Minnesota Based Grocery Chain Awarded For Improved Refrigerant Handling

Minnesota-based Supervalu, which operates Albertsons and Lucky stores, earned this year’s Distinguished Partner Award. The Distinguished Partner Award is given to the supermarket partner company that goes above and beyond to advance the mission of the GreenChill Partnership. Albertsons Carpinteria, Calif., store was recognized with GreenChill’s prestigious Best of the Best Award, given to the best new GreenChill-certified store each year. The Carpenteria store recently achieved Platinum-Level store certification, the highest certification level that can be obtained for advanced refrigeration technology that prevents harmful refrigerant emissions. It is the first store in the nation to use a new generation of low global warming refrigerants.

GreenChill is an EPA partnership with supermarkets to transition to low-impact refrigerants; reduce the amount of refrigerant used, and eliminate refrigerant leaks. GreenChill has 54 partners with almost 8,000 stores, representing over 20% of the supermarket industry.

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Microbial Risk Assessment (MRA) Guideline

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has announced the release of the Microbial Risk Assessment (MRA) Guideline. This new MRA Guideline lays out an approach to conducting assessments of the risks posed by pathogens in food and water. Pathogens ingested in food and water can result in acute gastrointestinal-related illnesses; some gastrointestinal-related illnesses can result in long-term and permanent health effects as well as premature death. This new guideline will improve the quality of the data collected by public health scientists charged with protecting Americans from pathogen-related risks in food and water.

Formal risk assessments for food, water, and environmentally-relevant chemicals have been undertaken for decades. However, an overarching microbial risk assessment guideline has not been available until now. The guideline announced today meets this need by providing comprehensive, yet specific and descriptive information for developing assessments of microbial risk in food and water.

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Flame Retardant Alternatives Report

US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released a draft report on alternatives to the toxic flame retardant chemical known as decabromodiphenyl ether (decaBDE). Developed with public participation under the Agency's Design for the Environment (DfE) program, the comprehensive assessment profiles the environmental and human health hazards of 30 alternatives to decaBDE. DecaBDE is a common flame retardant used in electronics, vehicles, and building materials. Because it can cause adverse developmental effects, persist in the environment, and bioaccumulate in people and animals, it will be phased out of production by December 2013.

EPA's new report was intended to help manufacturers identify alternatives to decaBDE. EPA will work directly with manufacturers to investigate chemical and non-chemical alternatives to flame retardants. EPA said the draft report is the latest in a series of actions it is taking to address flame retardants made with bromine. Other actions include:

• June 1, 2012: EPA released a TSCA work plan of 18 chemicals which the agency intends to review and use to develop risk assessments in 2013 and 2014, including three flame retardant chemicals. EPA is currently developing a strategy, scheduled for completion by the end of this year that will address these three and a broader set of flame retardant chemicals. This effort will aid the agency in focusing risk assessments on those flame retardant chemicals that pose the greatest potential concerns. EPA anticipates initiating the risk assessments on this category of chemicals in 2013.
• April 2, 2012: EPA proposed actions under TSCA that will require manufacturers, importers, and processors of polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants to submit information to the agency for review before initiating any new uses of PBDEs after Dec 31, 2013. Those who continue to manufacture, import, or process after December 31, 2013, would be subject to a testing requirement under TSCA.
• 2009: EPA developed action plans on PBDEs (including pentaBDE, octaBDE, and decaBDE) and hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) that summarized available hazard, exposure, and use information; outlined potential risks; and identified the specific steps the agency is pursuing under the TSCA. The alternatives analysis for decaBDE was included in the action plan.

According to EPA, alternatives to decaBDE characterized in the report are already on the market and will be used increasingly as decaBDE is phased out, but they also have differing hazard characteristics and are associated with trade-offs. For example, some alternatives that appear to have a relatively positive human health profile may be more persistent in the environment. Some alternatives appear to be less toxic than decaBDE. Preliminary data suggests that these flame retardants may have a lower potential for bioaccumulation in people and the environment. However, the Agency points out that these health and environmental profiles are largely based on computer-model generated estimates, and that the models are limited in their ability to predict concern. Laboratory testing and ongoing environmental monitoring is necessary to fully understand the potential for concern associated with these chemicals.

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Revised Navy Energy Policy

On July 10, U.S. Navy announced a new shore energy policy. A complete revision from the previous energy policy published in 1994, the Shore Energy Management Instruction codifies the Navy's strategy to ensure energy security meets federal mandates and executive orders and achieves Department of the Navy (DoN) shore energy goals.

