#carcinogenic — Public Fediverse posts

#Maine - New testing identifies elevated #benzene emissions near #SouthPortland tank farms

“You might have been able to do this in the past, but we’re not going to let you do this in the future.”

by Norah Hogan, 4/14/2026

Excerpt: "Long-term exposure to benzene has been linked to dizziness, headaches, blood disorders and cancer.

"Reiner, who has lived near three of the sites for years, was diagnosed with bladder cancer last Thanksgiving. He underwent surgery in December and is now receiving treatment.

" 'The big question is, was it this exposure? You can’t say. But this exposure may have contributed,' he said. 'The more toxins and environmental hazards you encounter in your life, it all adds up. It’s the cumulative effect.'

"Concerns about emissions have persisted for years. Previously, oil companies were allowed to self-monitor their emissions and were subject to stricter regulations only if they reported elevated toxin levels.

"In 2019, #GlobalCompanies LLC entered into a legal settlement that required the installation of new technology to reduce emissions. The company’s benzene levels are now well below state thresholds.

" 'They don’t want to be forced to do something that would be the right thing for everybody,' Reiner said. 'Everybody in America could benefit if oil companies started cleaning their emissions before they leave the tank farms and facilities.' "

Read more:
https://www.wmtw.com/article/elevated-benzene-near-south-portland-tank-farms/71016200

#MainePol #MaineNews #BenzeneEmissions #AirIsLife #BigOilAndGas #AirPollution #Carcinogenic

A Month After #Trump Doubles Down on #Atrazine, #WHO Dubs It ‘Probably #Carcinogenic to Humans’

“It is outrageously irresponsible that we still allow use of this dangerous #poison in the United States,” said the Center for Biological Diversity’s environmental health science director.

Jessica Corbett
Nov 21, 2025

"Just a month after the Trump administration doubled down on the alleged safety of atrazine, a United Nations agency said on Friday that the pesticide—which is banned by dozens of countries but commonly used on #corn, #sugarcane, and #sorghum in the United States—probably causes #cancer.

" 'It is outrageously irresponsible that we still allow use of this dangerous poison in the United States,' said Nathan Donley, the Center for Biological Diversity’s environmental health science director, in a Friday statement. 'This finding is just the latest indictment of the industry-controlled US #pesticide oversight process that is failing to protect people and #wildlife from chemicals linked to numerous health harms.' "

https://www.commondreams.org/news/atrazine-herbicide

#CommonDreams #EPAFail #Bayer
#ToxicPesticides #Monocrops
#Monocrap #BigAg #BigChem #Poison #USPol #WorldPol #Pesticides #CenterForBiologlicalDiversity

Not surprising...

#Trump DOJ Sides With #Roundup Manufacturer Over #Cancer Victims in Supreme Court Case

An attorney at Food & Water Watch said the DOJ sent a “clear message... to sick Americans harmed by toxic pesticides: Trump has Bayer’s back, not theirs.”

by Stephen Prager, Dec 02, 2025

"The Trump administration is pushing for the US Supreme Court to shield the manufacturer of Roundup from thousands of state lawsuits alleging that its widely used herbicide product causes cancer.

"On Monday, US Solicitor General D. John Sauer recommended that the high court agree to hear a challenge to a Missouri jury’s verdict in 2023 that awarded $1.25 million to a man named #JohnDurnell, who claimed that the product caused him to develop #NonHodgkinLymphoma.

"Bayer, the agribusiness giant that purchased the manufacturer of Roundup, the #Agribusiness giant #Monsanto, in 2018, immediately challenged the verdict.

"In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (#IARC) classified glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, as 'probably #carcinogenic to humans' based on 'limited evidence.'

"That evidence became less limited in 2019, when a prominent meta-analysis by a team of environmental health researchers found that people exposed to glyphosate at the highest levels had a 41% higher risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma than those who weren’t.

"There are nearly 4,500 Roundup claims currently pending in federal court, and at least 24 cases have gone to trial since October 2023. They make up just a fraction of the more than 170,000 claims filed.

"According to Bloomberg, Bayer has already been forced to pay out more than $10 billion in verdicts and settlements over the product, which has caused a massive drain on the company’s stock price.

"In what it said was an effort to 'manage litigation risk and not because of any safety concerns,' Bayer removed glyphosate-based #herbicides from the residential market in 2023 [BUT NOT THE COMMERCIAL MARKET], switching to formulas that 'rely on alternative active ingredients.' [I wonder what environmental damage those do!]

