Quick Key Facts

• Oil spills occur when crude oil is released into the surrounding environment — particularly oceans — and can threaten marine flora and fauna. 
• Spills are typically associated with offshore drilling operations, which drill below the surface of the ocean to access pockets of oil and gas. 
• Roughly 706 million gallons of oil enter the ocean every year.
• The Deepwater Horizon BP Oil Spill of 2010 remains the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history, releasing 210 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. More than a decade after the disaster, many marine species in the area are still recovering. 
• Animals active near the ocean’s surface are most impacted by oil spills — like seabirds and otters — as well as seals, whales, sea turtles, and many species of fish.
• Along with their environmental impact, oil spills also affect human health and the economies of surrounding communities. 
• Booms, skimmers, dispersion, biological agents, and burning are among the more common methods of cleaning up an oil spill.

What Is Oil?

Crude oil or petroleum is a liquid fossil fuel. We use it to generate electricity, heat our homes, and fuel our cars. Petroleum products supply about 35% of energy in the U.S., with transportation accounting for the largest portion. Burning fossil fuels like oil releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that drive climate change.

While oil is also found under land, much is stored under the ocean floor. This oil was formed from deposits of plankton that decayed over time, and under intense heat and pressure, turned into compounds of hydrogen and carbon. This raw material for oil travels upward over time to where there is less pressure, until it is stopped by impermeable rock and then settles in reservoirs under the sea bed. 

Oil is acquired by drilling into the ocean floor to extract it from the rock in which it’s stored. It’s pumped out, then transported by pipes, ships, trains, or trucks to refineries that process the oil so it can be used to create a variety of products like plastics, gasoline, and other fuels. In this whole process of drilling and transporting, oil can be spilled into the surrounding environment. An estimated 706 million gallons of oil enter the ocean every year, which has massive human and environmental impacts. 

Offshore Drilling: The Basics 

Oil spills are typically associated with offshore drilling operations, which access these underground pockets of oil and gas by drilling through the ocean floor. In 2021, 15% of crude oil was procured from offshore drilling operations, as was 2% of gas. 

Offshore drilling is anything but simple. It’s a lengthy process that takes years of construction and hundreds of million dollars to carry out. Because coastal waters are public land, fossil fuel companies must first lease parcels from the government in order to drill, which requires navigating the complicated regulation of these natural areas. The operator does an exploration of the area (often through seismic testing) to find oil and gas reserves, then builds mobile offshore drilling units — otherwise known as MODUs, oil rigs, or oil platforms — to dig a well. MODUs are some of the largest human-made structures on Earth and are also used to house workers and store equipment. Oil is pulled from the wells, stored, processed, and then transported to the coast via pipelines. In the U.S., offshore drilling happens mostly in Alaska, the Pacific Coast, and the Gulf of Mexico.

How Do Oil Spills Happen?

It’s not hard to imagine that in the midst of all of these complicated, massive drilling processes, oil can spill into the surrounding environment. These spills can happen anywhere where oil is being drilled, used, refined, or transported, whether it be in oceans, lakes, or rivers. Oil spills can happen naturally in what’s called a petroleum seep, during which hydrocarbons escape and reach the surface of the water due to activity deep inside the Earth (often the erosion of sedimentary rock). However, most large spills are from anthropogenic sources.

We all hear about the most disastrous oil spills in the news, but they actually happen pretty frequently: thousands each year, in fact. Many are small and can happen, for example, when a ship is being refueled. Drilling fluid is also used for lubrication in wells — also known as “mud” — and is supposed to be captured, but often leaks in the process. Large spills are much more disastrous, and come from different places within offshore drilling operations: transport containers, drilling platforms, and oil wells, primarily. They are caused by human error, breaking or malfunctioning equipment, natural disasters like hurricanes or high winds, or deliberate acts of terror or illegal action. A series of oil spills followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005, with 450 pipelines and 100 drilling platforms impacted by the disastrous weather. Oil can leak from a poorly maintained container, or a huge amount can be released when tanker ships rupture or a pipeline breaks, for example. 

Abandoned oil wells are another large source of oil spills. Oil wells are shut down by operators when they are no longer profitable, and while the companies are required to remove their equipment and restore the area they worked in, this often doesn’t happen. Wells therefore often remained uncapped and leak oil into the oceans and atmosphere. It’s estimated that 28,232 permanently abandoned wells currently exist in federal waters. 

After oil spills, it spreads across the surface of the water and forms what’s called an “oil slick,” the major source of concern in the aftermath of a spill. 

Historic Oil Spills 

Santa Barbara Oil Spill 

This 1969 spill near the city of Santa Barbara in Southern California was the worst oil spill in history at the time. A huge explosion occurred at the drilling site, which is largely attributed to inadequate safety precautions at the site and waivers given by the U.S. Geological Survey that allowed for weak protection of the drilling hole. About 4 million gallons of oil flowed into the Santa Barbara Channel, leaving an oil slick along 35 miles of California coast. The disaster spurred a huge amount of environmental action — the creation of Earth Day is attributed in part to the spill — and new federal policies arose regarding offshore drilling, including requirements for operators to pay for oil spill cleanups. 

Amoco Cadiz Oil Spill 

In 1978, a crude carrier owned by American petroleum company Amoco containing 69 million gallons of oil hit shallow rocks on the French coast near Brittany due to a mechanical failure of the steering system, coupled with stormy weather. Over the course of two weeks, all of the oil was released in the ocean and 200 miles of the coast was polluted. Millions of invertebrates and 20,000 birds died, and oyster beds in the area were contaminated. Weeks after the incident, millions of dead benthic species — including molluscs and sea urchins — washed ashore. 

Atlantic Empress Oil Spill 

To this day, the Atlantic Empress spill is considered the worst tanker oil spill (specifically from an oil tanker, as opposed to an oil rig or other source) in history, and fifth-largest spill overall. In 1979 off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago, the Greek oil tanker collided with another tanker due to heavy rain and foggy conditions. An estimated 287,000 tons of crude oil was spilled (there are about 305 gallons of oil in one metric ton), 27 people died, and the Empress was still burning a week after the collision. 

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

On March 24, 1989 in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, the Exxon Valdez set another record as the worst oil spill in history at that time. The tanker transporting crude oil ran aground at Bligh Reed and ruptured, spilling eight of its eleven cargo tanks into the ocean. Along the shoreline, 1,300 miles of pristine wilderness were contaminated by 11 million gallons of oil. The spill is remembered for its huge impacts on local wildlife: hundreds of thousands of seabirds, thousands of mammals, and hundreds of bald eagles were killed. Thirty years later, killer whales and some seabird populations still haven’t fully recovered. Various cleanup methods were employed after the spill, including burning the oil, mechanically removing it, and hot-water hosing the shore. However, some of these treatments (especially the hot water) were found to actually be harmful to the environment. After the cleanup effort, only 14% of oil had been removed and 13% had sunk into the ocean — the rest evaporated and degraded over time. To this day, pockets of oil are still present on the scene underground. 

Deepwater Horizon BP Oil Spill 

The largest marine oil spill in U.S. history, the Deepwater Horizon — often just called the “BP oil spill” — is widely remembered for its devastating impact. On April 20, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico, an explosion on a drilling platform killed 11 people and caused 210 million gallons of oil to spill into the ocean. Within five days the oil had covered 580 square miles, and within 10 days, 3850 square miles. The oil flowed for 87 days from the Macondo Prospect before it was capped. The spill occurred in one of the most biodiverse marine areas in the world and had a massive impact on the environment. While some species have rebounded, many are still struggling today, including deep-sea coral and spotted sea trout. Preliminary research shows that many dolphins in the area have remained sick, and have a much lower rate of successful pregnancies. Restoration — funded by a $8.8 billion settlement with BP — is still active today. 

