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From LeverNews.com — Lever Time is the flagship podcast from the investigative news outlet The Lever. Hosted by award-winning journalist, Oscar-nominated writer, and Bernie Sanders' 2020 speechwriter David Sirota, Lever Time features exclusive reporting from The Lever’s newsroom, high-profile guest interviews, and expert analysis from the sharpest minds in media and politics.
00:02:02:06 - 00:02:31:04
David Sirota
Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Lever Time, the flagship podcast from The Lever, an independent investigative news outlet. I'm your host, David Sirota, on today's show, we're going to be talking about those forever chemicals now in everyone's bodies, the so-called PFA. Yes, that's stuff that's related to plastic ick.
00:02:31:07 - 00:03:03:01
David Sirota
A recent blockbuster investigation from the Philadelphia Inquirer spotlights the potential link between those chemicals found in Astroturf and the eerily similar cancer deaths of several Philadelphia Phillies, the professional baseball team in Philadelphia. It's a fascinating and tragic story both about baseball but also about the larger issue of forever chemicals. I'm going to be speaking with the two investigative reporters at the Philadelphia Inquirer who broke open that huge story for our paid subscribers.
00:03:03:06 - 00:03:31:17
David Sirota
We're also dropping exclusive bonus episodes into our Lever Premium podcast feed. This past Monday, we publish my interview with Matt Breunig, the founder of the People's Policy Project, who talked about Republicans perennial desire to cut Social Security and why we should actually focus if we're going to be talking about cuts to retirement stuff, we should focus on all of those tax breaks for 401 K's, which disproportionately benefit the super rich.
00:03:31:22 - 00:04:17:04
David Sirota
And coming up next week on the Leavers Premium podcast Feed, our interview with Abraham Josephine Riesman, the author of the new biography called Ringmaster Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America. For anyone interested in pro wrestling's influence on American politics. And it has had a lot of influence. This is a must listen episode. If you're not already a paying subscriber and want access to all of that premium content, head over to Lever News.com and become a supporting subscriber that gives you access to the Lever Premium podcast feed with extended interviews and bonus content, plus, as a paid subscriber, you'll have exclusive access to all of the in-depth reporting and investigative journalism that we do here
00:04:17:04 - 00:04:37:09
David Sirota
at The Lever. Just hit the subscribe button at Lever News.com to support the work that we do. Independent media will only grow and thrive because of passionate people and word of mouth, and we need all the help we can get to combat the inane bullshit that is corporate media today. Before we start our show, we've got some exciting news.
00:04:37:09 - 00:04:41:10
David Sirota
Producer Frank is back. Welcome back, producer Frank.
00:04:41:16 - 00:04:50:09
Frank Cappello
Thanks so much. David Thank you for having me back. I really, really appreciate it. And I'm very excited to be back here on lever time with you. I've really missed it.
00:04:50:15 - 00:05:15:17
David Sirota
It's great to have you back. Our show has been growing. Thanks to you and thanks to producer Jared should mention producer Jared is still here, which means that the Levers podcast team is growing thanks to the support of our subscribers. So that is super, super exciting. Now, before we get to our main story today, the main story about the Forever Chemicals and the connection to Major League Baseball.
00:05:16:04 - 00:05:43:04
David Sirota
Let's also talk a little bit right now about the big news that broke this past Monday that Fox News has fired its highest rated host, Tucker Carlson, as of right now, Fox News hasn't provided an explanation as to why they gave Tucker the boot, though many people speculate it had something to do with that landmark settlement that Fox will be paying Dominion voting systems.
00:05:43:09 - 00:06:06:10
David Sirota
Since Tucker's firing came only days after news of that 700 plus million dollar settlement. Of course, we reported at the lever how that settlement could potentially turn into a more than $200 million tax break for Fox News. I mean, some people didn't didn't believe it when when we reported it, they couldn't they couldn't get their minds around it.
00:06:06:10 - 00:06:15:05
David Sirota
I mean, a $200 million tax break for essentially admitting that they lied about the election. It's pretty incredible.
