The EPA MUST Protect Our Water from Toxic Spills!

The EPA is accepting comments on a proposed rule to finally regulate the
most dangerous chemical facilities and ensure they have a plan in place to
prevent toxic chemical spills due to climate-change-supercharged natural
disasters from reaching local waterways and threatening drinking water
supplies and places where people from frontline communities swim and fish.

Submit your comment urging the EPA to adopt a strong “Worst Case
Discharge” rule before the July 26 deadline!

[ [link removed] ] Submit My Comment 
[ [link removed] ]An industrial plant






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Dear NRDC Activist,

During Hurricane Harvey in 2017, harmful chemicals leaked from facilities
overrun or damaged by the storm, spilling into local drinking water
sources, threatening the health of nearby communities, and even causing
some first responders to be hospitalized. Unfortunately, this isn't an
isolated incident.

Toxic chemical spills happen all the time. And they are more likely to
happen during natural disasters — often made worse by climate change —
because industrial facilities that house dangerous chemicals are not
required to plan for how they will prevent and respond to the worst-case
scenario spills of hazardous substances. To make matters worse,
environmental justice communities have borne the brunt of the harms caused
by these unnecessary spills.

The EPA was mandated by Congress in 1990 to issue such regulations under
the Clean Water Act but failed to act for decades.

So NRDC, the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy
Reform, and Clean Water Action sued the EPA in 2019 — and won! As a
result, the EPA has proposed a long-overdue "Worst Case Discharge" rule,
which would require the most dangerous chemical facilities to have plans
in place to protect our communities and environment from hazardous
chemical spills.

[ [link removed] ]Now, they're accepting public comments on that proposal — and they need
to hear from you.

[ [link removed] ]NRDC Activist, submit your public comment urging the EPA to finalize
the strongest possible "Worst Case Discharge" rule to prevent hazardous
substances from polluting our water during extreme weather events.
Comments will only be accepted until July 26, so please submit yours right
away!

NRDC Activist, risk from chemical disasters is just one of the many
disproportionate burdens that environmental justice communities face
daily.

After you submit your public comment, please consider making a
tax-deductible gift to support NRDC and our partner, the Environmental
Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform (EJHA)*, in our fight
to end the rampant pollution that harms frontline communities.

All contributions will be shared 50/50 between our organizations, meaning
your gift will help both NRDC and EJHA keep the pressure on EPA to protect
our drinking water from chemical spills and support other campaigns to
protect public health and the environment in the most effective way
possible.

With climate change fueling more frequent and extreme weather events, we
can expect more chemical facilities to experience leaks, spills, or
explosions that wash a concoction of toxic substances into frontline
communities and pollute local drinking water supplies.

And Black, Brown, and poor communities are disproportionately burdened by
this pollution because facilities producing and storing hazardous
substances — including known human carcinogens — are often located in or
adjacent to these communities.

While EPA's proposed rule is a long-overdue first step in protecting
communities from water pollution and drinking water contamination from
chemical spills, we also need the agency to go further and ensure that the
regulations cover all facilities where a discharge can pollute local
waterways and adequately protect environmental justice communities and the
broader public in the face of rampant climate change.

[ [link removed] ]Submit your public comment before the July 26 deadline. We need to make
sure the EPA course corrects its 30-year dereliction of duty with the
strongest possible "Worst Case Discharge" rule that protects all
communities from the impacts of hazardous chemical spills.

The fight for clean and safe drinking water doesn't end here. But this is
a critical step in ensuring all communities, especially those on the
frontline who have dealt with decades of toxic pollution already, are
protected from hazardous chemical spills. [ [link removed] ]Please join the fight by
adding your voice today.

Sincerely,

Sara Imperiale
Litigation Director, Environment, Equity, & Justice Center, NRDC

Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OLEM-2021-0585-0001

*The Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform
(EJHA) is a national network of grassroots environmental and economic
justice organizations and advocates in communities that are
disproportionately impacted by toxic chemicals from legacy contamination,
ongoing exposure to polluting facilities, and health-harming chemicals in
household products. EJHA supports a just transition towards safer
chemicals and a pollution-free economy that leaves no community or worker
behind. The EJHA network model features leadership of, by, and for
environmental justice groups with support from additional allied groups
and individual experts.

The mission of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is to
safeguard the Earth: its people, its plants and animals, and the natural
systems on which all life depends.

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