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Hazardous Materials Management 365 Days a Year: February Events

Louisville, KY sewer gas explosion, February 1981. Courtesy of courier-journal.com.

“Those Who Do Not Remember the Past Are Condemned to Repeat It” George Santayana, Spanish-American Philosopher, Essayist, Poet, & Novelist

Contributed by: Richard T. Cartwright PE, CHMM*, CPIM*. Connect with Richard on LinkedIn and at Richard.Cartwright@mecx.net.

Hazardous Materials Management 365 Days a Year: February Events

February 1, 2003: Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated while re-entering earth’s atmosphere over Texas, where all 7 crew members died. Eighty seconds into its launch on January 16^th, a piece of foam insulation had broken off from shuttle’s propellant tank & hit edge of shuttle’s left wing.

February 1, 2012: Stampede occurred during soccer riots in Port Said, Egypt; where 73 people died.

February 1, 2004: Stampede occurred during religious pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, where 251 people died.

February 1, 1974: Skyscraper fire occurred in Sao Paolo, Brazil; where 179 people died. Good news the 25 story building was built of armored concrete, which was specifically fire-resistant. Bad news is the building contained flammable items as its furniture, desks, chairs, even cubicle partitions. Ceilings were made of tiles, prepared from cellulose fiber tiles, strapped in wood. Even the carpets & curtains were made of flammable substances. No emergency lights fire alarms fire sprinkler systems, or emergency exits were fitted to the building. There was only one stairwell, which ran the full height of the building. No evacuation plans had been posted in the case of a fire.

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Hazardous Materials in the Field

A lot of national attention regarding environmental issues is spent on climate change, sustainability, and alternative energy. These are topics that demand attention from scientists, policymakers, and the community. There are everyday environmental incidents that don’t impact a wide population, but can be extremly impactful to a person, workplace, or neighborhood. When these smaller issues are overlooked for an extended time, we get incidents like the West Virginia water contamination or the Texas fertilizer plant explosion.

I’ve spent most of my career trying to keep work places healthy from exposure to hazardous materials, wastes, and toxins. Here are a few interesting photos of what it’s really like out there. All of these have been taken by me on job sites.

DDT found in a storage room. How old is this?

Rusted, bulging 55-gal drums.

Uh, what they thinking?

Used oil in a Pepsi bottle. Don’t put it back in the fridge.

Good or bad? A garbage can full of oil.

Asking Deep Environmental Questions

Freedom Industries Storage Facility on the Elk River. Photo by AP.

I was asked a couple deep environmental questions while teaching a recent RCRA hazardous waste course. I usually just get questions on topic. The students often don’t get engaged until I tell them a tragic environmental story or two. As an instructor, I love these deeper discussions, enjoy creating an environment to cultivate these discussions, and let the class go at it. They take much more away from the class by having these discussions than if we just discussed the nuts and bolts of RCRA.

The recent West Virginia methylcyclohexane spill was the first one. I presented the topic to discuss the hazards of methylcyclohexane, in context to cross reference their own hazards. One student brought up that the facility had not been inspected since 1991. Now we’ve entered the deep end. The class exploded with their debate on why.

Their first thought is that the company was bribing the regulators and inspectors. The other ideas included, lack of funds by regulatory agencies, bumbling government agencies, the state doesn’t care because the money from the coal business is big business, or the company didn’t do their own checks because the money was flowing in. They’re all correct. Maybe not specifically to this incident, but most environmental incidents can be connected to one or more of these.

The second one comes up more often and it surprises me that it’s such a hot topic for people. It’s the use and proper disposal of compact fluorescent bulbs. It starts with complaints that the government is regulating the type of bulbs they can purchase. Then we go deeper into the pros and cons of reduced energy use and costs versus the disposal of mercury containing bulbs. It usually goes deeper into whether the disposal of mercury into our landfills justifies the reduced greenhouse gasses. I like it when they get upset with me for not having the answer.

A one-day RCRA class isn’t going to have the answers, because there isn’t a solution to satisfy everyone. In fact, the class is often unsettled when they realize that the issue is even deeper than they originally thought. If you can find the perfect balance of science, technology, society, politics, money, and NIMBY, then you win.

