I’d be outraged. This is a real life situation. It took eight years for water results to be analyzed and reviewed by the federal public health agency for a small Pennsylvania community. They concluded that drinking water was not safe to drink; and that the agency has no information about water contaminates from 2011 through 2016.
Is it safe now? Although samples were taken over the eight-year period, no one knows. The federal health scientists have never seen those results. Even if they did, it might take another eight years to get the results — that would be 2024.
This is terrible . . . right? Unfortunately, it actually gets worse. The state health scientists said that same water was safe to drink, as did the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) after reviewing the same sample results. . . . yet the water was poisoned. It is unknown how many people mixed baby formula or bathed their young children in this toxic water.
I looked into why now, in May, 2016, did the federal Agency on Toxic Substance Disease Registry (ATSDR) release a report concluding the water was unsafe to drink. I found a recent news story that announced that the victim’s lawsuit against the polluter was recently settled in court. This settlement, in Dimock, Pennsylvania against Cabot Oil & Gas was the only change in the situation. Although I could be wrong, my conclusion was that the agency decided not to get involved in the messy trial of a multinational corporation. Instead, allowed a community to be poisoned. If that’s true, then I have no confidence nor hope that the American people are protected by their own public health government agency. In fact, it reaffirms for me that our public health protections are controlled by polluters and their lawyers.
Families, young children, and women of childbearing age drank toxic water with false assurances of safety from the very agencies charged to protect them. What is the public supposed to do? Whom can they trust? Why can’t our health authorities act in the best interest of public health of the American people who pay for their services through our tax dollars?
For the past thirty five years, I’ve watched the criteria for health assessments go from the preponderance of evidence (collection of all relevant studies, their quality, sources and conclusions) to obscure abstract mathematical assessments. In the past five years, it’s gotten worse. When results are undeniably harmful to public health, even using this abstract model, the results are held from the public, with agencies utilizing “draft” as reasons for not releasing reports to the public. All this time, health professionals know people are being exposed to unnecessary, and in some cases, avoidable health risks. You need not look any further than what is still happening in Flint, Michigan with their drinking water to understand this problem.
The jury’s verdict on water contamination in Dimock may have broad implications for the broader debate about the environmental risks of the shale drilling rush nationwide. Although the case did not center on claims that the fracking process (as opposed to drilling, well casing failures, spills or other problems) had directly caused the water contamination, most of the gas wells that the plaintiffs focused their attention on were aimed at the Marcellus shale gas formation.
Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, commented, “This is a huge victory for the people of Dimock, but it’s also a sharp rebuke to the Obama administration for failing to fully investigate threats posed by fracking and dangerous drilling to water supplies in Pennsylvania and across the country. Because of the EPA’s disturbing history of delay and denial, it took a federal jury to set the record straight about the natural gas industry’s toxic threat to our water.”
America, what in the world are we going to do? I’d love to hear ideas because I don’t feel safe nor should you. Send any comment you might have to me at infor@chej.org.
Tag: cancer
So often people believe that the solution to their problem lies in science and technical information. How often have you heard some company spokesperson speak to the need for sound science. At CHEJ, we have have learned many lessons about science and how it is used. Science and technical information is important and has a role in helping to achieve your community goals. Identifying this role and learning how to use scientific and technical information is critical to the success of your group.
The most important lesson is that science and technical information alone will not solve your problem(s). It’s reasonable to think that if you hire the best scientists and engineers and make solid technical arguments, the government will do the right thing. Those of you who have been there know it doesn’t work that way.
When the government discovers a problem, it’s reluctant to determine the full extent of the problem. This is because if the government documents contamination that threatens people’s health, it then has to do something about it—like evacuate people or clean up the contamination. This costs money that government doesn’t have or want to spend. Such action might also set a precedent by establishing cleanup standards or unsafe exposures levels that would mean spending more money at other sites
Deciding what action to take is complicated by the fact that there are few answers to the many scientific questions raised by exposures to toxic chemicals. Scientists actually know little about the adverse health effects that result from exposure to combinations of chemicals at low levels. As a result, when politicians and bureaucrats look for answers, the scientists don’t have them. They have their opinions but no clear answers.
Most scientists however, are reluctant to admit they don’t know the answer to a question. Instead they introduce the concept of “risk” and begin a debate over what’s “acceptable.” This process hides the fact that scientists don’t know what happens to people who are exposed to low levels of a mixture of toxic chemicals. This uncertainty gets lost in the search for what’s “acceptable.”
