Illinois Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

Trump/Pruitt Fire Top EPA Scientists

May 7, 2017 | Shawn Collins

The oil industry hack (Scott Pruitt) who was appointed by President Trump to head the EPA has just quietly fired half the members of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board. This is the group of highly-regarded and dedicated scientists who determine, for example, the dangers to human health threatened by the chemicals that the oil industry and others force into our environment. It is not clear at this moment whether Pruitt plans to not replace the members of the Science Advisory Board at all-which would be logical, since Trump and Pruitt are openly hostile to science-or to replace the scientists with frauds who, for example, deny that pesticides harm children and that petroleum industrial pollution has anything to do with global warming. It’s (yet another) sad day for human health and the environment in America.

Firing scientists who make decisions based on scientific evidence smacks of Galileo being convicted of suspected heresy for teaching that the earth revolves around the sun. The scary thing is that, while Galileo was condemned for telling scientific truths in 1633, Pruitt did the same thing this past weekend. Almost 400 years later. Maybe Pruitt has found some nut in a lab coat who will say that Galileo was wrong, after all, and deserved to be convicted.

Don’t laugh.

Flint Threatens to Evict Thousands for Failing to Pay for Lead-Poisoned Water

May 7, 2017 | Shawn Collins

Yes. You read that correctly. First, the State of Michigan and the City of Flint took away Flint residents’ clean water. Then they substituted lead-contaminated water. Now, the City of Flint has just sent notices to 8,000 Flint residents threatening that, if the residents don’t pay for the lead-contaminated water, Flint may evict them from their homes. The government deliberately tries to hurt citizens, and then demands that they pay for the privilege. I don’t know whether this awful behavior is explained by (more) racism directed to the (mostly African American) residents of Flint, or by the most clueless and callous government bureaucracy imaginable. Or both. For the moment, anyway, it doesn’t matter. It needs to stop. And whoever had the idea to bill people for poisoned water needs to get fired.

And, let’s not forget, the people of Flint still need clean water. A court has recently approved a settlement that would provide new (non-lead-contaminated) pipes to deliver water to the residents. Wonderful. Now, the people in charge need to start treating the residents of Flint like the full-fledged human beings and Americans that they are and get the new pipes installed ASAP.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/thousands-of-flint-residents-are-facing-eviction-for-failing-to-pay-for-water-thats-literally-poisonous/

Why Chemicals are More Dangerous to Children Than to Adults

May 6, 2017 | Shawn Collins

The world is rushing head-long into ever greater dependence on dangerous man-made chemicals. We now accept these chemicals are a part of our everyday lives, at home, at work, in schools, etc. But, rather than just accept this as an unavoidable reality, we must pause for a moment to consider this chilling thought: these chemicals are frequently more dangerous (often far more dangerous) to children than to adults. Scientists now know that chemical exposures that would not harm adults can in fact cause great, even life-threatening, impact to children. Here’s why:

(1) Children eat far more and drink far more, than adults do for their body weight. As a result, if there is a dangerous chemical in their food or water, children are disproportionately exposed to the chemical’s harmful effects.

(2) Children’s metabolism pathways are immature. Their young bodies lack the enzymes necessary to break down and remove toxic chemicals. So, the toxins stay in their bodies longer.

Where is Air Pollution Worst in Your State?

May 6, 2017 | Shawn Collins

Health researchers have long known that air pollution causes certain cancers and heart disease. With this in mind, the Healthgrove organization collected data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in order to identify the county in each state in the US with the worst air pollution. Here are just some of those counties:

Massachusetts: Bristol
Colorado: Bent

Know Your Risk for Groundwater Contamination

May 5, 2017 | Shawn Collins

Fifty percent of Americans depend on groundwater for daily use in their homes, i.e., drinking, showering, etc. Unfortunately, the quality and safety of our groundwater is under increasing threat from a variety of man-made sources, with potentially grave risk to the health of those in our family who may be exposed to the contamination. Please take a moment to consider whether you live near any of these common sources of groundwater contamination:

Old industrial sites: There are over 20,000 known abandoned and uncontrolled hazardous waste sites in the US. Many were the site years ago of the reckless disposal of toxic chemicals, which by now have had years to migrate into local groundwater.
Landfills: Many landfills-and especially those which accepted waste before 1980 — are a danger to groundwater. Why? Because these landfills typically accepted dangerous chemicals (even though it was forbidden) and were not lined at the bottom, to prevent leakage of the chemicals directly into groundwater.

$110 Million in Punitive Damages Sends Strong Message to the Makers of Dangerous Consumer Products

May 5, 2017 | Shawn Collins

A St. Louis jury just ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $120 million to a woman who claimed her ovarian cancer had been caused by her 40+ years of the company’s talcum powder products. The most significant part of the award is the $110 million in punitive damages the jury assessed. Obviously, the jury believed the plaintiff’s claims that J&J knew of the cancer risks of its products, but continued to make and sell them anyway, without warning to users.