Energy Environment of the Western Slope

I-70 through Colorado’s Western Slope in winter.

When you drive along I-70 between Vail Pass and Grand Junction through Colorado’s Western Slope it’s easy to get lost in the beauty of the mountain west. In fact, you should get lost in the beauty. If you look a little closer at the landscape, you’ll see all the signs of Colorado’s energy environment – the oil and gas industry, renewable resources, and even history related to the Manhattan Project. I make this drive a few times each year and have seen the growth and change.

Driving east-to-west, you first pass Vail ski resort. Although all you’ll see are the hotels and ski runs, Vail has been a significant player in wind power and sustainability within the resort industry.

You could drive through Glenwood Canyon dozens of times before noticing the Shoshone hydroelectric generating station. It’s been generating power for western Colorado since 1909!

Storage tank operated by solar panels.

I’ve seen the small town of Rifle go from a rest stop along the highway to a hub for the booming natural gas industry since the boom of 2007-2009. Exit I-70 for some gas or food and you’ll be in traffic behind trucks from Haliburton, Schlumberger, and every other oil and gas company working the west. The impact on the landscape is now hard to miss. One of the more interesting impacts today is all the storage tanks, which are ironically powered by solar panels.

The newest addition to this areas energy resources is the biomass power plant in Gypsum, which just opened December 16, 2013. As I made this drive last week, the steam coming out of the plant was impossible to miss, since it blocked out the sun for a moment. This plant will be burning trees from pine bettle-kill and from forest burn areas to produce steam to produce electricity. This will help clear badly burned and damaged forest areas.

Steam coming from biomass powerplant in Gypsum, CO.

The discussion of biomass as a renewable energy source and environmentally-friendly is not as cut and dry as solar or wind as renewable energy. Biomass is considered carbon neutral, meaning it doesn’t produce any additional carbon dioxide. Although trees are renewable, it’s debatable regarding how renewable versus the amount of energy they produce. Then there is the air pollution. Burning wood produces a lot of particulate matter, which isn’t as toxic as burning fossil fuels, but it is a regulated pollutant under the Clean Air Act. Just think about the last time you sat around a camp fire or your fire place. It’s an interesting, new power source for the west, whose debate will continue.

As you drive west into Grand Junction, there’s no easy-to-see signs of the Department of Energy’s involvement in the Manhattan Project, but it’s there. There is still a DOE facility in Grand Junction, which once processed the uranium from nearby mines. Grand Junction has seen the ups (jobs and growth) and downs (cancers and illness from improper disposal).

Hydroelectric, biomass, natural gas, and nuclear power. That’s an impressive list of resources to take in without leaving the comfort of your cars. It’s an energy environment resource driving tour.

Contaminated pond near the DOE facility in Grand Junction, CO.

Seeing the World Through Environmental Tinted Eyes

Pollution from a sugar factory. Yes, a sugar factory

Seeing through the world through the eyes of an environmental professional is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that it gives me an appreciate for the natural world and allows me to see and understand the improvements in our environment. The curse is that I can’t miss the environmental pollutants and potential damage in nearly everything.

Control of air quality, management and releases of hazardous chemicals, and other important environmental areas have seen great improvements. But the amount of chemicals in our daily life seems to be increasing and our exposure to them is often unknown. I can’t stop thinking about constant exposure to environmental pollutants, both mine and the people I see being exposed. At work, it’s the exposure to hazardous materials for both me and my coworkers. At home, it’s the countless man-made chemicals in our food and products.

I see coworkers who are exposed to hazardous chemicals on a daily basis and I try to educate them on the effects of exposure. I gas up my car, get a quick whiff of the fuel vapors, and immediately think about what that exposure is doing to me and everyone else. I’ll drive past a construction site and think about the pollutants in the dust being kicked up. I’ll see someone applying a pesticide without any PPE and wonder about their exposure. Although our overall air quality control has improved, I see pollution from refineries and factories and worry about spending too much time around them.