00:06:15:05 - 00:06:36:23
Frank Cappello
Oh, it's absolutely astonishing. But par for the course, I would say for for Fox News, or at least the way that, you know, these giant corporate media companies operate. I mean, we just had you were in New York last week. We were having dinner with a few of the Levy reporters, and we were talking about this story in particular.
00:06:36:23 - 00:06:59:11
Frank Cappello
And you kind of phrased something, you know, in the way that you think about stories, reporting on stories is, you know, when news breaks like this, like in terms of the settlement, you thought, okay, so how is the bad guy going to try and benefit from this, which I thought was such a perfect way of putting the way that these people operate, that the way that people in charge of these giant organizations operate.
00:06:59:11 - 00:07:07:18
Frank Cappello
So, of course, they weren't going to take, you know, a 700 plus million dollars settlement on the chin. They were going to be like, we're going to find a way to to spin this in our favor somehow.
00:07:07:19 - 00:07:38:03
David Sirota
Well, I've been watching a lot of succession lately, and so I kind of imagined how Logan Roy, the who's the kind of Murdoch composite figure, the owner of Waystar Royco, which is kind of like the Fox News Company. I kind of imagined how Logan Roy would deal with having to settle or having to go to court. And I imagine the scene where he would be like, well, listen, it's $780 million, but we'll get to write off maybe 200 million of it, which lowers our corporate tax rate.
00:07:38:03 - 00:08:20:22
David Sirota
So when we when we first came upon this story and it became a huge story across across the media, when we broke it open, I tried to to to think about it as, look, there are always angles here. And and what's incredible about this is that this is essentially allowing Fox News, the tax code allows Fox News to say they're essentially lying about the election and getting nailed for defamation, defaming the company that made the voting machines, that doing that is all part of its ordinary business that that that's how you can get a write off on things by saying, listen, this was an expense for ordinary business.
00:08:20:22 - 00:08:39:13
David Sirota
So essentially the tax code or at least Fox News will argue in its tax filings or can argue in its tax filings that lying about the election spreading just total lies, destructive lies, is part of its ordinary business. I mean, in a sense, I guess that's that's that's kind of honest, isn't it?
00:08:39:14 - 00:08:51:16
Frank Cappello
It's kind of a brilliant admission. It's like our business is lying. So, yeah, this is the cost of doing. That's what our whole bottle is based on, lying. So that's this is just the cost of us doing the kind of business that we do.
00:08:51:18 - 00:09:13:14
David Sirota
Right. And I think I think in a sense, I guess they have an argument now, I should say some good news out of this is that Congressman Brendan Boyle, who has been on a never live event before, the Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania, saw our story and said that he is looking into legislation to stop this kind of tax break.
00:09:13:14 - 00:09:39:23
David Sirota
And we will keep everybody informed of that, keep everybody posted about what happens with that. I mean, it is a complicated issue. How do you change the tax code to prevent this kind of write off? And I should mention, as you will see in our story, if you go to our news.com, that there have been efforts to stop the deductibility, the tax deductibility of these kinds of payments in specific cases before when it comes to sexual harassment settlements and the like.
00:09:40:03 - 00:10:26:14
David Sirota
So it will be interesting to see what Congress potentially can do to prevent the tax code essentially from subsidizing lying and admissions of lying like the one that we saw from Fox News. Okay. We're going to stop there because I do want to get to our big interview today with those two reporters from the Philadelphia Inquirer. We're going to talk to them about their investigation into the potential link between chemicals found in Astroturf and the deaths of several professional baseball players in Philadelphia and what it says about the larger policy questions surrounding these forever chemicals that are now apparently in everyone's bodies.
00:10:27:03 - 00:10:44:19
David Sirota
What can be done about that? What should be done about that based on the science that we know that's coming up next. But first, let's take a quick break. Welcome back to Leisure Time. If you know me, you might know that I grew up in the Philadelphia area and was a huge Philadelphia Phillies fan when I was growing up.
