In a moment of clarity, the EPA doesn’t ban something. But wait, bigger craziness still looks to be on the horizon. See the end of the story.
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EPA PRESS RELEASE
Brendan Gilfillan giflfillan.brendan@epa.gov
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 27, 2010
EPA Denies Petition Calling for Lead Ammunition Ban
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today denied a petition calling for a ban on the production and distribution of lead hunting ammunition. EPA sent a letter to the petitioners explaining the rejection – that letter can be found here: http://www.epa.gov/oppt/chemtest/pubs/sect21.html
Steve Owens, EPA assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, issued the following statement on the agency’s decision:
“EPA today denied a petition submitted by several outside groups for the agency to implement a ban on the production and distribution of lead hunting ammunition. EPA reached this decision because the agency does not have the legal authority to regulate this type of product under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) – nor is the agency seeking such authority.
“This petition, which was submitted to EPA at the beginning of this month, is one of hundreds of petitions submitted to EPA by outside groups each year. This petition was filed under TSCA, which requires the agency to review and respond within 90 days.
“EPA is taking action on many fronts to address major sources of lead in our society, such as eliminating childhood exposures to lead; however, EPA was not and is not considering taking action on whether the lead content in hunting ammunition poses an undue threat to wildlife.
“As there are no similar jurisdictional issues relating to the agency’s authority over fishing sinkers, EPA – as required by law – will continue formally reviewing a second part the petition related to lead fishing sinkers.
“Those wishing to comment specifically on the fishing tackle issue can do so by visiting http://www.regulations.gov . EPA will consider comments that are submitted by September 15.”
R286
h/t to WUWT reader Michael C. Roberts
Background:
Lead for Shot, Bullets, and Fishing Sinkers
// <![CDATA[// August 3, 2010 — The American Bird Conservancy, the Association of Avian Veterinarians, and a number of other groups submitted a petition (PDF) (2 pp. 92 kb, About PDF) and attachment (PDF) (100 pp. 901 kb, About PDF) to EPA under Section 21 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) asking EPA to “prohibit the manufacture, processing, and distribution in commerce of lead for shot, bullets, and fishing sinkers.” Section 21 of TSCA allows citizens to file petitions, such as this one, and requires EPA to respond to any petition within 90 days of receiving it. EPA has just begun its review of this citizens’ petition and has made no determination on the requested action. Read EPA’s letter acknowledging receipt of the petition (PDF). (1 p. 189 kb, About PDF). To send your comments to EPA about this petition, please visit www.regulations.gov and enter Docket ID# EPA-HQ-OPPT-2010-0681.
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In other news:
The EPA is considering banning lead weights used to balance automobile tires:
http://www.greencarreports.com/blog/1021157_green-groups-ask-epa-to-ban-lead-wheel-weights
Thank the Sierra Club who unbelievably puts this in their press release: (PDF)
“1.6 million pounds of lead from wheel weights is left falling off of cars each year where anyone can find and possibly ingest it,” said Jeff Gearhart, Research Director for the Ecology Center.
Yeah, those people sitting by the side of the road looking for lead weights to eat is a real problem, yesssiree. Too late for California though, a ban is already in effect. Full disclosure: I’m a scofflaw. I have lead wheel weights on my car.
Next I think we should ban dirt. Really, it’s full of nasty stuff just sitting around where anyone can find and possibly ingest it.
From the CDC:
How dangerous is eating dirt? My mother was pretty certain about this—damn dangerous. Soils contaminated by industrial or human pollutants pose considerable threat to anyone who eats them. Reports abound of lead poisoning and other toxicities in children eating contaminated soils. Similarly, we do not have to look farther than the last refugee camp or the slums of Calcutta or Tijuana or Basra to find the dangers of soils contaminated with untreated human waste. But the inherent biologic danger of soil is difficult to assess. Soil unaffected by the pressures of overpopulation, industry, and agriculture may be vastly different from the soil most of us encounter routinely.
Yeah ban dirt, that’s the ticket.
I wonder where lead comes from. Perhaps there’s an alchemist somewhere busily turning gold into lead. Or maybe -gasp- we dig it out of the ground!!!!!
Just got back from a road trip through Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. We played the “spot the farm dust!” game. We’re all going to get awfully hungry if the EPA goes down that rabbit hole.
reminds me of a conversation i had on another forum:
“There has to be something, other than Au & Ag that would preserve our wealth
during a period of hyperinflation?.”