Air pollution over the Rocky Mountains

As a recreational triathlete, albeit a slow one, I think about the environment where I’m training. I enjoy open water swimming, but wonder what pollutants are in the water? It could be a beautiful lake and maybe the only nasty thing in it is too much goose poop, but a lake in an urban setting could be filled with stormwater runoff chemicals – fertilizers, pesticides, oils and greases. You probably shouldn’t swim in an urban lake the day after a big storm. This fall I ran a half-marathon through downtown Denver and was thankful that the race was on a Sunday morning. I couldn’t imagine running 13.1 miles through the city on a busy weekday and question people who do or worse, run along a busy road during rush hour.

In my house, I’ll wear my shoes inside and wonder what was on the bottom of them that I just carried through (pesticides, grease from the street). Should I be using this household cleaner? Am I being exposed to the fire-retardant chemicals in my couch or the pesticides I applied to get rid of the ants? Most likely, yes. I bought Halloween makeup to apply a mustache for my son’s costume, Einstein. I read the ingredients, thought better of it and he went as Lil Einstein – no mustache.

One area where some progress is being made to reduce our exposure to small amounts of toxic, man-made chemicals is in our food. Although agribusiness is bigger than ever, finding options for healthier, naturally grown food is becoming more widespread.

Paracelsus said, “All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; only the dose permits something not to be poisonous.” I enjoy seeing the world through my environmental-tinted eyes and use that understanding to balance being environmentally conscious, being realistic, and taking calculated risks. Ignorance is not bliss, so I wear my PPE.

What is this guy being exposed to?

Wyoming’s Rich Energy Resources

Wind turbines, coal rail car, and an oil refinery in Casper, WY.

Wind turbines, coal rail car, and an oil refinery in Evansville, WY.

I was driving through Wyoming along I-25 between Cheyenne and Casper and it was impossible to miss the rich energy resources available in this state. Just In this 180-mile stretch of highway I passed a few long rail cars carrying coal, two coal power plants, a hydroelectric power plant, several wind farms, and the refinery in Evansville. That’s amazing and that’s just what you see along one highway in the southeast portion of the state.

I initially thought that the energy resources stood out because Wyoming is such a sparsely populated state. That’s partially true. Wyoming has the lowest population of any state and is #1 state in the country for energy production per capita. But I’ve been all over the country and there is no stretch of road that I’ve driven with the amount and range of energy resources that jumps out at you like this. That’s why I was not surprised that Wyoming is the #2 state for total energy production. Texas is #1. (Maybe I haven’t spent enough time in southeast Texas.) Wyoming is #1 for coal production in the US and that is also not surprising. The over 1-mile long coal rail cars are not just seen in Wyoming, but also up and down the Colorado Front Range, where I live, as the coal is transported to power plants in Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas.

Throughout the rest of the state you’ll find natural gas, hydrothermal, solar, uranium and precious metal mines. The state is a geologic wonder for beauty, range of features, and complexity and that has lead to it being such an interesting state for our energy resources. Check out the US Energy Information Administration page for Wyoming for more stats and information.

Dave Johnson power plant.

Coal rail cars along I-25.

Heart Healthy Beef – Blacktail Mountain Ranch

Ed Jonas tending to his cattle. Courtesy of Blacktail Mountain Ranch.

Ed Jonas and his Blacktail Mountain Ranch breed cattle so healthy that it is considered heart healthy. That’s right, a red meat that is healthier than chicken, bison, and turkey.

What does heart healthy beef have to do with environmental professionals? More than you might think. The connection between your health and environmental health is not hard to make. If unnatural toxins enter into the environment it can directly and indirectly impact our health through exposure to polluted land, air and water. If unnatural materials, such as genetically modified, antibiotics, or herbicides, are introduced into the food we eat it can cause known and unknown harm to our bodies. There are environmental professionals who devote their careers to reducing toxic exposures through safer products and work practices. That’s not much different than a rancher taking similar steps to reduce toxic exposure by providing healthy cattle. It takes a special kind of rancher to raise such a cattle and that rancher is Ed Jonas.