Environmental Impact of Oil Spills

Oil clings to everything: rocks, sand, plants, and animals. When it eventually stops floating, it sinks below the surface of the ocean and continues to impact species underneath. The seriousness of a spill can be a function of location, habitat, and the concentration and type of chemicals in the oil. Because they aren’t able to disperse as much, spills that happen closest to shore are often the most dangerous — although those that occur far out at sea cover a huge range and thus impact a larger area. Wherever they occur, oil spills have a devastating impact on the natural world. 

Disruption to Ecosystems

Clearly, such a huge influx of oil destroys natural habitats in its wake. It coats plants, soaks into the soil and sand, and poisons or suffocates species. When oil floats on top of the water, light can’t penetrate and photosynthesis is prevented, meaning plants that provide food for many underwater species can’t grow. Oil also erodes shorelines and harms vulnerable ecosystems like wetlands. The Deepwater Horizon explosion especially impacted Louisiana’s Mississippi River Delta ecosystem, which provides vital ecosystem services like flood control, and important nesting areas for animals and host birds during migration seasons.

Harm to Animals

Oil floats, so animals close to the surface, like birds and otters, are often impacted. The Exxon Valdez spill, for example, resulted in the death of 250,000 seabirds, 3,000 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 250 eagles, and 22 killer whales. Similarly, the BP oil spill was fatal to 1 million seabirds, 5,000 marine mammals, and 1,000 sea turtles.

Ocean wildlife is primarily impacted by oiling (or “fouling”) on their external bodies. We’ve all seen an image of a duckling covered in oil, and it’s as deadly as it looks. When oil coats the wings of birds, they are unable to fly and become victim to predators, or can’t flee the scene of the spill. It also impacts the insulating properties of fur for sea otters and other mammals, who then can’t regulate their body temperature and become at risk for developing hypothermia. Other mammals are impacted, too, like whales, dolphins, and seals, whose blow holes get clogged by oil, leaving them unable to breathe.

Oil toxicity impacts the internal body of animals, too. The toxic compounds in oil are poisonous to animals. Many swallow or inhale the oil while cleaning themselves, or when they eat prey that have been coated in it. The oil can damage the immune system and the heart, impact the function of lungs and liver, blind animals, and cause reproductive changes. 

Oil spills can affect the population numbers and long-term survival of species as well — especially when, like the BP oil spill, they occur during mating and nesting season. Sea turtles, for example, spend most of their life at sea, but come to land to nest and breed. If damaged by oil, their eggs might not develop properly. Fish eggs and larvae are especially threatened by oil spills. Shrimp and oyster fisheries along the coast of Louisiana were seriously harmed during the BP oil spill, and it took nearly 30 years for fisheries impacted by the Exxon Valdez spill to recover. Even if a species itself isn’t directly impacted by the spill, these population declines impact food chains — if a species depends on prey that have been killed in a spill, they will suffer, too. 

Atmospheric Impacts 

While it might not be as immediately obvious, atmospheric pollution is another harmful impact of oil spills. During the cleanup efforts after the BP oil spill, for example, the oil was burned off the surface of the ocean, releasing 1 million pounds of black carbon into the atmosphere. Methane — a climate-warming greenhouse gas — is also released in oil spills It often forms alongside fossil fuels in underground reservoirs, so when oil is released, so is methane.

The Issue of Arctic Drilling 

Offshore drilling in the Arctic is of particular concern. The Arctic warms at twice the rate of the rest of the world and could be ice-free in the summer by the 2030s, opening the path for more oil and gas exploration. It is among the most remote areas on the planet and would be nearly impossible to clean up in the event of a major oil spill. Emergency responders are not nearly as widespread, environmental conditions make it difficult to transport major equipment out there, and because less than 1% of the U.S. Arctic has been surveyed with modern technology, we do not have very accurate navigational charts of the area. There have been arguments to ban the use and carriage of oil on ships in the Arctic, or to create safe shipping corridors that don’t go through vulnerable habitats. However, in March the Biden administration announced plans to block oil and gas drilling in swaths of the Arctic Ocean and Alaska, while simultaneously approving the highly controversial Willow oil project on the North Slope of Alaska, about 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, drawing major criticism from environmental groups.

Social Impact of Oil Spills

Along with these serious environment impacts, oil spills also cause harm to humans — particularly those in communities surrounding the spills. 

Human Health 

Among other harmful substances, crude oil contains volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which can impact both the respiratory system and the nervous system. Workers and volunteers cleaning up the spill have direct exposure to the oil, and community members can still inhale these chemicals as they are dispersed by the wind, or ingest contaminated seafood and water. The BP oil spill was one harrowing example of the impact that oil spills can have on human health. In the months after the disaster, many citizens — especially those that helped in the cleanup — reported symptoms. Research has linked exposure of those who helped with the cleanup in the aftermath of the BP oil spill with increased risk of cancer, long-term respiratory conditions, and heart disease, as well as blurred vision, headaches, and memory loss. Local residents have coined their chronic symptoms after the cleanup — which include diarrhea, rashes, and respiratory problems — “BP syndrome” or “Gulf Coast syndrome,” according to The Guardian. Besides these physical impacts, elevated rates of depression, anxiety, and PTSD have been documented in cleanup workers and volunteers. 

Loss of Revenue and Resources 

Commercial fishing and tourism — two industries that prop up many economies — can be devastated by oil spills. In the aftermath, beaches and parks along the shoreline close for lengthy periods — and in general, tourists are less likely to want to visit these places and may believe a wider area to be impacted than actually is. In areas that depend on tourism, this can be devastating to their economies. After the BP oil spill, the region’s commercial fishing industry reported $62 million in losses, and the tourism industry $1.5 billion. For tribes and First Nations that depend upon natural resources, an oil spill could be disastrous to the entire fabric of their community and survival. 

Oil Spill Cleanups

The response to oil spills is generally fourfold: 

1. Stopping the flow of oil and protecting areas that might be harmed by it.
2. Removing the oil from the environment.
3. Recovering and rehabilitating wildlife.
4. Restoring the impacted area.

Sensitive locations in particular, like wetlands, nesting areas, and beaches, need to be protected from oil slicks. Some sensitive habitats need very specific cleanup processes so they are not further damaged. It can be difficult to enact cleanups when the spill happens over a wide area, and when it impacts larger animals like whales, which are hard to recover and rehabilitate. 

Data collection is an important element of oil spill cleanups. NASA takes satellite and airborne data to locate oil and determine its trajectory. ERMA (Environmental Response Management Application) — which NOAA made available during the Deepwater Horizon spill — is an important mapping tool that uses Environmental Sensitivity Index maps, locations of ships, currents, weather, etc. to aid in cleanup efforts. The U.S. Coast Guard is primarily responsible for oil spill cleanups, as well as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 also established that the party responsible for an oil spill can be held responsible for costs incurred in cleaning up and restoring the area. 

