Sunday, June 23, 2013

Rat Poison Manufacturer Challenges EPA Ban of d-CON Product

Reckitt Benckiser wants to keep selling product despite risks to children and wildlife
March 7, 2013
Washington, D.C. — 
On January 29, 2013, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was cancelling registration of a dozen d-CoON Mouse and Rat Control poisons based on the risk that they pose to children and non-target wildlife like bobcats, raptors, and foxes. On Wednesday, March 6, D-Con manufacturer Reckitt Benckiser filed a challenge of EPA's decision in an effort to keep these dangerous poisons available on the U.S. market. This is the first such industry challenge to a decision by EPA to cancel a pesticide based on harm to the environment in more than 20 years.
Gray fox suffering from rodenticide poisoning. (Courtesy of WildCare by Melanie Piazza)
Gray fox suffering from rodenticide poisoning.
(Courtesy of WildCare by Melanie Piazza)
The public interest law firm Earthjustice is reviewing Reckitt’s challenge and may seek to intervene in the Reckitt action to help defend EPA’s cancellation decision. The matter will be heard by an Administrative Law Judge with EPA in Washington, D.C.
Earthjustice is also currently representing a number of groups in a challenge to many of these same rodenticides in California. Earthjustice filed comments with the state Department of Pesticide Regulation opposing continued permitted use on d-CON and other “second-generation anticoagulant” rodenticides in California on December 7, 2012. In response to those comments, California is expected to propose significant restrictions on all second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides in April.
Earthjustice attorney Greg Loarie, who is helping to lead the California challenge, had this comment in reaction to the latest development:
“Reckitt Benckiser’s goal is to keep pushing products that are poisoning our children and decimating our wildlife, despite the fact that many safe alternatives for controlling pests exist. We’re not going to sit back and let Reckitt put corporate profit over public welfare.
“The health and environmental advocates who fought to remove this dangerous poison from the market will also meet this new challenge to make sure that the EPA ban is upheld.”

Contact:
Greg Loarie, Earthjustice, (415) 217-2000
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NAACP, Medical, Public Health and Environmental Groups Urge Court to Uphold Clean Air Safeguards

Allied groups support cleaning up toxic emissions from power plants
February 22, 2013
Washington, D.C. — 
Eighteen national and state medical, public health, civil rights, environmental, and clean air groups filed a brief late Thursday with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals defending the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) against industry lawsuits aimed at dismantling those rules, and blocking long-overdue reductions in highly toxic air pollutants including mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel, and acid gases from existing coal- and oil-fired power plants.
Soot. (Chris Jordan-Bloch / Earthjustice)
Coal- and oil-fired power plants are the largest industrial source of air toxics; power plants account for approximately half of all the nation’s mercury emissions.
(Chris Jordan-Bloch / Earthjustice)
The groups assert the lawsuit has no basis, and should be dismissed. Under the 1990 Amendments to the Clean Air Act, these standards already were more than a decade overdue when the EPA finalized them in December 2011 and are based on successful control measures already in place in many plants.
“With elevated rates of lung cancer, asthma hospitalizations and deaths, mercury poisoning from subsistence fishing and more, for African Americans the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards provide lifesaving protection from the myriad life-sapping toxic chemicals we have been exposed to for decades since we bear the brunt of living near coal fired power plants,” said Jacqui Patterson Director, Environmental and Climate Justice Program for NAACP. “The NAACP’s civil and human rights mission compels us to stand behind the EPA and make sure this rule is upheld as a mechanism for protecting the rights of communities to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live on uncontaminated land.”
The NAACP has highlighted the civil rights issues related to clean air, citing the fact that 68 percent of African Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant. Also, an African American family making $50,000 per year is more likely to live next to a toxic facility than a white American family making $15,000 per year.
“Power plants spew corrosive acid gases, carcinogens like formaldehyde, and toxic metals—a long list of hazards that rain down on nearby communities or travel miles downwind,” said Janice Nolen, Assistant Vice President, National Policy, for the American Lung Association. “We need these standards to protect not only our children, but older adults, people with lung disease, heart disease, or diabetes, and the poor from toxic air pollution. They cannot protect themselves.”
Coal- and oil-fired power plants are the largest industrial source of air toxics, annually emitting more than 386,000 tons of 84 separate toxics, including arsenic, cadmium, chromium, nickel, selenium, acid gases, and mercury. Even in small doses these pollutants cause serious, often irreversible risks of cancer, birth defects, neurodevelopmental problems in children, and chronic and acute health disorders to people’s respiratory and central nervous systems including nerve and organ damage. They also cause serious harms to wildlife, including reproductive and behavioral disorders, and to ecosystems, including acidification of our nation’s waterways.
Power plants account for approximately half of all the nation’s mercury emissions. Many waters with mercury-based fish consumption advisories have no identifiable source of mercury other than airborne emissions, and many of these waters supply food to subsistence fishermen who have no other alternative but to eat contaminated fish, thereby further harming an economically disadvantaged population. Mercury exposure threatens prenatal development, infants and young children. The EPA has estimated that every year, more than 300,000 newborns may face elevated risk of learning disabilities due to exposure to toxic forms of mercury in the womb. Mercury contamination in fish also causes serious damage to wildlife.
EPA’s MATS requirements will annually prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths, nearly 5,000 heart attacks and 130,000 asthma attacks. Additionally, the standards will help avoid more than 540,000 days when people have to miss work because of health problems associated with power plant pollution. These “sick” days diminish economic productivity and raise health care costs.
Attorneys for the Clean Air Task Force filed the brief Thursday on behalf of the coalition of public health and environmental organizations defending the MATS rule.
Groups submitting today’s legal arguments, and their counsel, are the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Lung Association, American Nurses Association, American Public Health Association and Physicians for Social Responsibility, (represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center); Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Clean Air Council, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Sierra Club (represented by Earthjustice), Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future, Conservation Law Foundation, Environment America, Izaak Walton League of America, Natural Resources Council of Maine, and Ohio Environmental Council (represented by the Clean Air Task Force), and the Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Waterkeeper Alliance.
Read the brief.