The new policy is necessary, according to the Navy, because naval forces require constant support from shore installations. The Navy wants to mitigate its vulnerabilities related to the electrical grid, such as outages from natural disasters and man-made events, by lowering consumption, integrating renewable energy sources, and increasing control of energy supply and distribution. Energy reliability, resiliency, and redundancy are essential components of the Navy's Critical Infrastructure Protection program.

The revised policy includes specific responsibilities and actions that shore personnel must take in implementing the Navy Shore Energy program. Each Navy installation will have a tailored energy consumption reduction goal based on its unique energy situation. By increasing energy efficiency, the Navy hopes to reduce operating costs, multiply the impact of current and future alternative energy sources, and achieve renewable energy targets.

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Report On Use of Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS).

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its report examining the nation's use of carbon capture and storage (CCS). The report, titled “Federal Efforts to Reduce the Cost of Capturing and Storing Carbon Dioxide,” concludes that the initial costs of generating electricity with CCS would be “much more expensive than electricity produced by conventional coal-burning plants.”

According to the CBO, coal-fired power plants produce up to 45% of the usable electricity in the US, but they also account for a third of all U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). CO2 is a major component in greenhouse gases, which have been associated with climate change. CCS is considered one option for coal-fired power plants to reduce their carbon emissions by “capturing” the CO2 produced when coal is burned, compressing it into a fluid, and storing it deep underground.

Although the process is in use in some industries, no CCS-equipped coal-fired power plants have been built on a commercial scale. Since 2005, lawmakers have given the Department of Energy (DOE) almost $7 billion to develop CCS technology, including its commercial viability, and reduce the cost of electricity generated by CCS-capable plants. The CBO concludes that unless funding to the DOE is substantially increased, or other policies are adopted to encourage utilities to invest in CCS, federal support is likely to play only a minor role in deployment of the technology.

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Draft Nanomaterial Case Study Released For Comment

On July 2 , 2012, EPA announced a 60-day public comment period for EPA's case study on multiwalled carbon nanotubes in flame-retardant coatings used in upholstery textiles. The draft document on the study, issued by EPA's National Center for Environmental Assessment (NCEA), does not draw conclusions regarding potential risks or hazards of multiwalled carbon nanotubes; rather, it aims to identify what is known and unknown about the nanotubes to support future research. EPA says the draft document, which is being released for public comment and peer review, is not final. The Agency will consider comments it receives when finalizing the case study. In addition, EPA will hold an information exchange meeting to discuss the draft document and to provide information on the nanomaterial case study.

According to EPA, the draft document follows previous efforts on engineered nanoscale materials, or nanomaterials. Nanomaterials are materials that measure between 1 and 100 nanometers and often possess unusual, if not unique, properties that arise from their small size. Like all materials, EPA says, nanomaterials offer the potential for both benefits and risks.

EPA's 2007 Nanotechnology White Paper included the following recommendations regarding the risk assessment of nanomaterials:

1.  Develop case studies based on publicly available information on one or several intentionally produced nanomaterials and identify information gaps to help map areas of research that would support the sick assessment process; and
2. Hold a series of workshops involving a substantial number of experts from several disciplines to assist in these processes.

To meet these recommendations, NCEA has also prepared the Nanomaterial case studies “Nanoscale Titanium Dioxide in Water Treatment and in Topical Sunscreen” [Final] in 2010, and “Nanoscale Silver in Disinfectant Spray” [External Review Draft] in 2012.

The comment period for the draft document begins July 2, 2012, and ends August 31, 2012. The public information exchange meeting will be held on October 29, 2012 at the EPA facility in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

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Four New Chemicals Added To California Prop 65 List

Effective June 22, 2012, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) within the California Environmental Protection Agency is adding benzophenone (CAS No. 119-61-9), coconut oil diethanolamine condensate (cocamide diethanolamine) (CAS No. 68603-42-9), diethanolamine (CAS No. 111-42-2), and 2-methylimidazole (CAS No. 693-98-1) to the list of chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer for purposes of the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Proposition 65).

The updated list of Prop 65 chemicals now includes these compounds. The basis for the listing of benzophenone, coconut oil diethanolamine condensate (cocamide diethanolamine), diethanolamine, and 2-methylimidazole was described in a public notice published in the January 20, 2012, in the California Regulatory Notice Register. The publication of the notice initiated a public comment period that closed on April 6, 2012.

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