Cleanup Methods 

Oil spills can take many years to completely clean up. Often, several methods of cleanup are employed at once. The type used depends on how much and what type of oil is spilled, where the oil has spilled and its distance from the shore, what species and habitats are being impacted, and whether people live in the area. The following are among the most common methods and technologies, although ultimately, none removes 100% of oil on its own. 

• Booms are floating barriers made of plastic or metal. These are strategically placed in the ocean to help contain the oil and slow its spread, especially to keep it away from certain sensitive areas. Booms can be placed around a leaking tanker, or along coastal areas as protection. 
• Skimmers are deployed by boats to “skim” the oil off the surface of the ocean, although their viability depends on the thickness of the oil slick. 
• Burning — or “situ burning” — is less common, and entails setting the oil slick ablaze.
• Dispersion uses chemical dispersants to break up the oil slick by dispersing it into the water column so that less remains on the surface of the ocean.
• Biological agents like microbes or fertilizers are used to break down oil.

Cleanup efforts are made on the shorelines surrounding a spill as well, using biodegradation agents, burning, and manual and mechanical removal, as well as other methods. Vacuum trucks suck up the oil-polluted water, sorbents absorb the oil like a sponge, and water hoses rinse the oil into the water where it can be collected more easily. 

Restoration 

Restoration is another important part of oil spill responses. These projects are different from the cleanup itself — beyond merely removing the oil, they entail actively restoring habitats that have been destroyed. Restoration might mean rebuilding a marshland, reintroducing lost species, controlling erosion, or otherwise supporting the ecosystem services and functions that help the ecosystem heal itself. In the aftermath of a spill, a Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) is completed by NOAA to determine the impacts of the spill and then settle how the cleanup will be paid for. Usually this process is done between the party that caused the spill and government agencies at the state and federal level, as well as tribal agencies. 

Takeaway

Oil spills are major environmental disasters that will likely continue as long as our dependence on oil does. A global transition to clean energy would be a necessary large-scale change in order to eliminate oil spills as a threat, although reducing our personal use of fossil fuels is a useful beginning, including driving less, powering our homes with clean energy, and using less plastic.

While offshore drilling is still a reality, responsible choices by operators can prevent deadly oil spills from occurring, such as performing routine inspections of operations, investing in training of workers, and adhering to requirements made by legislative bodies. 

Legislative action regarding boat safety and offshore drilling is a proven useful avenue in preventing spills. The 1990 Oil Pollution Act stipulated that all tankers must be double-hulled by 2015. In 2021, the Polar Endeavour collided with a tugboat, suffering a four-foot indentation that penetrated the outer hull of the ship but not the inner, so no oil was spilled. This event shows that safety legislation can be effective at preventing spills, and electing representatives who champion environmental protection is an important tool at our disposal.

The post Oil Spills 101: Everything You Need to Know appeared first on EcoWatch.

In May, a homecoming took place 3,000 feet below the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Since the U.S. federal government forcibly removed the Havasupai people from this sacred place in 1919, the stop along the park’s Bright Angel Trail has been known as ‘Indian Garden.’ That changed recently, when a federal board approved a name change request after years of tribal advocacy. Now officially called Havasupai Gardens, the name reflects the people who continue to care for the land, despite a century of harm.

Across the United States, there are thousands of mountains, rivers, and other geologic features that bear derogatory, racist, or pejorative place names. About 660 of those referred to a slur against Indigenous women. But that’s now changing. The single largest name change effort in history is giving way to a movement that advocates hope will shed light on why place names are so significant. 

Department of the Interior (DOI) Secretary Deb Haaland has launched a task force to review a list of federal places, and propose alternatives. The Board on Geographic Names, which is housed within the DOI, will provide final approval of these recommendations. 

Changing place names is a significant step to address the centuries of violence, harm, and neglect caused by federal policies. The slur in question was used by colonizers to demean and objectify Indigenous women and girls. For many, it continues to highlight anti-Indigenous violence, and the legacies that Indigenous communities still grapple with today, like the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People. 

“It’s really absurd to tell people to go connect with something that’s offensive or derogatory to that individual, or the communities that they belong to,” says Kimberly Smith, the Southern Appalachian community conservation specialist with The Wilderness Society, and a citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. 

The federal task force is the culmination of years of work by Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (THPOs) and leaders, says Valerie Grussing, the executive director of the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (NATHPO). In collaboration with The Wilderness Society, the Association published a guide to changing offensive place names in 2022. 

“Place names have the capacity to tell important stories,” the guide says. “Left intact, these names can perpetuate racism, endorse hateful views and encourage a discredited or skewed telling of history.”

This is the first time the DOI has enacted a broad-strokes effort to rid federal lands of their anti-Indigenous names. “I think it’s been a really important part of the larger national conversation that happened in the past couple of years,” Grussing says. 

The DOI effort only applies to federal geographic fixtures, but advocates hope that the move will propel a broader conversation of respect for Indigenous resiliency. Across the country, tribes and Indigenous-led coalitions continue to advocate for renaming at local and state levels, as the slur is also used by schools, ski resorts, and other public places. A rule approved in April 2023 by the New York State Board of Regents prohibits the use of Indigenous cultures for school and district names, logos and mascots.

The goal is not to erase history, but rather to learn from it. A critical lesson, advocates say, is that Indigenous peoples still exist. Derogatory names don’t just render Indigenous peoples invisible, but slurs perpetuate further harm by suggesting that Indigenous women and girls are disposable. 

For example, Fred Mosqueda, a member of the DOI’s Reconciliation of Place Names Committee, says that what’s currently listed as Mt. Evans, a 14,000-foot peak that looks out over Denver, is named for Colorado’s second governor, who facilitated a massacre of the Arapaho and Cheyenne people in 1864. 

A decade prior to the Sand Creek Massacre, the Colorado government and the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes agreed in a treaty to allow settlers to pass through Colorado on their way westward. Many were seeking gold, the mineral that California’s governor used to justify the removal and genocide of California tribes. Rather than abide by the treaty, settlers built homes on land stewarded by the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, killing large game and logging trees. When the tribes attempted to defend themselves, Mosqueda says, the army retaliated. 

Renaming place names is an opportunity for a frank conversation about reckoning with the traumas of history. The key is not to become angry with each other or lose patience, Mosqueda says. “In the end,” he says, “you have to talk to them and tell them the history … just sit down with each other and come out with the truth.” 

The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribe propose renaming the peak Mount Blue Sky, which references a yearly Cheyenne ceremony celebrating the renewal of life. The Arapaho Tribe are also known as the Blue Sky people.

The celebration of Indigenous culture and ways of life is the priority for name changes elsewhere in Colorado, where the federal push to change place names provided political momentum for another local effort to rename a mountain in the foothills outside of Denver as Mestaa’ėhehe Mountain, in honor of Owl Woman, a Cheyenne citizen who helped facilitate peaceful trade at today’s Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site. 

Input from community members is important, an effort The Wilderness Society has aided by providing a template for changing offensive names at the local level. Smith is now using this template to guide conversations across Appalachia. Like Mosqueda, Smith has found that engaging community members is a key part of the process, and she says that the template has helped to bridge cultural gaps between groups that might not have otherwise shared a conversation.

For the tribal elders who have only lived in a world where official place names are offensive or derogatory, just having the conversation about alternative names is “medicine,” Smith says. “As an Indigenous woman, having spent 35 years promoting an erased or correcting an inaccurate identity, this initiative is very healing for me.” 