00:10:45:06 - 00:11:12:10
David Sirota
I spent a big chunk of my childhood at Veterans Stadium thanks to their old super low priced general admission tickets. Veterans Stadium is no more. They tore it down, but it was always famous or really infamous for how brutal a playing field it was because it was Astroturf on top of concrete. Philadelphia Phillies and Eagles players always noted how hard it was to play on that surface and avoid injury.
00:11:12:21 - 00:11:48:15
David Sirota
But now we're learning that the Astroturf might have been more dangerous than it even seemed back then. So for our big interview today, I'm going to be speaking with investigative journalist Barbara Laker and David Gamble Corder from the Philadelphia Inquirer. The Inquirer recently published a huge investigation from Barbara and David about Veterans Stadium, which details how chemicals discovered in the stadium synthetic Astroturf could potentially be linked to the deaths of six Philadelphia Phillies players who all died from the same type of brain cancer.
00:11:49:07 - 00:12:12:14
David Sirota
Some of these players were among my favorites of all time guys I really worshiped. It is a truly tragic story. And Barbara and David did a fantastic job reporting this one out. And let's be clear, this reporting isn't just about baseball and the mistreatment of athletes by cost cutting owners who chipped out on their field. So if you're not a sports fan, you're not a baseball fan.
00:12:12:17 - 00:12:39:08
David Sirota
There is still something very important here because this is about how corporations and politicians are allowed the proliferation of toxic chemicals into nearly every corner of American life and into all of our bodies, potentially poisoning entire generations. It's also about what can be done about this problem right now. Hey, Barbara. Hey, David. How are you doing?
00:12:39:10 - 00:12:40:11
Barbara Laker
Good. David, how are you?
00:12:40:14 - 00:13:03:04
David Sirota
Good. Thank you so much to both of you for for being on this on our show. I want to start by saying that I am a huge Phillies fan. I grew up essentially at Veterans Stadium, so I have a lot of personal interest in this story. I am wearing my Phillies garb in honor of this. In honor of this interview.
00:13:03:05 - 00:13:30:19
David Sirota
I've got my hat. I also should mention I have my von Hase coin here, my Bon Hayes collectible fake gold coin, just to just, you know, get my Phillies credentials all up to speed. And I want to say one other personal note here that I remember as a child, realizing how physically toxic the Astroturf at Veterans Stadium was, the Astroturf that we're about to talk about.
00:13:31:00 - 00:14:07:00
David Sirota
I remember it when on July 4th, when I was growing up, they would have games at the Veterans Stadium and the fans after the game were allowed to go on to the field and watch the fireworks. And I remember that how horrifying it was to get on the field and feel how hard that surface was and under and understand when I had seen athletes kind of complain about how dangerous it was, I remember that sort of physical experience of realizing, wow, this stuff that looks all green and kind of nice on TV and even nice from the stands is actually incredibly awful.
00:14:07:11 - 00:14:32:21
David Sirota
So I was really, really interested in your story. You both did great reporting. So I want to I want to start out with a basic question. The question of what are PFA? Yes, what are these chemicals? I want you to tell us, for those who don't really know what these chemicals are, what they are, where they come from, and what they have to do with Major League Baseball.
00:14:32:21 - 00:14:33:18
David Sirota
Barbara, we'll start with you.
00:14:34:02 - 00:15:03:07
Barbara Laker
Okay, so p PFAS chemicals are they're manmade. They've been around for decades and they're used in a number of household goods like Teflon carpeting, upholstery, firefighting, foam and artificial turf. And for artificial turf, they're used in the manufacturing process. So the chemical companies don't have to say they're using it as an added ingredient because it's used in the manufacturing, but it stays in the in the artificial blades.
00:15:03:13 - 00:15:25:07
Barbara Laker
And what it's used for is to make the blades stand up and separate and they look better. And so chemical companies like Monsanto, DuPont, all those companies started using products for decades. And really the public didn't know until recently. And with artificial turf, no one knew about it until 2019 that they were actually in the turf.
