Yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency issued its latest data on air pollution called the National Air Toxics Assessment or NATA. NATA is designed to provide estimates of the risk of cancer and other serious health effects from breathing (inhaling) air toxics in order to inform both national and more localized efforts to identify and prioritize… Read more »
Posts By: Mary
Portland Air Toxics Solution Advisory Committee Mtg #8 recap
As the PATSAC process rounds the corner to its finish line stretch, the work of the committee is definitely getting more interesting. At the last two meetings, the quality of DEQ materials has been impressive, including the detailed PATS 2017 Pollutant Modeling Summary presented at the January 25th meeting, and from this last meeting, the… Read more »
ESCO independent audit gets underway
Mr. Jim Karas and his colleague Mr. Fred Tanaka spent three days in Portland last week. Their time was primarily spent at ESCO to tour the facility and observe operations. Neighborhood representatives were given the opportunity to meet with Mr. Karas and Mr. Tanaka prior to their visit to ESCO Monday morning at DEQ headquarters. … Read more »
Good Neighbor Agreement
Air pollution problems are inherently local, the worst of them manifesting in “Toxic Hot Spots.” Yet this is specifically the area where the Clean Air Act and the state regulatory framework has failed to protect citizens. If direct citizen negotiation is still considered the most effective means of addressing local toxic hot spots, citizens need stronger public advocates to work on their behalf. Portland should look to the spirit of what the Houston Mayor did, which was to say, the city is the best entity to look out for the equitable protection of all its citizens and should be creative in its ideas of how to engage on the issue.
False Choices
The first responders to The Oregonian coverage of Neighbors for Clean Air delivering air toxics petition to DEQ downtown yesterday, gave the usual doomsday speech of pollution reduction equals job destruction. This age old argument to protect the status quo just doesn’t stack up. In “free market” America, companies shed jobs and move to other countries because of the economy, not environmental… Read more »