Because of the lack of scientific clarity, bureaucrats and politicians use science cloaked in uncertainty, not facts, to justify their decisions which at best are based scientific opinion, but more likely driven by the political and economic pressures they face. Whether this is right or not is not a scientific question but an ethical and moral question. It is foolish to think that in this setting, science can be anything but a tool used by politicians and corporations to get what they want.
While science and scientific information have failed to provide clear answers and solutions to the hard questions about the health and environmental impact of the chemicals we use, we cannot abandon science. Science and scientific information can be a powerful tool for community groups, but only if you recognize what it can tell you and what it can’t, and only if you learn how to use the information and not just collect it. The right information used in the right way at the right time can be very powerful. Learning how to use scientific and technical information strategically is an organizing skill. Contact CHEJ to continue this conversation.
“This place is disease. It takes your heart away; it takes your spirit away. And something’s got to end. Somebody has got to help us because there are people stranded here. My kids are stranded here. Somebody from the outside has got to come and save us.”
–-Bob Terry a local resident pleading to the United Nations for help in his testimony
May 3, 2016 — This afternoon Dawn Chapman, Karen Nickel, from Just Moms StL in St. Louis, Missouri, Lois Gibbs, Center for Health, Environment & Justice delivered a request on behalf of American families living in harm’s way of a Chernobyl like event to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, Mr. John Knox. Ms. Nicole Bjerler, Mr. Knox’s colleague will be meeting with the Just Moms STL delegation to accept the Tribunal Summary Documents, Complaint and Transcript as he is currently in Switzerland.
The community has exhausted every possible government and non-governmental option for relief within the United States leaving the United Nations as the next level of authority.
Community has asked the state to act but only have been informed of the pending crisis of a “Chernobyl like event,” (Attorney General, MO). The US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has done little since 1990 and done little to date to stop the fire from reaching the radioactive wastes. State and federal legislators have introduced a federal bill that would transfer the cleanup from USEPA to the Corps of Engineers because of no confidence in US EPA. The bill passed the Senate and is in the house committee being queried. This bill does nothing to relieve the daily exposures and urgent need to get out of the area before an explosion or other disastrous event.
- On a daily basis flares around the Bridgeton landfill, which is burning beneath the surface, release chemicals that are toxic to human health at levels above permitted health based standards. These chemicals travel through the air and into the surrounding community. Children waiting at bus stops and playing outside must breathe this toxic air.
- Although there is cover over the burning landfill, however when materials below the surface burn and reduce in size, the cover material collapses causing a rupture in the cover material. This results in smoke containing toxic chemicals to be released into the air of the surrounding community. Smoke at times is so thick that it is difficult to maneuver an automobile due to visibility and travels across the street blanketing adjacent homes and playground.
- The entire site which was designated a U.S. federal Superfund site in 1990. Yet the USEPA has failed to complete mapping of the site to define where the buried radioactive waste is located. After more than two decades no one understands where the radioactive wastes are.
- Children are suffering and dying from cancer at an alarming rate. State health studies have clearly documented increased childhood brain cancer risks in nearby neighborhoods. Today the number of children with brain cancer is over 300 times what would be expected.
- Public schools are concerned about an event which will cause students and school employees to remain in a “shelter in place” situation for a long period of time. Parents were asked to bring to school a supply of medications that children take before and after school in the event they cannot go home. This is an unacceptable situation especially for preschool children ages 3 to 4 to be without their parents overnight.
- Families with members that are vulnerable to respiratory impacts are at risk daily. Windows must remain closed year round. Outdoor activities such as yard work, home repairs and organized sports are near impossible. Quality of life standards are negatively impacted as a result of not being able to sit outdoors, decorate for holidays or enjoy a child’s sporting event.
- Lastly, tucking your child into bed at night or sending them to school in the morning and not knowing if an event will occur that day, as a result of the fire reaching the radioactive wastes.
An independent panel appointed last October by Michigan Governor Rick Synder to investigate why things went so w
rong in Flint released its findings last week. The Flint Water Advisory Task Force report blasted the state’s handling of the crisis and painted a picture of “government failure, intransigence, unpreparedness, delay, inaction and environmental injustice.”
