Energy Star homes reach 1 million, EPA says

One million energy-efficient homes qualifying for the Energy Star rating have been built in the U.S. since the program was launched in 1995, the Environmental Protection Agency said.

This year, Energy Star households will save $270 million -- or an average of $200 to $400 each -- on utility bills. The homes, which tend to be at least 15% more energy efficient than standard homes, will also avoid more than 4 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions.

Nearly 17% of all single-family homes built in 2008 qualified for Energy Star, compared with 12% the year before.  Across the country, more than 6,500 are building to the program’s standards.

The EPA also released a list of the top 20 cities for Energy Star homes, lead by the Houston area, with 144,420 total homes built. Following were Dallas, Las Vegas and Phoenix regions, with the Los Angeles sprawl rounding out the top five with 53,673 homes.

1.Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, Texas: 144,420
2.Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas: 102,872
3.Las Vegas-Paradise, Nev.: 79,929
4.Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Ariz.: 73,021
5.Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana; Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario: 53,673
6.New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, N.Y.: 25,168
7.Tucson: 18,970
8.San Antonio: 18,847
9.Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Roseville, Calif.: 18,208
10.San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos: 17,515
11.Columbus, Ohio: 17,396
12.Des Moines-West Des Moines, Iowa: 16,400
13.Indianapolis-Carmel, Ind.: 13,675
14.Austin-Round Rock, Texas: 13,232
15.Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Pa.: 12,454
16.San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont: 10,523
17.Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, Mass., and N.H.: 10,192
18.Denver-Aurora, Colo.: 7,809
19.Orlando-Kissimmee, Fla.: 7,619
20.Oklahoma City, Okl.: 7,498

Energy Star is run jointly by the EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy.

--Tiffany Hsu

Company will clean up San Gabriel Valley contamination

Defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. has agreed to spend $21 million to clean up polluted groundwater in the San Gabriel Valley.

Under a consent decree settlement announced this week by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the company will pump contaminated water from beneath the City of Industry, La Puente and Walnut; build pipelines; and construct and operate a treatment plant.

The area is one of four federal Superfund sites in the San Gabriel Valley, where more than 30 square miles of the water table are polluted with solvents and degreasing agents used for decades by business and industry.

The pollution, first detected in 1979, has affected the primary source of water for more than 1 million valley residents, forcing the closure of wells and spawning a long cleanup battle.  

Corps gives go-ahead to Alaska's Kensington gold mine

The controversial Kensington gold mine in southeast Alaska has won an important go-ahead from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which approved an amended permit that will allow the mine to dump millions of tons of waste into a nearby lake.

The project has been the subject of a national environmental fight over whether navigable lakes and rivers can be used as repositories for toxic mine tailings.

The Corps announced it is extending the time limit on Coeur Alaska's permit until 2014 and reiterated that the permit includes authorization for the company to construct its tailings storage facility in Lower Slate Lake, below the mine.

The U.S. Supreme Court this year upheld the project, but the federal Environmental Protection Agency in July urged the Corps of Engineers to take a second look at the lake disposal plan. The EPA and several conservation organizations have advocated that mine operators think about turning the waste into a paste and depositing them on land on the other side of the mine.

Obama administration set to reverse Bush on perchlorate levels in drinking water

The Obama administration may be poised to reverse another Bush administration decision on toxic chemicals.

Under President Bush in 2008, the Environment Protection Agency decided not to regulate perchlorate, a chemical used to make rocket fuel that has been found in drinking water and has been linked to thyroid hormone disruption in young children. Now, it looks like the agency is reconsidering that stance.

In California, perchlorate used in manufacturing has seeped into groundwater. High levels of the chemical in drinking water has caused alarm in Rialto and Santa Clarita. The chemical has also turned up in tainted lettuce. In the absence of federal regulations, California moved to set state standards for perchlorate in drinking water in 2006. Massachusetts was the only other state with an enforceable standard on the chemical. 

That same year, the EPA drew a response  from scientists at its the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, who said the agency's recommended standard on perchlorate failed to protect infants and children.

Now, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson has said the organization will take another look at the chemical and accept public comments.

“It is critically important to protect sensitive populations, particularly infants and young children, from perchlorate in drinking water,” Jackson said.  “As we re- re-evaluate the science around perchlorate, we will seek public input before making a regulatory determination based on the best science.”

The chemical is found naturally on Earth and is used to make fireworks, flares and rocket propellant. It has also been found on Mars.

-- Amy Littlefield

Photo: Perchlorate is a chemical found in drinking water that has been linked to thyroid hormone disruption. Credit: Ricardo DeAratanha/Los Angeles Times

Cough! Cough! EPA's new effort to clean the air

More than a third of Californians report that they or an immediate family member suffer from asthma or respiratory problems, according to a recent survey by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

Now the federal Environmental Protection Agency, under a court-ordered deadline, has proposed a major new regulation to control nitrogen dioxide (NO2),  a key factor in respiratory illness. The new EPA rule, which will be the subject of a public hearing in Los Angeles on Thursday, is the first to address the dangerous gas in 35 years.

"We're updating these standards to build on the latest scientific data and meet changing health protection needs," EPA administrator Lisa Jackson said in announcing the proposal last month.

N02 spews from power plant smokestacks and from the tailpipes of automobiles and trucks, which also cause pollution from ozone and particulates, two other substances that attack the lungs. It is particularly concentrated along highways. The new EPA rule would require stronger monitoring near roadways, a key provision for many of the mainly poor and minority communities that hug the freeways in Los Angeles and other big cities.