Ed and I met at the Craggy Range Bar in Whitefish, MT to talk about what drove him to raise healthy cattle and to sample some his delicious beef. Ed is a Vietnam veteran who was in Air Force intelligence and a pilot. He has a law degree from Rutgers Law and went into aviation law representing pilots and is now a cattle rancher. That’s quite an interesting life.

When Ed got out of the Air Force he saw the health issues of some of his friends who had served. That is when he asked himself. “What can I do to improve my health?”, which drove him to use healthy eating to keep a healthy body. Edible healing? I’ve believe I’ve heard that before. As an example, he told me a story about his mom telling him to just put some creamer in his coffee. She said, “It’s just like milk.” Ed looked at the ingredients and thought, “There’s nothing like milk in here.” This is just one simple example of countless similar stories that could be told about recognizing the difference between real food and processed food.

When the last of Ed’s three sons went off to college, he moved to Montana to start raising cattle. He was sampling beef at rodeo and asked where the meat had come from? He was surprised that it wasn’t from Montana. With all of the good ranching land in Montana, why was he eating beef from Washington. This was just another step that helped lead him to breed a local, healthy, grass-fed beef.

The long-haired HighMont cattle. Courtesy of Blacktail Mountain Ranch

Blacktail Mountain Ranch’s beef is a unique breed of cattle called HighMont Beef. Ed crossed the Piedmontese breed with the ancient cattle breed of the Scottish highlands. Both of these breeds are known as low-fat and low cholesterol. It’s not only the breeds, but how Ed cares for the animals. He personally walks and handles them daily to keep a calm stress-free environment. The result is a healthy, grass-fed, low-fat, low cholesterol HighMont beef, which has been endorsed by cardiologists. The Ranch was even recently featured in Sunset Magazine.

Ed and his wife Connie have worked for years on the ranch and at the beginning they weren’t making a whole lot of money and were putting in non-stop hours. But they were producing a quality product to be proud of and they loved it. Ed believe’s he could not have done it without Connie. He called her the original pioneer woman, but when they met Connie was a vegetarian. Her involvement with the Ranch has made her a believer in this beef.

As a growing desire builds for healthier, natural, real food, Blacktail Mountain Ranch has been providing it locally. It’s just unfortunate that the rest of the country doesn’t have access to it or a similar product. The Ranch is currently looking at expansion and relocation, so you many soon be able benefit from the heart-healthy beef. As Ed and I finished our meal, he commented, “It’s all about health. I saw my mom die of cancer. I want to be around for my grandkids.”

You can contact the Blacktail Mountain Ranch, get more about the nutritional content of the beef, and read their endorsements at blacktailmountainranch.com.

#1 Issue with Climate Change Skeptics

There’s a lot to wonder about why people are still skeptical of climate change, despite decades of research and evidence. There’s one thing about the skeptics that bothers me above all else, and that’s the huge insult it is to the researchers. Climate change skeptics are giving a big slap in the face to all of the scientists and researchers doing productive work.

Climatetologists, geographers, biologists, oceanographers, geologists, meteorologists, environmental scientists, and other earth scientist are working independently and cooperatively to determine the impacts, find solutions, or develop new technologies. It means nothing to the skeptics. What really stands out to me is the research that wasn’t intended to be climate change-based, but the conclusions support and contribute to the mountain of climate change evidence. Experts in their fields using the scientific method? It’s not enough for some people.

The concept of people not believing experts is not new. We’ve all been guilty of it. But this isn’t rating wine or movie reviews. It’s science and real research is not taken lightly. There are scientists who love nothing more than to disprove other scientist’s work (classy people). Paper after paper have been written over the past few decades and the research keeps mounting, despite the critical eye of other researchers.

The Department of Energy released a thorough paper, U.S. Energy Sector Vulnerabilities To Climate Change and Extreme Weather. What I really like about it is that it’s not research to determine if climate change is happening. It’s research to determine what will happen. The team of scientist that researched and wrote this aren’t concerned with the “if” part of climate change. They’ve accepted it and are planning for it’s outcomes. There is a very good summary website of the paper, here.