00:15:25:14 - 00:15:53:04
David Sirota
The two of you wrote this blockbuster investigation, which was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, about the turf and its potential links to the deaths and the illnesses of several Philadelphia Phillies baseball players. So let's start at the beginning of that story now that we have context on what people saw. When did you first realize is that there could be a link between the deaths of these players?
00:15:53:04 - 00:16:17:09
David Sirota
And and, David, we'll throw to you. You tell us which players they were. When did you realize that there was a potential link between the deaths of these players and potentially the chemicals in the turf that they were playing? So the six player knew about Ken Brett, Tug McGraw, Johnny Oates, John Buchnevich, Darren Dalton, and most recently David West.
00:16:18:14 - 00:16:40:01
David Sirota
So these deaths started in 2003 and it's compiled up a little bit over the years. And each time I think another former Phillie has passed away and it raised some eyebrows and questions about whether there could be a link here. Why were these guys all getting the same type of brain cancer glioblastoma? Two after David West died last year.
00:16:40:03 - 00:16:57:20
David Sirota
I both had an interest in and going back to the story and seeing if there was more there, if there could be some connection that was being missed. And we and we thought a lot about Veterans Stadium, which, David, like you, I pretty much grew up there, too. And the stadium is notorious for a lot of different reasons.
00:16:57:20 - 00:17:18:23
David Sirota
And it was demolished in 2004. So we we couldn't physically go back in time, but we hit upon the idea of the Astroturf as being one element that we could look at. So we we found through eBay, of all places, pieces of the turf that the Phillies had given out as a souvenir in 1982. So we bought four samples.
00:17:19:18 - 00:17:46:07
David Sirota
We sent two to the University of Notre Dame and two to a laboratory in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, called Eurofins, which is the Premier League for fast testing in the U.S. And we waited to hear back. We didn't really have any preconceived notions of what would turn up, and in both of these labs, independently found files. Eurofins, I think found 16 out of more than 70 that they tested for.
00:17:46:13 - 00:18:17:00
David Sirota
And what was notable about that was you think back, this turf was 40 years old and had been out in the elements that had been played on rained on, and yet these chemicals still endured and they still kind of jumped off to the testers. So that we thought was significant and that sent us down the rabbit hole. That is still deepening at this point by the day of understanding, you know, what are these chemicals and what sorts of health effects have they been linked to?
00:18:17:00 - 00:18:44:19
David Sirota
And unfortunately, it's it's not a short list. There's a variety of different cancers and illnesses that we've just in the last few years, there's been kind of growing scientific understanding that these things are dangerous. They don't break down, they don't go away. Whether that in the environment or in, you know, in our bodies. Barbara, I want to ask you a follow up question about that, which is this particular kind of cancer that these Phillies players died of.
00:18:45:12 - 00:19:05:17
David Sirota
It isn't just that they got cancer generally, it's that they got a specific kind of relatively rare cancer. Tell us a little bit about that and what, if anything, we know about the specific potential connection between these chemicals and that kind of relatively rare cancer.
00:19:05:20 - 00:19:35:06
Barbara Laker
Well, glioblastoma is a it's a brain cancer that's very aggressive and it's almost always deadly. And so it's like tentacles in the brain. So like even if the surgeon takes out the tumor where it is in the brain, they often can't get out all of it. And then often patients have to follow up with chemo and radiation. But almost in every case, the tumor, because it doesn't really go away.
00:19:35:10 - 00:20:06:22
Barbara Laker
It grows back. And some people die within 18 months from this cancer, a year to 18 months. The scientists have done more studies on when pee faces in the water, when people actually drink it, and they know that is really dangerous. And that's why you'll see across the country now, cities and municipalities are trying to some of them in Philly to they are suing the chemical companies for dumping the pee face in the water supply because it's in the Philadelphia water supply.
00:20:07:07 - 00:20:38:11
Barbara Laker
There are fewer studies done on when you actually inhale it or when it's absorbed through the skin. And what a lot of experts thought. The reason why, if there is a link to glioblastoma and pe phos, the turf got really, really hot in the summer when the Phillies were playing on it. So up to like 165 degrees when these chemicals are heated up, they vaporize and they become more toxic to the people who breathe it in.
