New report highlights how toxic “accidents waiting to happen” threaten U.S. waterways

Facilities storing billions of gallons of toxic waste threaten America’s rivers and millions of people who live near them, according to a new report from the Environment America Research & Policy Center, U.S. PIRG Education Fund and the Frontier Group. Entitled  Accidents Waiting to Happen: Toxic Threats to Our Rivers, Lakes, and Streams, the study documents toxic pollution threats from five types of facilities and offers answers on how to prevent them.

The report pinpoints the dangers posed to waterways from toxic chemical storage, oil trains and pipelines, factory farm manure lagoons, coal ash ponds and fracking waste pits. While some of these pollute rivers, lakes and streams on an ongoing basis, the risks of one-off catastrophic spills are even greater as climate change-fueled hurricanes and flooding cause overflows, breaches and accidents, the study explains.

“In our heedless rush to produce more and more stuff, we’ve structured our economy in ways that produce enormous amounts of toxic waste,” said John Rumpler, senior director of Environment America’s clean water program and co-author of the report. “Stored or transported near our waterways, these toxic hazards are accidents waiting to happen.” 

The report offers numerous case studies that indicate how much damage these hazards can produce. For example, in 2014, a chemical storage facility leaked into West Virginia’s Elk River, contaminating the drinking water of hundreds of thousands of people. Last fall, in North Carolina, Hurricane Florence caused both coal ash ponds and hog waste lagoons to overflow.  And oil pipelines (and trains) have polluted rivers from Montana to Michigan.

“As extreme weather events become more frequent and more severe, these sites will become even more dangerous," observed U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko of New York, who now chairs the House subcommittee on the environment and climate change. "In the long run, our only responsible answer is to prevent these toxic sites from being created in the first place.”

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