Changed Empire State of Mind Toward Coal Tar Sealers

I confess I missed it. Last May the nation’s fourth largest state with billions of dollars in pavement assets, in the midst of a statewide legislative debate on coal tar sealers and on the heels of the Tonawanda Coke decision quietly put into place an alternative sealer specification which calls on state agencies to use […]

Should Pregnant Women Avoid Coal Tar Sealed Surfaces?

Is that an appropriate question or might some say this is too extreme? Let’s review some things to consider: PAHs affect the unborn in many negative ways.  Research by the United States Geological Survey says that coal tar sealants are high in PAHs and for years continue to off-gas high levels of PAHs to the […]

Tribune’s Coal Tar Analogy is Now NY’s Coal Tar Reality

“If a company dumped the black goop behind a factory, it would violate all sorts of environmental laws and face an expensive hazardous-waste cleanup.” Michael Hawthorne, Chicago Tribune, January 2011. “But playgrounds, parking lots and driveways in many communities are coated every spring and summer with coal tar, a toxic byproduct of steelmaking that contains […]

Sealant Worker Safety Myth in Jeopardy

The sealer industry is fond of saying how safe their product is for worker safety. No evidence, no claims, no one harmed. Even during this spring’s legislative season, the statements have continued. Our position has been that it is faulty logic to claim a statement as true without any comprehensive analysis to support it. Until […]

Tonawanda Coke Sentencing Draws Attention to Dangers of Coal Tar

Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper * Citizens Campaign for the Environment *Clean Air Coalition of WNY *  Coal Tar Free America * PRESS RELEASE For immediate release: March 20, 2014 For more information, contact: Brian Smith, CCE, 716-831-3206, bsmith@citizenscampaign.org Nicole Lipp, BNRK, 716-852-7483, nlipp@bnriverkeeper.org Tom Ennis, Coal Tar Free America, 765-327-8499, coaltarfreeamerica@gmail.com TONAWANDA COKE SENTENCING DRAWS ATTENTION […]

Revealing the Breast Cancer to Coal Tar Connection

Even after 200 posts and 3 years writing on Coal Tar Free America, this is the first article I have written dedicated to the connection between coal tar’s big toxic ingredient, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and breast cancer.  And whose family and friends haven’t been affected by breast cancer?  If people only knew that a […]

2012 Coal Tar Freedom Review: American Emancipation Continues

2012 marked advancements in our understanding of the science of coal tar sealant pollution, greater legislative restrictions on its use and more extensive media coverage of the topic in popular press. Interestingly this week also commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Lincoln back in 1862. More on that after we look […]

Rosenthal Coal Tar Bill Overwhelmingly Passes New York Assembly

Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal  With over 80% of assemblymembers in favor, New York Assembly Bill A07854 has moved on to the New York Senate. The bill calls for the phase-out of both the sale and application of coal tar pavement sealants. “I am proud that the Assembly has passed my legislation, which would prohibit the […]

Industry Whiffs at Ban Veto Pitch in Suffolk County

Representatives of the coal tar sealant industry failed yesterday in their attempt to overturn a coal tar sealant ban passed by the Suffolk County Legislature.  In June members of the coal tar sealant industry petitioned outgoing Republican County Executive Steve Levy to veto the ban.  As was reported in an earlier story, industry claimed there was no […]