A Wilderness Society partnership with Duke University has recently helped uncover more than 200 local place names that are offensive in some way. The partnership has also brought to light an imbalance in gender representation. In examining over 300 commemorative place names, only 18 honor women, and only three recognize women of color. 

Names are powerful. Smith says if this next stage of the renaming process is successful, the youngest generation of Native peoples could grow up knowing the Indigenous Ancestral name of a place first, and its American name second.

The Wilderness Society unites people to protect America’s wild places. Since 1935, we have led the charge to protect more than 111 million acres of wilderness and had a significant role in the passage of almost every major conservation law, while fighting hard against attempts to undermine them.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The race to replace derogatory place names on Aug 29, 2023.

This story is part of Record High, a Grist series examining extreme heat and its impact on how — and where — we live.

As the days get shorter and kids head back to school, it may seem like the worst of summer heat is over. But the thermometer tells a different story: Last week saw dangerous heat domes descend over both the Midwest and Pacific Northwest, and it’s late summer that often brings the most sizzling weeks of the season — last year, parts of the West experienced their hottest September on record. And climate scientists agree: Our summers are only going to get hotter from here.

To that end, Grist asked a dozen experts for their best tips, tricks, and hacks when it comes to keeping ourselves, our loved ones, and our surroundings safe in an extreme heat event.

We’ll be posting shareable versions of this guide on Instagram — follow us @Grist to share these tips with your network.

How to treat heat illness

With advice from Kaipo Kelley, firefighter and paramedic, Escondido Fire Department

You have to know the signs of heat illness to recognize when you or someone around you is suffering from it. Symptoms typically begin with heat cramps, which left untreated can worsen into heat exhaustion or a potentially fatal heat stroke, says Kaipo Kelley, a first responder in California. Here’s how to identify heat distress, and how to help.

Pay attention to cramping: Cramps typically occur while doing physical activity in heat. But what may feel like normal workout cramps are actually signs of serious dehydration. Look out for fatigue, sweating, and cramps in the legs, arms, and shoulders. 

Move to a cool space: Get the person to shade or air conditioning, and have them hydrate with water and (if possible) electrolytes. Take off any unnecessary layers, such as jackets and backpacks, to help sweat evaporate, and massage the muscles to allow more blood flow to that area.

Recognize heat exhaustion: If a person ignores heat cramps, they could develop heat exhaustion as the body tries to preserve its vital organs by sending blood primarily to the core instead of the extremities. Signs include muscle aches or cramps; headache; excessive sweating and thirst; feeling lightheaded or dizzy; nausea or vomiting; and pale, cool, clammy skin, especially on the extremities.

Actively cool: In addition to removing heavy clothes, providing water, and moving to shade or A/C, help the person lay down and elevate their legs. Actively bring body temperature down by applying damp cloths, and spray them with water or a fan mister if available. 

Watch out for heat stroke: Heat stroke occurs when the body’s temperature has reached dangerously high levels. A temperature at or above 103 degrees is life-threatening and can cause permanent injury to the brain. Signs of heat stroke include altered mental status; confusion, irritability, or unresponsiveness; severe fatigue; a fast pulse; nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea; lack of sweat (though sweating is possible too); and hot and dry skin.

Act fast: If you think someone is experiencing heat stroke, call 911, then take actions to quickly lower their temperature. In addition to the steps above, place ice packs on areas near large blood vessels, like the groin, armpits, neck, and core — or dunk them in cold or iced water. Only provide drinking water if they can maintain a gag reflex.

Go deeper: Red Cross offers a wide variety of first-aid training for individuals and organizations. NOLS’ Wilderness First Responder course teaches skills that are applicable to more than just the outdoors — you can also take their courses through your local REI store. Kelley also suggests looking up paramedic or EMT 101 courses at your local community college.

How to cool down a hot home

With advice from Al Mitchell and Aditya Singh of Phius; Brett Little of Green Home Institute; and Lacey Tan of RMI’s Carbon-Free Buildings program 

Even if you don’t have air conditioning, there’s a lot you can do to alleviate the heat in your home before and during a heat wave. We asked sustainable-buildings experts for their best home hacks, retrofits, and gear that can help keep cool air in and hot air out. 

Get an energy audit: Hire a professional to do a home assessment. Using specialized equipment, they can identify the places where hot air is seeping in and recommend energy-saving ways to prevent it — or you can do the audit yourself.

Seal your house: Close any openings around windows, doors, and attics to prevent hot air from entering. If you don’t know where or how to start, a weatherization contractor can help (the Department of Energy offers financial assistance and many utilities offer rebates). Interior storm inserts can help keep seal older windows, too. 

Consider retrofits: Energy Star-certified reflective roofs and insulated interior shades with reflective outer layers help reject heat, better insulation and newer windows will help keep hot air out, and installing exterior overhangs above windows can block the sun. 

Dehumidify ahead of time: Heat is most dangerous when it’s paired with humidity, which impedes the body’s ability to sweat. If you can’t afford a whole-home dehumidifier, get a standalone one and run it before a heatwave to get indoor humidity down to about 40 percent.

“Night flush” when it cools off: At nighttime when the outside air tends to be cooler than inside, place a box fan in the window of the warmest room to pull the hot air out. Then crack windows on the cooler sides of the house (probably the north side). 

Go DIY: If you live in a dry climate, hang damp towels in front of windows to lower interior temperatures, or make your own air conditioner with a bucket of water, a fan, and some tubing — there are plenty of tutorials online. 

Take advantage of tax credits: An energy-efficient home is often a cooler one, and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act has introduced dozens of incentives in this regard. There are tax credits for energy audits, air sealing, insulation materials, energy-efficient doors and windows, and heat pumps, which use less electricity than air conditioners. 

Go deeper: Rewiring America offers a great guide to which Inflation Reduction Act rebates and credits you qualify for and when they become available. Wildgrid can guide you through various insulation solutions and connect you with an expert. 

How to keep kids healthy and happy in a heat wave

With advice from Jennifer Louie, senior clinical psychologist at Child Mind Institute; Elizabeth Bechard, senior policy analyst at Moms Clean Air Force; and Mary DeMocker, author of The Parents’ Guide to Climate Revolution

Children are especially vulnerable to excessive heat — smaller bodies can’t regulate temperature as efficiently as bigger, adult ones. It can also be more difficult for them to understand climate emergencies, leading to anxiety. We asked a psychologist, mental health policy analyst, and family advocate for ways to keep kids healthy and happy when temperatures are dangerous. 

Be candid: Help kids understand heat waves by talking about the climate, what’s making it worse, and how families can fight back. For most kids 7 and up, be honest. For younger ones, children’s books can be especially helpful. Use the indoor time together to learn about the many science-based solutions within our collective reach.

Address their emotions: If kids express climate anxiety, be sure to listen, and acknowledge how they’re feeling. Tell them that you believe they can handle the fear, and that you’re there to help. Taking action to fight climate change, like composting or organizing a fundraiser, can also be empowering for kids of all ages. 

Make a family plan: Ease feelings of uncertainty by working together on a course of action. Identify cool spaces to go, such as a family member’s house with A/C or a public library, and safe activities like visiting a pool, shady park, or movie theater. Review the signs of heat illness and discuss healthy things to eat and drink for cooling and hydration.

Keep kids hydrated: Make sure your kids are drinking cold water. If they’re resistant, try to make it tastier with some electrolyte powders, and add in cool, water-heavy foods, like watermelon, smoothies and fruit-juice popsicles. 

