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In early 2000, scientists at 3M, the Maplewood-based chemicals giant, made a startling discovery: High levels of PFAS, the virtually indestructible “forever chemicals” used in nonstick pans, stain-resistant carpets and many other products, were turning up in the nation’s sewage. The researchers were concerned. The data suggested that the toxic chemicals, made by 3M, were fast becoming ubiquitous in the environment. The company’s research had already linked exposure to birth defects, cancer and more. That sewage was being used as fertilizer on farmland nationwide, a practice encouraged by the Environmental Protection Agency. The presence of PFAS in the sewage meant those chemicals were being unwittingly spread on fields across the country. 3M didn’t publish the research, but the company did share its findings with the EPA at a 2003 meeting, according to 3M documents reviewed by the New York Times. The research and the EPA’s knowledge of it have not been previously reported. Today, the EPA continues to promote sewage sludge as fertilizer and doesn’t require testing for PFAS, despite the fact that whistleblowers, academics, state officials and the agency’s internal studies over the years have also raised contamination concerns. “These are highly complex mixtures of chemicals,” said David Lewis, a former EPA microbiologist who in the late 1990s issued early warnings of the risks in spreading sludge on farmland. The soil “becomes essentially permanently contaminated,” he said in a recent interview from his home in Georgia. The concerns raised by Lewis and others went unheeded at the time. The country is starting to wake up to the consequences. PFAS, an abbreviation for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, has been detected in sewage sludge, on land treated with sludge fertilizer across the country, and in milk and crops produced on contaminated soil. Only one state, Maine, has started to systematically test its farms for PFAS. Maine has also banned the use of sludge on its fields. In a statement, 3M said the sewage study had been shared with the EPA, and was therefore available to anyone who searched for it in the agency’s archives. The agency had sought 3M’s research into the chemicals as part of an investigation in the early 2000s into their health effects. 3M also said it had invested in “state-of-the-art water treatment technologies” at its manufacturing operations. The company is on track to stop PFAS manufacturing globally by the end of 2025, it said. The EPA did not respond to detailed questions for this article, including about the 3M research. It said in an earlier statement that it “recognizes that biosolids may sometimes contain PFAS and other contaminants” and that it was working with other agencies to “better understand the scope of farms that may have applied contaminated biosolids” and to “support farmers and protect the food supply.” Farmland contamination has become a contentious environmental issue in red and blue states. In Oklahoma, Republican voters ousted a longtime incumbent in a state House primary in August after the lawmaker drew criticism for the use of sewage sludge fertilizer on his fields. The victor, Jim Shaw, said he planned to introduce legislation to ban sludge fertilizer across the state. “There are other ways to dispose of excess waste from the cities,” Shaw said in an email. “Contaminating our farmland, livestock, food and water sources is not an option and has to stop.” This year the EPA designated two kinds of PFAS as hazardous substances under the Superfund law, and it mandated that water utilities reduce levels in drinking water to near zero and said there is no safe level of exposure to PFAS. It also designated PFAS as “an urgent public health and environmental issue” in 2021, and has said it will issue a report on the risks of PFAS contamination in sludge fertilizer by the end of the year. The decades-old research by 3M and the record of the company’s interaction with the EPA were found by the Times in a cache of tens of thousands of pages of internal documents that the company released as part of settlements in the early 2000s between the federal government and 3M over health risks of the chemicals. Reusing human waste to fertilize farmland, a practice that dates back centuries, keeps the waste from needing other ways of disposing of it, such as incineration or landfill dumping, both of which have their own environmental risks. But the problem, experts say, is that sewage today contains a host of chemicals, including PFAS, generated by businesses, factories and homes. The federal government regulates certain heavy metals and pathogens in sludge that is reused as fertilizer; it has no limits on PFAS. “There’s absolutely enough evidence, with the high levels of contaminants that we see in the sludge, for the EPA to regulate,” said Arjun K. Venkatesan, director of the Emerging Contaminants Research Laboratory at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. ‘It’s