In 2009, air quality in Harris County, TX, was among the worst in the nation – particularly for ground-level ozone, commonly known as smog, which can cause a host of serious respiratory problems. A major contributor was the ongoing release of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as ethylene, propylene, and 1,3-butadiene, from industrial facilities in the […]
A small group of Newport, RI residents, self-dubbed the “Sewer Rats,” spent over a decade monitoring the city’s illegal sewage discharges and urging local officials to protect Rhode Island’s beaches from raw sewage contamination. Because Newport had not fully separated its sewage drains from stormwater drains, it suffered “combined sewer overflows,” in which untreated sewage […]
Middletown, RI’s sewage overflows and stormwater discharges, in conjunction with stormwater contamination from the adjacent city of Newport, repeatedly forced closures of popular public beaches on Easton’s Bay. During closures, residents were warned not to swim in the bay due to health hazards caused by high concentrations of fecal coliform and enterococcus bacteria. In 2008, […]
From 2003 to 2008, Shell Oil Company’s Deer Park, TX, oil refinery and chemical plant complex emitted over five million pounds of unauthorized air pollution into neighborhoods that already suffered from some of the worst air quality in the country. On behalf of Environment Texas and Sierra Club, NELC sued Shell and two of its […]
Selenium causes skeletal deformities in fish and can harm people and birds that consume affected fish. Iron, aluminum, and manganese block fish gills, smother fish eggs, and make aquatic life impossible at high enough concentrations. Boron prevents normal growth in waterfowl. For years, the massive coal-fired Conemaugh Generating Station — owned by a consortium of […]
Residents of Zilwaukee, MI, were alarmed when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced plans to dump dioxin-contaminated “dredge spoils” near peoples’ homes, especially once they learned the Corps did not conduct legally-required environmental and public health reviews. Dredge spoils are the soil and sediment removed from the bed or bottom of lakes, rivers, or […]
For years, Bradford Dyeing Association, Inc. (BDA), a textile mill and U.S. Department of Defense contractor, had befouled Westerly, RI, with a double whammy of Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act violations. Neighbors complained about foul chemical odors emitted by the facility, and kayakers observed a “dead zone” in the Pawcatuck River directly downstream […]
Following our success in prompting Maine’s largest blueberry grower, Cherryfield Foods, to eliminate aerial pesticide spraying, four environmental groups represented by NELC focused on Maine’s second-largest blueberry grower, Jasper Wyman & Son. In March of 2005, we served a 60-day Notice of Intent to Sue that described how Wyman’s aerial pesticide spraying violated the Clean […]
For years, Maine’s largest blueberry grower, Cherryfield Foods, used airplanes to spray pesticides over its berry fields. Aerial spraying is inherently indiscriminate, as chemical spray drifts with the wind and contaminates nearby land and waterways. The harmful effects of these pesticides reach beyond crop-eating pests, to the birds, fish, and beneficial insects like bees that […]
At the turn of the 21st Century, Pacific Seafood’s conventional seafood processing plant in Warrenton, OR, routinely violated its wastewater discharge limits for biochemical oxygen demand, total suspended solids, and oil and grease, sometimes exceeding permitted limits by two to three orders of magnitude. And the company’s adjacent surimi plant, a high-tech processing facility that converted […]