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Counting Heads Is Not Enough To Address Environmental Justice



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Alonzo Spencer CHEJ's BOD Chair



Today in the Washington Post was a front page news story that talks about how the large environmental organizations are not diverse enough.

This is the same story written many times beginning in the late 1980’s. It sparked a national conversation and action that lead to the first Environmental Justice Summit in 1991 and in 1994 Bill Clinton signed an executive order Environmental Justice Act. The story talked about counting heads (non-white) on staff, in decision making positions and members of the Board. That story is not new and I believe is way too narrow of a focus.

The large environmental organizations have brought more diversity to their staff and their board, then was the case in 1990, but they are still a far cry from being diverse. However, I think just counting people of color within an organization is not the only or even the best measurement of their efforts to address the multitude of issues within the context of environmental justice.

One point that the Washington Post article raised, I think is at the heart of the issues. “Today, minority communities — black, Latino and Native American — along with low-income white neighborhoods still bear a disproportionate burden of the nation’s toxic pollution. They are in the shadows of petrochemical plants and coal-fired power plants, the nation’s greatest source of stationary pollution, according to the Congressional Research Service.” A diverse group of staff and board members will not change anything unless the large green organizations decide to makes a radical shift in their missions, goals and resource allocation.

It is a fact, detailed in a NCRP report that, environmental funders mainly support large, professionalized environmental organizations instead of the grassroots community-based groups that are most heavily impacted by environmental harms. Organizations with annual budgets greater than $5 million make up only 2% of all environmental groups, yet receive more than 50% of all environmental grants and donations. This makes it even more imperative that large organizations need to not only change the ethnic makeup of staff and board but also move significant resources to reflect their commitment to the field. The report makes the simple but profound argument that the current environmental funding strategy is not working and that, without targeting philanthropy at communities most impacted by environmental harms, the movement will continue to fail.

In movements throughout history, the core of leadership came from a nucleus of directly impacted or oppressed communities while also engaging a much broader range of justice-seeking supporters. In other words, successful movements for social change — anti-slavery, women’s suffrage, labor rights, and civil rights — have always been inspired, energized, and led by those most directly affected. Yet these are the very groups within the environmental movement that are starved for funds.

Robert Garcia said in the Washington Post article, “The values of the mainstream environmental movement don’t focus on the needs of people. They focus on clean air, water and climate.” I agree with Robert Garcia, who founded and provides counsel for the City Project in Los Angeles and would add why are they not investing in communities on the front lines?

Alonzo Spencer, CHEJ’s Board Chairman, lives with a hazardous waste incinerator that has been out of compliance more often than in compliance. His community was designated an Environmental Justice Community by the US EPA in the 1990’s. Other than CHEJ, his neighborhood has no skilled national group helping them. Where are the lobbyists that are needed to change the laws, not at the national level but at the state level?

In Ohio if you are out of compliance (not obeying the law) but you have a plan or schedule to come into compliance, you are considered in compliance. I know this because that is what the appeals court ruled when CHEJ took the case as far up as we could. So, in reality the facility never really needs to be in compliance they just need to keep putting together plans that say they will someday comply with the law. Yes, it is a fence line problem but it is also a climate issue given they release more than permitted of chemicals that impact climate and discharges contaminate the Ohio River and other sources of water.

Alonzo’s community has the highest rate of cancer in the state. Their elementary school was closed, which was a necessary action because the top of the stack of the incinerator was almost level to the school windows due to it being built below the bluff where the school stood. The local taxpayers had to pay to move the children to another school. A low-wealth county, spending money they don’t have to keep their children safe.

Or where are the resources to assist communities in Corpus Christi, TX? Along refinery row, all the industries say they are in compliance, and maybe they are, but when you have miles of refineries collectively the air is not breathable. Who lives there? Suzie Canales, another member of CHEJ’s board who tells the story about how the city charter designated section of the city specifically for African Americans and Latino’s to live. If you were Latino or African American family you could not purchase property outside of the cities designated area for your ethnic group. Therefore, homes were purchased near the refineries because they were not permitted to buy other properties. Now the properties are not only unsalable but a health risk to families who live there.

The conversation about environmental organizations and environmental justice really needs to be about resources and assistance to the front line communities rather than head counting. Someday, maybe all of the Green Groups would be diverse, but that alone will not translate into playing an active role in bringing real aide and justice to front line communities. There needs to be diversity, resources and a core commitment to solutions and necessary actions that come from the people who are impacted.

