Day: June 1, 2017

Initial Release of the 2016 Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) Data

EPA is releasing initial data collected under EPA’s Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule from the 2016 CDR reporting period. This initial release of the 2016 CDR data includes national production volume, other manufacturing information, and processing and use information, but does not include information that was claimed by the submitter to be confidential business information (CBI) or information that is being withheld to protect CBI.

EPA anticipates releasing additional data in FY 2018 after the completion of an ongoing CBI substantiation process required by the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, which amended TSCA.

There are a number of changes since the 2012 CDR, including new information as a result of new lower threshold for reporting chemicals subject to certain TSCA actions and changes to processing and use reporting. CDR data is collected every four years, with the latest submission period ending on October 31, 2016.

The CDR information collection is carried out pursuant to section 8 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Under the CDR rule, EPA collects basic exposure-related information on the types, quantities and uses of chemical substances produced domestically and imported into the United States. This information constitutes a comprehensive source of basic screening-level, exposure-related information on chemicals available to EPA, and is used by the Agency to help assess potential health or environmental effects of chemicals in commerce.

The 2016 CDR data is available via ChemView: https://java.epa.gov/chemview

Learn more about CDR.

 

That waste on your doorstep: phone books

Via the Product Stewardship Institute.

In this technology-driven age, an increasing number of Americans are turning to online search engines rather than print phone books, yet yellow pages companies continue to drop unwanted directories on residents’ doorsteps throughout the country. Unwanted directories are not only a nuisance but also a waste: each year the industry uses an estimated 4.68 million trees worth of wood fiber, or 14 football fields’ worth of forest per day. They are also a burden on local governments and taxpayers, who pay nearly $60 million annually to recycle or dispose of unwanted phone books.

Opt out of receiving a phone book to quickly reduce your environmental footprint! Visit bit.ly/YP-opt-out to stop phone book delivery in a few quick clicks.

 

Donald Trump’s Pick for EPA Enforcement Office Was a Lobbyist for Superfund Polluters

Read the full story at The Intercept.

Albert Kelly, whom Pruitt announced May 22 as his choice to chair the Superfund Task Force, is an Oklahoma banker who has no prior experience with the program or with environmental issues at all, according to his résumé. Kelly, who has donated twice to Pruitt’s campaigns in Oklahoma, has spent the past 33 years working at Spiritbank, which is headquartered in Tulsa, and most recently served as its chairman. The “core competencies” listed on his résumé, which The Intercept obtained by FOIA, include motivational speaking, business development, and “political activity.”

Meanwhile, Susan Bodine, whom Trump nominated on May 12 to be assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, does have plenty of experience with environmental issues — though most of it representing polluting industries. According to her LinkedIn account, from 2009 until 2015, Bodine was a partner at Barnes & Thornburg LLP, the same firm that is representing FRRC, the group of industries directly affected by EPA cleanup rules. While at Barnes & Thornburg, Bodine represented the American Forest and Paper Association from 2011 to 2014. Member companies in that industry group have hundreds of EPA enforcement actions against them, including violations of the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act.

UN Head: No One Can Derail Global Action on Climate Change

Read the full story at Inside Climate News.

Without naming Trump, the secretary-general was clear who he was talking to about the Paris accord. “The real danger is…the risk to one’s economy by failing to act.”

U.S. Renewable Energy Jobs Employ 800,000+ People and Rising: in Charts

Read the full story at Inside Climate News.

Twice as many Americans now work in the wind industry as in coal mining, and solar employs many more, but the U.S. still trails the EU and is far behind China.

U of I Extension effort targets lead in gardens

Read the full story at Farm Week Now.

The University of Illinois Extension units in Fulton, Mason, Peoria and Tazewell counties has partnered with the Peoria City/County Health Department on an information campaign targeting lead in garden soils.

The stream’s toxic. So why does N.Y. stock it with fish?

Read the full story at Great Lakes Echo.

Eighteen Mile Creek, a Lake Ontario tributary, ​is so polluted that New York’s health department deems​ ​fish caught there to be unsafe to eat. In fact, the creek near the southwest corner of the lake is one of only six water bodies where the health department warns fishermen to not eat what they catch.

But the toxic hotspot hasn’t stopped the state and local governments from stocking the creek and promoting it as a fishing destination, Investigative Post reports.

Google’s New Viz Tool Makes Snappy GIFs Out Of Your Data

Read the full story in Fast Company.

Since 2015, the Google News Lab team has been working on making Google’s massive trove of Search data accessible to newsrooms—with a data viz storytelling series, for example, or their excellent Year In Search recap. Today, the team released a tool that allows journalists (and anyone else) to synthesize the Search data themselves—in the form of lively GIFs.

The tool, appropriately called Data GIF Maker, is super simple to use. First, dig into Google’s Search data using the Google Trends explore tool—also a product of Google News Lab—which lets you search for two terms over a length of time (30 days, 12 months, or five years) and compare the Search data.

 

2 Scientists, 2 Different Approaches To Saving Bees From Poison Dust

Read the full story from NPR.

It’s planting time in America. Farmers are spending long days on their tractors, pulling massive planters across millions of acres of farmland, dropping corn and soybean seeds into the ground.

Most of those seeds have been coated with pesticides known as neonicotinoids, or neonics for short. And despite attempts by pesticide makers to reduce this, some of that coating is getting rubbed off the seeds and blown into the air. That dust is settling on the ground, on ponds, and on vegetation nearby.

Honeybees and wild bees, looking for food, will encounter traces of the pesticides, and some will be harmed. They may become disoriented and bring less food back to their colony. Many may die.

Several years ago, Christian Krupke, an insect specialist at Purdue University in Indiana, became one of the first researchers to discover that rogue dust was wiping out bee colonies. At first, Art Schaafsma, an entomologist at the University of Guelph, in Canada, didn’t believe it was true.

Understanding nature helps unlock the potential of nanomaterials through cheaper, greener and safer methods

Read the full post from the American Chemical Society.

Nanosilicas have the potential to solve a number of pressing industrial issues, but are locked away because of wasteful and prohibitively expensive synthesis conditions. By contrast, nature produces far more complex silica under ambient conditions. By combining natural silica with computer simulations, we have discovered a method to produce green nanosilica, unlocking their industrial potential once and for all.