The new regulation would retain current annual limits of 53 parts per billion, considerably higher than California's state standard of 30 ppb.  But for the first time, it would establish a one-hour federal standard of between 80 and 100 ppb, stricter than California's current hourly limit of 180 ppb. That would prevent NO2 levels from spiking during shorter periods such as rush hour.

EPA vows to examine impact of hazardous waste on poor communities

The federal Environmental Protection Agency vowed Tuesday to home in on the impact of hazardous waste recycling plants on minorities and low-income communities.

The move hearkens back to a Clinton-era executive order that required federal agencies to consider the impact of their policies on disadvantaged communities. Although the Bush administration largely ignored the mandate, Obama-appointed EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson has promised to analyze those impacts. 

Under the Bush administration, hazardous waste recycling plants had a free pass to process more than 1 million pounds of toxic material without federal oversight. In Los Angeles and other areas, such plants are disproportionately located in low-income communities and communities largely populated by non-whites, maps created by Earthjustice show.

Hundreds of hazardous waste recycling facilities in the United States, including 29 in California, have been classified as "damage cases" based on factors such as soil and water contamination that cause lasting health and environmental impacts on the areas that surround them.

California pressures EPA on sewage rules for ships

Ever wonder where the human waste from the hundreds of cruise ships entering California waters each year ends up?

Raw sewage can be dumped anywhere outside of three nautical miles from shore. But minimally treated waste can be dumped even closer.

Now, California legislators are nudging the Environmental Protection Agency forward on a measure that would tighten regulation on dumping human waste from cruise ships and other ocean-going vessels off California's coast.

In a letter submitted this week to EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, members of Congress from California asked the federal agency to approve a 2006 state application to prevent dumping of any sewage from large ships within three nautical miles of the California coast.

A cruise ship discharges enough sewage every week to fill several swimming pools, said Marcie Keever, director of the clean vessels campaign for the San Francisco-based environmental group Friends of the Earth.

Power plant slap-down in federal court

Power plants and factories will find it harder to build in dirty-air regions due to a U.S. Court of Appeals decision in Washington, D.C., that threw out several controversial Bush-era rules governing trading systems for ozone and other pollutants.

Under the Clean Air Act, new polluters can build in areas where the air has yet to meet federal health standards, but only if they purchase credits from other plants that close down,  thus reducing pollution. But the Bush administration expanded those rules, allowing new polluters to buy credits from plants that were shuttered decades ago. It was an arrangement, said Earthjustice attorney David Baron, that "might work in the movie 'Back to the Future,' but in the real world, it made absolutely no sense."

Striking down that rule expansion affects agencies such as Southern California's South Coast Air Quality Management District which includes Orange County and large swaths of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. South Coast used the rule, said Baron, who argued the lawsuit on behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group.  It was "a major concern" to Californians and residents of other dirty-air regions, he said, "because it allow(ed) pollution to increase from the new plant without any contemporaneous emissions cuts -- so overall emissions could actually increase."

EPA targets nitrogen dioxide emissions near freeways

The rest of the country may be catching up to California when it comes to limiting emissions of the air toxin nitrogen dioxide.

The EPA last Friday proposed to strengthen the limits on nitrogen dioxide (NO2), an air toxin that the agency says can lead to respiratory illnesses. Nitrogen dioxide is found in emissions from traffic and industrial facilities such as power plants. Even short-term exposure can increase the risk of respiratory effects, particularly among children, the elderly, and people with asthma, according to the EPA.

California already limits NO2 emissions to 30 parts per billion on average annually, while the federal limit would stay at 53 ppb per year under the new regulations.

However, California's hourly average limit for NO2 emissions is 180 parts per billion, while the EPA has proposed hourly limits of 80-100 parts per billion, and is taking comments on hourly limits as low as 65 ppb and as high as 150 ppb. The EPA is also proposing the use of a different format for calculating hourly averages.

The hourly limits are meant to curb the concentrated short term exposures that communities near highways might experience during peak traffic hours. Concentrations of NO2 are 30%-100% higher near major roads, according to Cathy Milbourn, a spokeswoman for EPA.

The federal proposal would also require states to implement monitoring devices for NO2 emissions particularly targeted at measuring emissions around major roads in areas with large urban populations -- a key issue for Los Angeles, where dense housing and schools are crowded close to freeways.

L.A. air pollution may endanger babies, people in general

 

It looks like L.A. air could be killing us in more ways than one.

Two studies released Wednesday have linked toxic air pollution in Southern California to cancer and complications with birth.

Exposure to local traffic-generated pollution increased the risk of major complications and preterm birth, concluded a report published online in Environmental Health Perspectives. Local scientists studied the relationship of traffic pollution, preterm birth and a complication called preeclampsia that can lead to maternal and perinatal morbidity.

By measuring pregnant women's exposure to chemicals emitted by local traffic (nitrogen oxides and particulate matter), the researchers concluded that the risk for preeclampsia increased by as much as 42% at the highest exposures. The risk for "very preterm delivery" (meaning delivery when the fetus is less than 30 weeks old) increased by as much as 128% for women exposed to the highest levels.

The study was the first to look at the connection between preeclampsia and air toxics. It focused on births in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Meanwhile, an Environmental Protection Agency study found that Los Angeles has some of the highest levels of cancer-related toxic air pollutants in the country. For residents of Cerritos, located at the heart of the L.A. basin, the EPA estimated the cancer risk due to air toxics at 1,200 in 1 million, the highest in the country and more than 33 times the national average. The statistic represents the expected number of additional deaths per million people, based on a lifetime exposure to the chemicals.