BEAT's Blog

This past fall, the Occupy Wall Street group made a lot of headlines pointing out that one percent of this country’s population controls a very disproportionate share of the wealth.  Tied in to this is the fact that recent federal court rulings have taken almost all restraints off corporations who want to make contributions to politicians.  Of course, when business leaders pay out money in the form of contributions, they expect something in return, and they get it.  Corporate taxes have been plummeting, corporate profits have been soaring, and politicians have become much more responsive to their contributors than to their constituents.  The result of all this is that politicians respond to corporate directives rather than to public needs.  In effect, our democracy has been seriously damaged.

As I said in a recent blog:

In the most recent CNN opinion poll (April 2011), when adults were asked “Would you favor legislation that would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from spending any money to enforce regulations on greenhouse gases and other environmental issues, or do you think the federal government should continue to provide funding to the Environmental Protection Agency to enforce those regulations,” 71% favored continuing funding.  28% were against funding.  Less than a year ago, in a Pew Research poll, adults were asked, “Right now, which ONE of the following do you think should be the more important priority for U.S. energy policy: keeping energy prices low or protecting the environment?”  56% favored protecting the environment.  37% favored keeping prices down.  Less than a year ago an ABC News/Washington Post poll asked, “Do you think the federal government should or should not regulate the release of greenhouse gases from sources like power plants, cars and factories in an effort to reduce global warming?”  Democrats favored regulation 81% to 16%.  Republicans favored regulation  55% to 39%.  Independents favored regulation 69% to 27%. It’s no wonder that the approval rating of Congress is at an all-time low.

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Pharmaceuticals on the whole are a wonderful thing.  So many diseases and disorders that plagued earlier generations can be prevented or made less harmful and less uncomfortable by products of the drug industry.  This is because pharmaceuticals are designed to change our physiology.  They are designed to make changes to the way our bodies work.  This is what we are looking for when we take a prescription or an over-the-counter medicine.  We want a chemical that will affect our bodily processes.

But how many times have you flushed unwanted and unused portions of these products down the drain?  Or maybe you’ve thrown them in the trash so that they end up in a landfill where they can find their way into groundwater or nearby waterways.  Even if you use all of the product you purchase, much of the active chemicals in these products go right through your body unchanged and end up in the toilet to be flushed and sent on to the local wastewater treatment plant.  Add to this all of the veterinary medicines, hormones, and antibiotics and we have an even bigger problem.

You might think that the wastewater treatment plant is the perfect place to send these products, but actually, wastewater treatment plants do not remove pharmaceuticals from the wastewater stream.  They send them right out with the rest of their discharge, usually into a river.  In a recent study by the U.S. Geologic Survey, 80% of the rivers tested and about 25% of the groundwater tested contained pharmaceuticals.  Is this a problem?

Remember that these are chemicals that are designed to change our physiology, and also remember that our basic physiological processes are the same as those of other living things.  This means that every day we send biologically active drugs and medicines into our waterways and wetlands and, in effect, administer medicine to fish, frogs, turtles and other living things.  Does this have an effect on aquatic wildlife?  Of course it does.  These chemicals were designed to have a biological effect.  Of course these animals are getting a less concentrated dose, because the chemicals are diluted by the water in the river, but this is counterbalanced by the fact that aquatic animals sit in this toxic soup 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.   Researchers have linked these pollutants to reproductive disorders in fish and amphibians.  The problems include lower sperm counts and damaged sperm.  Some male fish and frogs have become “feminized,” meaning that they have developed both male and female reproductive structures.  The scientific literature documenting these kinds of problems is growing quickly.

It’s not just aquatic wildlife that gets unintentional doses of medicine.  In some communities, these drugs have found their way back into our drinking water supply.  We are drinking each other’s prescriptions, in trace amounts, but constantly, day in and day out.  There is currently no federal requirement for testing drinking water supplies for pharmaceuticals.  Distributors of bottled water are also not required to test for pharmaceuticals.  An Associated Press investigation found that “A vast array of pharmaceuticals including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans.”

