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Tag: Hazardous waste

  • Sephora to pay California cities for mishandling makeup mess

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    Sephora, shoppers’ go-to spot for celebrity makeup brands and skincare essentials, is facing a hefty fine from California cities for alleged improper disposal of its leftover products.

    The company, accused of mishandling hazardous waste at its retail locations, will pay nearly $78,000 to Sacramento County and to several California cities and counties. According to a news release from the Sacramento County district attorney’s office, the total settlement amount is $775,000.

    “Our office is committed to protecting both the public and the environment, and we will hold companies accountable to ensure they operate responsibly and within the law,” Dist. Atty. Thien Ho said in the release.

    Following an investigation, 24 city and district attorneys across the state filed a civil enforcement action. It alleged the makeup giant was mishandling damaged, returned and expired merchandise, which is considered hazardous waste according to state law.

    The complaint alleges that the company failed to determine which items that were thrown out were used, expired, recalled or damaged and didn’t keep records of test results and waste management. The materials were also allegedly improperly managed and transported.

    The judgment, settled in Sacramento County Superior Court, includes a $550,000 charge in civil penalties, $200,000 in cost recovery and $25,000 to the Environmental Enforcement and Training Account managed by the California Environmental Protection Agency.

    Sephora started in 1969 as a small perfume shop in France. Over the years, it cemented itself as one of makeup’s main retailers, serving hundreds of millions of customers and becoming a multibillion-dollar company.

    It operates over 2,700 stores in 35 countries worldwide, with over 100 locations in California. The company is still headquartered in France, with its U.S. arm operating out of San Francisco.

    It is not the only business to face an environmental lawsuit.

    In August, United Parcel Service Inc. and its affiliates were required to pay $1.7 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the district attorneys of 45 California counties.

    That complaint alleged that UPS sent improperly labeled hazardous waste to area landfills. The suit came after a years-long investigation at 140 UPS locations in California.

    The company had to pay $1.4 million in civil penalties, $140,000 in cost reimbursement and $205,000 that will go toward supplemental environmental projects, according to officials.

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    Cerys Davies

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  • New Mexico Environment Department approves LANL plan to vent radioactive gas

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    Los Alamos National Lab Team Leader for Radioactive Air Emissions Management Dave Fuehne in front of an air monitoring system addresses members of the media May 28, 2025, during the Wildfire Preparedness tour with members of the media. Lab officials will be allowed to release a radioactive gas into the air as soon as this fall, following approval from state environment officials on Sept. 8, 2025. (Courtesy of Los Alamos National Laboratory)

    New Mexico environment officials on Monday gave permission for Los Alamos National Laboratory to vent a radioactive gas within the next six months.

    The decision came on the heels of federal officials urging the state in a recent letter to make a decision, and pushback from anti-nuclear and Indigenous groups about the proposal.

    Specifically, LANL aims to vent four waste containers filled with tritium and hazardous waste that it packed in 2007 and left at the lab’s disposal site, called Area G. In 2016, LANL officials discovered the drums were building pressure and could potentially explode. In a worst-case scenario modeled for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency —  which the lab said was unlikely — a rupture of all four containers could expose people to a dosage of 20 millirem, double the airborne radiation limit that LANL is allowed to release for all operations for a whole year.

    Tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, can be naturally occurring or a byproduct from nuclear research. The EPA characterizes the gas as a lower threat, emitting radiation that often cannot penetrate the skin, and is only considered hazardous in large quantities from inhalation, skin absorption or consumed in tritiated water – a replacement of one of the hydrogen molecules with tritium.

    Rick Shean, Resource Protection Division director for the New Mexico Environment Department, told Source NM that state officials and U.S. Environmental and Protection Agency officials will be onsite during the planned venting across 12 to 16 days during weekends.

    “We will be there, us and the EPA, [so] if something does go wrong, there’s a discussion with [U.S. Department of Energy] that we can observe,” Shean said. “We’ll step in and stop it if we have to.”

    Among several provisions in a Sept. 8 letter from the environment department to the National Nuclear Security Administration and the lab’s contractor, environment officials will require LANL to keep the release below 6 millirems as a “hard stop limit,” which is lower than the 8 millirems LANL proposed. Shean noted that a typical release of tritium throughout the year from the lab is between zero to 1.5 milirems.