00:20:38:22 - 00:20:59:19
Barbara Laker
And as you know, when you play baseball, you're I mean, those players were on the turf hours upon hours upon hours, not just for the games, but for practice. And so because some people asked us, well, why don't the Eagles players have glioblastoma? And it's for one because they've played far fewer games like eight versus 80 or something like that a year.
00:21:00:05 - 00:21:07:23
Barbara Laker
But also because it obviously wasn't as hot when the Eagles were playing versus the Phillies players were on the turf.
00:21:08:01 - 00:21:33:17
David Sirota
All right, David, let's turn to the question of why the Phillies and other teams used Astroturf in the first place. I do remember asking this question as a kid, like why is veteran stadium Astroturf and not grass? Was it cost savings? Was it something else? And tell us a little bit about who made the Astroturf, which company? I think I think we mentioned Monsanto.
00:21:33:17 - 00:21:53:17
David Sirota
Were they the only company? Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, one of the neat things for Barbara and I was at the start of this project, we had time to go through the city's archives to actually see internally the story of how Veteran Stadium came to be. And it was a it was a long, drawn out process that was frankly, a huge mess.
00:21:54:17 - 00:22:18:20
David Sirota
You know, they spent years considering different sites for settling on this area of marshland in South Philadelphia. And they they knew sort of early on that they wanted this to be a multipurpose stadium, that the Eagles and the Phillies would both use it. And the thought was that grass would be too burdensome to maintain, especially as you get into fall and you're switching back between baseball and football.
00:22:19:23 - 00:22:52:03
David Sirota
And this is in the late 1960s. And as fate would have it, that was at the same time that the Monsanto Chemical Company pioneered Astroturf and the first professional sports team they were able to sell it to was the Houston Astros, which just opened the Astrodome and the new name. And it was really sold as this wonder product that would cost far less to maintain the grass, that it would be far more durable and it would pose no injury risk to players any more than grass.
00:22:53:03 - 00:23:18:09
David Sirota
So we could see from the city's archives and also from newspaper archives. In that era, Monsanto was was practically gleeful publicly about how many different avenues they would have to sell this product, not just to professional sports teams, but to high schools and colleges and to municipalities. You know, they they basically said this thing could be used anywhere and everywhere, even in the consumers homes.
00:23:18:14 - 00:23:42:21
David Sirota
Get rid of the grass in your front yard, but Astroturf down and you'll have so much more time to enjoy cigarets and martinis. So, you know, it was it was a pretty effective sales pitch at that time. And in talking to guys like Larry Bowa and Bob Boone, who were on the Phillies in the early seventies when they moved into the that, you know, there was a sense of wonder.
00:23:43:12 - 00:24:08:18
David Sirota
The stadium was brand new. It was gigantic. It's appeared to be state of the art for five or 6 minutes. And the turf was was kind of part of that. It was this new surface. The ball reacted differently when it was hit on the turf. In fact, the Phillies had to petition the league to raise the fences in the outfield after the bat open because so many balls were going over for ground ball doubles.
00:24:09:13 - 00:24:32:19
David Sirota
But pretty quickly they realized there were drawbacks. Larry Flower mentioned in particular getting turf burns on his arms and legs when he would die for balls. Von Hayes said a similar thing on hot days. If he do, the turf would disintegrate his uniform and his skin. And then you start to find football players blowing out ankles and knees.
00:24:33:18 - 00:24:58:13
David Sirota
And this was happening in other stadiums with turf. But that just seemed particularly to be worse than most. And the city of Philadelphia, which managed to vet, didn't pay Monsanto several times. I think all told, it was over $4 million to replace the turf. You know, as every few years they were having to come in and put a new generation down and the next one was supposed to be softer and more durable.
00:24:58:13 - 00:25:30:15
David Sirota
But ultimately that was never the case. So it's the 1960s. It's the era of so-called better living through chemistry. This is touted as a great solution to the changing of seasons. And dealing with was with something like grass. I think the question then becomes, was there any knowledge that we know of back then, whether public or inside of Monsanto, about the potential chemical hazards of Astroturf?