While there was plenty of blame to go around, the five member panel singled out the state-appointed emergency managers who were trying to save money, the state departments of Environmental Quality and Health and Human Services for their role in handling Flint’s water issues, and Snyder and his staff for their lack of oversight. According to the report, “Neither the governor nor the governor’s office took steps to reverse poor decisions by MDEQ and state-appointed emergency managers until October 2015, in spite of mounting problems and suggestions to do so by senior staff members in the governor’s office, in part because of continued reassurances from MDEQ that the water was safe.”
The report also concluded that, “The facts of the Flint water crisis lead us to the inescapable conclusion that this is a case of environmental injustice.” The New York Times reported that the panel’s report “put a spotlight on a long-running civil rights issue: whether minorities and the poor are treated differently when it comes to environmental matters, relegating them to some of the most dangerous places in the country: flood prone areas of New Orleans that were devastated after Hurricane Katrina; highly polluted parts of Detroit and the Bronx; and ‘Cancer Alley’ in Louisiana, where residents who live near factories suffer disproportionately from disease.”
According to the Times story, the report concluded that “Flint residents, who are majority black or African-American and among the most impoverished of any metropolitan area in the United States, did not enjoy the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards as that provided to other communities.”
The Task Force also singled out the activism of local residents and credited the “critical role played by engaged Flint citizens, by individuals both inside and outside of government who had the expertise and willingness to question and challenge government leadership,” along with “members of a free press who used the tools that enable investigative journalism.”
The Task Force report does a good job of unpacking the numerous failures especially at the state level that led to the crisis in Flint and how things got so out of control. But what underlies everything is the patented disregard for the people who live in this predominately African American city. The case for environmental injustice was never so clear.
Read the full 116-page report of the Flint Water Advisory Task Force and its 44 recommendations here
Bill Gates’ net worth is estimated to be $79.7 billion and his worth just seems to grow every year. Known as the world’s richest man, Gates is also listed 
as the sixth most powerful person in the world. He and his wife Melinda run the Gates Foundation their goal is to reduce inequity and improve the lives of people in poorer countries.
But what about America? What about the innocent people in which his investment company, Cascade Investments, is making him even more money, at the expense of innocent children who are made sick and dying from chemical/radioactive materials?
My mother often told me that it is wonderful, honorable to support others who need help, but always remember charity begins at home.
Bill and Melinda are doing extraordinary work in poor countries, but their money to do that work is coming from their investments like, Republic Services where they have personally invested 2.9 Billion dollars. Gates Foundation has divested from Republic Services but Bill and Melinda have not.
Families with children in St. Louis have watched helplessly as their children developed cancer and some have died. Parents believe their children health problems are due to Republic Services burning and radioactive Superfund site. The Missouri health authorities found an over 300% increase in children’s brain cancer near the Republic site. This cancer is preventable.. .avoidable… by helping people move away. Today they are trapped. Families can’t live in their homes, sell their homes or afford to pay rent or mortgages somewhere else. These are working people, many not earning a living wage.
Bill could direct his investment company to use their power as shareholders to purchase the homes of innocent families that surround the burning landfill. Once the fire is put out and the radioactive materials cleaned up Republic can resell the homes and reduce their costs. It is anticipated that the fire will burn for another four years and the plan to clean up the radioactive wastes is also far into the future.
I thought at one time, that maybe Bill and Melinda just didn’t know. As parents of three children Jennifer, Phoebe, and Rory I thought they could relate to the fears the parents in St. Louis face every day to protect their most precious asset their children. Unfortunately they do know and I guess don’t care. Recently, they sold all of their Foundation’s stock in Republic Services. A good first step but far from what’s needed. Their personal stock of almost three billion is still earning dividends off the back of little children and hard working parents. We believe it was the petition drive that CHEJ did with the local group Just Moms STL in St. Louis, Missouri that brought the problem to their attention. Maybe it did, we’ll never know.
Today, it’s clear that Bill and Melinda know there is a problem in St. Louis, and they don’t want the public face of the Gates Foundation to be associated with that Superfund site. With this knowledge, they continue to profit from Republic Services, which in turn continues to place children in harm’s way. Bill and Melinda have made a decision to not take action with their personal wealth.