Climate skeptics, stop stepping on other people’s hard work. It’s insulting to them and to you. Embrace it, try to appreciate the work, and enlighten yourself. Maybe to bring more mainstream attention to the issue, climate scientists need a TV show about lawyer-doctor-cop-models who solve earth science problems related to dead hookers and seedy politicians. Somebody get Fox on the line for me!

I can sum up this whole issue with one of my favorite political cartoons, from Joel Pett, published in USA Today in 2009. Perfect.

Thoughts on the Keystone XL Pipeline

By Meclee (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons

I spent last week in Montana and one of the biggest national environmental issues was a frequent topic of conversation – the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. It will carry tar sands oil from Canada through eastern Montana, south to Nebraska to speed up and improve the transfer of the oil to the refineries in Texas. I don’t have the solution, but discussing it from both a local and national scale is fun.

There is a statement that applies to most environmental discussions and perfectly to the pipeline. “Environmental issues are emotional; the solution is scientific; but the answer is political.”

Adding a new, very large pipeline presents two significant environmental issues that get emotions boiling. One, it creates an opportunity for a large oil spill on US soil. Two recent oil pipeline spills of note are the ExxonMobile spill in Arkansas just a few weeks ago and the ExxonMobile spill in the Yellowstone River in July 2011. The second, and more significant issue is that construction of the pipeline would reinforce our reliance on fossil fuels for an extended future. We wouldn’t build this pipeline and then not use it. (Or would we? See: Yucca Mountain.)

Now that our emotions are revved up, we can find scientific solutions, both for and against. The pipeline would be built to a standard that our current pipelines aren’t; highly regulated with monitoring and controls, and the scrutiny from environmentalists would not allow a sub-par product. Not building the pipeline could lead to more tanker trucks hauling the fuel. Think about that. What’s better, one controlled pipeline carrying the oil or an older pipeline plus hundreds of tankers driving on our interstates?

Of course, there is a scientific solution to get our country off our dependence on fossil fuels through energy efficiency and renewables. Check out Rocky Mountain Institutes “Reinventing Fire” and you’ll be a believer. If we really start brainstorming alternatives the options are limitless. What about building a new refinery closer to the tar sands, in Montana? But that, and other options open up a Pandora’s box and those are discussions that I’m not ready for in this space.

Unfortunately this, like all national environmental issues, is going to come down to politics. As the Obama administration continues to be on the verge of approving it, the EPA recently got tough, saying that the State Department’s review of the project was insufficient. Approving the pipeline is a big step to getting our country closer to North American energy independence and if you haven’t been paying attention, were getting closer.

It’s probably our biggest national environmental issue right now. It’s local, national, short-term, long-term, and emotions, money, jobs, and politics will be made and lost over it. So where do you stand? Depending on where you physically and/or emotionally stand, the answer becomes pretty clear.

There are plenty of websites for you to get more information and develop your own opinion, but here’s two big ones, TransCanada’s website, http://keystone-xl.com/, and the National Resource Defense Council’s (NRDC) site, http://www.nrdc.org/energy/keystone-pipeline/.

Genesis of The National Environmental Professional

When I started my first environmental professional job in the late 90s, I had never met or even heard of anyone else who did this kind of work. I routinely thought to myself, “Who else works in this field?” From my vantage point at the time I figured environmental companies were either activists groups or engineering firms looking for new avenues of work. That was often the case. I wished there was a publication where I could learn about the people in the field and their work, beyond my small circle of coworkers and associates. There were groups and associations, but even the national ones were regionalized unless you could go to the conferences. Since then, the size and number of organizations has grown and the environmental community is more connected, but there is still room to learn about the people doing the work.

I’ve continued to work in this field; living the environmental professional lifestyle. This has included working for 6 different environmental companies as well as 3-other non-environmental, science positions. (Ah, the life of a consultant/contractor.) I’ve seen the good and bad, the interesting and the boring, and the science and art of the work and lifestyle.

With this website I have created what I was looking for years ago. It’s not just a place for someone starting out to learn about the field. It’s for all environmental professionals interested in the lifestyle outside of their desk, office, or job site across the nation. Lastly, it’s also for me. I am curious to meet all the interesting people doing great work. I hope to see you soon.