00:25:30:15 - 00:25:33:04
David Sirota
Barber Was there any knowledge of that?
00:25:33:06 - 00:25:58:05
Barbara Laker
Well, we know that other companies like DuPont, they did know that there were dangers and that it was very cancer causing and very dangerous to to people. They knew that, but they they hid it. I don't know if you've seen the movie Dark Waters, but that does a really good job of kind of laying out how this all came to be.
00:25:58:16 - 00:26:24:02
Barbara Laker
And the lawyer, Rob Billet, he was you know, he was brilliant in getting all these documents. And he had internal documents at DuPont that showed that they did know. They definitely knew that it was dangerous. And they even had women who were pregnant working on the line with Pete Fosse, who ended up having children with the same exact deformity in their faces when their babies were born.
00:26:24:02 - 00:26:51:05
Barbara Laker
And so the chemical companies did know. We didn't know how much. We still don't know how much Monsanto knew because we there's a place in St Louis, it's a library in East Saint Louis that actually had Monsanto documents and David and I requested those documents. We went through them, but it was more like just marketing pair of marketing pamphlets calling it the magic carpet.
00:26:51:14 - 00:27:28:09
Barbara Laker
There wasn't anything written down saying that they knew, but all the environmentalists and researchers we've talked to and lawsuits that were getting filed now they they have knowledge. They had true discovery. They got memos, internal memos within chemical companies that stated that they knew it was dangerous and they were like, okay, well, whatever. And there are some scientists who believe that they actually some of these chemical companies calculated like, okay, well, we can make this many millions of dollars before there's a class action lawsuit 15 years down the road.
00:27:28:15 - 00:27:32:06
Barbara Laker
And they figured they'd take that gamble and make the money.
00:27:32:10 - 00:28:02:11
David Sirota
David, The response from Monsanto. Has there been a response? Have they acknowledged the link or the potential link between these chemicals and adverse health effects? I mean, do they have anything to say about this? Well, Monsanto no longer really exists. They were purchased a few years ago by the Bear Corporation, so we did reach out to them and did not have any response back in the period of time that Monsanto was sold.
00:28:02:23 - 00:28:44:02
David Sirota
They followed pretty closely on the heels of large lawsuits that they faced across the country for Roundup, The Weed killer that they sold, which had also been linked to a significant number of cancer cases. So we weren't we weren't able to connect with anybody on the side because they weren't around anymore. And fortunately, the question of what Major League Baseball has to say about this, Barbara, has the Phillies, as the league responded to this and and whether or not they've responded, is there a potential liability issue for baseball in this?
00:28:44:11 - 00:28:50:13
David Sirota
And if there is, does that give them an incentive to pretend this this didn't happen or to downplay this or to kind of suppress it?
00:28:51:01 - 00:29:18:11
Barbara Laker
Well, David did reach out to the Phillies and they did get back to us. I mean, they do feel that it's very unfortunate that this these many players died from glioblastoma, but they did cite some like two experts. In fact. One, they kind of like, to paraphrase what the expert was going to say, and that that was that the p fast chemicals don't cross the brain barrier.
00:29:18:23 - 00:29:53:07
Barbara Laker
But when we reached out to other experts and researchers and scientists, there were actually three studies, two in China and one, I believe in Italy, where they actually found p fast chemicals, not only in the brain but actually in brain tumors. So we do know that P first chemicals can get in the brain. And in fact, Graham Peaslee, who's one of the world renowned experts in this whole thing at Notre Dame, he says that p fast chemicals, once they're in your body, they go all through your body.
00:29:53:15 - 00:30:14:03
Barbara Laker
There's not like a barrier to any organ that you have and that they stay in your body for years. That's why they're called forever chemicals, because they don't go away. So when they washed, like when it was in Veteran stadium and like there was a rain or they took it up or whatever, the those chemicals didn't go away.
00:30:14:11 - 00:30:26:19
Barbara Laker
They either got in the soil or got in the water supply. And it's kind of scary to think that they stay in your body for years when I don't think our bodies were made to have these chemicals in our system forever.