I can only ask, and hope others who read this ask, won’t you please reconsider your decision? Please, give a little charity at home. You are the richest man and one of the most powerful in the world and have said you want to improve the lives of people in poor countries, how about America? You can use your power in the Republic Services Board room to vote to move the innocent families or buy the properties yourself. The child, with brain cancer in the photo, is worth helping.
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By Kaley Beins
It has been well established that low wealth and minority communities are subject to greater risk of industrial pollution. The factories and manufacturing plants that pollute these neighborhoods drop the market value of homes, making them more affordable for lower income families. However, these families rarely have the money necessary to fight the legal and political battles with the plants over the ubiquitous industrial pollution that puts their community at risk. North Birmingham, a predominantly black community with a median household income that is over 50% lower than Alabama’s average, has been trying to address ongoing soil and air pollution from the surrounding factories for over 10 years.
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Walter Coke, a subsidiary of Walter Energy that produces coke for furnaces and foundries, has a plant in North Birmingham that pollutes the surrounding neighborhood. Studies from the EPA and ATSDR have found high levels of arsenic, lead, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the soil and particulate matter in the air. Children are at risk from playing in their own backyards and studying in their schools, asthma patients may have heightened reactions, and the likelihood of cancer in the area is elevated.
EPA’s recommendation? Wash children’s hands when they come inside. Eat a balanced diet to dilute potential lead poisoning. Limit time outside if the air pollution seems problematic. Hope that you don’t get cancer.
CHEJ’s Lois Gibbs and Teresa Mills worked with the Birmingham community organizers to help advocate for separating themselves from the EPA and Walter Coke agendas. EPA’s 2011 letter used CERCLA (the Superfund Act) to explain their authority to have Walter Coke mitigate the pollution, and Walter Coke has cleaned up 24 sites of high risk soil pollution, but this is only the beginning of the steps necessary to address the community’s needs.
Currently CHEJ Science Director Stephen Lester and Science Intern Neggin Assadi are reviewing the soil pollution data and studying the connection between the Walter Coke pollutants and the elevated toxin levels in the soil of neighborhood yards. The ATSDR is also reviewing soil samples from 2012 to 2015 for another study, while maintaining that both the air and soil quality have improved as a result of past clean up efforts.
But the residents of North Birmingham shouldn’t have to wait for yet another ATSDR study. As Mr. Chester Wallace, President of the North Birmingham Community Coalition puts it, “The air quality’s not good for the people in the neighborhood, and we hope that the polluters can find a way to right that.”
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By: Katie O’Brien
Yucca Mountain in Nevada is a sacred, tribal mountain where the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), is trying to bury 77,000 tons of nuclear waste. While the mountain lies in the desert, 100 miles north of Las Vegas, it is covered in waterways that lead into streams and rivers used for tribal traditions and rituals that eventually lead to traditional American Indian springs in Death Valley.
So far Americans have spent over thirty years and $15 billion in tax dollars on determining whether a waste site at Yucca Mountain would be safe. Problems arose as the Department of Energy (DOE), the agency responsible for studies, learned more about how surface water on the mountain flowed downwards feeding other waterways. Titanium drip shields were engineered to help with the problem of corrosion. Those shields along with over 220 other technical challenges, is why many Nevada communities, scientists, and lawyers believe the license application should be disqualified.
This area of Nevada is no stranger to the threat of nuclear waste. The DOEs Nevada Test Site has been detonating nuclear (and non) bombs in Nevada for over sixty years. In 2006, plans were announced to conduct Divine Strake, a test of a bomb made with 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel. The government claimed that there would be no adverse health effects for the low-income, native communities that were nearby to the test site. Even though according to the agency’s director, the test would send a “mushroom cloud over Las Vegas”. Local tribes sued claiming that the test would “inject fallout-tainted dust into the air”. In 2007, the DOE cancelled the detonation. Once again, these communities are at risk to losing their health with the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site.
This August, the NRC released an environmental impact report saying that groundwater can be contaminated by small amounts of radioactive particles. They claim that the contamination is a “small fraction” of increase from normal background radiation. Richard Miller, who was an expert witness in the Divine Strake lawsuit, says, “The first thing they’re doing is trying to tie particulate exposure with background radiation. They’re apples and oranges, actually apples and toxic oranges. These can wind up inside you, and that’s a (cancer) risk increase”. The report claims there will only be “negligible increase” in health risks.