Many in the public will focus on this part of the award, and decry the “runaway” jury system, believing this kind of money to be a “windfall” to the plaintiff. But a punitive damages award of this size says that the jury–which by law defines what is reasonable, and reckless, behavior in society–was mad at J&J, and wanted to tell the company, and other companies like it, that you cannot treat people this way. You cannot know that your products create serious health risks for your customers, but keep them in the dark about it. And so the jury sent its message in the only terms that J&J and companies like it understand: money. A lot of money.

Will J&J now think twice before it puts a dangerous product on the market? If so, then the jury and its huge punitive damages award has saved lives and done its job.

Survey of Utilities Proves Trump was Wrong to Gut Pollution Restrictions on Coal Industry

May 5, 2017 | Shawn Collins

In recent executive orders, President Trump announced his intention to allow coal companies to spew significantly more health-endangering chemicals into the environment. “Reducing costs will bring back coal industry jobs”, is Trump’s justification. But a survey of 32 utilities–all of whom had been moving away from coal production– proves that Trump’s justification is wrong. Only one of the 32 said that Trump’s executive orders caused it to re-think its move away from coal. Overwhelmingly, the utility companies said that Trump’s orders will not cause them to re-commit to coal, largely because alternative energy sources–such as natural gas, wind, and solar power–are so much cheaper. No one should have been surprised by these survey results, least of all the President. The high watermark for American coal industry employment was 1925, almost a century ago, and the steady declines since have tracked the declines in many American industries over time.

The reason for the loss of coal industry jobs over the last 90+ years is not the Obama administration’s environmental regulations of 5 years ago that the President has fraudulently attacked. It is cruel of the President to create false hope in coal miners and their families that simply allowing coal plants to pollute more is going to bring back their jobs, let alone their industry. As a country, we should thank these workers for their brave and necessary service that helped make the American industry the marvel of the world. And we should provide them the health care which they badly need, and re-train them for work in other well-paying jobs.

But we should not lie to them. And we should not allow massive new pollution in order to “bring back” jobs to an industry that is quickly becoming extinct.

Environmental Group Sues EPA for Refusing to Disclose Pruitt’s Communications with Polluters

May 4, 2017 | Shawn Collins

An environmental group known as the Center for Biological Diversity just sued the EPA under the Freedom of Information Act. The Center requested that the EPA make public EPA chief Pruitt’s email communications with polluters like oil companies and pesticide manufacturers. The Center wants to know if, while he has been the EPA chief, Pruitt is behaving like he always has when he holds public office, i.e., doing the bidding of polluters, unremorseful about the damage he is doing to the citizens whose health he is charged to protect.

Naturally, the EPA-now under Pruitt’s control-refused to turn over a single piece of paper. But Pruitt’s communications with these polluters are not secret; under the law, the public has the right to see them. Let’s hope the Center is successful in its suit and gets these documents that Pruitt wants to keep secret. And let’s hope it’s the next step in Pruitt leaving the EPA in disgrace, as he deserves.

https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/stories/1060053991/feed

Oil Industry Lobbyists Try to Rig International Climate Change Conference

May 3, 2017 | Shawn Collins

This month in Germany, the world’s biggest industrial nations are meeting to discuss what to do about increasingly threatening climate change. A good idea, right? Except it turns out that the meeting will be disgraced by the presence of some 270 business lobbyists, most of them there to protect trillions in worldwide oil industry profits. Their aim is to shut down any chance of real progress on climate change, which would require clamping down on oil production.

Sadly, the U.S. has been stripped of its moral authority on climate change, with the President now the world’s most famous climate change denier, and his cabinet stocked with oil industry hacks like Scott Pruitt (EPA chief) and Rex Tillerson (Secretary of State). Let’s not risk the rapid destruction of our health and planet by allowing oil lobbyists and fake science peddlers to control this debate.

https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2017/05/01/new-report-big-polluters-have-backdoor-access-unfccc

Chemical Contamination Can Enter a Home via ‘Vapor Intrusion’

May 3, 2017 | Shawn Collins

Do you live near a factory, a landfill, a farming operation, or a gas station? If you do, you should be aware of the possibility of “vapor intrusion”.

Vapor intrusion is a process in which chemical contamination– which the factory, landfill, etc., caused by disposing of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the area soil or groundwater– converts into a gas (called “vapor”) form, which then migrates.

This migrating vapor searches for homes and other structures to enter and can do so through even the tiniest cracks in basement floors and foundation walls. If it does, then the air that the people inside are breathing may be contaminated.