Cases

Cleaning Up Industrial Boilers

Attorneys

James Pew

Regional Office / Program

Washington, D.C. Office

Case Overview

More than 200,000 industrial boilers and incinerators pollute the air and endanger the public all over the country, emitting massive quantities of mercury, lead and many other toxic pollutants, yet most are essentially unregulated. Their toxic pollution is known to cause cancer, birth defects, neurological and developmental disorders, heart attacks, and death, among other documented health problems.

Industrial boilers provide heat and electricity to major industrial facilities like chemical plants and oil refineries.

Case Updates

A chemical plant.
August 1, 2016 Press Release

Standards for Toxic Air Pollution From Industrial Boilers and Incinerators Ruled Unlawfully Weak

The D.C Circuit Court of Appeals finds EPA failed to protect public health from toxic air pollution that includes mercury and lead

May 19, 2011 Article

Life, Liberty and the Right to Breathe

Nobody gets through a day without breathing. Not executives in the coal-fired power and cement industries, which are polluting our air daily. Not the legion of lobbyists they hire to patrol the halls of Congress in defense of dirty air. And not the members of Congress who, hand-in-hand with these special interests, are marching the Clean Air Act off a cliff. At the very same time that these women and men draw breath, they are working to derail and delay…

May 17, 2011 Article

Lives Threatened by EPA's Indefinite Delay on Clean Air

Shame on the Environmental Protection Agency. Yesterday afternoon, the agency decided that it would postpone indefinitely a new health standard finalized a few months ago that would reduce toxic air pollution from industrial boilers. These small power plants are used at larger industrial facilities like oil refineries and chemical plants—more than 13,000 of them are in operation across the country. In the aggregate, they are among the worst emitters of mercury, chromium, lead, arsenic, dioxins and other hazardous air pollutants….

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Case page created on October 26, 2006.