Focus on indoor fun: Unplug! Stock your home with used puzzles, board games, art supplies, and even puppets for some imaginative play. Turn your living room into an art gallery: Challenge everyone to make a masterpiece and tack it to the wall. If your home is cool enough, get a little movement going by cranking the dance music, or trying indoor foam darts, hacky sacks, or juggling balls.

Loop in caretakers: Talk to your children’s teachers, childcare providers, and camp counselors to ensure everyone caring for your children knows what to do to prevent and treat heat-related illness. If your child takes medication, ask their doctor if it may make them more sensitive to extreme heat, and if so, make sure to tell any other caretakers. 

Take care of yourself, too: Extreme heat can be profoundly stressful for parents, who need and deserve support as well. Tend to your own emotions about climate change by attending a peer climate support group or a Good Grief Network group, or even talking to a climate-aware therapist. Have as much compassion for yourself as possible.

Go deeper: Check out Elizabeth Bechard’s book Parenting in a Changing Climate and Mary DeMocker’s The Parent’s Guide to Climate Revolution: 100 Ways to Build a Fossil-Free Future, Raise Empowered Kids, and Still Get a Good Night’s Sleep. Moms Clean Air Force has put together a fact sheet on Climate Change and Mental Health, as well as a list of books and articles that can help parents talk to kids about climate change. 

How to build a neighbor network

With advice from Scott James, social entrepreneur and author of Prepared Neighborhoods: Creating Resilience One Street at a Time 

In a climate emergency like a heat wave, neighbors are our first line of defense — but only if we know who they are. Creating a neighbor network allows communities to gather contact information, pool resources, share skills, and identify who is most vulnerable in a crisis, says social entrepreneur Scott James, who wrote a book on the subject. 

Host a meet-and-greet: Organize a neighborhood potluck for 20 or fewer people (keep your “pod” to a manageable size). Invite people whose homes are close together; in an emergency, that will make it easier to physically reach anyone who may need help. You don’t have to use the whole time for discussion, but leave at least 45 minutes for planning.

ID vulnerable neighbors: Make a contact list with everyone’s information and create a group text or social media group to be used in emergencies. Identify the elderly and those with medical conditions, no A/C, or other vulnerabilities, and designate who will check on them. Some of these neighbors may not have been able to attend your potluck, so go door-to-door if you need. 

Create an asset map: Write down which neighbors might have useful skills in a heat emergency — like medical training or handyman abilities — as well as helpful equipment, like a portable power station or extra fans. Designate a “hub” where people can go if they need help and lack cell phone battery or signal. 

Designate heat captains: Co-captains are best in case someone is out of town or needs help themselves. Create teams of people who are in charge of various tasks, whether that’s checking on elderly neighbors or setting up outdoor shade structures.

Draft an emergency plan: Compile all the info you’ve gleaned into a detailed outline or spreadsheet that can be printed and passed out or emailed to your pod. Keep a copy near your bed so that it’s easy to find if something happens in the middle of the night. 

Prepare your resources: Keep a backup power bank charged as well as extra water, electrolytes, coolers, and ice on hand. Check that all fans are in working order to deploy to neighbors who need them. Store a tarp and rope to create shaded outdoor areas for people whose houses get too hot, as well as a bucket, water, and fan to make a “swamp cooler.”

Go deeper: This Map Your Neighborhood, or MYN, discussion guide from the Washington state Emergency Management Department can help anyone get started. The department also offers additional MYN planning documents. Joining or founding a Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT, is another great way to get your neighborhood ready for a climate event.

How to make a heat plan for your workplace

With advice from Jose Carnevali, Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Shiloh Rowe, safety director at Associated General Contractors, Austin

Working in sweltering conditions not only stifles productivity, it makes injuries more likely and poses a serious health risk. Many on-the-job heat emergencies are preventable — as long as your employer has a policy in place. Here’s what labor experts recommend when prepping a workplace to handle excessively hot temperatures. 

Know the rules (and your rights): Employers are required by federal law to provide a workplace “free from recognized hazards,” including heat, that could cause employees harm. Some states, such as California and Minnesota, have also adopted their own heat standards. Familiarize yourself with employer obligations and employee rights on OSHA’s website, and remember that you can file a complaint with OSHA if your job doesn’t feel safe.

Get ahead of risk: Work as a group to identify existing and potential hazards and what could be done to mitigate them. Maybe there’s a room with a faulty A/C, a pipe that always gets too hot, or a broken water fountain — be proactive about addressing dangers.

Train the team: Employees should be informed on the signs of heat illness and how to treat it. OSHA developed a printable heat-related illness prevention guide for employers, which doubles as a training aid and is also available in Spanish. Better yet, offer a comprehensive first-aid course, and make sure someone is always on the clock who is trained in first aid. 

Appoint a heat captain: Designate someone who will monitor coworkers for heat illness and who is authorized to stop work if conditions are too dangerous. Allow them to adjust work hours to cooler times of the day and make other accommodations, if possible.

Keep resources accessible: Make sure the following are always available, at no cost to employees: water, electrolytes, shady or cool areas, and PPE that protects from hot surfaces (like gloves). Make sure workers are getting enough fluids, but discourage them from consuming energy drinks, which can worsen dehydration. Implement mandatory paid rest breaks, and when it’s really hot, make them more frequent. 

Go slow: Bodies need time to gradually adjust to hot conditions. No workers should be going straight from an air-conditioned room to extreme heat. Gradually increase the amount of time spent in hot conditions before taking a break, and pay close attention to anyone returning from leave who may need additional time for their bodies to reacclimate to the heat. 

Seek guidance: Small and midsize businesses can get assistance with identifying and mitigating workplace hazards at no cost through OSHA’s On-Site Consultation Program. It’s available in all 50 states and some U.S. territories.

Go deeper: In addition to a trove of resources on preventing heat illness at work, OSHA also teamed up with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH, to create a heat-safety app that helps you evaluate when it might be unsafe to do outdoor work. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Extreme Heat 101: Your guide to staying safe and keeping cool on Aug 29, 2023.

This story was co-published with Public Health Watch.

When David Butts’ water filter is off and he turns on a tap in his modest house in this rural community, black water streams out.

Butts said his water has gotten progressively worse in the past decade.

The 56-year-old retired home contractor is angry that he must spend around $50 a month on filters to clean his drinking water. And he worries that before he began using filters five years ago, the dirty water was threatening the health of his ailing, elderly mother, who lives with him.

Butts is not the only one upset over tap water. Dozens of other residents in this no-frills borough about an hour’s drive northwest of Pittsburgh have experienced repeated bouts of discolored water for years, costing them money and raising fears for their health. Residents say the tainted water stains bathroom fixtures and clothing, and residual sludge blocks pipes and destroys washing machines and water filters. Some are especially worried that the water could harm their children.

A growing number of people in Industry, population 1,800, say they’ve had enough. Last fall they asked the local water authority — the Industry Borough Municipal Authority — to investigate and rectify the problem. The authority’s annual water reports from 2019 to 2021 said the water was clean and met federal standards. But under public pressure, the authority asked a private company to collect and test water samples from nine homes, including Butts’. The results shocked and confused Industry residents: The tests found a little-known, problematic metal in the water — manganese. 

