Time to Remember : Memorial Day

Arlington National Cemetery
Final Resting Place for
Many Americans Who Served

Memorial Day

Memorial Day honors service members who died in service to their country or as a result of injuries incurred during battle.  How may you celebrate?

Here are some ideas:

• visit cemeteries and war memorials and place flags or flowers
• attend Memorial Day parades or your local VFW hall
• fly the US flag at half-staff until noon
• add the POW/MIA flag to your flagpole
• submit a eulogy
• view the National Memorial Day Concert
• talk to your children about a friend or family member who died so that we may live in freedom.
• observe a moment of silence at 3 PM

WTF? Why are we using carcinogens on food crops!??

The world's largest private agro–chemical corporation—Arysta LifeScience—has been lobbying for expanded use of its highly profitable, cancer-causing pesticide methyl iodide on our nation's crop lands.

Florida and California—which grow much of our nation's produce—have already caved to industry pressure and are allowing this known carcinogen to be applied to their farm lands.

Help Earthjustice’s legal experts win a ban on this extremely toxic chemical. Make a special gift today. Methyl iodide is so carcinogenic that it is used in labs specifically to create cancer cells.

In a letter to the EPA dated May 7, three Nobel Laureates in chemistry wrote that methyl iodide is "one of the more hazardous chemicals used in research labs and in the chemical industry." It is a potent neurotoxin, a thyroid function disruptor, and can cause birth defects and late-term miscarriages.

Earthjustice's experts have filed a lawsuit challenging the approval of this hazardous pesticide in California and are pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to ban its use nationwide. But they need your support to win this fight!

Help stop the use of cancer-causing methyl iodide on fields that produce our nation's food by making an urgent donation today.

A chemical this dangerous has no place in fields that grow our food. But just last week farming operations in California began applying the pesticide to fields that will grow produce that could end up on your table.

We can reverse this toxic practice in California and across the country—but we need your support to go up against the well-funded agro-chemical industry.

Take a stand with us as we fight for safe food production. Make an emergency donation today.

via EarthJustice

Another Way to Poison Your Babies and Small Tykes

A new peer-reviewed study finds that 80% of tested baby products contain toxic or inadequately tested flame retardants. Many of these same chemicals are found in our children's bodies and are widely dispersed throughout the environment and in our food.

Please take action today to urge your Senators to support the Safe Chemicals Act of 2011 introduced by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ).

• Four products contained penta-BDE, a substance so toxic it is banned in 172 countries and 12 U.S. states, and was voluntarily phased out of production in the U.S. in 2004. Unfortunately, these bans don’t address imports of products containing this chemical.
• 29 products contained TDCPP (also known as chlorinated Tris), a possible human carcinogen that was removed from children's pajamas in the late 1970s due to serious health concerns.
• 14 products contained TCEP, a carcinogenic flame retardant that is suspected to cause tumors in kidneys and thyroid glands, to reduce fertility, and to interfere with brain signaling that could lead to hyperactivity. TCEP is no longer produced in Europe and has been identified by Canada as posing a risk to human health

Take a Stand for Clean Air - It Is Our Right

Why Poison Ourselves, Our Mothers and Babies (born and unborn)?

A study released in January 2011, UCSF Study Identifies Chemicals in Pregnant Women (ucsf.edu/news/2011/01/8371/ucsf-study-identifies-chemicals-pregnant-women), at the University of  California at San Francisco revealed that multiple chemicals are found in the bodies of virtually all pregnant women in the USA. Some of these chemicals are banned and have been since the 1970s. Others chemicals are used in non-stick cookware, processed foods and personal care products.

Screening for 163 chemicals, researchers found polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine pesticides, perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), phenols, polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), phthalates, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and perchlorate in 99 to 100 percent of pregnant women. Among the chemicals found in the study group was dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane ( DDT), an organochlorine pesticide banned in the United States in 1972.

Bisphenol A (BPA), found in the lining metal food and beverage cans, was identified in 96 percent of the women surveyed. Prenatal exposure to BPA has been linked to adverse health outcomes, affecting brain development and increasing susceptibility to cancer later in life.

Complete findings available  here: Environmental Chemicals in Pregnant Women in the US: NHANES 2003-2004 (ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/info:doi/10.1289/ehp.1002727#Supplemental%20Material) by Tracey J. Woodruff, Ami R. Zota, Jackie M. Schwartz.

---

The Need For Better Public Health Decisions On Chemicals Released Into Our Environment by Tracey J. Woodruff, Thomas A. Burke, and Lauren Zeise

In the past seventy years, the manufacture and use of industrial chemicals has increased more than fifteenfold . . . People are now exposed to multiple environmental chemicals in the air, food, water, and a variety of consumer products, such as phthalates, which can be added to plastics to increase their flexibility; brominated flame retardants, such as those used in furniture; and perfluorinated chemicals, which are used to make surfaces stain- or stick-resistant. Many of these chemicals appear in measurable quantities in Americans’ bodies and can be associated with adverse health effects.