00:30:26:22 - 00:30:58:08
David Sirota
David Most Major League Baseball stadiums have made the switch back from Astroturf to real grass. Is there any indication this was due to the chemical component or was there was there other reasoning? I don't think outwardly that there was ever any consideration given to potential harm that may work in the turf and the chemicals. I mean, I can remember when the Phillies moved in the Citizens Bank park, the grass was a big part of the selling point, know there was going to be a real grass experience.
00:30:58:08 - 00:31:23:19
David Sirota
And I mean, it's obviously esthetically so much more pleasing. And it's for I think a lot of baseball purists, you feel like that's how it's supposed to be played. So, yeah, I mean, it is interesting that in this time frame they were talking about from the sixties, seventies and eighties, so many professional sports teams were going all in on turf and then within 20 more years, everybody's moving away from it.
00:31:24:00 - 00:31:44:13
David Sirota
For the most part, we couldn't find anything to suggest that there was some higher level thinking about, you know, this could potentially be linked to cancer and we need to remediate that years later. The reputation, I think this was just so panned, especially for players suffering career ending injuries. I mean, why would you want to stick with it?
00:31:44:14 - 00:32:12:10
David Sirota
You know, But it happened, demonstrated time and again, just be harmful from a physical standpoint. Barbara, I want to ask you one final question about all of this, which is, I think probably on the minds of many people listening to this is what is being done, if anything, right now. Are there state efforts to end p force to regulate them, to to clean them up if are if we know that they're still in the environment, are there federal efforts?
00:32:13:00 - 00:32:14:10
David Sirota
What's going on on that score?
00:32:14:11 - 00:32:40:00
Barbara Laker
Well, there's a lot going on. The EPA recently came out with regulations as far as how much is safe in our water supply for two or three of the well known files, the ones that are studied the most. The problem is there is like 12,000 PE, far stiffer PE force out there. And so some experts believe that we should ban the whole class of PE fast.
00:32:40:09 - 00:33:03:02
Barbara Laker
And to go back one I did want to make one point is that I don't think there would be any reason for the Phillies or the city to know way back when that PE files were dangerous. This was like kind of a new phenomenon. But there are, I believe, Rhode Island is making steps to to regulate it. There are states that are have got bills going.
00:33:03:02 - 00:33:24:13
Barbara Laker
And there are there are several municipalities moving to try to get rid of either the turf or PE falls in the water supply. But at the same time, like Philly also has like 12 play feels right now that still have the artificial turf where children are playing. There's still a plan to put 12 artificial turf fields in FDR Park.
00:33:25:14 - 00:33:50:20
Barbara Laker
The city does say they're going to find companies that put P Fosse in their turf. I don't know how that's going to work, but time will tell, I guess. But yeah, there are there are definitely cities who are moving on this and the EPA is moving. There are a lot of experts who want the EPA to move faster and more, you know, more widespread than they are right now.
00:33:50:23 - 00:34:05:03
David Sirota
Barbara Laker and David Gamma Quarter are investigative reporters of the Philadelphia Inquirer. We've linked to their stories in the description of this podcast episode. Barbara and David, thanks so much for your reporting and thank you so much for taking time with us today.
00:34:05:05 - 00:34:06:14
Barbara Laker
Thanks so much for having us, David.
00:34:07:07 - 00:34:35:14
David Sirota
Appreciate it. That's it for today's show. As a reminder, our paid subscribers who get access to our Leisure premium podcast feed. You get to hear next week's bonus episode, The Leavers Interview with Abraham. Josephine Riesman, the author of the new biography Ringmaster Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America. If you ever wanted to understand the political impact of pro wrestling, this is the interview for you.
00:34:36:01 - 00:34:58:04
David Sirota
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00:34:58:08 - 00:35:12:09
David Sirota
If you're listening to this episode in your podcast app, take a moment to write a review and make sure to head over to Lever News.com and check out all of the incredible reporting our team has been doing. Until next time. I'm David Sirota. Rock the boat.