insidious’ The turn of the century was a turbulent time for 3M. After decades of hiding the dangers of PFAS — a history outlined in lawsuits and peer-reviewed studies based on previously secret industry documents — in 1998 it alerted the EPA about the potential hazards. The company had already found high levels of PFAS in the blood of its employees, and was starting to detect the chemicals in the wider population. It had also long tracked PFAS in wastewater from its factories. Then in a 2000 study, 3M researchers noticed something alarming. While testing for PFAS in cities with “no known significant industrial use” of the chemicals, including Cleveland, Tennessee, and Port St. Lucie, Florida, they found surprisingly high concentrations in sewage sludge. A question weighed on the researchers’ minds: If there were no PFAS manufacturers present, where were the chemicals coming from? Hints lay in 3M’s other research. The company had been studying how the chemicals could be released by PFAS-treated carpets during washing. And they were also studying how PFAS could leach from food packaging and other products. In an interview, Kris Hansen, a former chemist at 3M who was involved in the research, said the presence in sludge “meant this contamination was probably occurring at any city” that was using 3M’s products. The study showed, moreover, that PFAS were not getting broken down at wastewater treatment plants. “It was ending up in the sludge, and that was becoming biosolids, being mixed into soil,” Hansen said. “From there it can run into the groundwater, go back into people. It’s insidious.” In September 2003, 3M officials met with the EPA to discuss the company’s study of sludge contamination and other research, according to the internal records. At the end of the meeting, the EPA requested “additional background information supporting this monitoring data,” the records show. Sewage sludge has now been spread on millions of acres across the country. It’s difficult to know exactly how much, and EPA data is incomplete. The fertilizer industry says more than 2 million dry tons were used on 4.6 million acres of farmland in 2018. And it estimates that farmers have obtained permits to use sewage sludge on nearly 70 million acres, or about a fifth of all U.S. agricultural land. “If we really wanted to figure this problem out because we believe it’s in the interest of public health, we really needed to share that data widely,” said Hansen, who has become a whistleblower against 3M. “But my memory is that the corporation was kind of caught up in the, ‘Oh my gosh, what do we do about this?’” Early warning, unheeded Lewis was a rising star in the late 1990s as a microbiologist at the EPA. He discovered how dental equipment could harbor HIV, winning him kudos within the scientific community. Then he turned his attention to sewage sludge. The EPA was encouraging farmers to use sludge as fertilizer. Humans had used waste to fertilize the land for millennia, after all. But, as Lewis pointed out with his research, modern-day sewage most likely contained a slew of chemicals, including PFAS, that made it a very dangerous fertilizer. He collected and examined sewage samples. He investigated illnesses and deaths he said could be linked to sludge. He started presenting his findings at scientific conferences. “The chances that serious adverse effects will occur from a complex and unpredictable mixture of tens of thousands of chemical pollutants is a virtual certainty,” he said at the time. His research prompted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue guidelines protecting workers handling processed sewage sludge. The EPA eliminated his job in 2003. He was a prominent voice on the issue at the time, but not the only one. Rolf Halden, a professor at the School of Sustainable Engineering at Arizona State University and an early researcher of contamination in biosolids, met with EPA officials at least nine times since 2005 to warn about his own research, according to his records. “The history of biosolids is that it was a toxic waste,” he said. For decades, he noted, sludge from New York City “was loaded on trains and shipped to the back corners of the country,” he said. Farmers often took the sludge without knowledge of its possible contamination. In 2006, an EPA contractor offered him samples of municipal sewage sludge left over from earlier agency testing. The EPA had been about to throw them out. Those samples led to a study that confirmed elevated PFAS levels in sludge nationwide. (The early research into sewage samples eventually led to wastewater testing that has helped researchers track the virus that causes COVID-19.) Another researcher, Christopher Higgins, was starting his academic career in the early 2000s when he began looking at sludge. He presented his work to EPA officials, he said, and was left with the impression that it wasn’t a priority. “I was really surprised by how few people were working for EPA on the topic,” said Higgins, who is now a professor