Surrounding the waterways fed by Yucca Mountain, are Native Tribes, most of which are low-income communities. The people of Newe Sogobia, say that the DOE cannot prove ownership of Yucca Mountain and that under established United States Treaties, the waste site should be disqualified because it is not owned Bureau of Land Management. The Tribe says the site will result in “destruction of their property, and impair their treaty reserved rights to use their land and life giving water. They believe that lifestyle differences, including “longstanding religious practices, tribal laws, customs, and traditions” make the Tribe more susceptible to increased exposure. The Native Tribes and communities that surround Yucca Mountain have already been exposed to enough risk from radioactive testing throughout the last 60 years. Completion of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Site will increase that exposure at the cost of people and the environment.
Has EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy totally written off oversight and action in contaminated communities and the Superfund program? Is she just turning
a deaf ear to the cries for help?
McCarthy did visited Colorado after and EPA cleanup accidentally released a million gallons of toxic wastewater into the Animas River, a tributary of the Colorado River turning the water orange color. That was so big, so bad, she just couldn’t ignore it.
McCarthy said about the accident, “It is a heartbreaking situation.” I can’t disagree with that but what about all the on-going toxic waste sites where children, hardworking tax paying families live and can’t even get a simple response or acknowledgement from her office?
I’ve never seen so many community being treated so poorly by EPA. This past week in Springfield, Ohio over 700 people turned out at a meeting to tell EPA “NO.” Even the Chamber of Commerce (not always standing with us) paid for buses to help people get to the EPA meeting to show EPA people are serious. State Senator Chris Widener (R) also called on EPA to remove hazardous. Quite loudly they said, “Dig it up and take it out!” Did that get McCarthy’s attention?
EPA wants to dig up more than 2.8 million gallons of wastes that sits over the drinking water aquifer and put it into an adjunct hole, which also sits above the aquifer that provides drinking water to county families. The community has been fighting for years to get the wastes away from their drinking water source.
Ohio not alone. A deaf ear was turned to the folks in Birmingham, Alabama a low wealth community of color. Instead of listening to a very strong assessment by the federal health agency (ATSDR) that children are at serious risk in North Birmingham stating:
- Past and current exposure to arsenic found in surface soil of some residential yards could harm people’s health.
- Children are especially at risk. past and current exposure to lead found in surface soil of some residential yards could harm people’s health.
- Swallowing this lead‐contaminated soil could cause harmful health effects, especially in children and in the developing fetus of pregnant women. long‐term exposure to PAHs found in the surface soil of some residential yards is at a level of concern for lifetime cancer risk.
EPA’s response is to tell parents to not let their children into their homes until they have taken their shoe and clothes off.
Does Administrator McCarthy really think this is the answer? Has she even talked to her staff about why they are handling this situation or others so poorly? I doubt it.
Missouri joins Ohio and Alabama in being ignored. St. Louis, MO almost every politician from federal Senator Blunt (R) to most recently the County Executive, has asked EPA and McCarthy personally to address the concerns of the burning landfill moving toward the radioactive waste landfill and cluster of childhood cancers. Yesterday a new report from the Attorney General’s office said the groundwater and, yes the trees around the site, are radioactive.
The community leaders Just Moms STL raised money through bake sales and traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet with the administrator this past spring and she closed her door to them. She was there in her office and choose to ignore the mothers who came to talk with her.
I understand that Administrator Gina McCarthy has a full plate with Climate Change, Air Standards and so on but people are literally dying. Her office has only suggested that concerned public should look to the regional offices for help. Unfortunately, regional offices don’t have the authority to open a Record of Decision or relocate temporarily or permanently families at risk.
Many are advocating a federal investigation on EPA and Gina McCarthy’s response or better the lack of response to serious toxic waste crisis. If you are interested in helping to advocate an investigative hearing let us know and we’ll connect you with others.
Gina McCarthy, enough is enough, please pay attention.
Mary has terminal lung cancer. She never smoked. But what she did do is walk around 
the local park every morning 24 laps. She believed that she was doing a good thing for her health, getting exercise and fresh air.
Unfortunately, the park that she walked daily was found to be contaminated with radioactive materials. It’s all part of the St. Louis historical work on the Manhattan Project. Mary attended the local meeting this past week about the cleanup of the radioactive wastes. Officials told her that they were not going to close the park that she once walked around daily because the children are back in school. The children, they believe wouldn’t spend much time in the park because of school so they didn’t need to take any action.