    Indigenous groups including Tewa Women United, Honor our Pueblo Existence and anti-nuclear groups have raised concerns that federal limits for tritium exposure levels of a of 10 millirem were based on men, not pregnant women or young children.

    Shean said the department’s mandate takes the concern raised by the groups into consideration.

    “We do understand the concern around thresholds being put out there, the standards being based on typically male adults,” he said. “That was one of the reasons guiding our decision to lower the threshold to this event to six milirems.”

    In addition to the concerns about exposure levels, anti-nuclear activists and Indigenous groups also recently raised objections about what they described as restrictions on public participation and transparency at a recent meeting on the proposal. The state environment department previously set four conditions for NNSA and Triad to meet for approval, including a public meeting and tribal consultations.

    The Sept. 8 letter concludes with an admonishment from state officials, saying the operation is necessary because of LANL’s “failure to properly manage hazardous waste at the time of generation followed by almost a 20-year disregard of compliance obligations under state laws and rules,” the letter said.

    In a statement Monday, National Nuclear Security Administration Public Affairs Specialist Toni Chiri said laboratory officials will be in contact with Congressional, state, local and tribal governments to release the dates for the tritium venting expected this fall and will ensure the venting does not overlap with Pueblo Feast days or other events.

    “This operation will be conducted with the utmost considerations for safety to LANL employees, the surrounding communities, and the environment,” Chiri said. “LANL engineers have done careful analysis of the controlled depressurization process and will monitor it in real-time to ensure safety.”

    Emails requesting comment from the nearby Pueblos of San Ildefonso and Santa Clara went unreturned as of publication.

    Joni Ahrends, executive director at Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, called the release a “pattern of practice,” saying that LANL has been contaminating air, land and water in the more than 80 years since the Manhattan Project.

    “Who’s going to pay the price? The people of Northern New Mexico,” she said. “And there’s never an answer to the question: ‘when is it going to stop?’”

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  • Michigan regulators settle civil rights case over environmental racism in Detroit

    Michigan regulators settle civil rights case over environmental racism in Detroit

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    Steve Neavling

    Environmental justice advocates gathered in 2019 outside of U.S. Ecology North in Detroit.

    Environmental activists reached a “groundbreaking settlement” with Michigan regulators following a civil rights complaint over the state’s disproportionate licensing of hazardous waste facilities in predominantly Black, brown, and lower-income neighborhoods.

    The settlement, announced Thursday, also addresses the approval of a significant expansion of U.S. Ecology North, a hazardous waste facility in Detroit, which has sparked intense community opposition.

    After years of persistent community advocacy, the settlement is a key victory in the fight against environmental racism.

    It marks the first time that the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) will be required to use a federal mapping tool that identifies areas facing greater environmental risks and challenges. The tool, the Environmental Protection Agency’s EJScreen, helps policymakers direct resources and regulations to areas most in need.

    “This settlement is the culmination of years of hard-fought advocacy on the part of environmental justice communities who refused to stay quiet while hazardous materials were being stored where people of color live, work and play,” Juan Jhong-Chung, executive director of the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, said. “For too long, siting decisions were made without the input of the communities that would be most impacted — and what’s more, multiple facilities would often be sited next to one another, greatly increasing their cumulative impacts. We look forward to working with regulators in the implementation of these new licensing standards as we continue to build a world where no community has to live next to dangerous, life-threatening toxic waste.”

    EGLE Director Phil Roos said his department shares the same goals with environmental activists.

    “We look forward to continuing to work with residents across the state to ensure all Michiganders, regardless of where they live, have safe air to breathe, clean water to drink, and healthy communities to thrive in,” Roos said. “This agreement combined with recent announcements like EGLE’s new Environmental Justice Impact Grants, exemplifies the state’s commitment to empowering communities and advancing environmental justice.”

    The settlement stems from a 2020 complaint filed by the Sierra Club, Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, and residents who live near U.S. Ecology North in Detroit, which has been repeatedly cited for pollution. The complaint took aim at EGLE’s decision to renew the facility’s license and permit to increase its storage capacity.

    The Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, which represented the group, argued that it was unfair to permit more hazardous waste storage in a neighborhood that is predominantly composed of lower-income residents and people of color.

