The "Least Favored Method"—A Primer on the RCRA Land Disposal Regulations

In May of 1990 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) completed a four year long series of rulemakings on land disposal of over. 450 hazardous wastes regulated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). The new regulations stipulate that hazardous wastes may not be disposed of on land—if at all—unless they are first treated in a prescribed manner. The Land Disposal Regulations (LDRs) will change disposal requirements for approximately 41 million tons of hazardous waste annually, at a cost to the regulated community of over a billion dollars. Despite EPA’s efforts to educate industry, the LDRs remain a source of confusion for many. This article is intended to clear up at least some of the confusion by providing an overview of the regulations and the decision-making processes which occurred during the four years of EPA rulemakings and, more recently, in the courts.     

Celebrity vegans and the lifestyling of ethical consumption

ABSTRACT

Veganism offers an important critique of unethical and unsustainable food production practices, yet vegans have been historically stigmatized in mainstream media. Given the recent prominence of celebrity vegans, this article asks, how might the cultural intermediary work of vegan celebrities make the ethical practice of veganism more accessible? And how do vegans’ ethical concerns about the exploitative production and consumption of animals as food and byproducts get reframed in the context of celebrity consumer culture? Bringing together philosophies of ethical veganism and eco-feminism with literature on ethical (food) consumption and celebrity culture, this article analyses the educational campaigning work on veganism by Hollywood actor, Alicia Silverstone and TV chat show host, Ellen DeGeneres. It finds that veganism is figured as a diet and lifestyle that foregrounds an ethics of care, compassion, kindness and emotion – about and for humans, animals and environment – consistent with ethical veganism. Yet these ethics are reworked through the commodity logic of celebrity culture to make it more marketable and thus consumable as a set of ideas and gendered lifestyle practices, where the individual choice is to be a healthy, happy and kind self. The tensions between ethical veganism as an intervention at the point of consumption within the production of exploitative and gendered human/animal/environmental relations, and the focus upon an individualized lifestyle politics through which celebrities maintain their commodity status, thus coalesce in the work of celebrity vegans.     

Midas’ Not-So-Golden Touch: On the Demise of Methyl Iodide as a Soil Fumigant in California

The demise of the soil fumigant, Midas, was heralded as a major environmental movement achievement, when Arysta LifeScience eventually deemed it economically non-viable and withdrew from US markets just before resolution of a lawsuit. Building on scholarship that focuses on strategy to understand how social movements sometimes win, we show how activist tactics were able to exploit the missteps of their opponents. These included the unreasonable expectations of Arysta for grower adoptions, the foibles of the director of California's Department of Pesticide Regulation in registering the chemical, and the reluctance of California's strawberry industry to discontinue use of methyl bromide. Although activist tactics, such as public comments and protests, had only a modest impact on the regulatory process, they had a major impact on grower adoptions of the chemical. This, together with a lawsuit that was not going well for the defendants, ultimately led to the withdrawal. Still, there was a great deal of luck involved, especially in the lawsuit in which the judge made rulings and statements favourable to the plaintiffs. Here, ‘scientization’, worked in favour of the movement rather than the industry.     

Chronic dietary exposure to pyrolytic and petrogenic mixtures of PAHs causes physiological disruption in zebrafish - part I: Survival and growth

The release of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) into the environment has increased very substantially over the last decades leading to high concentrations in sediments of contaminated areas. To evaluate the consequences of long-term chronic exposure to PAHs, zebrafish were exposed, from their first meal at 5 days post fertilisation until they became reproducing adults, to diets spiked with three PAH fractions at three environmentally relevant concentrations with the medium concentration being in the range of 4.6–6.7 μg g^?1 for total quantified PAHs including the 16 US-EPA indicator PAHs and alkylated derivatives. The fractions used were representative of PAHs of pyrolytic (PY) origin or of two different oils of differing compositions, a heavy fuel (HO) and a light crude oil (LO). Fish growth was inhibited by all PAH fractions and the effects were sex specific: as determined with 9-month-old adults, exposure to the highest PY inhibited growth of females; exposure to the highest HO and LO inhibited growth of males; also, the highest HO dramatically reduced survival. Morphological analysis indicated a disruption of jaw growth in larvae and malformations in adults. Intestinal and pancreatic enzyme activities were abnormal in 2-month-old exposed fish. These effects may contribute to poor growth. Finally, our results indicate that PAH mixtures of different compositions, representative of situations encountered in the wild, can promote lethal and sublethal effects which are likely to be detrimental for fish recruitment.     

