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EiJ Hawaii Agricultural Hazards

mtebbe

Significant pesticide usage from industrial agriculture:

  • "[Hawaii] became the biotech GMO capital of the US after agrochemical transnationals were welcomed to open research fields with fewer restrictions on potentially toxic pesticides."
  • Legacy contamination from past monocrop plantations
  • Research facilities owned by agrochemical companies like Monsanto - potential illegal dumping, off-site releases of chemicals

Runoff from agriculture (even if it contains just sediments and no pesticides) is harmful to coral reefs

Sources:

https://grist.org/agriculture/the-farmers-restoring-hawaiis-ancient-foo…

https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2017/03/02/cooperation-is-key-to-reduce-sed…

environmental hazards

ghakim
  • includes severe water pollution -- tied to militarism, including raw sewage and petroleum contamination (incl. in Oahu's sole aquifer) - O'ahu Water Protectors, calls to shut down the Navy's Red Hill facility
  • (combo disaster) potential radioactive contamination and legacies of U.S. nuclear weapon testing -- "The Runit Dome is a relic of America’s atomic past. It’s home to 3 million cubic feet of radioactive waste that was buried there as part of the government’s effort to clean up the mess left from dozens of nuclear tests in the 1940s and ’50s that decimated the atoll. A warming climate and rising sea levels now threaten the integrity of the saucer-shaped structure, which, if it fails, could spill its radioactive contents into the Pacific, a scenario that would threaten both people and the surrounding environment." (source)
  • wildfires, compounded by climate change

PS. Hazards in Hawaii. 2023

prerna_srigyan

August 2023 Update:

 

October 2023 Update:
Hazardous Waste after the Lahain fires: After the Lahaina fires, chemical pollutants in the air and water present a hazardous health issue. Chemicals include benzene, polcyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, lead, asbestos. Half the buildings in Lahaina predated the 1978 federal health ban. Symptoms from this chemical exposure can include nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite. Apart form these predictable materials, the debris contains combustion by-products of a unique construction material--caneck, made from sugarcane fibers and treated with arsenic as a termite repellant. 

Sources:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/maui-residents-face-lingering-toxic…
https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/08/toxic-debris-from-the-lahaina-fire-wi…

PS: SJV pesticide disability: hazards

prerna_srigyan

17-year old Avenal resident Rafael Cerda Calderon suffers from severe seizures, autism, and a developmental disability. He was exposed in-utero and during infancy to the pesticide Chlorpyrifos, a neurotoxin that has been compared to Sarin for the health hazard that it imposes. The pesticide was developed by Dow Chemicals, now Delware-based Corteva Inc., in the 1960s as a substitute for DDT, and has been banned for nationwide use since 2001. 

"the pesticide becomes a deadly neurotoxin when it comes into contact with water or sunshine or treated with chlorine, which is typically added to tap water. Chlorpyrifos oxon is 1,000 times more toxic than the original pesticide and was never registered with the EPA because it is so deadly."

“We found the stuff in cars; it gets in the dashboard, it goes anywhere the wind goes,” Calwell said. “We even sampled a teddy bear and even found it there. So for a child living there, with every breath he takes, he’s getting a little dose. It’s very insidious.”

Oilfield wastewater disposal site closure Question 2

mtebbe

percolation and evaporation pond operation accepting oilfield produced water, which is a highly saline byproduct of local oil production that contains small concentrations of cancer-causing chemicals.

The wastewater allegedly contained arsenic, benzene, ethylbenzene, naphthalene, radionuclides and toluene.Clean Water Fund and AIR alleged the practice has created an underground plume that has spread more than two miles since monitoring wells were established in the area in 2004, and that the contamination may eventually reach Buttonwillow's drinking water supply.

LA sewage sludge court fight Question 2

mtebbe

11 wastewater treatment plants in LA County produce half a million tons of treated sewage sludge from human waste per year. Sludge is sent to a lnadfill in Kern County, the Westlake Facility, and some to Arizona

water pollution from sewage sludge

air pollution from sewage sludge and from trucks hauling the sludge to the farm - 55 trucks per day/20,000 per year at full capacity