    The agreement provides stronger protections for residents near hazardous waste facilities. The state is now required to prevent facilities from disproportionately polluting lower-income communities or communities of color and to avoid adding emissions in areas already burdened with heavy pollution.

    “For decades, Michigan’s communities of color have been the dumping ground for hazardous waste from across the country,” Nick Leonard, executive director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, said. “This settlement agreement commits Michigan to putting an end to this legacy of environmental racism by centering the community in the hazardous waste licensing process through the use of Michigan’s environmental justice screening tool to conduct environmental justice and cumulative impact analyses. We look forward to working with Michigan and communities across the state to ensure these new commitments are diligently implemented and work effectively to create the environmentally just future we all deserve.”

    Along with requiring environmental justice assessments, the agreement also requires EGLE to offer comprehensive translation and interpretation services for communities with limited English proficiency. The agency will also collaborate with communities to identify the most effective methods for gathering public input on hazardous waste licensing decisions and will install three low-cost air monitors around U.S. Ecology North, with the data made publicly accessible.

    Local resident Pamela McWilliams applauded the agreement, saying it’s going to make communities like hers safer.

    “Our community has been fighting for a long time to get equal environmental justice in our eastside neighborhood,” McWilliams said. “We understand that there is a lot of work to do to make our community safe and healthy, but we put a dent in the problem. Looking toward a better future with even more improvement.”

    The state will also partner with nearby residents to design and implement a community health assessment around the facility.

    “For too long the cumulative health impacts associated with pollution have been manifest in our bodies,” local resident Rev. Sharon Buttry said. “Just today my husband was scheduled for four more months of chemotherapy. We have literally sacrificed our lives for the privilege of industry to pollute. Michigan’s most vulnerable residents living near hazardous waste facilities are disproportionately people of color and low wealth. With this Civil Rights complaint case we have proven that we won’t be silenced and our lives matter.”

    In Michigan and other states, pollution-spewing factories have been disproportionately located in lower-income areas that are predominantly Black and brown. One of those areas is in Southwest Detroit, where neighborhoods are inundated with a toxic stew of chemicals wafting from steel mills, coal-fired power plants, gas flares, billowing smokestacks, towering piles of coal and petroleum coke, salt mines, a wastewater treatment plant, and one of the nation’s largest oil refineries — all looming over schools, neighborhoods, parks, senior centers, and a recreation center.

    Enough is enough, activists and residents say.

    “Every Michigan community should be able to live free of environmental pollutants that cause them and their children harm,” Alice Jennings, an attorney with Edwards & Jennings, PC, said. “A person’s physical and mental health consequences should not depend on their race. The well being of a neighborhood should not depend on their economic or financial condition.”

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    Steve Neavling

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  • Tesla settles for $1.5 million after allegations of illegally disposing hazardous waste

    Tesla settles for $1.5 million after allegations of illegally disposing hazardous waste

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    An environmental investigation by the San Francisco district attorney’s office that began in 2018 and spurred similar inquiries throughout the state concluded Thursday, when a San Joaquin County judge ordered Tesla to pay $1.5 million for improperly disposing of hazardous materials.

    The individual efforts turned into one combined civil environmental prosecution by 25 district attorneys from Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and other counties into allegations that Tesla improperly disposed of used lead acid batteries, antifreeze, paint and electronic waste at its car service and energy centers throughout California.

    The electric vehicle giant was also placed on a five-year injunction, which includes training employees to properly dispose of hazardous materials. Tesla must also hire an outside contractor to audit some of its trash containers for hazardous waste.

    “While electric vehicles may benefit the environment, the manufacturing and servicing of these vehicles still generates many harmful waste streams,” San Francisco Dist. Atty. Brooke Jenkins said in a statement. “[Thursday’s] settlement against Tesla, Inc. serves to provide a cleaner environment for citizens throughout the state.”

    Tesla lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.

    In 2018, the San Francisco district attorney’s Environmental Division launched undercover inspections of trash containers at Tesla service departments. Investigators found that hazardous waste such as lubricating oils, brake cleaners, aerosols and contaminated debris were not properly disposed.

    In court documents, the plaintiffs allege that Tesla placed hazardous waste into “any trash container, dumpster, or compactor at the facilities” or improperly outsourced the materials to transfer stations and landfills not suited for hazardous waste.

