>>18353903
>Here's a good example of the kinds of leeches you could smoke out or be on the lookout for:.
>The Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health (CTEH),
Of Course they're from Little Rock
Environment
March 28, 2019
This Consulting Firm Was at the Center of Katrina and the BP Spill. Now It’s Under Fire Again.
The Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health is no stranger to controversy.
Naveena Sadasivam
Bio
Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle via AP
This story was originally published by Grist. It appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
This story has been updated with one correction and to clarify some of the nature of past accusations made against the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health, as well as to incorporate responses from the company.
A crude oil spill during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. A coal ash spill in Tennessee in 2008. The BP oil spill in 2010. In all three cases, the companies responsible for these environmental calamities turned to the same Arkansas-based consulting firm, the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health, to monitor air and water quality and workers’ chemical exposure.
And each time, CTEH was later accused of mishandling data collection. And companies used CTEH’s findings to reassure people that the spilled chemicals posed little risk to public health.
This week, a fire at International Terminals Company’s chemical storage facility outside Houston, blanketed the country’s fourth-largest city in a cloud of smoke. Multiple school districts in the area cancelled classes.
Once again, CTEH got the call to provide air quality monitoring.
The fire at ITC’s facility reignited late Friday afternoon after a dike wall used to contain chemicals partially collapsed, renewing concerns about air quality. According to initial reports, the company released 9 million pounds of pollutants in just the first day of the fire. On Thursday, the city of Deer Park, home to the facility, issued a shelter-in-place advisory after benzene levels spiked overnight. Long-term benzene exposure can cause anemia, lead to cancer, and damage women’s reproductive health.