at the Colorado School of Mines. Betsy Southerland, a former director of science and technology in the EPA Office of Water, which oversees biosolids, said the program had been hurt by staffing shortages as well as an arduous process for setting new restrictions. Action has been slow, she said, even though EPA’s surveys of sludge had shown “all kinds of pollutants — flame retardants, pharmaceuticals, steroids, hormones,” she said. “It’s the most horrible story,” she said. A 2018 report by the EPA’s inspector accused the agency of failing to properly regulate biosolids, saying it had “reduced staff and resources in the biosolids program over time, creating barriers.” The Biden administration has said it would publish a risk assessment of PFAS in biosolids by the end of 2024. That would be a first step toward setting limits on PFAS in sewage sludge used as fertilizer. There is another solution, experts say. Under the Clean Water Act, wastewater treatment plants have a legal authority to limit PFAS pollution from local factories. It’s known as the Clean Water Act “pretreatment program,” preventing chemicals from reaching sewage in the first place. In the past two years, two cities — Burlington, North Carolina, and Calhoun, Georgia — have ordered industries to clean up the effluent they send to wastewater treatment plants. In one instance, a textile producer decided to stop using PFAS entirely. Those actions came after a local environmental group sued the cities. “Industry is in the best position to control their own pollution, rather than treating wastewater treatment plants like industrial, toxic dumping grounds,” said Kelly Moser, an attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, which filed the lawsuits. The National Association of Clean Water Agencies, which represents wastewater treatment plants, said more than 1,600 utilities already had pretreatment programs in place, though not necessarily for PFAS. (The group also said research showed that the chemicals were coming from household waste, including human waste, not just factories.) Adam Krantz, the group’s CEO, said many utilities were waiting for the EPA to set standards. That would strengthen treatment plants’ ability to hold the ultimate polluters responsible, he said. “If these chemical companies were aware of PFAS’ potential dangers and kept it quiet,” he said, “then these polluters have to pay.”Wallace and Gromit return with comic warning about AI dystopia
The Denver Nuggets are "eager" to "shake things up" this season and despite their limitations, they are ready to offer power forward Zeke Nnaji, according to NBA Insider Marc Stein of The Stein Line. Nnaji does not offer much, with a modest $8.9 million salary through 2027-2028 that decreases in value each season. However, the Nuggets are likely to "sweeten" deals with draft compensation, per Stein. This article will be updated soon to provide more information and analysis. For more from Bleacher Report on this topic and from around the sports world, check out our B/R app , homepage and social feeds—including Twitter , Instagram , Facebook and TikTok .Maryland is suing the company that produces the waterproof material Gore-Tex often used for raincoats and other outdoor gear, alleging its leaders kept using “forever chemicals” long after learning about serious health risks associated with them. The complaint, which was filed last week in federal court, focuses on a cluster of 13 factories in northeastern Maryland operated by Delaware-based W.L. Gore & Associates. It alleges the company polluted the air and water around its facilities with , jeopardizing the health of surrounding communities while raking in profits. The lawsuit adds to other claims filed in recent years, including a class action on behalf of Cecil County residents in 2023 demanding Gore foot the bill for water filtration systems, medical bills and other damages associated with decades of harmful pollution in the largely rural community. “PFAS are linked to cancer, weakened immune systems, and can even harm the ability to bear children,” Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said in a statement. “It is unacceptable for any company to knowingly contaminate our drinking water with these toxins, putting Marylanders at risk of severe health conditions.” Gore spokesperson Donna Leinwand Leger said the company is “surprised by the Maryland Attorney General’s decision to initiate legal action, particularly in light of our proactive and intensive engagement with state regulators over the past two years.” “We have been working with Maryland, employing the most current, reliable science and technology to assess the potential impact of our operations and guide our ongoing, collaborative efforts to protect the environment,” the company said in a statement, noting a Dec. 18 report that contains nearly two years of groundwater testing results. But attorney Philip Federico, who represents plaintiffs in the class action and other lawsuits against Gore, called the company’s