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Adverse Health – Real Cause – Poof Deflected

Two studies, from completely different states were recently released concluding the same thing. Both said there was no cause for alarm. Their findings . . . every elevated health abnormality was more likely due to something other than the chemicals in the environment. Poof the words on the paper report deflected the problems. Yet that is not what the studies honestly found.

Enough already . . . real people, with real families need honest answers. However, when there is a question or a real statistical finding of an abnormality the health authorities, as to not upset the corporate polluters or their friends in government, assumption that it’s more likely be a meteor, like recently seen in Russia, than due to chemical exposures in the air or soil. O.K. maybe not the meteor but the answers are just as foolish. The cause for high disease is almost never related to the obvious, 500 pound toxic elephant in the room, nor do the recommendations falls on the side of precaution and cleaning up the environment.

In North Birmingham a recent study around soil and air contamination suggested that the levels of chemicals would not be harmful to health unless you had pica children. Pica children are young and frequently because of age put hands and other things into their mouths. O.K. but the soils samples came from an elementary school grounds, just the place you would find pica children. Just wash their hands and teach them not to place their fingers in the mouth. Poof deflected. It’s the children’s fault and parents for not training the children well enough to keep their hands away from their mouths.

The second study came from New York. The NY State Department of Health undertook a study in Tonawanda where air contamination from multiple industries have been an on-going problem. They found high rates of cancer and birth defects. The study found cases of bladder cancer in the area were 24 percent higher for men and 81 percent higher for woman compared to the rest of New York State, excluding New York City. And women living in the neighborhood had 93 percent more leukemia cases than the rest of the state. Lastly, they found 30 percent more birth defects than the rest of New York State.

The analyses of birth outcomes in the study area compared to birth outcomes in NYS showed some elevations that were relatively smaller than the cancer elevations. Preterm births were elevated in the overall study area. Total heart defects as a group were also elevated, but major heart defects were not elevated.

Then poof the results went away! How? Doctors are better at reporting in the region then in other regions of the state. The report said, “the health investigators compared the birth outcomes in the study area to birth outcomes in Erie and Niagara Counties, the elevations declined substantially. This is consistent with other evidence suggesting this area has more complete reporting than elsewhere in the state.” Poof deflected.

Cancer results the health department said, “factors include smoking, family history, and occupational exposures, as well as others. In the general population, smoking is the most important risk factor for both lung and bladder cancer. We do not know the individual medical and exposure histories for the people included in this study.” Deflected again. So because the victims themselves could have cause the problem and we don’t know if they did the default is, these are sad people who are likely making themselves sick.

If only families living in contaminated areas could create that same magic and poof make the toxic, cancer causing and birth disrupting chemicals go away. Or pretend that contamination in school property will somehow not hurt young children even though the entire property, building and play area is intended for small children.

I walk with these parents, sit in their living rooms and listen as they try and struggle with the pain of their sick loved one and the disappointment they have for those who are supposed to protect and defend American families from criminals and their poisons.

It is hard to respond when parents, women ask over and over again, “why?” It’s not right when can’t smoke in buildings and restaurants (a very good law) but industries can just violate the law, poison people and government covers up the problems just as the tobacco industry did for decades. I never thought I’d see the day when the American people through our tax dollars hired scientists that mirror those that our elected leaders despised-tobacco scientists.

The message to all those fighting for justice and hoping that science may provide some evidence, it won’t – not because it can’t but because our scientists lack the back bone. Our struggles, although should be won on science alone, are clearly political fights and these two studies are just more proof.

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Making a Bad Decision Worse – Reselling Homes at Love Canal


Earlier this week, three families living in what was once the Love Canal neighborhood in Niagara Falls, NY filed a lawsuit against the state of New York for $113 million. The lawsuit alleges that the Love Canal landfill – with over 20,000 tons of toxic waste still sitting in the midst of this suburban neighborhood – is leaking and that people living nearby have become ill from chemicals coming from the landfill.

This year marks the 35th anniversary of the toxic waste crisis at Love Canal that led to the evacuation and relocation of over 900 families who lived around the toxic waste landfill. The events at Love Canal marked an important moment in history. It led directly to a sea change in how the country manages toxic waste; it was the impetus to the passage of the federal Superfund law that provides funds to clean up the worst toxic waste sites in the country; and it was the catalyst to the birth of a movement of grassroots leaders and community based organizations that changed the environmental movement in this country.

