DeSmog
Sep 5, 2018 @ 09:38
The City of South Portland, Maine, won a major legal victory at the end of August when a federal judge ruled that the city’s effective ban on tar sands oil did not violate the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The decision, like a similar one in Portland, Oregon, has potentially widespread implications for other communities fighting fossil fuel infrastructure projects within their borders.
In 2014 South Portland passed the Clear Skies Ordinance, which prohibited loading crude oil onto tankers in the city’s harbor. The ordinance was a response to efforts to reverse the direction of the Portland Montreal pipeline, which would allow its owner, Portland Pipe Line Corporation, to import tar sands oil from Canada and export it from the city of about 25,000 via ship.
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DeSmog
Feb 8, 2020 @ 03:00
Available for the first time, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) air monitoring data from over 100 U.S. oil refineries shows that 10 facilities have exceeded federal limits for cancer-causing benzene along their borders. The data, which raise health concerns about the communities adjoining these refineries, were released in a February 6 report by the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit group of former EPA enforcement attorneys, public interest lawyers, and community organizers.
Lt. General Russel Honoré, founder of Louisiana’s Green Army, a grassroots anti-pollution coalition, hailed the report as a great tool for communities that live near refineries to press for the monitoring of additional toxic chemicals.
DeSmog
Jan 8, 2020 @ 14:41
This week, plans to build one of the world’s largest plastics and petrochemical plants in St. James Parish, Lousiana the heart of the state’s notorious Cancer Alley inched forward as Lousiana approved air quality permits that could allow the plant to release 13.6 million tons per year of greenhouse gases equal to three coal-fired power plants and a host of other pollutants.
The St. James plant would be the single most polluting facility of 157 planned new or expanding refineries, liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects, and petrochemical plants that have sought or obtained air pollution permits in the U.S., according to a report published today by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP).
Residents fight for environmental justice in Houston neighborhoods dealing with hazardous sites and air pollution
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HOUSTON – Living in Houston, air quality is a concern for nearly everyone, but research shows some communities are hit harder by the dangers of persistent pollution.
“Poor Black and brown communities are experiencing more of the burdens of environmental injustice, which we call environmental racism as well,” said Zoe Middleton with Texas Housers, a non-profit focused on solving housing and community development issues.
The group mapped industrial hazardous waste sites and sources of air pollution and found they were concentrated in low-income, historically Black, and Hispanic communities.