efforts “too little, much too late.” In the meantime, he said, residents are continuing to suffer — one of his clients was recently diagnosed with kidney cancer. “It’s typical corporate environmental contamination,” he said. “They’re in no hurry to fix the problem.” The synthetic chemicals are especially harmful because they’re nearly indestructible and can build up in various environments, including the human body. In addition to cancers and immune system problems, exposure to certain levels of PFAS has been linked to increased cholesterol levels, reproductive health issues and developmental delays in children, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Gore leaders failed to warn people living near its Maryland facilities about the potential effects, hoping to protect their corporate image and avoid liability, according to the state’s lawsuit. The result has been “a toxic legacy for generations to come,” the lawsuit alleges. Since the chemicals are already in the local environment, protecting residents now often means installing complex and expensive water filtration systems. People with private wells have found highly elevated levels of dangerous chemicals in their water, according to the class action lawsuit. The Maryland facilities are located in a rural area just across the border from Delaware, where Gore has become a longtime fixture in the community. The company, which today employs more than 13,000 people, was founded in 1958 after Wilbert Gore left the chemical giant DuPont to start his own business. Its profile rose with the , a lightweight waterproof material created by stretching polytetrafluoroethylene, which is better known by the brand name Teflon that’s used to coat nonstick pans. The membrane within Gore-Tex fabric has billions of pores that are smaller than water droplets, making it especially effective for outdoor gear. The state’s complaint traces Gore’s longstanding relationship with , arguing that information about the chemicals' dangers was long known within both companies as they sought to keep things quiet and boost profits. It alleges that as early as 1961, DuPont scientists knew the chemical caused adverse liver reactions in rats and dogs.
Bow school officials defended their decision to bar a group of parents from school grounds after they wore pink wristbands with “XX” in black lettering on them to protest a transgender athlete playing in a girls soccer game. Those officials took the witness stand in U.S. District Court in Concord on Friday in the second day of an evidentiary hearing in the lawsuit brought by the parents against the district over the prohibition. Attorneys from the Institute for Free Speech and attorney Richard J. Lehmann filed the lawsuit on behalf of Kyle Fellers, Anthony “Andy” Foote, Nicole Foote and Eldon Rash. The suit names Bow school administrators, including Superintendent Marcy Kelley, Principal Matt Fisk and athletic director Mike Desilets, and soccer referee Steve Rossetti. The lawsuit alleges that the defendants violated the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights by banning them from school grounds and events for wearing the wristbands — the “XX” symbols being a nod to the female chromosome structure — as a form of silent protest during a Bow High School girls soccer game against Plymouth on Sept. 17. Attorney Endel Kolde of the Institute for Free Speech displays the pink armband his clients wore to protest transgender athletes playing on girls teams in this photo from October. According to court filings and their own testimony, the plaintiffs wore the wristbands in protest of a policy allowing a transgender athlete they identified in court paperwork as a “biological male” to play on the Plymouth girls team. That Plymouth player, Parker Tirrell, is one of two transgender girls challenging the constitutionality of a new state law {span}mandating that interscholastic athletes in grades 5-12 must play on teams matching the gender listed on their birth certificates. The hearing held Thursday and Friday before Judge Steven McAuliffe was on a motion by the parent plaintiffs for an injunction allowing them to wear the wristbands and display signs while attending Bow school events in the coming months, including basketball games, swim meets and a middle school music concert, until their lawsuit is decided. Bow Superintendent Marcy Kelley took the stand Friday, saying she views XX as being trans-exclusionary, mentioning that former NCAA swimmer and conservative activist Riley Gaines promotes the symbol during appearances around the country speaking out against trans athletes competing in women’s sports. “I disagree with making a blanket statement that all transgender athletes are dangerous,” Kelley said. “It’s my personal opinion that it is more nuanced and there are many factors to consider.” Kelley referenced a parent email she received reporting talk of people planning to heckle Tirrell, an event that ultimately never transpired. She also mentioned a Facebook post from Anthony Foote