall, DAV National Commander and Lynn Prosser, Auxiliary National Commander To: Mr. Buzz Davis

Sent: Sat, Jul 30, 2022 8:59 am

Contact your Senator to Vote “YES”

on S. 3373,

the Honoring Our PACT Act

Dear Buzz,

The PACT Act will provide health care and presumptive benefits for veterans exposed to hazardous environments. After years of fighting, we are close to comprehensive toxic exposure legislation. We need your help again to keep the pressure on the Senate to get it passed.

On June 16, the Senate passed the Honoring Our PACT Act 84-14. Unfortunately, due to a procedural issue, the House returned it to the Senate. On June 24, the Senate tried to pass the corrected version; however, that was blocked by one Senator.

The House introduced the Senate version of the PACT Act and on July 13, they passed it out of the House with a vote of 342-88. The bill then went to the Senate. However, on Wednesday July 27, the bill was stopped from going to the Senate floor. Twenty-five Senators who voted to pass the PACT Act on June 16, voted on Wednesday to stop the bill, which has not been changed since the June 16 passage.

The Senate will be voting on the PACT Act on Monday and veterans suffering from illnesses and diseases related to burn pits, radiation exposure and Agent Orange cannot afford to wait. Urge your Senator to vote “YES” on the PACT Act.

Thank you for your support of America’s service-disabled veterans and their families.


Take Action through DAV, Disabled American Veterans 
and contact your elected officials, especially your Senators

Contact – Ron Johnson Senator from Wisconsin (senate.gov)

Contact | U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (senate.gov)