US Government shutdown: An unseen threat to local environments and public health
Written by Charlie Giordano, January 2019
The US Federal government was shut down on December 22, 2018 and reopened 35 days later, marking the end of the longest shutdown in the history of the United States.
The shutdown resulted specifically from a dispute in Congress over 5.6 billion dollars requested by President Donald Trump to construct a border wall between the US and Mexico. Republicans failed to agree to a federal budget that included funding for a border wall before handing over the House of Representatives to a newly elected Democratic majority at the turn of the new year.
Among numerous truly deleterious effects of this more-or-less political debate was the almost total cessation of all activities by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Acting EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler sent an email to the agency’s entire staff Dec. 27, 2018, stating that if no appropriations bill was signed by midnight the following day, the EPA would commence orderly shutdown procedures. Instructions were included for how furloughed staff should leave their posts.
“Even their emails are bouncing back,” said Althea Mullarkey, Public Policy and Special Projects Analyst at Scenic Hudson, a New York–based environmental NGO.
No bill was signed, the EPA shut down, and just as Mullarkey described, email inquiries directed at any one of the thousands of furloughed EPA employees were returned with an away message citing mandatory absence. The EPA currently employs close to 14,000 personnel for normal operations, but only about 700 remained active during the shutdown.
Superfund Sites Left Unattended
Among its responsibilities, the EPA oversees management of Superfund sites—places contaminated by hazardous wastes meeting a certain criteria established in the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). There are thousands of Superfund sites in the US. Of those, 1,338 are on the EPA’s National Priorities List (NPL).
Of those sites listed on the NPL, the largest is the Hudson River PCBs Superfund site in New York, stretching 200 miles south to New York Harbor according to Scenic Hudson. From 1947 to 1977, GE manufacturing plants in upstate Hudson Falls and Fort Edward released as much as 1.3 million pounds (roughly 590,000 kilograms) of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Hudson, according to Riverkeeper, a New York–based environmental NGO.
PCBs were once widely deployed for industrial purposes but were banned in the US in 1978. They are characterized as persistent organic pollutants and are considered to cause cancer in animals and be carcinogenic to humans. Ultimately this means remediating soil or water contaminated by PCBs is extremely pertinent for maintaining affected environments as well as public health.
The Hudson was dredged for six years from 2009 to 2015, at which point GE were allowed by the EPA to discontinue their on-river operations despite evidence of remaining PCB sediment contamination. Local authorities warned stopping the dredging process prematurely could slow down full recovery for decades.
In its Second Five Year Review Report of the Superfund site, published June 2017, the EPA reaffirmed already prescribed in-river remedies would prove sufficient for cleanup, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“We strongly dispute their conclusions and maintain that the significant amount of contamination left in the river threatens both public health and the environment,” said New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation (NYS DEC) Commissioner Basil Seggos in response to the EPA’s report.
NYS DEC then concluded in its most recent report published December 20, 2018, that in fact as much as 80 percent of Upper Hudson River water remained contaminated with PCBs beyond the EPA’s normally acceptable threshold for Superfund sites of 1 part per million (ppm).
“This analysis affirms that remaining PCB ‘hotspots’ in the Upper Hudson—several of which are located near population centers—continue to pose a significant health risk to humans and wildlife,” said Scenic Hudson President Ned Sullivan.
Shutdown Brings Cleanup to a Halt
Prior to the shutdown, the EPA was working to evaluate the merit of these claims regarding the state of the cleanup process. But as a direct result of the government shutdown, all EPA information-gathering activities on the Hudson ceased.
“The Superfund Program will continue to respond at sites where there is an imminent threat to the safety of human life or to the protection of property. Ongoing work at Superfund sites will also continue without EPA involvement up to the point that additional EPA direction or funding is needed,” said EPA Press Secretary Michael Abboud.
While the Hudson River Superfund may pose an ongoing health risk, the funding and staff necessary to continue the EPA’s response was simply unavailable beyond the scope of mitigating immediate threats to human life, while most of its staff remained on furlough.
“It’s one of the casualties of the progress we are making,” said Mullarkey, while the shutdown was still underway.
Broader Effects of the Shutdown
Any government shutdown has severe negative outcomes on people living in the US, perhaps the most simple of which being thousands of federal employees left without a paycheck with which to provide for themselves and their families.
This example is meant not to reveal more truth than any of the other equally valid reasons cited while demanding the shutdown meet a swift end. Nonetheless, while characterized as nonessential in the event of a shutdown, those activities conducted by the EPA at the Hudson River site and all other NPL–Superfund sites nationwide are crucial for public health.
Furthermore, this case represents a revealing instance of how localized—and in this case environmental—negative outcomes can result from starkly different opinions on the Federal level that remain incompatible despite deliberation.