    In Alameda County, inspectors found weld spatter waste, which sometimes contains copper, along with paint mix, used wipes with primer and other hazardous waste dumped into ordinary trash containers at Tesla’s Fremont factory.

    Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer and Riverside County Dist. Atty. Mike Hestrin both said in statements that their own inspections at Tesla facilities “found similar unlawful disposal.”

    Neither office responded to a Times request for elaboration on what was found and where.

    “A company that is supposedly environmentally friendly should know better than to illegally dump hazardous waste that threatens to do irreparable damage to our communities,” Spitzer said in a statement.

    Of the settlement money to be paid, $1.3 million will be split up among the 25 counties, while $200,000 pays for the cost of investigations.

    Alameda County is slated to take the largest share, $225,000. San Francisco and San Joaquin will each claim $200,000; San Diego, Orange and Riverside will get $100,000; Los Angeles, $15,000; and Santa Barbara, San Bernardino and Ventura, $10,000.

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    Andrew J. Campa

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  • The tragic costs of e-waste

    The tragic costs of e-waste

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    The tragic costs of e-waste – CBS News


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    According to the U.N., about 50 million tons of electronic waste (or e-waste) are produced every year, the vast majority of which winds up strewn in landfills in the global South, where people sift through the electronic debris in search of valuable metals. Correspondent Seth Doane looks at the tragic costs that occur when consumer products reach their end-of-life, and examines efforts to ramp up formal recycling and extending the life of products like smartphones.

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  • US nuclear waste repository begins filling new disposal area

    US nuclear waste repository begins filling new disposal area

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    ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Workers at the nation’s only underground nuclear waste repository have started using a newly mined disposal area at the underground facility in southern New Mexico.

    Officials at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant made the announcement this week, saying the first containers of waste to be entombed in the new area came from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee — one of the many labs and government sites across the country that package up waste and ship it to WIPP.

    Known as Panel 8, the new area consists of seven separate rooms for placing special boxes and barrels packed with lab coats, rubber gloves, tools and debris contaminated with plutonium and other radioactive elements.

    Each room measures 33 feet (10 meters) wide, 16 feet (4.9 meters) high and runs the length of a football field minus the end zones.

    Carved out of an ancient salt formation about half a mile (0.8 kilometers) deep, the subterranean landfill located outside of Carlsbad received its first shipment in 1999. The idea is that the shifting salt will eventually entomb the radioactive waste left from decades of bomb-making and nuclear weapons research.

    In 2014, a fire and separate radiation release forced a nearly three-year closure of the repository and a costly overhaul of the policies and procedures that govern WIPP and the nation’s multibillion-dollar cleanup program for Cold War-era waste.

    Operations had to be reduced after the repository reopened because areas of the facility were contaminated and airflow needed for mining and disposal operations was limited. Now, a multimillion-dollar project is underway to install a new ventilation system, and state regulators are considering a permit change that some critics have said could lead to expanded operations.

    The state Environment Department’s Hazardous Waste Bureau issued a plan this month aimed at ensuring the public has opportunities to comment on modifications or permit renewal applications.

    Sean Dunagan, president and project manager of Nuclear Waste Partnership, the contractor that manages the repository, said in a statement that operations already have become more efficient with the new panel.

    Creating a panel requires mining nearly 160,000 tons of salt, and it takes about 2 1/2 years to fill it with waste. For example, Panel 7 is filled with 20,056 containers, with most of them being 55-gallon (208-litre) drums.

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  • 3rd investigation finds no contamination at Missouri school

    3rd investigation finds no contamination at Missouri school

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    FLORISSANT, Mo. — Another round of testing found no harmful radioactive contamination at a Missouri elementary school, leaving school board members to wonder if there really is any risk at the now-shuttered school.

    Jana Elementary School in the St. Louis suburb of Florissant was shut down last month after testing by a private company found contamination on the kindergarten playground and inside the building. The private study was funded by lawyers whose clients are suing over radioactive contamination in Coldwater Creek, which runs near the school.

    The results prompted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct its own investigation. The agency announced last week that it found no contamination inside the school or in multiple soil samples on the outside.

