The New Food Safety

A safe food supply is essential for a healthy society. Our food system is replete with different types of risk, yet food safety is often narrowly understood as encompassing only foodborne illness and other risks related directly to food ingestion. This Article argues for a more comprehensive definition of food safety, one that includes not just acute, ingestion-related risks, but also whole-diet cumulative ingestion risks, and cradle-to-grave risks of food production and disposal. This broader definition, which we call “Food System Safety,” draws under the header of food safety a variety of historically siloed, and under-regulated, food system issues including nutrition, environmental protection, and workplace safety. The current narrow approach to food safety is inadequate. First, it contributes to irrational resource allocation among food system risks. Second, it has collateral consequences for other food system risks, and, third, its limited focus can undermine efforts to achieve narrow food safety. A comprehensive understanding of food safety illuminates the complex interactions between narrow food safety and other areas of food system health risks. We argue that such an understanding could facilitate improved allocation of resources and assessment of tradeoffs, and ultimately support better health and safety outcomes for more people. We offer a variety of structural and institutional mechanisms for embedding this approach into federal agency action

The Human Right to Water and Unconventional Energy

Access to water, in sufficient quantities and of sufficient quality is vital for human health. The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (in General Comment 15, drafted 2002) argued that access to water was a condition for the enjoyment of the right to an adequate standard of living, inextricably related to the right to the highest attainable standard of health, and thus a human right. On 28 July 2010 the United Nations General Assembly declared safe and clean drinking water and sanitation a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights. This paper charts the international legal development of the right to water and its relevance to discussions surrounding the growth of unconventional energy and its heavy reliance on water. We consider key data from the country with arguably the most mature and extensive industry, the USA, and highlight the implications for water usage and water rights. We conclude that, given the weight of testimony of local people from our research, along with data from scientific literature, non-governmental organization (NGO) and other policy reports, that the right to water for residents living near fracking sites is likely to be severely curtailed. Even so, from the data presented here, we argue that the major issue regarding water use is the shifting of the resource from society to industry and the demonstrable lack of supply-side price signal that would demand that the industry reduce or stabilize its water demand per unit of energy produced. Thus, in the US context alone, there is considerable evidence that the human right to water will be seriously undermined by the growth of the unconventional oil and gas industry, and given its spread around the globe this could soon become a global human rights issue

Public health and landfill sites

Landfill management is a complex discipline, requiring very high levels of organisation, and considerable investment. Until the early 1990’s most Irish landfill sites were not managed to modern standards. Illegal landfill sites are, of course, usually not managed at all. Landfills are very active. The traditional idea of ‘put it in the ground and forget about it’ is entirely misleading. There is a lot of chemical and biological activity underground. This produces complex changes in the chemistry of the landfill, and of the emissions from the site. The main emissions of concern are landfill gases and contaminated water (which is known as leachate). Both of these emissions have complex and changing chemical compositions, and both depend critically on what has been put into the landfill. The gases spread mainly through the atmosphere, but also through the soil, while the leachate (the water) spreads through surface waters and the local groundwater. Essentially all unmanaged landfills will discharge large volumes of leachate into the local groundwater. In sites where the waste accepted has been properly regulated, and where no hazardous wastes are present, there is a lot known about the likely composition of this leachate and there is some knowledge of its likely biological and health effects. This is not the case for poorly regulated sites, where the composition of the waste accepted is unknown. It is possible to monitor the emissions from landfills, and to reduce some of the adverse health and environmental effects of these. These emissions, and hence the possible health effects, depend greatly on the content of the landfill, and on the details of the local geology and landscape. There is insufficient evidence to demonstrate a clear link between cancers and exposure to landfill, however, it is noted that there may be an association with adverse birth outcomes such as low birth weight and birth defects. It should be noted, however, that modern landfills, run in strict accordance with standard operation procedures, would have much less impact on the health of residents living in proximity to the site

Thirsty for Justice: A People's Blueprint for California Water

The report's first chapter analyzes the origins of environmental discrimination in California water policy. After an overview of how low income communities and communities of color have been historically left out of California water management, we analyze political, economic and social trends that produce the current exclusionary system and emerging policies and technologies that could further harm low-income communities and communities of color.In the second chapter, we provide an overview of what we term "water governance": who controls water supply and quality and what agencies are responsible for ensuring that people have enough clean water. We explain the current system of water governance, examine changing patterns in control over water, and provide examples of communities that face profound barriers to participating in water decisions. We conclude by discussing barriers within water regulatory entities that prevent community voices from entering into water decision-making.In the third chapter, we provide a picture of water-related environmental injustices that low-income communities and communities of color face on a daily basis. These communities' lack of access to safe, affordable drinking water and healthy watersheds exemplifies the health burdens many communities bear as a result of California's water policies.Our report concludes with policy recommendations for how to remedy some of the most pressing water concerns low-income communities and communities of color face, in order to guarantee the basic right to safe and affordable water

Identifying the Burdens and Opportunities for Tribes and Communities in Federal Facility Cleanup Activities: Environmental Remediation Technology Assessment Matrix For Tribal and Community Decision-Makers

The cleanup of this country's federal facilities can affect a wide range of tribal and community interests and concerns. The technologies now in use, or being proposed by the Department of Energy, Department of Defense and other federal agencies can affect tribal treaty protected fishing, hunting and other rights, affect air and water quality thereby requiring the tribe to bear the burden of increased environmental regulation. The International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management developed a tribal and community decision-maker's Environmental Remediation Technology Assessment Matrix that will permit tribes and communities to array technical information about environmental remediation technologies against a backdrop of tribal and community environmental, health and safety, cultural, religious, treaty and other concerns and interests. Ultimately, the matrix will allow tribes and communities to assess the impact of proposed technologies on the wide range of tribal and community interests and will promote more informed participation in federal facility cleanup activities