Bristol Residents for Clean Air

The incinerator has been documented to be in violation and is ordered to comply with the law. The operator denies everything. Per the story, the next step is to go to the state Dept. of Public Health.

Stop the sound: Health district orders Bristol company to reduce noise levels Remember that nagging noise bothering residents in Bristol and beyond? Our NBC CT Responds team was the first to report this story and listen to local frustrations. This week we’ve learned that local health officials have taken action. The Bristol-Burlington Health District said it has served the ...

In addition to the air and noise pollution, the draft permits allow the importation of literally the most dangerous infectious waste -- creating risks of the spread of disease in workers and community members.

Consultant sees ‘occupational health issue’ in permit for burning medical waste at CT incinerator As widespread public backlash builds against Reworld‘s bid to burn medical trash at its Connecticut incinerator, a waste-processing consultant told Southington officials that he’s more concerned about risk to workers than potential hazard to neighbors. “I don’t look at it as a major public h...

If it's this bad for noise, how much worse it is for pollutants that we can't see, hear, or measure? (dioxins, furans, heavy metal)

https://www.wfsb.com/2024/08/27/proposal-burn-medical-waste-bristol-plant-raising-concerns-residents/

Proposal to burn medical waste at Bristol plant raising concerns from residents A proposal to burn medical waste at a plant in Bristol is raising concern for some area residents. The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection issued a public notice in early July that after a public hearing, they will make a final decision as to whether or not this permit chan...

Time to show up and tell your legislation what you and what you need!!

Southington's Legislative Contingent To Host Forum Thursday Two state representatives and a state senator, all Republicans, will meet voters at Southington's municipal center Thursday.

We are now on IG Residents for Clean Air - please add us to your follow

Thanks to Moms Clean Air Force for this reminder!

Exactly! Vote!

In 2022, CT legislators decided that at least 4% of the state's electric use should come from incineration, protecting incinerators from having to compete with cleaner and cheaper alternatives.

Ed Krisiunas, an expert with 35+ years in medical waste management spoke to the Southington Town Council on 8/12. He identifies unacceptable deficiencies in the draft permits that could put workers and communities at risk of infection. Watch below.

Town Council 08/12/2024 Meeting

Covanta's record of hazardous spills in Connecticut can be found at the link below (search for Covanta). https://data.ct.gov/Environment-and-Natural-Resources/Spill-Incidents-from-January-1-1996-to-June-30-202/wr2a-rnsg/data_preview

Linked below is a database of 106 times when Covanta was caught violating air pollution, environmental, health, safety, or labor rules.

Violation Tracker Violation Tracker, produced by the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, is a wide-ranging database on misconduct by large and small corporations throughout the United States.

Save this date, and if you haven't gotten comments in, you still can! https://form.jotform.com/242075706678061 (If you have sent comments in, please share them with your elected officials.)

State Rep. Mary Fortier provided support for Reworld / Covanta's permit application to burn biomedical waste. She is now sharing information on a new CT program designed to provide information on lead hazards for families. Under the current monitoring standards at the incinerator, lead levels are tested once a year. The remaining 364 days go unmonitored. Maybe it is time for Mary to reconsider her support for the burning of biohazardous waste at the Bristol incinerator and move toward providing continuous monitoring of all the dangerous chemicals that find their way into our air through incineration of waste. There are NO SAFE LEVELS OF LEAD CONTAMINATION!

✅JUST LAUNCHED

Lead Free CT is a new campaign overseen by the Connecticut Department of Public Health with the goal of protecting children from the harmful health impacts of lead and creating a lead-free Connecticut.

Its objectives include:
✔️Making older homes where children or pregnant people live lead safe
✔️Collecting information on all known lead service water lines in Connecticut
✔️Replacing lead pipes that bring water to homes, childcare centers, and schools
✔️Supporting families who find lead in their home or water
✔️Offering funding to get Connecticut communities lead-free
✔️Having all Connecticut children tested for lead
✔️Raising awareness of lead testing and safety among parents
✔️Educating communities, contractors, and landlords on lead laws and safety

🌐You can learn more at LeadFreeCT.org

WE NEED YOU AND YOUR VOICE! Please attend this Monday, August 12, 2024 at 7PM! The Southington City Council is having a meeting and under item 3 is South Central Health District's Reworld presentation!

Let this picture speak for itself. These are currently the chemicals that are "continuously monitored" at the Reworld Covanta incinerator. How many more do you recognize that are not monitored at all?

We are nearing 500 letters of public comment sent in so far. This is huge!

EPA sets much lower emissions limits for medical waste incinerators... but the state's draft permits would not apply them here. Comments are still being accepted: https://form.jotform.com/242075706678061

Thank you to all who spoke up! While we do not have a record of what was sent in yet, energy and waste expert Mike Ewall kindly sent in the detailed permit analysis and recommendations linked below to DEEP.

EJN comments on the draft permits - Bristol Residents for Clean Air The draft permits for the burning of biomedical waste in Bristol are getting attention. Mike Ewall, founder of the Energy Justice Network and noted environmental attorney, has provided BARC with an analysis and detailed recommendations in response to the draft permits. Summary recommendations Analys...

FYI, today is the last day to get in public comments on the medical waste proposal. Thank you everybody!

Medical waste incineration comment submission form Please click the link to complete this form.

LINK HERE: https://form.jotform.com/242075706678061

If you haven't yet sent in comments to the state to oppose the burning of biomedical waste in Bristol, you can click below to open up an easy-to-use form to get them in before the deadline of August 4.

Medical waste incineration comment submission form Please click the link to complete this form.

It's not just about the air. Every community medical waste trucks pass through will be at risk.