So what can we do?  Researchers have found a simple technology that has been proving effective in breaking down pharmaceuticals.  The effluent from wastewater treatment plants is sent into small wetlands that are constructed especially for the purpose.  The microorganisms in these constructed wetlands biologically degrade a high percentage of the pharmaceuticals in the wastewater.  This technology is already implemented in some communities.

Another solution is to dispose of your medications properly.  BEAT can help with this.  On October 29, BEAT will be partnering with the Berkshire United Way, the Berkshire Attorney General’s Office, Berkshire Health Systems, and a number of other groups in the RX Roundup.  At a number of sites throughout the county, you will be able to turn in your unwanted prescription medications, over-the-counter remedies, and personal care products for safe disposal.  Each site will be supervised by law enforcement officials.  This is a great time to clean out your medicine cabinet.  This not only helps the environment, but also helps to reduce the supply of prescription medications available illegally on the street and reduces the likelihood of drug-related accidents among small children.

The date is October 29.  You can check newspapers or BEAT’s website for more specific information as the date approaches.

The February 2 issue of our newsletter, The BEAT News, carried the following story.

Busted for dumping snow in Merrimack River

Tuesday February 1, 2011
LAWRENCE, Mass. (AP) — An investigation has been launched after surveillance video caught a contractor allegedly dumping snow plowed from a parking lot into the Merrimack River in Lawrence.

Mayor William Lantigua says he personally witnessed the dumping, which involved 42 trucks over a three-hour period late Sunday night and into Monday morning.

Police Chief John Romero tells The Eagle-Tribune that dumping plowed snow into water is a violation of federal clean water laws, because the snow contains salt, oil and other contaminants.

Police have informed both state and federal environmental regulators.
<full story with video>

Lawrence DPW workers suspended for dumping snow in river
Source: eagletribune.com

One day after Mayor William Lantigua caught a private contractor dumping snow into the Merrimack River, he suspended three public works employees, one of them a School Committee member, for allegedly doing the same thing.

We also posted on February 2 a reminder to residents and to municipalities that dumping snow in the river is not an acceptable means for disposing of snow – it is in fact illegal.

Recently we observed snow-removal equipment sending snow into the river along West Street in Pittsfield.  On February 13 the following letter to the editor appeared in the electronic version (probably the print version too) of The Berkshire Eagle.

Sand, salt don’t belong in river

Sunday February 13, 2011

My wife and I made our daily trip to Harry’s on Elm St. Monday afternoon and were amazed to see the city’s self-propelled sidewalk snowblower unit removing the nasty sand and salt snow from the bridge near the Clip Shop by sending it right over the sides and into the river! When we left Harry’s the other side was being done.

Isn’t there some kind of EPA law being violated here? Couldn’t that snow have been blown into the back of a truck?

BILL PLUDE

Pittsfield

To which we responded online:

Yes there certainly is a law against that. Dumping anything in the river without a permit is a violation of the federal Clean Water Act. We recently put a reminder of this in our newsletter, The BEAT News. You can always call Mass DEP’s Environmental Strike Force at 1-888-VIOLATE (1-888-846-5283) when you think you see a violation. Thanks for the heads-up.
Bruce Winn (Berkshire Environmental Action Team)

We would like to remind everyone again.  It is illegal to dump anything in the river without a permit.  BEAT has reported the violation to the City of Pittsfield (Mayor’s Office), the Pittsfield Conservation Commission, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and the DEP Environmental Strike Force.

Lately I’ve been trying to understand the motivation of those people in our community who are arguing against a cleanup of the Housatonic River and are arguing instead that GE has the correct perspective in saying that the river should be left to heal itself. I understand GE’s motivation. Any cleanup will cost them money. They are bound as a corporation to protect the interest of their shareholders, which means they must protect their bottom line even if it means leaving their poisons in our river. But what about those in our own community who don’t want the PCBs removed from the river and who have been spending quite a bit of money to add their voices to GE’s PR campaign? Read more…

Remember the story of the “green goo” going into the Housatonic River (1,2). iBerkshires has an update on their webpage today. The City of Pittsfield has been fined $6,325 by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection for sending 4,700 gallons of a solution used to clean boilers at Pittsfield High School into a floor drain that went into a storm drain and then straight into the river.