Pb & a bunch of it.
—
if someone wants my lead, i will gladly turn it over – 250 grains at a time, at 3025fps 😉
unless of course it’s up close, in which case it might come 1oz at a time at ~1600fps
From the CDC:
How dangerous is eating dirt? My mother was pretty certain about this—damn dangerous.
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yet, everyone reading this, knows what dirt tastes like, and stopped eating it long ago.
ha ha ha – lead weights just sitting at the side of the road ready for someone to come along and eat. Yes, I’ve seen these people scouring the road sides – pretending to be picking up bottles where they’re really searching for those little lead weights to scarf. Who’d a thunk it?
Do these people ever blush when they recall the inane nonsense that issues from their mouths? Good grief.
Did my stuff go into the black hole again?
Soft tyranny.
Anyone who actually believes that shooting any number of ounce and an eigth lead shotgun shells (most common load) into any/all wetlands (of which I’ve unloaded countless thousands), will have any appreciable effect on anything, probably also believes that the CO2 that people exhale has a similar deleterious effect on the air we breathe.
God save us from ourselves…
They are still banning red snapper fishing in the south Atlantic EEZ. Who knows why?
http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#documentDetail?R=0900006480b2f86b
Here, I once related an anecdote once about lead poisoning. Weird how everything is a cycle.
I agree with jaymam, Please help the EPA ban that nasty substance:
Dihydrogen Monoxide, Its everywhere. Visit their site for a good “read”.
VY 73 all.
http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html
@Bob of Castlemaine says:
August 27, 2010 at 4:44 pm
‘Why stop at dirt? Surely dangerous fruits and nuts like almonds, walnuts, cashews, apples, apricots and peaches all known to contain poisons such as arsenic and prussic acid (hydrocyanic acid) should also be banned.’
Yes, we know that and we also know why these foods are not normally dangerous when eaten. But check out the literature; you’d be pretty stupid to ingest lead, a very nasty accumulative poison, in any form.
I don’t know whether the use of lead shot poses a significant risk to animal and human life in the long run. But is sneering at the possibility a sensible response?
Don’t worry, be happy!
I’ve heard of someone ingesting a whole car over a long span of time. Just add a few sprinkles of metal/glass/rubber/lead battery/etc. to your food every day, and before you know it, you’re in the Guinness Book of World Records – or Urban Myths – at least until the next guy comes along and ingests a whole locomotive or airplane.
I don’t know what you are all complaining about. As far as I’m aware Australia banned lead shot and bullets over a decade ago and the end of the world has not arrived yet. And yes, the problem was waterfowl.
Of course, Australia also banned the bulb and now has houses full of CF lamps, where the cleanup instructions for a broken lamp ARE NOT widely disseminated, probably because it might actually scare off the punters.
Here are the instructions off the official government web site:
“The short term nature of the potential exposure (particularly after effective clean-up of broken CFL material) does not constitute a significant health risk to exposed adults (including pregnant women) or children.
However, following these simple and straightforward clean up and disposal instructions as a cautionary approach will further reduce risk:
1. Open nearby windows and doors to allow the room to ventilate for 15 minutes before cleaning up the broken lamp. Do not leave on any air conditioning or heating equipment which could recirculate mercury vapours back into the room.
2. Do not use a vacuum cleaner or broom on hard surfaces because this can spread the contents of the lamp and contaminate the cleaner. Instead scoop up broken material (e.g. using stiff paper or cardboard), if possible into a glass container which can be sealed with a metal lid.
3. Use disposable rubber gloves rather than bare hands.
4. Use a disposable brush to carefully sweep up the pieces.
5. Use sticky tape and/or a damp cloth to wipe up any remaining glass fragments and/or powders.
6. On carpets or fabrics, carefully remove as much glass and/or powdered material using a scoop and sticky tape; if vacuuming of the surface is needed to remove residual material, ensure that the vacuum bag is discarded or the canister is wiped thoroughly clean.
7. Dispose of cleanup equipment (i.e. gloves, brush, damp paper) and sealed containers containing pieces of the broken lamp in your outside rubbish bin – never in your recycling bin.
8. While not all of the recommended cleanup and disposal equipment described above may be available (particularly a suitably sealed glass container), it is important to emphasise that the transfer of the broken CFL and clean-up materials to an outside rubbish bin (preferably sealed) as soon as possible is the most effective way of reducing potential contamination of the indoor environment.