urging people to attend the soccer game against Plymouth. Kelley questioned the plaintiffs’ claim that they were simply showing support for women’s causes and concern for the safety of females competing against males, and not directing their protests at Tirrell in any way. “I think the timing is telling,” Kelley said. “This was organized and targeted. When we suspect there’s some sort of threat, we don’t wait for it to happen.” When soccer referee Rossetti took the stand, he testified he does the scheduling of referees for hundreds of high school games. Endel Kolde, attorney for the plaintiffs, asked if Rossetti, a referee for 53 years, scheduled himself to work games with transgender athletes playing. Rossetti said that was not a factor when he assigned himself back in July to work the Bow-Plymouth game. He was later asked why he assigned himself to that game. He said it was because Bow was expected to have a good team this year, and Plymouth might struggle. “After 53 years, doing a less competitive game is a good thing for an old man like me,” Rossetti said. Two of the plaintiffs, Andy Foote and Fellers, took the stand in Thursday’s seven-hour session. Fellers said he initially bought the pink wristbands for his daughter and her teammates to wear, but they decided against it. “I wanted to support women’s sports and I believed what was going on was a travesty,” Fellers said. Body cam footage acquired from Bow police played during the hearing shows Fellers appearing to become agitated when confronted by school officials and told to take his wristband off, calling them “cowards” and “Nazis.” At the conclusion of Friday’s hearing, McAuliffe gave attorneys for both sides a deadline of Dec. 13 to file post hearing briefs, before he issues a ruling on the preliminary injunction request. pfeely@unionleader.com
Disney ’s recent decision to pull a transgender storyline from one of its upcoming movies appears to be its latest attempt to avoid generating political controversy after the company became the center of a debate over “wokeism” last year. The company, run by Bob Iger , has found itself in the midst of several “culture wars” over the last few years after pledging to “further strengthen our commitment to diversity and inclusion everywhere” in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020. Disney chose to make its theme parks more inclusive, such as adopting more gender-neutral greetings, and has made a conscious effort to include more diverse characters, for example, introducing its first biracial gay character in Strange World . Iger was the one who pushed the blockbuster superhero film Black Panther forward – a movie with an almost entirely Black cast that has been renowned for its cultural impact. But the company’s desire to move-away from subjects often embroiled in political cultural wars seemed evident in Iger’s statement to investors last year. “Our primary mission needs to be to entertain,” Iger said. “It should not be agenda-driven.” After a messy lawsuit with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and a recent $15 million settlement with President-elect Donald Trump , the company seems to be reeling it in again. This past week, Disney said its transgender athlete storyline in the upcoming series Win or Lose would be scrapped. “When it comes to animated content for a younger audience,” Disney said in a statement to The Independent . “We recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline.” That decision was made over the summer, according to the New York Times . But the news of it arrives soon after ABC, a flagship property of Disney, agreed to give Trump $15m for his presidential library, on top of $1m in legal fees, rather than dispute a defamation lawsuit in court. Trump accused host George Stephanopoulos of defaming him for saying he raped E. Jean Carroll. A jury found the president-elect liable for sexual abuse, not rape. First Amendment supporters criticized the company and Iger, who signed off on it, for giving into Trump’s pursuits. But lawyers for the company reportedly felt it was too risky to fight. That fight would’ve been another legal battle against a well-known politician. Last year, Disney sued DeSantis for infringing on their First Amendment rights by using his political power for retaliation. The company openly opposed DeSantis’s Parental Rights in Education Act for being anti-LGBT+. In return, DeSantis responded angrily and the Florida State Legislature repealed the law that gave Disney special governance. Although the case garnered national attention, the two ultimately settled this year. On top of legal battles, Disney has also battled public opinion over its choice to become more inclusive and diverse. Conservatives have bashed the company for indoctrinating children by pushing LGBT-friendly characters and storylines. Online, a movement began to boycott the company. America First Legal Foundation, a conservative law firm founded by Trump adviser Stephen Miller, even sued Disney for its diversity promotion.