In low doses, manganese is essential for good health, ensuring proper metabolism, bone growth, and healing of wounds. But in high concentrations it becomes toxic and can cause neurological harm, including tremors and hearing loss, and even lead to symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease, reports the Office of Dietary Supplements, part of the National Institutes of Health. Symptoms may not appear for months or years. Manganese in drinking water may be particularly harmful to infants and children, various studies suggest: It is linked to lower IQ and behavioral problems like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

High levels of manganese can be a serious problem, says Linda Birnbaum, former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program. “It’s not good for people’s brains, especially infants and children. It’s very concerning.”

The tests in Industry found that one home had manganese levels 4.8 times higher than what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says protects people’s neurological health. That house and two others failed the EPA’s standard for appearance and taste. Butts’ unfiltered water and tests at six other sites were within safety and aesthetic limits — which Butts and others found hard to believe.

“Don’t tell me this water is clean,” he said. “How many people are getting sick when [the water authority] could have been doing something?”

Under Pennsylvania rules, drinking water providers must limit manganese to 50 micrograms per liter (µg/L) or below. However, they don’t have to test for the metal, so it can go undetected. The EPA and many other states and communities don’t set legal limits or enforce rules on the metal in drinking water. The EPA is considering whether manganese needs tighter guidelines or legal limits. But its efforts have met stiff resistance from industries that use manganese in their products or produce manganese as waste, including the steel, chemical, energy, and agricultural industries. 

A search of federal records, some obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, shows that corporate groups have repeatedly lobbied the EPA to delay or derail regulation. Some of the groups and companies also have hired scientific consulting firms, such as ToxStrategies and Exponent, to produce reports on manganese health risks that suggest stricter controls are not needed and children are not more vulnerable to excess manganese than adults. 

The firms’ conclusions conflict with other, publicly funded studies, and some government and academic researchers question the accuracy of the industry-funded findings.

David Michaels, a former head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), said industry efforts to fight manganese controls appear to be “classic product defense.” 

Industry has used the tactics in regulatory battles over products ranging from pesticides to opioids, said Michaels, author of the books “Doubt Is Their Product” and “The Triumph of Doubt.” The goal of this “mercenary science”, as he calls it, is to preserve profits and avoid future litigation or cleanup costs. 

“Industries downplay the risks of their products, spreading disinformation here and hiding evidence of harm there,” Michaels said.

Industry groups and consultants dispute this view, saying they play a valuable role in shaping policy that protects the environment and people’s health.

In a written statement to Public Health Watch, Joseph Green, a lawyer who represents the Manganese Interest Group, wrote that the group, composed of trade associations and companies, supports the “scientifically sound” regulation of manganese. It participates in public rulemaking and encourages EPA policies that protect public health and the environment, Green wrote. Regulators must consider all the available scientific information and the views of a wide range of stakeholders, including industries, he added.

At a minimum, dozens of drinking water systems across the nation have provided residents with water that has high levels of manganese; it may go undetected in many others. 

An EPA survey published in 2021 tested 5,034 U.S. public water systems and detected manganese above the EPA’s “health advisory” level in 106, or 2.1 percent, of them. In some areas, such as the Village of Kiryas Joel, New York, and the town of Randolph, Massachusetts, levels were over six times higher than the EPA’s recommended safety limit. Some state water experts say the number of people affected is likely much higher because the survey focused on larger drinking water facilities, which can have less manganese contamination than smaller ones.

The EPA suggests that people consume water with no more than 300 µg/L of manganese each day over their lifetimes to avoid potential neurological harm. Infants younger than six months should be limited to that daily amount in water for no more than 10 days. But these levels are not a legal limit, so most public water utilities are not required to monitor manganese or remove it. By contrast, other international authorities such as the World Health Organization advise much tighter controls on manganese.

The EPA’s guidance is also based partly on a decades-old estimate of the average level of manganese adults reported eating every day, said Seth Frisbie, an expert in drinking water contaminants and professor emeritus of environmental chemistry at Norwich University in Vermont. The estimate doesn’t adequately account for infants, who weigh much less than adults, absorb the metal more readily and excrete it more slowly, leaving them at risk by the guidance, he said.

What’s more, infant formula can contain high levels of manganese — manufacturers are legally required to add it — potentially increasing babies’ cumulative exposure, Frisbie said. 

Manganese can occur in drinking water through both natural processes and industrial pollution. Rainwater and sometimes river water seep into soil and over manganese-containing rocks, picking up and sending the metal into groundwater used for drinking.  Some states, such as Minnesota and New Hampshire, have higher levels of manganese in their soils and groundwater. It’s also discharged by industries such as steel manufacturers, coal-fired power plants and hydraulic fracturing operations used to extract oil and gas.

Some epidemiological and animal studies funded by governments or universities suggest that consuming manganese at levels that exist in hundreds of U.S. water supplies may harm cognition, including reduced memory, learning ability, and other intellectual functions. One analysis, led by University of Montreal researchers and based on data from two studies involving 630 children in Canada, found that manganese levels in drinking water of around 133 µg/L and 266 µg/L — considered safe by the EPA— were associated with a 1 percent and a 2 percent drop in one type of IQ, respectively. 

That may seem minuscule. But Youssef Oulhote, an epidemiologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who ran a separate analysis of the Canadian schoolchildren data, said that while a person may barely notice losing a few IQ points, the effect across an entire population can be significant, leading to more people with intellectual disabilities and fewer who are cognitively gifted. 

A study of 643,401 children in Denmark, released in 2020, found that children exposed to concentrations of manganese of around 100 µg/L at any one time during the first five years of life were much more likely to have a type of ADHD that limits attention span and increases distractibility and forgetfulness than those exposed to below 5 µg/L. 

No single study has proven that manganese causes neurological problems in infants and children. Some studies that show links between manganese and neurological problems have limitations. For example, the studies in Canada involved a small number of children, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions. Taken together, however, these studies offer “compelling evidence” that manganese in drinking water may harm children’s neurology and behavior, Oulhote said. 

Industry representatives disagree. The Manganese Interest Group suggests that infants and children are not more exposed or vulnerable to high levels of manganese than adults, and when the metal is consumed in drinking water at levels of 100 µg/L or lower, it doesn’t significantly build up in infants’ and children’s brain tissue. The group’s argument is based on models published in an academic journal and financed by Virginia-based Afton Chemical Corp., which produces manganese-based additives for fuel. The modeling was largely performed by ToxStrategies, which has offices across the country and has done work that minimizes the risks of products for industrial clients. For example, it has performed several studies paid for by an industry think tank that questioned some of the dangers of hexavalent chromium, a carcinogenic compound used by the steel industry and others and a byproduct of electricity production. 

The Manganese Interest Group also funded a review performed by California research firm Exponent that found there is insufficient evidence to prove that manganese consumed or inhaled by infants and young children causes neurodevelopmental problems. Green, the lawyer for the interest group, said while it funded the study, it had no control over content.

 The Manganese Industry Group suggests that people are largely exposed to manganese in food, so drinking water is unlikely to add much to their manganese consumption. However, New Jersey state toxicologists wrote in 2021 that despite the intake through food, “drinking water serves as a substantial exposure source in some areas of the world, including New Jersey.”

The borough of Industry lives up to its name. Nearby, giant cooling towers mark the Beaver Valley Power Station, a nuclear plant, on the south side of the Ohio River. To the northeast sits a coal-fired power plant that closed in 2019. The area also has several hydraulic fracking sites and a Shell plastics plant.