"That didn’t stop the lawsuits from coming. Durnell’s victory was the first successful case brought against Bayer outside California, the only state that labels the product as carcinogenic. That in Missouri opened the floodgates in other states, and plaintiffs subsequently won sizable payouts in Georgia and Pennsylvania.

"But now the Trump administration is trying to help the company skirt further accountability. Sauer, who is tasked with arguing for the government in nearly every Supreme Court case, filed a 24-page brief stating that there is a lack of clarity on whether states have the authority to determine whether Bayer and Monsanto violated the law by failing to warn customers about potential cancer risks from Roundup.

"Bayer argues that these cases are preempted by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (#FIFRA), which forbids states from enacting labeling requirements more stringent than those recommended by the federal government. [WELL WHAT CAN WE DO WHEN OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DOESN'T DO ITS JOB?!!]

"Sauer agreed with Bayer, stating in the brief that the US Environmental Protection Agency 'has repeatedly determined that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic in humans, and the agency has repeatedly approved Roundup labels that did not contain cancer warnings.'

"In 2016 and again in 2020, the EPA indeed classified glyphosate as 'not likely to be carcinogenic to humans' following agency assessments. However, in 2022, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals voided this assessment, finding that the agency applied 'inconsistent reasoning” in its review of the science.' " [Imagine that! The EPA fails us again!!!]

Read more / listen:
www.commondreams.org/news/trump-backs-bayer-monsanto-roundup

#MAHA #EPAFail #FoodWaterWatch #Glyphosate #Bayer #ToxicPesticides #Monocrops #Monocrap #BigAg #BigChem #Corruption #Poison #Crapitalism #CapitalismKills #RoundUpKills #USPol #WorldPol

#LandBack at #Barnhart:
Contextualizing the Re-occupation of #BarnhartIsland in Shared Legacies of Struggle

From #TurtleIsland to #Palestine, the struggle at #Akwesasne is rooted in the shared struggle of all #OppressedPeoples of the world who are opposing the illogic of #SettlerCapitalism and the endless violation of the #lands and #waters that our current economic system necessitates.

By Jennifer Lee
June 25, 2024

"On May 21, 2024, a group of eight Kanien’kehá:ka (#Mohawk) community members from Akwesasne were arrested at Niionenhiasekowa:ne (Barnhart Island). Certain individuals among the '#Akwesasne8' had originally gone to Barnhart to exercise their right to build a hunting and gathering shelter on their own territory, in part to protest an ongoing land claim settlement that threatens to hand over Kanien’kehá:ka title to this island, among other traditionally held territories, to New York State. The settlement is being negotiated between New York entities and three Akwesasne government councils.

"Presently, the settlement negotiations would require the extinguishment of Mohawk title to Barnhart Island, which would be effectuated through an act of Congress. By asserting their right to the land, the #Akwesasne8 have sent a clear message to both negotiating parties. Barnhart Island, like all other territories illegally stolen and swindled from their community, is not for sale—particularly not by collaborationist band and tribal council entities that purport to represent the full community but that were in fact historically imposed upon it at gunpoint.

"The fact that a group of eight community members was surrounded within just a few hours by approximately 35 police agents (including both border patrol agents and state troopers) is a clear indication of the strategic significance of this island to the interests of settler-capital. As Taiewennahawi (Marina Johnson-Zafiris), one of the eight arrestees, explains in her article 'Akwesasne and the History of #Hydropower,' the Moses-Saunders #hydrodam, located at the east end of Barnhart Island, is one of the many dams along the St. Lawrence Seaway that has supplied 'cheap' electricity to an unending procession of heavily #polluting factories since the 1950s.

"For decades, dirty plants like #Alcoa, #GeneralMotors, and #ReynoldsMetals harnessed the immense power of the #Kaniatarowanenneh (#SaintLawrenceRiver) at the Moses-Saunders dam to manufacture aluminum, a cheap, abundant, and malleable building material that requires vast amounts of power to extract and process. Not only was hydropower-fueled aluminum production critical to New York’s economic development, it was central to the national pride and independence of so-called #Québec. Eager to assert its autonomy from Anglophone capital in the 1960s, the province began damming rivers on #Indigenous land in a frenzy of hydropower nationalism.

"Upstream on the St. Lawrence, the aluminum plants at Akwesasne used a #toxic #sludge containing polychlorinated biphenyls (#PCBs) as a hydraulic fluid during the production process. These PCBs were manufactured by the infamously litigious #corporation #Monsanto, which continues to evade public #accountability for discharging this known #carcinogen into the St. Lawrence River and onto Kanien’kehá:ka soil. The #carcinogenic soup was left exposed on the very grounds where the children of Akwesasne played and where families grew their vegetables. Today, Akwesasne sits downstream and downwind of three heavily #polluted #superfund sites, and residents of Akwesasne report that almost everyone they know has a friend or family member suffering from a rare #cancer, #MetabolicSyndrome, or #autoimmune disorder. Rare, life-threatening illnesses exist at Akwesasne at rates that the public would never consider normal or acceptable in any non-Indigenous community.