My reaction to this is: OMG. The environmental impact of proper cleanup of a broken CFL must be enormous (all that stuff to be disposed of). I bet nobody factored that into their clever calculations.
Of course this raises the question: how many CFLs break when in service? So far I’ve had 1 explode on me, out of about 30 used so far. A quick survey a couple years back indicated that for those using CFLs about 1 in5 people have had a lamp explode at some time. I don’t regard any of that as being a very acceptable risk, or rate of failure.
FWIW.
Pops says:
August 27, 2010 at 7:05 pm
You are one of the few who gets it. Lead is an element. It comes from mines, most of them on the surface. It is an element, not manufactured. It is present in soil and water. There is the same amount of lead on the surface of the earth as was present before man came along (except for a little we shot into space). A person (or a duck) could swallow the occasional lead shot and the blood levels will not increase. It passes unchanged in the feces.
Don’t eat lead in soluble form, though, as one of the lead salts or manufactured lead oxide pigments. Don’t lick red minerals, or yellow snow, for that matter. Lead pigments were rightfully banned. Elemental lead is relatively innocuous compared with mercury because mercury can exist in vapor form and it has more water-soluble salt forms. Ask the Mad Hatter about the squiggly new light bulbs. “Stick with tungsten filament bulbs”, he recommends.
I prefer spent uranium. f=mv^2
Have you heard about the newest hunting regulation in California? You’re only allowed to shoot the male squirrels. 🙂
Lead has been banned for waterfowl hunting for several decades now. You must use steel, tungsten or Bismuth type shot.
A lot of red snapper died in Florida this last winter. Along with many other warm water species. Maybe that has something to do with it.
We sure have a lot of dangerous volcanoes percolating right now. Ban them before they go off and make yourself useful, EPA.
On a more serious note, here’s a link to an analysis of assault weapons legislation, by a lawyer who’s very knowledgeable about firearms. Eric also explains why the various provisions of these laws don’t make sense.
http://www.learnaboutguns.com/2008/04/12/what-the-assault-weapon-bans-really-prohibits/
“1.6 million pounds of lead from wheel weights is left falling off of cars each year where anyone can find and possibly ingest it,” said Jeff Gearhart, Research Director for the Ecology Center.”
I have to be honest with you guys. I was walking down the street the other day and saw a lead weight that had fallen off of a tire. My first thought was, ‘why don’t I ingest it?’
A ban on the funding of the EPA would be a most benifical first solution. That orginization has been trying to destroy our industrial civilization since it’s creation.
A prime demonstration of a bureaucracy that works tirelessly to crush the civilization that it is supposed to protect. pg
Wait a minute.
EPA banning lead wheel weights in the US won’t do squat. See that alarming Sierra Club figure of “1.6 million pounds of lead from wheel weights…”
http://www.epa.gov/osw/hazard/wastemin/nlfwwi.htm
(emphasis added)
Did you notice that one word, “worldwide”? It sounds above like that’s 1.6 million pounds of lead lost in the USA, when it’s that much spread out across the planet. Which makes the amount actually lost in the US, where the EPA could possibly regulate it, a small percentage of that total.
(And with that worldwide loss, I will freely speculate, given the prices paid for good scrap lead, that a sizable portion of that loss is due to enterprising poor people with pliers or just a flathead screwdriver. Some places, they might sell “recovered” weights directly to the tire shops.)
Looks like the Sierra Club lifted their figure from the EPA site I linked to. However, apparently that’s not alarming enough. From the other link given above in the piece:
So not only does this “coalition” have an “estimate” more than twice the EPA (and Sierra Club) number, going by the juxtaposition in at least this particular article, it is being implied this loss is in the US only, when it is not.
I just reviewed that Sierra Club press release. They talk about the voluntary program I linked to, also use the “12.5 million pounds” number, and “worldwide” does not appear in that document but a lot of talking about how and why the EPA should act while brandishing those numbers does appear.
It’s GREEN, and it SMELLS. Better to just toss it out than risk trying it to find out just how bad it really is.
I keep hearing about the Sierra Club and their rampant greenery. Then I got to thinking. Anyone who drives a Ford Sierra by choice is probably a closet boy racer who is green on the outside and toromierda rosso on the inside.
The Sierra Club; UK style: http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=ford%20sierra&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1680&bih=826
Apologies for my mangled Spanglish.
What do you expect, afterall the EPA allows fluoride in the water supply.
Geez, guys… the world (EPA et al) has gone mad.. Wake up please.