"noise is the second largest environmental cause of health problems after air pollution, according to the World Health Organization. It’s been linked with issues ranging from sleep disturbance to poor concentration to risk of metabolic and cardiovascular disease and dementia"

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/noise-can-harm-your-health-even-if-you-sleep-through-it/

Medical waste incinerators shouldn’t be allowed "where people live, where children spend their days, or near our water or other environmental resources. Our legislation ensures that it isn’t, and that Rhode Island doesn’t become a destination for other people’s trash. Importing dangerous medical waste from out of state and burning it... has obvious risks and it undermines our efforts to stop air pollution. No one should have to fight a proposal like this... and with this law, Rhode Islanders will not have to do it in the future, either.” -- RI Rep. Justine Caldwell, on signing of the medical waste incineration ban in 2021

If the Covanta Bristol trash incinerator were required to use continuous monitoring for toxic chemicals like Oregon just required, we'd find out how polluting they truly are -- much more than what we're led to believe when they self-test once a year at best. The Mayor's Office Bristol CT could work with city council to require this at the city level, to get a baseline on emissions before Covanta potentially starts burning medical waste from several states.

VICTORY! Oregon Bill Passed to Monitor Toxic Incinerator Pollution

In Oregon, Senate Bill 488, a precedent-setting bill to continuously monitor toxic emissions from waste incineration, passed both the Senate and House, and now moves to the Governor's desk to be signed into law.

The bill will require the state's only trash incinerator (Covanta Marion) to have to continuously monitor for dioxins/furans, PCBs, and toxic metals for 12 months. They'd be the first in the nation to have to use this modern technology, and it'll likely expose that actual toxic air emissions are far higher than what is shown by once-per-year self-administered "best behavior" tests. Continuous testing at incinerators in Europe has shown that dioxins, the most toxic chemicals known to science, are emitted at rates 30 to 1,300 times higher than we think they are in the U.S. when we test just once a year.

This will have national implications once that data comes out. It's the first time these toxic chemicals will be tested continuously in the U.S., and should put to rest the claims that the testing technology is not available.

This hard-won victory could not have happened without the work of our member groups, Beyond Toxics and the Clean Air Now Coalition Oregon. Energy Justice Network has been working with them since 2019 to close the Covanta Marion waste incinerator, burning trash, medical, and industrial wastes in the largely Latinx community of Brooks, just north of Salem.

Requiring continuous emissions monitoring is one of the key strategies we've been using to prevent air polluting industries with local ordinances and to hold existing ones accountable. It's one of the key points we raised in a 274-group strong October 2022 letter to the White House Council on Environmental Quality about EPA's bad policies relating to waste incineration. See: www.energyjustice.net/incineration/2022CEQletter.pdf

If we regulated motorists the way we do most pollutants from smokestacks, it would be akin to enforcing a speed limit by allowing drivers to drive all year with no speedometer. Once a year, a speed trap would be set on the highway with signs warning "slow down... speed trap ahead," and the driver's brother would be running the speed trap (companies choose who they pay to conduct the test).

For nearly everything with a smokestack in the U.S., continuous monitoring is only used for three pollutants, and none of the toxic ones. As we change this reality and find that we're exposed to far more than we realize, it could be a game changer for getting these toxic industries closed for good.

More resources in links from this copy of the text above: www.energyjustice.net/or/sb488

SIGN ON YOUR GROUP BY 3/28: www.energyjustice.net/tri

If we win this, Covanta's trash incinerator will be required to annually report their toxic emissions -- not just into the air, but in their ash and water discharges.

SUPPORT TOXIC RIGHT TO KNOW!

SIGN ON YOUR GROUP BY 3/28: www.energyjustice.net/tri

Since 1988, EPA has run the Toxics Release Inventory, making toxic industries disclose what they put in our air, land, and water. However, one of the most toxic industries -- waste incinerators -- has been exempt from reporting from the start. If you represent an organization, please sign on in support of this rulemaking petition from Energy Justice Network and the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) asking EPA to make trash, sewage sludge, medical waste, and other industrial waste incinerators have to start disclosing what they're putting into our environment.

This sign-on is for organizations of any sort. We have 150 signed on so far. If you're with any organization or can share it with the decision-makers in a group you know, please sign on (or ask them to do so) here: www.energyjustice.net/tri

Oregon legislators are working to pass a law to make Covanta have to follow the stricter standards for medical waste incinerators instead of exploiting the loophole that allows them to be a large medical waste incinerator while following the weaker standards for trash burners. Covanta Bristol is trying to start burning medical waste here, which would make them one of the largest medical waste incinerators in the nation. Why aren't Connecticut legislators pushing for the same protections Oregon is working to adopt?

READ: https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/politics/2023/03/16/oregon-legislature-medical-waste-burning-covanta-marion-county-municipal-incinerator/69978584007/

We're working with our Oregon-based member groups, Clean Air Now Coalition Oregon and Beyond Toxics to pass state legislation to close the federal loophole that allows large-scale medical waste burning to take place in the state's only trash incinerator. The Covanta Marion incinerator cannot meet the much stricter standards that normal medical waste incinerators do, and instead is held to outdated and weaker standards for old trash incinerators. This article just came out, covering some of our work on this. Anyone in Huntsville, Alabama or Lake County, Florida is living with the same thing, as Covanta is also burning medical waste at their trash incinerators there. And other plants of theirs, like Niagara Falls, are burning treated medical waste. Bristol, Connecticut is the next place Covanta is trying to do this, and is being fought by our member group, Bristol Residents for Clean Air. See this link for the full article and please comment or message us with any questions!

https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/politics/2023/03/16/oregon-legislature-medical-waste-burning-covanta-marion-county-municipal-incinerator/69978584007/