A remediation performance model for enhanced metabolic reductive dechlorination of chloroethenes in fractured clay till

A numerical model of metabolic reductive dechlorination is used to describe the performance of enhanced bioremediation in fractured clay till. The model is developed to simulate field observations of a full scale bioremediation scheme in a fractured clay till and thereby to assess remediation efficiency and timeframe. A relatively simple approach is used to link the fermentation of the electron donor soybean oil to the sequential dechlorination of trichloroethene (TCE) while considering redox conditions and the heterogeneous clay till system (clay till matrix, fractures and sand stringers). The model is tested on lab batch experiments and applied to describe sediment core samples from a TCE-contaminated site. Model simulations compare favorably to field observations and demonstrate that dechlorination may be limited to narrow bioactive zones in the clay matrix around fractures and sand stringers. Field scale simulations show that the injected donor is expected to be depleted after 5 years, and that without donor re-injection contaminant rebound will occur in the high permeability zones and the mass removal will stall at 18%. Long remediation timeframes, if dechlorination is limited to narrow bioactive zones, and the need for additional donor injections to maintain dechlorination activity may limit the efficiency of ERD in low-permeability media. Future work should address the dynamics of the bioactive zones, which is essential to understand for predictions of long term mass removal.     

Bibliometric investigation of the integration of animal personality in conservation contexts

Consistent individual differences in behavior, commonly termed animal personality, are a widespread phenomenon across taxa that have important consequences for fitness, natural selection, and trophic interactions. Animal personality research may prove useful in several conservation contexts, but which contexts remains to be determined. We conducted a structured literature review of 654 studies identified by combining search terms for animal personality and various conservation subfields. We scored the relevance of personality and conservation issues for each study to identify which studies meaningfully integrated the 2 fields as opposed to surface-level connections or vague allusions. We found a taxonomic bias toward mammals (29% of all studies). Very few amphibian or reptile studies applied personality research to conservation issues (6% each). Climate change (21%), invasive species (15%), and captive breeding and reintroduction (13%) were the most abundant conservation subfields that occurred in our search, though a substantial proportion of these papers weakly integrated conservation and animal personality (climate change 54%, invasive species 51%, captive breeding and reintroduction 40%). Based on our results, we recommend that researchers strive for consistent and broadly applicable terminology when describing consistent behavioral differences to minimize confusion and improve the searchability of research. We identify several gaps in the literature that appear to be promising and fruitful avenues for future research, such as disease transmission as a function of sociability or exploration as a driver of space use in protected areas. Practitioners can begin informing future conservation efforts with knowledge gained from animal personality research.     

Unintentional strangulation deaths from the "choking game" among youths aged 6-19 years - United States, 1995-2007

The "choking game" is defined as self-strangulation or strangulation by another person with the hands or a noose to achieve a brief euphoric state caused by cerebral hypoxia. Participants in this activity typically are youths (Andrew & Fallon, 2007). Serious neurologic injury or death can result from engaging in this activity. Recent news media reports have described numerous deaths among youths attributed to the choking game. Because no traditional public health dataset collects data on this practice, CDC used news media reports to estimate the incidence of deaths from the choking game. This report describes the results of that analysis, which identified 82 probable choking-game deaths among youths aged 6-19 years during 1995-2007. Seventy-one (86.6%) of the decedents were male, and the mean age was 13.3 years. Parents, educators, and health-care providers should become familiar with warning signs that youths are playing the choking game (Urkin & Merrick, 2006). Impact of industry: By learning about the risk factors for and warning signs of the choking game, parents, educators, and health-care providers may be able to identify youth at risk for playing the game and prevent future deaths.     

Epidemiology of subway-related fatalities in New York City, 1990-2003

Problem

Subway transit is a relatively safe mode of transportation, yet compared to all other forms of mass transit in the United States (U.S.), subways have the highest fatality rate. The aim of this paper is to characterize subway-related fatalities in order to identify opportunities for risk reduction.

Method

Medical examiner records for all New York City (NYC) subway-related deaths (1990-2003) were reviewed. Data were abstracted on decedents' demographics and autopsy findings, including laboratory findings.

Results

There were 668 subway-related fatalities, of these, 10 (1.5%) were homicides, 343 (51.3%) were determined to be suicides, and 315 (47.2%) were accidental. Although decedent characteristics varied between fatality categories, they were not particularly informative with regard to prevention.

Conclusion

Prevention strategies that focus on structural controls are likely to be most efficacious in improving the overall safety of the NYC subway systems.

Impact on industry

These findings suggest that structural rather than individual-level interventions would be most successful in preventing subway fatalities.