For Immediate Release: September 26, 2002  Contact:  Fred Richardson 512/477-1729

Sierra Club profiles communities left at risk by
Bush Administration's environmental policies:

Port Arthur, Texas profiled in report

Leaving Our Communities at Risk is available online at: www.sierraclub.org/communities

AUSTIN/San Francisco¾ A pediatric nurse in Omaha grows vegetables in her back
yard to make baby food for her four young children, only to learn that her soil is poisoned with lead from a nearby refinery.  In Alabama, a resident living next to a pulp and paper mill suffers from chronic congestion and his skin and eyes routinely burn from toxic fumes.  In Port Arthur, Texas, Hilton Kelly recently returned to his hometown to mobilize residents against the refinery pollution that poses a health burden on the overwhelmingly African-American community. Profiled in a Sierra Club report released today, these Americans, while miles apart, are being left at risk by Bush Administration environmental policies that expose Americans to more asthma-triggering soot, growth-retarding lead, cancer-causing arsenic, and other contaminants.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," said Carl Pope, Sierra Club's Executive Director.  "America's clean air, clean water, and toxic cleanup protections have led to three decades of environmental progress.  Now the Bush Administration is making policy changes that are leaving the health and safety of our families and communities at risk."

The report, "Leaving Our Communities At Risk," profiles twenty-five communities across the country where the Bush Administration is jeopardizing family health and safety by weakening our most basic environmental protections.  Profiles highlighted in the report include:

Cullen Como, a 10-year-old asthma sufferer whose family in Port Arthur lives across the street from one of the area refineries, frequently misses school and requires medical treatment as he endures air that smells like rotten eggs (hydrogen sulfide), burnt matches (sulfur dioxide), and paint thinner (benzene).

Cliff Sherer, a firefighter in Middletown, Ohio, died in March 2002 of a rare form of cancer found predominantly in steelworkers. But Cliff never worked in a steel plant; he just lived near one-AK Steel, reportedly the most profitable steel plant in the country.  The EPA recently filed suit   against AK Steel for more than 200 violations of the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, but the Bush administration's 2003 budget would slash the EPA workforce that takes action against chronic violators.

Barb Brunton, a pediatric nurse and mother of four from Council Bluffs, Iowa, grew her own vegetables in her back yard so that she could make homemade baby food for her young children.  But the soil in her yard was contaminated with high levels of lead, the legacy of a nearby ASARCO lead refinery, and the vegetables she fed to her children were actually    poisoning them.  The refinery closed in 1997, and the EPA is now considering placing the site on the Superfund priority list, but lack of funding could delay cleanup.

Sammy Primm, who lives across the Chattahoochee River from a Georgia-Pacific pulp and paper mill, suffers from chronic congestion and his skin and eyes burn. The mill emits nearly 2 million pounds of toxic pollution annually, most of it ethanol, a colorless, volatile, poisonous    liquid. Now, a Bush administration proposal would allow the plant to increase its pollution without installing additional pollution control equipment.

"Abandoning our most important environmental protections leaves families and communities at risk, and only benefits corporate polluters," said Pope. "Instead, President Bush should be strengthening environmental protections and increasing environmental enforcement."

The Bush Administration is weakening the Superfund toxic waste cleanup program by letting it wither due to lack of funding. Since its inception, the Superfund program has been funded by the 'polluter pays' tax, an excise tax on oil and chemical companies and a corporate environmental income tax. When Congress amended Superfund in 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed the
polluter pays tax into law.  President George W. Bush is the first president since Superfund's inception to oppose the polluter pays tax that prevents shifting the cleanup burden to taxpayers.

In June, the Bush administration announced sweeping new regulatory changes in the Clean Air Act's New Source Review program that would undermine 30 years of progress in cleaning up America's air.  Under these new rules, some 17,000 power plants, chemical plants, steel mills and other major sources of pollution can expand or modify their facilities and increase
emissions without modernizing air pollution controls.

Neil Carman, Clean Air Director for the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, has compiled a wealth of data identifying the types and impacts of the pollution produced by Port Arthur refineries. Changing New Source Review, he asserts, may allow these dirty facilities to increase the amount of pollution they release, further harming this already poisoned community.

Federal clean air protections, toxic waste cleanups and environmental enforcement initiatives have been critical in protecting American's health and safeguarding our environment.  According to one EPA study, the Clean Air Act prevented 205,000 premature deaths between 1970-1990; and in the past two decades, the Superfund law has cleaned up more than 800 toxic waste sites in communities across in the country, freeing residents from the health risks and fears that come with living next to toxic waste.

Leaving Our Communities at Risk is available online at:
http://www.sierraclub.org/communities