Many residents look fondly on the area’s industrial backbone, which sustains the local economy. Butts remembers visiting his father at the coal plant, where he spent his working life driving a coal-ferrying barge.

But some residents are beginning to wonder if industries, especially fracking, are behind the borough’s contaminated water.

On a cool evening in late March, around 20 residents gathered at a monthly meeting of the water authority’s board. The atmosphere was tense, and at one point police showed up and hovered outside. During the public session, Andrew Zachodni, the board’s then vice-chairman, confirmed that manganese was the likely cause of residents’ dark water and said the authority was looking into why there’s so much of it. The authority’s latest water report, for 2022, found manganese present at levels that range above EPA recommendations. 

Diane Donatella, an Industry native, asked if fracking could be the cause. About nine years ago she started having stomach problems when she drank the water and noticed the water staining her toilets. “The timing coincides with the fracking,” she said.

Donatella said she didn’t complain to the authority until now because she didn’t realize others were having similar problems. “I thought it was just me,” she said.

Zachodni said the authority might look into Donatella’s theory. If she’s right, Industry wouldn’t be the first Pennsylvania community to allege manganese contamination of drinking water caused by fracking. Several residents of Connoquenessing Township in Butler County, to the northeast, sued Rex Energy, alleging the Pennsylvania company polluted their well water with manganese and other contaminants through fracking. According to news reports, the case was settled in 2018, with Rex, now owned by PennEnergy Resources, not admitting wrongdoing. 

John Stolz, an environmental microbiologist at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh who studied the Butler County issue, said that escaped fluids and gases from oil and gas extraction can stimulate subsurface bacteria, which in turn releases manganese from rocks into the water. 

Also at the meeting, Bryan Catlin, a father of two boys, said that on his street a handful of children, including his own, have autism or learning disabilities. He wondered if the cause was manganese in the water. But board members said they didn’t want to have that discussion and abruptly ended the public session. Several residents said afterward they were angered by the dismissal of Catlin’s concerns. The water authority later declined to comment to Public Health Watch, citing advice from its lawyer.

Jessica McCafferty, a mother of two who lives near Butts, says she worries that manganese-tainted water may have played a role in causing ADHD in her 11-year-old son. They used to drink the tap water but stopped a couple of years ago when it developed a metallic taste and her infant son’s bath water was brown with black specks. Now she bathes him every other day and drinks only bottled water. 

“I worry,” she said. “The baby starts sucking on the wet washcloth and I think, ‘No’!”

As evidence of risks grows, the EPA has taken steps that could lead to tighter controls of manganese in drinking water: It has added the metal three times to its Contaminant Candidate List. Industry has fought back.

Since 1998, the EPA has published five such lists, often including dozens of unregulated chemicals and microbes that could be found in drinking water. The agency must select at least five of the candidates to evaluate more closely and later decide whether any need regulation. 

The EPA invites any interested party to submit comments. 

In two consecutive rounds of the list — preliminary ones were released in 2015 and 2021 — industries that use or produce manganese objected to its inclusion via the Manganese Interest Group, which includes the American Iron and Steel Institute in Washington, D.C., and the Afton Chemical Corp.

Between 2015 and 2020, the interest group twice wrote to the EPA asking that it remove manganese from the candidate list. In 2015, the group argued that the best available science does not support the metal’s inclusion, citing research funded by Afton Chemical, documents show. In 2017, the group reiterated its position, as did the American Iron and Steel Institute, in separate comments sought by President Donald Trump’s administration on its plans to roll back EPA regulations. The institute also met with EPA representatives the same year to discuss “environmental issues that are key to the steel industry,” according to correspondence between the EPA and Thomas Gibson, then president and CEO of the institute. Manganese was among the institute’s key issues. The correspondence was obtained by environmental groups and posted online by Toxic Docs, a repository of records on toxic substances based at Columbia University and City University of New York. 

The EPA disagreed with industry’s position, but in the end kicked a decision on manganese down the road. In March 2020, the agency announced a preliminary decision not to consider manganese for regulation at the time, preferring to wait for nationwide data on its presence in drinking water. In response, a group representing drinking-water utility officials, advocates and others told the EPA it should “make appropriate management of manganese a priority.” 

In separate comments, New Hampshire’s environmental services commissioner said the EPA should reassess its health guidance on manganese and better inform the public about the dangers to infants.

Instead, the EPA confirmed its manganese decision in early 2021. 

But the issue didn’t go away. A few months later, the EPA released a draft of the next Contaminant Candidate List, which included manganese. Industry lobbying persisted. In September 2021, the Manganese Interest Group requested in public comments that the EPA strike the metal from the draft list. The group cited as evidence the two modeling papers funded by Afton Chemical and prepared by ToxStrategies, among others. One paper predicts manganese in drinking water won’t significantly build up in infants’ and children’s brain tissue when consumed at levels of 100 µg/l or below, commonly found in tap water. 

Some scientists challenge the quality and findings of the ToxStrategies papers. Frisbie, the environmental chemist, and Erika Mitchell, his wife and research partner at a nonprofit toxicology lab, said in an interview that the papers contain mistakes and inaccuracies. In an assessment published in 2021, researchers at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) wrote that that one of the ToxStrategies papers uses an extremely low rate for how much manganese infants absorb from reconstituted formula. That rate is not supported by available scientific studies, wrote the researchers, who added their views weren’t necessarily those of the MDH.

If the EPA were to accept ToxStrategies’ findings, it could weaken the agency’s health advice on safe levels of manganese, potentially leaving people more vulnerable to harm, Frisbie and Mitchell say. 

ToxStrategies did not respond to emails and phone calls requesting comment. Afton Chemical also did not respond to requests for comment.

Birnbaum, former director of the health sciences institute, said that, in general, many scientists working for consulting firms are good researchers but they interpret their data in a way that makes their employers or sponsors happy. “They may not even be conscious that they are doing it,” she said. 

Responding to the 2021 EPA draft, the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators called for the EPA to do more to assess and control manganese. The group’s executive director, Alan Roberson, said in an interview that an informal survey of members last year found a majority wanted the EPA to regulate manganese. 

When considering regulations or taking other actions, the EPA consults a 46-member, handpicked Science Advisory Board for guidance. The water contaminant list is among the proposals that come before the board, which is composed of scientists from academia, government and industry.

Here too, industry pressed its case.

At a June 2022 meeting of a board committee, Green, lawyer for the manganese group, called on board members to recommend that the EPA cut manganese from its contaminant list. Green said his group was “perplexed” that the committee had not referenced the models prepared by ToxStrategies and funded by Afton Chemical in a draft of its recommendations on the candidate list. 

A consulting-firm scientist on the board also supported the ToxStrategies model. 

Barbara Beck, a lead toxicologist at Boston-based Gradient, was appointed to the board in 2019 by the Trump administration and has authored papers defending clients’ and their products, including ones containing lead and so-called “forever chemicals”, which are potentially toxic.

Beck had produced articles with Gradient colleagues in academic journals in 2009 and 2017 that questioned the health impacts of inhaling manganese. 

In July 2022, records show, Beck advised that the EPA board committee delete from its draft details of a review of epidemiological studies that suggest manganese in drinking water is linked to neurological problems in children. She proposed adding other models instead, including those developed by ToxStrategies that Green wanted included.

Beck acknowledged some of the concerns about manganese, writing there is merit to the EPA considering whether science supports adding the metal to the contaminant list. But she said the review of epidemiological studies didn’t make a strong enough case for inclusion. 