High-school personnel thought they were sending the liquid, which contained sodium nitrate, sodium hydroxide and whatever had just been cleaned out of the boilers, into the city’s sewer system (not that that would have been OK). After being caught, the city filed a report with DEP saying that there had been no significant impact to the river. Apparently DEP disagrees. Read more…

Streams can be classified as either perennial or intermittent. Perennial streams flow continually all year (more or less), and intermittent streams often cease to flow in periods of low water or seasonally in summer. Intermittent streams are not afforded the same level of protection as perennial streams under the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act, so occasionally a landowner or developer petitions a conservation commission to reclassify a perennial stream as intermittent so that some project can go forward.

As I mentioned in my last blog, Pittsfield has decided to reclassify a small stream, part of Barton Brook, as intermittent, thereby stripping it of some of its protection under the Wetlands Protection Act. The portion of Barton Brook that has suddenly become vulnerable is downstream of part of the brook that appears to be perennial. This upstream section even has brook trout, a species of fish that requires a year-round stream. Downstream of this reclassified section, the brook again becomes perennial. You might wonder how a brook can flow except in one short section in its middle. The answer is that it goes underground for a short span. This, in BEAT’s opinion, does not fit the spirit of the intermittent stream definition. Read more…

The developmental psychologist Jean Piaget theorized that infants develop the idea of object permanence between 8 and 12 months of age. If a ball rolls under a sofa, these children are now able to understand that it didn’t cease to exist, they just could no longer see it.

At the November 4 meeting of the Pittsfield Conservation Commission, the commission voted to change the classification of a stretch of Barton Brook from perennial to intermittent, thereby stripping the stream of some of its protections under the Wetlands Protection Act. Why? Because the water in this stream at some point in its travels seemed to disappear. It appeared again further downstream. Amazingly, the stretch in between had no water, unless you looked under the sofa, I mean the gravel. Read more…

Last week I wrote about a Pittsfield official telling the City Council that the City of Pittsfield had “elected” not to comply with state-mandated environmental monitoring regulations in an effort to save money.  In case you think this is an isolated incident, let me tell you about a few things that happened over the course of the last couple weeks and are still going on. Read more…

A recent Pittsfield Gazette story highlighted the controversy surrounding flooding in the area around Deming Park in Pittsfield. Local residents are angry over mistakes made by the Pittsfield Parks Commission and the Pittsfield Conservation Commission. A second, seemingly unrelated story has me concerned.

According to the Gazette, “Ontario Street homeowners led by Dan Miraglia have challenged the city’s activities at the park, which they feel have violated the law and contributed to an ever-worsening flood problem impacting their residential properties. ‘There is a constant flooding problem in that particular area,’ he said.” (1)

Part of the controversy centers on a new batting cage that was built for the Babe Ruth baseball league in Deming Park. There was no permit issued for this work by the Conservation Commission even though the work was in the floodplain.

According to the Gazette, “The parks commission approved the batting cage — paid for by the Babe Ruth league — in February, during a meeting when all votes were illegal because a quorum was not present. The cage was then installed and in March, the commission ‘corrected’ the votes by voting as a package to reaffirm all February actions, without any deliberation. (1)
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Pittsfield has suffered from an unusual amount of flooding over the course of the past year. Of course nobody is blaming the City for the recent heavy rainfall. But the kind of extreme storms we have been experiencing lately may become more common in the future. Global climate-change models have been saying for years now that climate change in our area will mean more rainfall and more extreme and intense rain storms. (1)

Although nobody is saying that Pittsfield caused all the recent flooding, I believe that the decisions made by the Pittsfield Conservation Commission have made the flooding worse than it otherwise would have been. For example, take their decisions regarding the reconstruction of Wahconah Park. Read more…