Cascadia Times update

As you may have heard Cascadia Times is investigating the air quality issue in Portland

Here are some of our findings.

What I've found is that toxic air emissions from ESCO, a steel foundry in Northwest Portland, grew by 4800 percent from 2003-2007.

They are serious enough to be impacting neighboods all over Portland, from Gresham to Hillsboro and Lake Oswego to Vancouver.

This is a citywide problem and is not limited to just one neighborhood.

I've learned that arsenic, antimony lead, hexavalent chromium, manganese, nickel, selenium, copper, zinc and mercury are just some of the toxins found by independent monitoring of ESCO’s emissions.

But ESCO is not the only polluter of toxins into Portland air. Oil companies like BP and Chevron are discharging massive amounts of toxic gasoline vapors, including carcinogenic benzene, from more than 500 large, leaky storage tanks across the Willamette River from the Rose Garden Arena, and into Northwest, North and Northeast Portland.

"The right-to-know" eludes Portlanders. Oil giant Kinder-Morgan Inc., an Enron spinoff, is one of those gasoline companies with toxic emissions. But its emissions from more than 150 gaoline storage facilities in Portland and across the country have never been reported to the public, unlike emission from many other polluters. Kinder-Morgan’s CEO was the number 1 fundraiser for fellow oilman George Bush's presidential campaigns. Aren't you into campaign finance re4form? Here's your poster boy,

Residents say odors from ESCO and the gasoline terminals have been causing discomfort, headaches and nausea. Oregon's DEQ says it has done all it can do to abate residents’ suffering from toxics in the air.

We developed a 2-page map: “Portland's toxic cloud” — by converting EPA air-toxins data to a map of Portland charting the spread of pollution from ESCO. Our’ analysis of the data shows that as you go closer to the ESCO site, the more toxic the air gets. Leave a comment if you wou like a draft odf copy, -Paul Koberstein

Upcoming Town Hall Meeting

We are preparing for our Town Hall Meeting with the DEQ next week to address our concerns regarding toxic industrial emissions in our air around the neighborhood and our schools:

Neighbors for Clean Air Town Hall Mtg with the DEQ
Thursday, May 21st 7.00pm
Chapman Elementary School Auditorium

I want to challenge you to be part of a positive outcome to this meeting.  We will use this meeting to deliver our petition.  We are still a few hundred short of the goal of 1000 signatures.  Can you pledge to "walk a block" of our neighborhood to get more signatures and to encourage people to attend this meeting? This could be yours, or you could sign up with me to walk areas of the neighborhood that still have yet to be informed adequately about this issue.

It is critical that, in order to garner the attention we need to this issue, we show our force in terms of number of people that are concerned about the information in the USA Today report.  That means, yes: YOU.  We need you at this meeting.

Remember, people can also now sign the petition on line at:  www.portlandair.org

What's in our air?

I've been examining air pollution permits for gasoline terminals in Northwest Portland. You may be shocked at what I've found:

There are 467 petroleum storage tanks in Northwest Portland owned by six companies at seven separate terminals. Six of them store gasoline; the seventh stores crude oil for the manufacture of asphalt.

The permits say the terminals are a significant source of Volatile Organic Compound emissions, or VOCs, which arise from operations that include loading tanker trucks and trailers, loading and unloading marine vessels (barges and ships), the storage of products, handling and processing of oily wastewater, and fugitive-leak sources such as pumps, valves, and flanges.

Many of these compounds, like benzene, are carcinogenic. The terminals also emit massive amounts of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide and tiny particulates.

Two of the gasoline terminals are owned by Chevron. The others are owned by Equilon (also known as Shell), Kinder Morgan, Shore Terminals and BP. Paramount Petroleum owns the crude oil tanks. The oil comes from the Alaska Arctic, where oil rigs are displacing endangered polar bears and other wildlife. The oil is refined in the Puget Sound area.

All are clustered along NW St. Helens Rd and NW Front Ave. between Willbridge and Linnton. Each tank holds between several thousand gallons to 5.5 million gallons. Collectively, they are able to store as much as 200 million gallons of gasoline at any one time -- or perhaps even more -- when they are filled to their rated capacity.

Some of the tanks are as old as 1910. Who knows how safe they are.  They are connected to the Olympic Pipeline, which carries gasoline from refineries in Puget Sound north of Seattle, to Portland. You might remember an explosion at the north end of the pipeline in Bremerton 10 years ago -- on June 10, 1999, to be exact -- killing three youths: one who was 18, and two others, both age 10. The massive fireball sent a plume of smoke 30,000 feet into the air, visible from Anacortes to Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

Ten years ago, a Cascadia Times investigation revealed that the DEQ was failing to address the massive, illegal and uncontrolled vapor emissions from the gasoline terminals, even though those emissions contributed to repeated violations of the Clean Air Act within the city of Portland year after year. Local citizens filed suit and won a settlement against Chevron, and the DEQ cracked down on the polluters with new regulations requiring them to install vapor control equipment.

