The top two lawmakers on the Senate’s chemicals subcommittee — along with industry advocates, scientists and environmentalists — are in consensus: The country need a replacement for 6PPD, a chemical used in tires that’s linked to fish deaths.
“Sacred salmon, trout and other fish species are unlikely to recover unless we do so [stop using 6PPD],” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), chair of the Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Chemical Safety, Waste Management, Environmental Justice and Regulatory Oversight, said during a hearing Wednesday.
For decades, huge swaths of coho salmon in the pacific Northwest have randomly gone belly-up during their annual migration from the ocean up urban streams.
What was killing them remained a mystery until 2020, when researchers traced the massive die-offs to traces of 6PPD-quinone, a highly toxic byproduct of 6-para-phenylene-diamine, or 6PPD, which leached into nearby water sources from stormwater runoff.