Contact:
Raviya Ismail, Earthjustice, (202) 745-5221
Maggie Kao, Sierra Club, (202) 675-2384
Ben Wrobel, NAACP, (202) 292-3386
Tom Zolper, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, (443) 482-2066
Jay Duffy, Clean Air Council, (215) 567-4004, ext. 109
Mary Havell McGinty, American Lung Association, (202) 715-3459
Kathleen Sullivan, Southern Environmental Law Center, (919) 945-7106
John Walke, NRDC, (202) 289-2406
Sharyn Stein, Environmental Defense Fund, (202) 572-3396
Stuart C. Ross, Clean Air Task Force, (914) 649-5037

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Rare Release of Florida Panther Could Help Save Species

Rare Release of Florida Panther Could Help Save Species
Florida panthers were among the first to go on the Endangered Species List back in 1973 when there were as few as 20 remaining individuals. Today they are still in great peril with as few as 100-160 in the wild, but biologists with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) successfully released one female Florida panther into the Picayune Strand State Forest recently with the hope that she will become a successful mom.

The female panther and her brother had been raised at the White Oak Conservation Center in Yulee since they were 5 months old. The FWC rescued the two as kittens after their mother was found dead.
“This panther is healthy and has grown to a size that should prepare her for life in the wild, ” said Darrel Land, FWC panther team leader. “The goal of any panther rescue is to be able to release the animal back into the wild to aid in the recovery of this endangered species.”

The male panther will also be released soon but in a different area which will be carefully chosen to avoid conflict with other territorial males.
“One of the causes of death is interspecies aggression and putting the young male panther in a territory with other males would put him at a disadvantage,” FWC spokesman Kevin Baxter explains.

Five other kittens of similar ages have been raised at White Oak and released in south Florida.
Brought to you by the Harmony Fund international animal rescue charity.
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Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/rare-release-of-florida-panther-could-help-save-species.html#ixzz2X2mRnl5h
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How to Fix Common Discipline Mistakes Moms Make


A few weeks ago I wrote an article called The Common Discipline Mistakes Moms Make (and Regret). When the article was shared on the Circle of Moms Facebook page, there was some interesting feedback that I could so easily relate to as one of the mistake-making moms I was writing about.
One mom wanted to hear about the things parents are doing right. Another mom suggested it would be helpful to provide some answers about how to fix the discipline mistakes we are making.
Both comments really hit home. After all, we help our kids feel good about themselves by telling them what they are doing well, and if they are making mistakes, we give them strategies to help fix them. Don't moms deserve the same?
With that in mind, Circle of Moms members chime in to help us all learn to fix some of these common discipline mistakes.
Keep reading.
The Fix For Disciplining For Normal Kid Behavior
Although Kelly R. complained that her 9-year-old son's strange sounds and rambunctious behavior were irritating, she also came to the realization that "he acts like . . . well . . . a 9-year-old."
Moms say three factors in fixing this discipline mistake are knowing kids don't come with an automatic understanding of what behaviors are appropriate in which situations, they don't always have the maturity to control themselves, and you need to use age-appropriate discipline.
Grandmother Kat points out that it's important to give kids verbal cues letting them know when their behavior isn't appropriate and to provide them with more socially acceptable alternatives. Mom Angie K. says as her kids got older, she could eventually use a "code word" in public to let them know their behavior was inappropriate.
The Fix For Yelling and Screaming
Unlike mom Bobbi P., who says yelling seems natural to her, I'm not a yeller, but I understand the impulse because I'd really like to yell more than I do. In over a decade-and-a-half of parenting, I've learned that getting very quiet is sometimes more effective than amping up the volume.
It doesn't come easily, though. I frequently take Circle of Moms member Dora W.'s advice to "take a deep breath right before you are about to yell at them." If that doesn't work, I take Alison L.'s advice to take a step away to regroup. And, if I end up yelling, well, it's not the end of the world. I just try to apologize for not speaking calmly, and we can all move on.
The Fix For Inconsistency and Not Following Through
Sometimes it seems so much easier to give your child "just one more chance" or to lift a consequence when they're following the rules again, but as mom Carla A. explains, staying consistent in your actions lets your child know you are in charge and they are accountable for what they have (or haven't) done.
That's not to say it's easy to stick with it. Carla says it best: "Almost all kids have to have the rules repeated, over and over, and over and over, and over and over until you are reciting them in your sleep. They are going to try and test you, to see if you really mean what you say. They NEED to know you are going to be the same yesterday, today, and forever."
The Fix For Thinking Discipline and Punishment Are Interchangeable
One of the things that seems to trip moms up when it comes to making this distinction is thinking that if you look at discipline and punishment as separate things, then you can't provide consequences for your child's actions.
Circle of Moms member Tricia L. points out that discipline is "teaching and re-teaching the appropriate behaviors in a wide variety of nuanced situations," while Carrie B. explains that punishment often is a penalty or restriction that aims to deter but isn't directly related to the behavior at hand.
Once you keep in mind your goal is to redirect, teach, and connect consequences to specific behaviors, it becomes clearer. If your child is throwing a toy, taking the toy away isn't a punishment; it's discipline teaching the direct consequences of their actions. Grounding a teenager from going out one night for breaking curfew the night before is also discipline.
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