"Dana-Leigh Thompson, one of the Akwesasne 8, lived about 3,000 feet from the PCB #dumpsite of the #GeneralMotors (#GM) factory for a decade. She calls what is happening to the community nothing short of an '#environmental #genocide.'"

Read more:

https://magazine.scienceforthepeople.org/online/land-back-at-barnhart/#easy-footnote-15-16285

#EnvironmentalRacism #Ecocide

#LandBack at #Barnhart:
Contextualizing the Re-occupation of #BarnhartIsland in Shared Legacies of Struggle

From #TurtleIsland to #Palestine, the struggle at #Akwesasne is rooted in the shared struggle of all #OppressedPeoples of the world who are opposing the illogic of #SettlerCapitalism and the endless violation of the #lands and #waters that our current economic system necessitates.

By Jennifer Lee
June 25, 2024

"On May 21, 2024, a group of eight Kanien’kehá:ka (#Mohawk) community members from Akwesasne were arrested at Niionenhiasekowa:ne (Barnhart Island). Certain individuals among the '#Akwesasne8' had originally gone to Barnhart to exercise their right to build a hunting and gathering shelter on their own territory, in part to protest an ongoing land claim settlement that threatens to hand over Kanien’kehá:ka title to this island, among other traditionally held territories, to New York State. The settlement is being negotiated between New York entities and three Akwesasne government councils.

"Presently, the settlement negotiations would require the extinguishment of Mohawk title to Barnhart Island, which would be effectuated through an act of Congress. By asserting their right to the land, the #Akwesasne8 have sent a clear message to both negotiating parties. Barnhart Island, like all other territories illegally stolen and swindled from their community, is not for sale—particularly not by collaborationist band and tribal council entities that purport to represent the full community but that were in fact historically imposed upon it at gunpoint.

"The fact that a group of eight community members was surrounded within just a few hours by approximately 35 police agents (including both border patrol agents and state troopers) is a clear indication of the strategic significance of this island to the interests of settler-capital. As Taiewennahawi (Marina Johnson-Zafiris), one of the eight arrestees, explains in her article 'Akwesasne and the History of #Hydropower,' the Moses-Saunders #hydrodam, located at the east end of Barnhart Island, is one of the many dams along the St. Lawrence Seaway that has supplied 'cheap' electricity to an unending procession of heavily #polluting factories since the 1950s.

"For decades, dirty plants like #Alcoa, #GeneralMotors, and #ReynoldsMetals harnessed the immense power of the #Kaniatarowanenneh (#SaintLawrenceRiver) at the Moses-Saunders dam to manufacture aluminum, a cheap, abundant, and malleable building material that requires vast amounts of power to extract and process. Not only was hydropower-fueled aluminum production critical to New York’s economic development, it was central to the national pride and independence of so-called #Québec. Eager to assert its autonomy from Anglophone capital in the 1960s, the province began damming rivers on #Indigenous land in a frenzy of hydropower nationalism.

"Upstream on the St. Lawrence, the aluminum plants at Akwesasne used a #toxic #sludge containing polychlorinated biphenyls (#PCBs) as a hydraulic fluid during the production process. These PCBs were manufactured by the infamously litigious #corporation #Monsanto, which continues to evade public #accountability for discharging this known #carcinogen into the St. Lawrence River and onto Kanien’kehá:ka soil. The #carcinogenic soup was left exposed on the very grounds where the children of Akwesasne played and where families grew their vegetables. Today, Akwesasne sits downstream and downwind of three heavily #polluted #superfund sites, and residents of Akwesasne report that almost everyone they know has a friend or family member suffering from a rare #cancer, #MetabolicSyndrome, or #autoimmune disorder. Rare, life-threatening illnesses exist at Akwesasne at rates that the public would never consider normal or acceptable in any non-Indigenous community.

"Dana-Leigh Thompson, one of the Akwesasne 8, lived about 3,000 feet from the PCB #dumpsite of the #GeneralMotors (#GM) factory for a decade. She calls what is happening to the community nothing short of an '#environmental #genocide.'"

Read more:

https://magazine.scienceforthepeople.org/online/land-back-at-barnhart/#easy-footnote-15-16285

#EnvironmentalRacism #Ecocide