Close Halliburton Loophole and Protect Waterways

 In 1972, Congress overwhelmingly passed the Clean Water Act to end the use of lakes, rivers, streams and wetlands as waste dumps. Before that, America's waters and people had been suffering from pollution, and many lakes and rivers became unfit for drinking, swimming and fishing.

In 2002, Cheney came up with the "Halliburton Loophole," which subverted The Clean Water Act and allowed mining companies to dump their toxic and dangerous mining waste directly into the lakes, rivers and streams. By redefining "fill material," the Bush administration opened the floodgates for coal mines in Appalachia to destroy streams with the waste created by mountain top mining. In 2004, the Bush administration expanded that loophole to allow even more dangerous dumping of toxic mine "tailings"—the chemically processed wastewater slurry from extracting gold and other metals.

Alaska's Lower Slate Lake, before chemically processed waste from

the Kensington Mine was stored there, and after. 

In Alaska, a new gold mine is pumping hundreds of thousands of gallons per day of toxic wastewater slurry into Lower Slate Lake, killing its fish and aquatic life. High gold and metal prices have triggered a mining boom that, without stronger regulation, threatens countless lakes, streams and wetlands in Alaska and throughout the country.

Alaska's Lower Slate Lake, before chemically processed waste from the Kensington Mine

was stored there, and after. ('Before' Photo by Pat Costello and courtesy of LightHawk). 

The Obama administration must close this loophole, now, and restore protections for our waters. Clean, safe, healthy water for all Americans must take priority over corporate interests. Please write to the Obama administration and tell them to close this loophole and stop the dumping of mining waste into our waters: http://action.earthjustice.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=1135&autologin=true

 Polluted Cabin Creek, near Leewood, West Virginia. (Mark Schmerling)

 via EarthJustice

Cut $4 Billion inTax Breaks to Big Oil

ExxonMobil has reported 1st quarter profits of nearly $11 billion. Shell announced $6.9 billion in profits. BP earned over $5 billion during the first three months of the year.

Meanwhile Americans across the country are struggling with near-record prices at the pump. And do you know the worst part? While the Big Oil companies rake in obscene profits, they are also getting billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded subsidies.

Over the past decade, the big five oil companies -- BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Shell have enjoyed more than $900 billion in profits.

At the same time, these oil companies benefit from more than $4 billion in special tax breaks every year. Why are we subsidizing one of the most profitable industries? Why does ExxonMobil get a tax break while we get stuck paying higher gas prices?

Tell Congress: It’s time to end Big Oil handouts. Click here to add your name to the petition.

Save Bristol Bay from Polluting Mining Companies

Bristol Bay and Surrounding Lands and Rivers

We must protect Bristol Bay from the ecological devastation that would accompany a large-scale copper and gold mine proposed by Rio Tinto.  A two-mile-wide open-pit mine gouged into the land at the headwaters of the Bristol Bay watershed would produce an estimated 10 billion tons of contaminated waste.  The plan is to store the waste behind massive earthen dams, which is not the best idea as evidenced by the failed earthen dams, better known as levees, in New Orleans. What makes this proposed mine and waste ponds so dangerous is that the entire area lies in an active earthquake zone.

Mines such as those proposed upstream from Bristol Bay can release arsenic, sulfuric acid, cyanide and heavy metals including lead, cadmium, zinc and mercury. Other forms of toxic pollution are present that are lethal to fish and can cause human health problems including cancer and neurological damage.

Planned Pebble Mine Operation

Water would constantly have to be drained away from the mine to prevent copper and acid mine pollutants from seeping into the watershed that drains into streams where salmon, by the trillions, have spawned for thousands of years.  The Bristol Bay watershed lies within the region of Southwest Alaska, near Lake Iliamna and Lake Clark. This is an area that encompasses the headwaters of important salmon spawning streams that feed the Kvichak River, Nushagak River and Mulchatna River. These streams include the legendary waters of Upper Talarik Creek and the Koktuli Rivers.

Bristol Bay is one of the most productive marine ecosystems in the world, home to the largest wild sockeye salmon runs in the world; important nursery grounds for red king crab and Pacific halibut; staging areas and wintering grounds for tens of millions of seabirds; and a feeding ground and migration corridor for marine mammals, including five endangered species.

As Robert Redford wrote in a full-page ad in New York Times, "it's an environmental tragedy waiting to happen." He continued:

Anglo American’s history is littered with one pollution disaster after another: from Zimbabwe to Ireland to Nevada. Rio Tinto has left a trail of toxic contamination that spans the globe: from Indonesia to Bolivia to Utah.

The Mitsubishi Corporation ended participation in this mined when faced with opposition from native and environmental groups.

Now we need to let Anglo America and Rio Tinto know exactly how many dedicated activists are against the mine.  Take action now on the NRDC website.  Then, please spread the word.