Before 2001, the terminals emitted as much as 1,392 tons per year of VOCs, much of it released to the air during transfers of gasoline from barges to shore. But even with the control equipment, the terminals today still emit 1,090 tons of VOCs per year. The decrease amounted to a sizeable 21.6 percent reduction in the amount of VOCs in our air, but a lot of dangerous fumes remain.

I wonder if the neighbors are going to be happy with just this 21.6 percent decrease, given the high amounts of pollution that schools in Portland are facing, as reported last December in USA Today.

You'll want to know what Northwest Portland neighbors are doing to fight the DEQ and the polluters, which includes ESCO, a steel mill.  Watch this space for an important announcement to be made soon.

If LA Froze Over...

The air quality in the photo above might resemble Los Angeles, but the sea ice tells us this is the Arctic. The Intergovernmental Panel and Climate Change estimates that black carbon, also known as soot, is the second largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide.  Control of black carbon, “particularly from fossil-fuel sources, is likely to be the fastest method of slowing global warming” in the immediate future, according to Dr. Mark Jacobson of Stanford University.

Reducing black carbon emissions could help keep the climate system from passing the tipping points for abrupt climate changes, including significant sea-level rise from the melting of Greenland. A new study by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego found that black carbon pollution has raised the temperature by as much 0.6 °C over most of the Northern Hemisphere including the Arctic region.

“When soot is deposited over snow and sea ice, it darkens the snow and significantly enhances solar absorption by snow and ice,” the Scripps study said. “Recent studies suggest that this is one of the important contributors to the retreat of the Arctic sea ice.”

Significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions are not likely anytime soon, but that does not mean there is nothing that can be done in the near future. One hope is a reduction in emissions of black carbon, also commonly known as soot. Black carbon often travels long distances, forming transcontinental plumes of brown clouds, such as those seen over in the Arctic in the photo.

“Substantial reductions in black carbon emissions could slow global warming measurably, and could buy at least some time to bring carbon dioxide emissions under control,” says Michael Levine, a lawyer for the environmental group Oceana.

Black carbon is the second strongest contribution to current global warming, after carbon dioxide. The deposition of black carbon darkens snow and ice surfaces, which increases their capacity to absorb heat.

“Airborne particles of black carbon heat the atmosphere by absorbing sunlight and heating the surrounding air, and if they settle on ice can accelerate melting,” Levine said. Until about the 1950s, North America and Western Europe were the major sources of black carbon emissions, but now developing nations in the tropics and East Asia are the major source regions, according to a recent study by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

“It is important to emphasize that BC reduction can only help delay and not prevent unprecedented climate changes due to CO2 emissions,” the Scripps study pointed out. Reductions of airborne black carbon would benefit public health by making the air cleaner. Black carbon particles are produced by a variety of combustion processes, including engines, industrial processes and forest or tundra fires.

Research from ancient sediment cores indicates that a warming climate could make the Arctic tundra more susceptible to fires, according to a 2008 study by Montana State University.

“Emissions in the Arctic are especially damaging because they accelerate ice loss during spring and summer, converting reflective ice surfaces into absorptive liquid surfaces that capture heat from the sun much more efficiently,” Levine said.

Russian oil ambitions collide with ancient reindeer traditions

In 2007, the U.S. Geological Survey released nine studies that predicted that two-thirds of the world’s polar bears could be gone by 2050, including every bear from the Beaufort Sea west to the Barents Sea, unless the sea ice conditions somehow improve.

In 2008, the USGS announced that the polar bear may be standing over enormous deposits of fossil fuels. It said the Arctic contains an estimated 90 billion barrels of oil, 1,669 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids, of which approximately 84 percent is likely to occur offshore.

The 90 billion barrels would be enough to supply US demand for oil for 12 years. Assuming all of these fuels are burned, the total carbon dioxide emissions would equal about four times humankind's annual output.

“Before we can make decisions about our future use of oil and gas and related decisions about protecting endangered species, Native communities and the health of our planet, we need to know what’s out there,” said USGS Director Mark Myers.

But while the U.S. government now has considerable knowledge about oil and gas reserves in the Arctic, and has authorized a dramatic expansion of drilling, it knows little about how drilling would impact the Arctic people, wildlife and ecosystems. Even the entire globe is at risk, according to Native and environmental groups.

Consider, for example, Russia, whose oil ambitions are colliding with ancient raindeer herding traditions.