Cleanup crews attack toxic goo in South Platte north of Denver. Federal environmental officials have taken charge of a continuing toxic leak into Sand Creek and the South Platte River north of downtown Denver, trying to stop oily black goo from fouling northeastern Colorado's primary source of water. Denver Post, Colorado.
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19437478


Families make legal appeal to keep water in Pennsylvania town. Lawyers for Dimock Twp. families with methane-tainted well water have asked a judge to stay a decision allowing deliveries of replacement fresh water by a natural gas drilling company deemed responsible for the contamination to end today. Scranton Times-Tribune, Pennsylvania.
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/dimock-families-make-legal-appeal-to-keep-water-1.1239025#axzz1f60ef23H

Canadian court orders review of Roundup toxicity to amphibians
http://www.safelawns.org/blog/index.php/2011/11/canadian-judge-orders-review-of-roundups-impact-on-frogs/

Linda Lear on Sierra Club Radio

This week on Sierra Club Radio  - January 22, 2011

1) Annie Spiegelman, the author of Talking Dirt: The Dirt Diva's Down-to-Earth Guide to Organic Gardening; 

2) Linda Lear, author of the biography Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature, talks with us about Rachel Carson's work, the upcoming 50th anniversary of the publication of Silent Spring, and Carson's role as an iconic figure of the environmental movement. 

http://sierraclub.typepad.com/sierra_club_radio/2011/...

American Public Health Association: 100 Year Short Film

http://vimeo.com/32226544

Liuna Mid-Atlantic Publishes Revealing Report, "TOXIC EXPOSURE" This report, TOXIC EXPOSURE, is the culmination of a yearlong undercover investigation into the practices of the asbestos abatement industry in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. Ernest Ojito, a college student, worked undercover for a year as an employee of half a dozen contractors that provide asbestos abatement services. What he found was an industry that routinely violates the law and poisons its employees, and a regulatory regime that utterly fails to protect these workers at the most basic level. Liuna Mid-Atlantic

NEW! Webinar Series: Improving Children's Health
Multiple dates: Dec 8th, Jan 12, Fe 9th, Mar 8th, Apr 12th, May 10th, June 14th, Aug 9th, Sep 13th

The Environmental Protection Agency, Region 8, and the Health Resources and Services Administration, Region VIII, have organized, in collaboration with other Federal partners, a one-year-long webinar series titled Improving Children's Health through Federal Collaboration.

• November 10, 2011 - Children Grow Best in Healthy Environments 
• December 8, 2011 - Pediatric Environmental Health Resources for Community Health Professionals
• January 12, 2012 - Coordinated School Health: Clean, Green and Healthy Schools
• February 9, 2012 - Obesity Prevention
• March 8, 2012 - Affordable Care Act
• April 12, 2012 - Communities Working Together for Better Health
• May 10, 2012 - Successful Asthma Management
• June 14, 2012 - Healthy Homes
• July - No Webinar This Month
• August 9, 2012 - Children's Environmental Health Research
• September 13, 2012 - National Children's Study

For additional information, please click here.

Plastics in Oceans: More Damaging Than Climate Change

www.voanews.com

The United Nations estimates that each one of us uses nearly 140 kilograms of plastic each year. At least 6.4 million metric tons of that plastic has ended up in the oceans. Environmental activist Captain Charles Moore has found that in some areas, plastic outweighs zooplankton ...

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/environment/Plastics-in-Oceans-More-Damaging-Than-Climate-Change--133190248.html

2011 Rachel Carson Distinguished Lecturer

Emilio F. Moran, a ground-breaking ecological/environmental anthropologist will deliver the 2011 Rachel Carson Distinguished Lecture on Dec. 8 in the Lincoln Room of the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center on the Michigan State University campus.

As an anthropologist, Moran’s research focuses on how people and the environment interact in complex and sometimes unanticipated ways. His more than 30 years of scholarly study of that interaction have put him at the forefront of a new interdisciplinary field: environmental anthropology. Moran is one of only a few anthropologists worldwide to study the importance of the human dimensions of global environmental change. He also is recognized as one of the first social scientists to integrate geographic information systems into anthropological research. Moran is the Rudy Professor of Anthropology and Distinguished Professor and serves as director of the Anthropological Center for Training and Research on Global Environmental Change at Indiana University.

"Dr. Moran is one of the world's leading scholars on human-environment interactions," said Jianguo "Jack" Liu, MSU University Distinguished Professor of fisheries and wildlife, who holds the Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability. He also is director of the MSU Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability. "Rachel Carson would be pleased that Dr. Moran was invited to present the 2011 Rachel Carson Distinguished Lecture."

Moran also will receive an honorary degree while on campus.

Moran’s lecture “Rethinking Human-Environment Interactions” is presented by the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability and the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife and supported by the National Science Foundation; the MSU offices of the President, Provost and Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies; the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources; and MSU AgBioResearch.

The lecture, which is open to the public, will begin at 3:30 p.m. and be followed by a reception.

The Rachel Carson Distinguished Lecture Series is a platform for prominent scientists and scholars to share their ideas about global challenges and opportunities with MSU students, faculty, staff and the general public. Previous speakers have included Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in economic sciences; William Clark, Harvey Brooks Professor of International Science, Public Policy and Human Development at Harvard University; Ruth DeFries, Denning Professor of Sustainable Development at Columbia University; Simon Levin, Moffett Professor of Biology at Princeton University; Billie Lee Turner II, Gilbert F. White Professor of Environment and Society at Arizona State University; and Peter Raven, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden.

APHA Passes Resolution on PVC and Vulnerable Populations

This week at the American Public Health Association’s (APHA) annual public meeting, the APHA passed a major policy that supports phasing out toxic PVC plastic in schools, daycare centers, hospitals, public housing and other facilities with vulnerable populations. You can read the APHA’s policy statement here.

Stephen Lester from Center for Health, Environment and Justice introduced the resolution, with great support from colleagues in the APHA Environment and Occupational Health Sections.

This resolution by one of the largest association of health professionals in the United States is an important new voice calling for government agencies to take action to address the risks posed by PVC, and endocrine disrupting chemicals like phthalates and dioxin released by vinyl. It comes at a time when a growing chorus of leading businesses like Google and healthcare institutions are supporting efforts to reduce and phase out the use of PVC.

Read the Center for Health, Environment and Justice press release on the resolution's passage here

This information is also now posted on the HCWH website, .

Eileen Secrest

Director of Communications

Health Care Without Harm

Note New Phone:   540-479-0168

follow HCWH at www.Twitter.com/hcwithoutharm