In contrast, Gloria Post, a state toxicologist for New Jersey, criticized the draft guidance for omitting many studies that indicate neurobehavioral harm to infants from manganese in drinking water. 

The epidemiological studies that Beck objected to made it into the board’s final guidance for the contaminant list. So did the ToxStrategies study, making it more likely that industry findings on manganese are considered in the EPA’s discussions.

The EPA decided to include manganese in its final version of the list published in November 2022 and will decide by 2026 which contaminants might need tighter controls.

Public Health Watch reached out to Beck and Gradient for comment, but they did not respond to emails or phone calls. 

In a parallel process, the EPA planned to assess how harmful manganese is to inhale and ingest, which could lead to a revision of recommended safety levels. The process, called IRIS — for Integrated Risk Information System — is a key EPA program to impartially assess the human health risks of chemicals in the environment. 

Emails obtained through a records request by Public Health Watch show that the EPA began working on the assessment and issued its work plan for review across the agency in August 2018. But eight months later the EPA announced it had suspended the manganese assessment. Emails obtained by Public Health Watch suggest the manganese assessment was held up by the EPA Office of Air and Radiation. The office was headed at the time by William Wehrum, who resigned in 2019 over alleged ethics breaches, including doing alleged favors for an energy company.

An EPA spokesperson said in a statement that manganese is not a priority chemical for evaluation, but if it becomes a priority and there are enough resources, the EPA may resume the assessment.

Birnbaum, the former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, said in an interview that it’s time for the EPA to act to protect vulnerable populations. “In my mind manganese should be regulated,” she said. 

Meanwhile, some states have tightened manganese limits or recommendations on their own. Minnesota advises that bottle-fed infants consume no more than 100 µg/L daily of manganese in drinking water. New Jersey and California require water providers to notify customers if the manganese level exceeds 50 µg/L. 

Without the federal government endorsing new standards, however, state health officials can find it difficult to convince lawmakers and communities to set new limits, said Jonathan Petali, a toxicologist for the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services.

Residents like those in Industry, Pennsylvania, must bring on the fight themselves. And their efforts are starting to pay off. 

A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection said it is working with the Industry water authority to ensure required standards are met through regular testing of tap water for manganese, cleaning of the wells and installing a new treatment system.

Butts says he will keep pushing until he sees results. He’s a former Marine and sees it as his mission to restore clean water to his community. He and other residents want the authority to determine the causes of the black-water problem and assess whether Industry’s children are at risk of neurological harm.

“Is our water safe?” Butts asked. “We don’t know.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Black water: How industry is fighting stricter controls for a little-known drinking water contaminant on Aug 29, 2023.

Hello, and welcome to Week 8 of Record High. I’m climate solutions reporter Gabriela Aoun Angueira, and today we’re going to be introducing Grist’s new guide to keeping communities safe in extreme heat.

Scorching temperatures have affected nearly every part of the United States this summer. Just last week, heat indices in the Midwest skyrocketed, with Chicago reaching 120 degrees. Aid groups in the city raced to distribute frozen water bottles to the unhoused and box fans to elderly residents who lacked air conditioning. Meanwhile, farther south, San Juan, Puerto Rico, surpassed a heat record established in 1976.

If the past few months have made anything clear, it is that extreme heat is not just about the numbers on a thermometer. It impacts all aspects of our lives. To help readers navigate the new realities of life in this hotter world, Grist today published a comprehensive guide to keeping kids healthy, homes cool, workplaces safe, neighbors looked after, and our bodies protected in extreme heat. 

We gathered advice from a dozen experts, from engineers to child psychologists, and distilled it into easy-to-implement tips. Along the way, a theme emerged: In so many ways, preparation eases the stress of managing a hotter world.

Firefighter and paramedic Kaipo Kelley told us that those who learn the signs of heat illness ahead of time can act more quickly to help themselves or someone else who is unwell, perhaps preventing heat exhaustion from turning into potentially fatal heat stroke.

For children whose lives are disrupted by heat waves, child psychologist Jennifer Louie said that creating a family plan of where to go and indoor activities to do when outside temperatures are dangerous can help assuage kids’ anxiousness. 

At work, collaboratively deciding with managers and staff how to adjust routines on hot days, like by moving shifts to cooler hours or instituting more frequent breaks, sets a tone for prioritizing safety over productivity, said a representative from the Occupational Safety and Health Agency, or OSHA.

Home energy audits, whether completed by a professional or done yourself, can help identify the most efficient ways to seal and insulate homes before the heat hits and you have to crank the air conditioning, said Brett Little of the Green Home Institute.

And getting together with neighbors to identify who might be especially vulnerable in a heat wave — like the elderly, those with medical conditions, or folks without AC — and planning who will check on them ensures no one gets left behind, said Scott James, who formed his own neighbor network in his hometown of Bainbridge, Washington.

The tips we’ve compiled also include suggestions for supplies and resources to have on hand, like books for talking to kids about climate change and power banks for helping neighbors charge phones in a power outage. There are DIY ideas for keeping homes cold by building “swamp coolers” and for rapidly lowering the body temperature of someone who might have heatstroke.

In addition to the guide we published on the Grist site, look for easily shareable versions of all these tips, in English and Spanish, rolling out on our Instagram this week.

We need your help

In two weeks, Record High will look at the impact that extreme heat is having on travel and recreation — and we want to hear from you. Have you had outdoor sports canceled due to scorching temperatures? Travel plans scrapped or scuttled? Health impacts from exposure to high heat? Click here to share your experiences with us.

By the numbers

Although summers are expected to get even hotter in the coming years, few people in the United States are taking steps to prepare for extreme heat, according to FEMA’s 2022 National Household Survey on Disaster Preparedness. Just 17 percent of households say they have assembled supplies to deal with extreme heat, for example, and only 4 percent have made a plan with neighbors.

Data Visualization by Clayton Aldern

What we’re reading

Portland food trucks feel like ovens: There are more than 1,000 food trucks in Portland, Oregon, but as my colleague Joseph Winters writes, cooking in them in the summer heat is becoming unbearable. Some truck owners are turning off their grills, like a vegan chef who swapped out plant-based burgers and fries for a “cold menu” of chik’n salad and chips.
Read more

Inflation is down, but not heatflation: The global price of olive oil is double what it was last year, our food and agriculture fellow Max Graham reports. That’s in part due to a yearlong drought and a hot spring in Spain that devastated the olive groves of the world’s largest olive oil producer. Fears are mounting that the country could run out of the culinary staple completely.
Read more

Detained in deadly heat: An investigation by the Intercept found that the U.S. Border Patrol has been detaining migrants in Arizona in outdoor pens in temperatures as high as 114 degrees. Now, the outlet is reporting that the practice has been in place far longer than previously known, and that officials have said it violates a court order related to detentions.
Read more

How much heat can our bodies really handle?: As the world heats up, scientists and doctors are studying what happens to the body under heat stress, and how much global heating human bodies will be able to withstand. A New Yorker writer subjected himself to a 104-degree heat chamber at 40 percent humidity to better understand it himself.
Read more

In a sweltering Dubai, residents hit the beach at night: In the United Arab Emirates, prime beach time is now midnight. The New York Times visited a beach where lifeguards work late shifts, spotlights illuminate the waters, and children play on floaties during the only hours it’s bearable to be outside.
Read more

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Your guide to surviving a hotter world on Aug 29, 2023.