Outraged that no one would close the park, the park she believed was the root cause of her now death sentence, Mary decided to do something about it. Mary stood in front of the park with a sign that asked people to ask her why she was there, so she could tell them her story. How her grandson will never really know his Nana because she will be gone before they can do much together.
Today the park that Mary once walked laps around is closed, because Mary wouldn’t leave the entrance with her yellow sign “Park Closed,” until it was officially closed to innocent children and families. Thank you Mary.
The unfortunate truth is that it took a victim of radioactive exposure, a mother and grandmother to take a stand and protect the innocent from known harm. Where are our health protectors? Where are the local, state and more importantly federal health authorities that have jurisdiction and decision making powers when such decisions are needed. Who are they afraid of?
I’m am so tired of the federal government who has investigated and defined the cleanup and testing of this site and so many other sites, turn their heads when it comes to making a decision about protecting the public health. This is not the case when the public is placed at risk from food poisoning or a drug that proved to be more harmful than thought. Why are people exposed to radioactive wastes or toxic wastes the abandoned child? Why is there No Protection or Unequal Protection under government authorities when it comes to working class or low wealth families?
Time and time again we at CHEJ have seen that families are ignored when it comes to the real life threat of exposures to materials that will cause cancer and other diseases. It is well past time that the health professionals who took an oath “to do know harm” to step up to the plate and protect innocent families in the same manner, in the same time frame, as they do families exposed to food related or drug related health impacts.
To hear Mary speak to this issue you can connect to the Youtube video and begin at 1:59, but be sure to have a box of tissues handy to wipe your eyes because the personal testimony is very powerful and sad.
I am so frustrated and cannot understand how to win equal protection of health for all people. I’ve been doing this work for over thirty years and observed that unlike food contamination or infectious disease, where health agencies move at the speed of light to keep people safe, when the source is toxic chemicals from a corporation, people are sacrificed. I’m looking for ideas from those who read this blog. Just recently we saw the call to action to protect public health around the cilantro scare.
This week I received requests for help from local leaders CHEJ is working with that related to health studies and public health impacts from chemicals in their environment.
One study around hydro fracking, researchers found that pregnant women living near clusters of fracked wells were more likely to have babies with lower birth weights. The second study found higher rates of hospitalization for heart conditions, neurological illness, and other conditions among people who live near fracking sites.
Those studies were not enough to stop fracking in the communities. In fact, health authorities said they believe it may not be the fracking at all – it could just be a random clustering of medical problems.
The third study was around a low wealth African American community in Birmingham, Alabama. Adjacent to the community is Walter Coke Facility that manufactures coke, toluene sulfonyl acid, produces pig iron from iron ore and more.
The Federal Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry (ATSDR) conducted a study to determine the health risk to community families based upon exposures to arsenic, lead, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) found in residential surface soil and homegrown garden produce in the communities collected from November 2012 through January 2015.
ATSDR concluded that:
- past and current exposure to arsenic found in surface soil of some residential yards could harm people’s health. Children are especially at risk.
- past and current exposure to lead found in surface soil of some residential yards could harm people’s health. Swallowing this lead‐contaminated soil could cause harmful health effects, especially in children and in the developing fetus of pregnant women.
- long‐term exposure (i.e., many years) to PAHs found in the surface soil of some residential yards is at a level of concern for lifetime cancer risk.
The agency’s recommendation was for parents to:
- monitor their children’s behavior while playing outdoors and prevent their children from intentionally or inadvertently eating soil;
- take measures to reduce exposures to residential soil and to protect themselves, their families, and visitors;
- have their children tested for blood lead; and
- for EPA to continue testing for arsenic and lead in the soil and continue with its plans to cleanup additional properties (patch quilt of clean up not community wide as though the wind won’t carry toxic dust from one yard to another) to reduce levels in residential surface soil.
There was no mention of what the polluter should do. No mention of relocating families from the area to safe housing somewhere else. There was no mention of health monitoring or a clinic for people, especially children who are exposed and sick.
What level of human tragedy, suffering and loss of life will it take to stop the poisoning of American people from toxic chemicals? The ethics behind the two responses of food/infectious disease versus chemical threats to public health is unethical. Families being exposed to toxic chemicals matter just as much as everyone else. It’s time our health agencies stopped treating them as sacrificial families to protect corporate profits.