Were is US EPA in other US Cities doing what

Let’s not forget Flint MI and what the US EPA let happen to the citizens without presenting public warning or hazards disclosure.

See generally, Five takeaways from congressional hearing on Flint

See, Flint, Michigan Water Contamination The House Oversight and Governmental Reform Committee held its second hearing on the contaminated drinking water in Flint, Michigan

We see that US EPA in concealed from public deals with State and Local government sacrificed the Citizens health for interests of government(s). This should not have ever happened. The solution: for US EPA release all Community hazards information as soon as discovered … forget State and Local emergency management because they are unqualified to protect Citizens from and hazards if the disclosure in not in the government’s interest.

Flint, Michigan, Water Crisis Marc Edwards, an environmental and water resources engineering professor at Virginia Tech University, talked about his involvement

More hearings held Thursday, 17 March 2016 Flint, Michigan Drinking Water Contamination Gina McCarthy and Governor Rick Snyder (R-MI) testified at a hearing on the Safe Drinking Water Act and lead contamination of the water supply in Flint, Michigan.

More hearings on the Flint water failures to be added to this post as reveled.

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Does Washington SEPA Process Discover Truth?

State Environmental Policy Act (“SEPA”) Helps How?

I have always had questions about how a SEPA can protect the environment by its results when the detailed scientific studies, data, and articles are not published first before public input permitted by the SEPA process.

Others have questioned the SEPA process also; for example:

Where “[P]rocess does not mandate environmentally-friendly decisions, but is intended to guarantee that the government will act in light of environmental consequences.” See, The Prima Facie Burden and the Vanishing SEPA Threshold: Washington’s Emerging Preference for Efficiency over Accuracy (at 404), http://blogs.gonzaga.edu/gulawreview/files/2011/02/Hirokawa.pdf (last visited Mar 3, 2016);
The people doing the SEPA EIS review might just have their own results thinking:

2. Serfdom: Isolated decision making in the urban planning context produces a phenomenon that Professor Robin Molloy of Syracuse University calls “serfdom,” in which legal outcomes depend upon personal status in the political sphere. In such a legal environment, what people are allowed to do depends upon who they know, on whether their projects seem politically advantageous, on whether they fit a planner’s vision for a particular urban landscape, or on whether they benefit a city’s financial interests. Public entrepreneurialism, the participation of the public purse in urban development, is part of this phenomenon. See, Abstraction, Precedent, and Articulate Consistency: Making Environmental Decisions California Western Law Review (Vol. 34) (at 3, p. 429), http://scholarlycommons.law.cwsl.edu/cwlr/vol34/iss2/11 (last visited Mar 3, 2016)
We trade this-for-that so it’s a wash in Washington at expense of environment tomorrow, “SEPA gives state and local agencies the authority to require conditions to offset any identified adverse environmental impacts.” See, SEPA Overview, http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/sea/sepa/overview.html (last visited Mar 3, 2016);
Washington State SEPA presentation overview. See generally, MRSC – State Environmental Policy Act, http://mrsc.org/Home/Explore-Topics/Environment/Environmental-Laws/State-Environmental-Policy-Act.aspx (last visited Mar 3, 2016); and
What has already been decided in Washington State related to environmental policy see, Appendix B – Significant SEPA Appellate Court Decisions, http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/sea/sepa/handbk/hbappb.html (last visited Mar 3, 2016).

Therefore, a lot of questions about just how effective is Wash. SEPA process?

We will all know more as the Tacoma Methanol Facility SEPA EIS process unfolds.

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First Responders: Workplace Air Safety or Long Term Exposure

To: Tacoma.methanol.sepa@cityoftacoma.org

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

EIS Scoping Comments: Tacoma Manufacturing and Marine Export Facility (TMMEF): “Proposed Methanol Plant”: SEPA Lead Agency: City of Tacoma (File No. SEPA2015-40000260025).

My comment applies to City, State, and Federal Employee (people) located or assigned duty at close proximity to Tacoma Port LNG, Methanol, or natural gas (methane) piping distribution facilities or systems as “first responders” and are full-time employed with “first responders” duties to these natural gas related facilities. Monitoring of workplace air chemical inventory is important to long-term health and welfare of these “first responders” government or any private people employed with such “first responders” duties; as a result, continuous hazard(s) monitoring is critical for these emergency responsive employees’ long term health.