    The Hazelwood School District then ordered a third round of testing from SCI Engineering. Jessica Keeven of SCI told the school board Tuesday night that the building and grounds do not contain harmful levels of radioactive material, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

    The school opened in 1970 and sits in the flood plain of Coldwater Creek, which was contaminated with radioactive waste generated when Mallinckrodt Chemical processed uranium in the 1940s and 1950s for atomic weapons. The waste was initially stored at Lambert Airport, near the creek, then later trucked to an industrial area that also borders the creek.

    The site near the airport has largely been cleaned up but remediation of the creek itself won’t be finished until 2038, Corps officials have said.

    The contamination finding in a report released in October by Boston Chemical Data Corp. created enough concern that the school board closed the school and moved classes online. Jana students and staff will be moved to other schools after the Thanksgiving break.

    Board members acknowledged that the “conflicting” reports created some confusion about what to do next. Member Kevin Langley said he wasn’t convinced that the health risk for children in the school building is greater than their risk in their homes near Coldwater Creek.

    “What do we do to remediate Jana Elementary School and how do we ever declare it as safe for reuse?” he asked.

    Marco Kaltofen of Boston Chemical told The Associated Press that the findings of all three studies are similar, but that the interpretations are different. While the Corps and SCI believe radioactive material at the school is consistent with what would be naturally occurring, the Boston Chemical evaluation found that proximity to the contaminated creek was responsible for it.

    “Others are hoping that it is all natural, all background,” Kaltofen said. “Unfortunately, hope isn’t science.”

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  • Corps finds no radioactive contamination at Missouri school

    Corps finds no radioactive contamination at Missouri school

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    FLORISSANT, Mo. — Testing by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found no radioactive contamination at a Missouri school that was shut down last month amid fears that nuclear material from a contaminated creek nearby had made its way into the school, Corps officials said Wednesday.

    Teams from the Corps’ St. Louis office began testing the interior of Jana Elementary School in Florissant, Missouri, and the soil around it in late October, days after the school board closed the school. The closure followed testing by a private firm that found levels of radioactive isotope lead-210 that were 22 times the expected level on the kindergarten playground, as well as concerning levels of polonium, radium and other materials inside the building.

    The Corps said preliminary results found no evidence of radioactive material above what would be naturally occurring.

    “From a radiological standpoint, the school is safe,” Col. Kevin Golinghorst, St. Louis District commander for the Corps of Engineers, said in a news release. “We owe it to the public and the parents and children of Jana Elementary School to make informed decisions focused on the safety of the community, and we will continue to take effective actions using accurate data.”

    Corps officials tested inside the school and took samples from 53 locations in the soil on the school grounds. Overall, Golinghorst said, nearly 1,000 samples were taken.

    The Corps said a public event will be held Nov. 16 to discuss the findings with the community.

    A spokeswoman for the Hazelwood School District said officials were in a meeting Wednesday morning but would comment later.

    The school, with about 400 students, sits along Coldwater Creek, a 19-mile (31-kilometer) waterway contaminated decades ago with Manhattan Project atomic waste. The Corps used radiation detection instruments to scan surfaces inside the school, and dug holes up to 28 feet (8.5 meters) deep in the soil.

    Students are taking virtual classes for the next month, then will be reassigned to other schools. It hasn’t been determined when Jana Elementary will reopen.

    Coldwater Creek was contaminated in the 1940s and 1950s when waste from atomic bomb material manufactured in St. Louis got into the waterway near Lambert Airport, where the waste was stored. The result was an environmental mess that resulted in a Superfund declaration in 1989.

    The site near the airport has largely been cleaned up but remediation of the creek itself won’t be finished until 2038, Corps officials have said.

    Children have often played in the creek, and a 2019 federal report determined that those exposed to the waterway from the 1960s to the 1990s may have an increased risk of bone cancer, lung cancer and leukemia. Environmentalists and area residents have cited several instances of extremely rare cancers that have sickened and killed people.

    The Corps of Engineers earlier found contamination in a wooded area near the school, but hadn’t previously tested the school or its grounds. This summer, lawyers involved in a class-action lawsuit representing local residents seeking compensation for illnesses and deaths received permission from the Hazelwood School District to perform testing.

    Results from testing done by Boston Chemical Data Corp. were released in October, prompting the decision to shut down the school. Phone and email messages seeking comment from the law firm that funded the testing weren’t immediately returned on Tuesday.

    It’s unclear exactly what any cleanup would involve, how long it would take or who would pay for it.

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