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By MICHELLE L. PRICE WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — An online spat between factions of Donald Trump’s supporters over immigration and the tech industry has thrown internal divisions in his political movement into public display, previewing the fissures and contradictory views his coalition could bring to the White House. The rift laid bare the tensions between the newest flank of Trump’s movement — wealthy members of the tech world including billionaire Elon Musk and fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and their call for more highly skilled workers in their industry — and people in Trump’s Make America Great Again base who championed his hardline immigration policies. The debate touched off this week when Laura Loomer , a right-wing provocateur with a history of racist and conspiratorial comments, criticized Trump’s selection of Sriram Krishnan as an adviser on artificial intelligence policy in his coming administration. Krishnan favors the ability to bring more skilled immigrants into the U.S. Loomer declared the stance to be “not America First policy” and said the tech executives who have aligned themselves with Trump were doing so to enrich themselves. Much of the debate played out on the social media network X, which Musk owns. Loomer’s comments sparked a back-and-forth with venture capitalist and former PayPal executive David Sacks , whom Trump has tapped to be the “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar.” Musk and Ramaswamy, whom Trump has tasked with finding ways to cut the federal government , weighed in, defending the tech industry’s need to bring in foreign workers. It bloomed into a larger debate with more figures from the hard-right weighing in about the need to hire U.S. workers, whether values in American culture can produce the best engineers, free speech on the internet, the newfound influence tech figures have in Trump’s world and what his political movement stands for. Trump has not yet weighed in on the rift. His presidential transition team did not respond to questions about positions on visas for highly skilled workers or the debate between his supporters online. Instead, his team instead sent a link to a post on X by longtime adviser and immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller that was a transcript of a speech Trump gave in 2020 at Mount Rushmore in which he praised figures and moments from American history. Musk, the world’s richest man who has grown remarkably close to the president-elect , was a central figure in the debate, not only for his stature in Trump’s movement but his stance on the tech industry’s hiring of foreign workers. Technology companies say H-1B visas for skilled workers, used by software engineers and others in the tech industry, are critical for hard-to-fill positions. But critics have said they undercut U.S. citizens who could take those jobs. Some on the right have called for the program to be eliminated, not expanded. Born in South Africa, Musk was once on an a H-1B visa himself and defended the industry’s need to bring in foreign workers. “There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent,” he said in a post. “It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley.” Trump’s own positions over the years have reflected the divide in his movement. Related Articles National Politics | Trump threat to immigrant health care tempered by economic hopes National Politics | In states that ban abortion, social safety net programs often fail families National Politics | Trump vows to pursue executions after Biden commutes most of federal death row National Politics | Elon Musk’s preschool is the next step in his anti-woke education dreams National Politics | Trump’s picks for top health jobs not just team of rivals but ‘team of opponents’ His tough immigration policies, including his pledge for a mass deportation, were central to his winning presidential campaign. He has focused on immigrants who come into the U.S. illegally but he has also sought curbs on legal immigration , including family-based visas. As a presidential candidate in 2016, Trump called the H-1B visa program “very bad” and “unfair” for U.S. workers. After he became president, Trump in 2017 issued a “Buy American and Hire American” executive order , which directed Cabinet members to suggest changes to ensure H-1B visas were awarded to the highest-paid or most-skilled applicants to protect American workers. Trump’s businesses, however, have hired foreign workers, including waiters and cooks at his Mar-a-Lago club , and his social media company behind his Truth Social app has used the the H-1B program for highly skilled workers. During his 2024 campaign for president, as he made immigration his signature issue, Trump said immigrants in the country illegally are “poisoning the blood of our country” and promised to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. But in a sharp departure from his usual alarmist message around immigration generally, Trump told a podcast this year that he wants to give automatic green cards to foreign students who graduate from U.S. colleges. “I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country,” he told the “All-In” podcast with people from the venture capital and technology world. Those comments came on the cusp of Trump’s budding alliance with tech industry figures, but he did not make the idea a regular part of his campaign message or detail any plans to pursue such changes.Political bigwigs line up to say final goodbye to Manmohan Singh, the OG reformer
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