[C]onsidered highly toxic to humans and animals until it biodegrades. Consistent with comment, the EIS will complete a comprehensive analysis of the adequacy of federal, state, and local emergency response capabilities to address spills, explosion, and/or fire along the pipeline route, at the site, and during transfer for shipping purposes. Commenters asked that the EIS consider methanol tank construction and safety measures, including the degree of secondary containment.… See, Methanol EIS Draft Scope of Work 02052016.pdf (at 7)., http://cms.cityoftacoma.org/planning/Methanol%20Plant/Methanol%20EIS%20Draft%20Scope%20of%20Work%2002052016.pdf(last visited Mar 2, 2016).

Continuous air monitoring for all emergency response locations (fire stations), vehicles (emergency response vehicles), or stations (emergency equipment locations)

“Where there is potential exposure to Hydrogen Sulfide, a monitoring strategy is recommended to ensure exposures are kept below acceptable levels and standards and that appropriate action is taken when there are excursions above these levels. Either traditional IH monitoring methods or electronic instruments can be used for this purpose.” See
generally, Monitoring Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) to meet new exposure standards, (using continuous workplace chemicals exposure monitor for employee health) http://www.draeger.com/sites/assets/PublishingImages/Generic/sidebar-teaser/CA-US/Hydrogen_Sulfide_White_Paper_81297.pdf (last visited Mar 2, 2016).

As Methanol facility publishes listing of fugitive air chemicals released

As a result, expand the continuous air monitoring systems and sensors to include what chemicals are discovered as disclosed by methanol process or natural gas distribution system to be short- and long-term employee workplace hazards; as a result, set appropriate people alarms in monitor equipment and add this time chemical exposure information to each exposed employee for their health record.

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Tacoma We Need to Monitor Our Air: Many Locations

To: Tacoma.methanol.sepa@cityoftacoma.org

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

EIS Scoping Comments: Tacoma Manufacturing and Marine Export Facility (TMMEF): “Proposed Methanol Plant”: SEPA Lead Agency: City of Tacoma (File No. SEPA2015-40000260025).

My comment applies to potential environment impact upon Tacoma and surrounding communities:

Hydrogen Sulfide and Our Community Air

Since we don’t know the sources from which feed the Tacoma LNG and Methanol Facilities natural gas supply raw product input to process—sour gas, sweet gas, fracking gas, or just natural gas, and from which specific location mined; as a result, we must monitor the air hazards introduced into Tacoma Community forever.

It will become necessary to setup monitor multiple air inventory monitor stations within Tacoma Port and Tacoma Community neighborhoods (also Federal Way and Fife Wash.) that will detect and record hydrogen sulfide (“H₂S”) content and the amount of hydrogen sulfide within our air inventory at the sampling station. This air monitoring must be done for Community(s) people health and illness prevention. See generally, Hydrogen Sulfide, Oil and Gas, and People’s Health Energy and Resources Group University of California, Berkeley, http://www.bouldercounty.org/doc/landuse/hydrogensulfidestudy.pdf (last visited Mar 1, 2016).

The potential stationary hydrogen sulfide source potential emitters

“flaring operations at both oil and gas facilities, venting, wastewater pits, and an oil refinery….”, supra at 45. The H₂S air monitor stations should be located to detect emissions from these emitters.

Also we need H2S air monitor stations along length of natural gas piping distribution system pips and all pumping stations where possibility of piping gasket leakage or pumping station seals could leak, supra at 8, note 21. This is important to those persons’ health living within proximity to this distribution natural gas system that feeds the Methanol Facility and LNG Facility.

Oil and gas operations may emit hydrogen sulfide, routinely or accidentally, during the extraction, storage, trans port, or processing stage.²⁰ During of extraction, hydrogen sulfide may be released into the atmosphere at wellheads, pumps, piping, separation devices, oil storage tanks, water storage vessels, and during flaring operations.²¹ Flares burn gases that cannot be sold as well as gases at points in the system where operating problems may occur, as a safety measure. Because it cannot be sold, hydrogen sulfide is routinely flared. Sulfur dioxide (SO₂) is the product of combusting hydrogen sulfide, but in the event of incomplete combustion, H₂S may be emitted into the atmosphere. Supra at 8.

Community health and wellness requires we monitor our air

Because we have potential of three hazards present within Tacoma Port—natural gas piping system, LNG Facility, and Methanol Facility—we need to monitor the air we Tacoma Community people must breath: as a result, to know when our health is affected and to what extent by these industrial process(s) operating within our Tacoma Community.

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