Lois Gibbs, who led the community efforts at Love Canal and who founded and is still CHEJ’s executive director, warned against resettling any of the homes around the Love Canal landfill. In a letter to the US EPA in 1989, Gibbs argued against allowing the area to be resettled for two basic reasons. First, the 20,000 tons of toxic waste that were dumped into the landfill remained in the middle of the neighborhood. The cleanup plan did not remove any of the waste and there were many uncertainties about whether the containment system would work, especially since there was no liner at the bottom of the landfill. Second, there were unacceptable levels of toxic chemicals throughout the Love Canal neighborhood including the areas targeted for resettlement. The cleanup plan did not address contamination outside the fence that surrounded the landfill, in areas where homes, once evacuated, were resold to innocent people who thought the area was safe.

Many of the new residents, some of whom I have personally talked with, believed the area was safe. It’s what the developers told them and what government officials led them to believe. Yet in 1988 when the state completed its evaluation of the contamination throughout the neighborhood, they never concluded that the area was safe. In fact, they found that 4 of the 7 sections of the Love Canal neighborhood were not habitable. And in the sections where homes were resettled, all they were comfortable saying was that it was as “habitable as other areas of Niagara Falls.”

What they did not say was that none of the Love Canal neighborhood was habitable after their first analysis which compared the levels of contamination in Love Canal to two neighboring towns. This conclusion was not politically acceptable, so they did a second analysis. This time they compared the levels of contamination in Love Canal to two selected areas of Niagara Falls. Both of these areas were suspiciously contaminated with many of the same chemicals found at Love Canal. Not surprisingly, they found the contaminant levels in Love Canal to be similar to the contaminant levels in these two select areas of Niagara Falls.  I doubt the people who bought resettled homes at Love Canal would have done so if they had known how this decision was made.

Love Canal was never habitable and people never should have been allowed to move back in. To get a copy of Lois’ letter to EPA or to learn more about the New York state habitability decision, contact CHEJ at info@chej.org.

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The Irish—My Heritage—Said “No” To Fracking

Friday Ireland’s government said, “Until the EPA study has concluded and there has been time to consider its findings, the use of hydraulic fracturing in exploration drilling will not be authorized in Ireland.” Mr. O’Dowd, the Ireland Natural Resources Minister, is acting in a precautionary manner unlike the United States.

Taking a precautionary action, Mr. O’Dowd commissioned and funded three part study that will determine of fracking is harmful to the environment. He is concerned about widespread pollution especially of water sources where fracking will take place.

The studies include a geological study which will determine the impacts that fracking may have on groundwater and bedrock, seismic impacts, whether tremors, earthquakes or subsidence, and the third will be defining regulations around the fracking process. All of these studies are to be completed within 20 months.

Additionally the commission has asked for the public to suggest the terms of reference to be given to researchers. Wow, the Irish get a say in the study design and methodology.

Friday, Irish Eyes Were Smiling.

Other countries have banned the process as well, while the U.S. continues to move forward in ways the mimic the wild, wild, west. The cost of fracking in the U.S. has shown us that this extraction process is too expensive. We’ve seen environmental damages, poisoned water and water that ignites, health care costs increasing from victims as well as the migrant workers who are uninsured and use county facilities, lost land values and property values and the list goes on.

Not only is fracking moving forward at light speed compared to other industries’ ability to get permits and begin to set up their facility, the fracking industry has historically played dirty with communities by threatening, suing and attempting to undercutting local leaders credibility. However, the U.S. Frackers just recently said they’ll stop being bullies (my words not theirs) and try a new approach—civil communications.

In a strategy paper on combating the anti-fracking movement, analyst Jonathan Wood of Control Risks, a global consulting company, advised drillers to acknowledge that communities have legitimate grievances, in order to begin to repair a “crippling trust deficit.” Wood advised, among other things, openness, voluntary disclosure and “meaningful consultations” with communities, rather than “didactic information sessions to market the presumed benefits of drilling.”

Jim Cannon, whose job at Range focuses on local government relations has changed his ways. He recently said, “We’re probably more active listeners now, so we’re probably better able to hone in on what local governments need from us. A couple years ago, maybe we weren’t as sensitive to it. … Now we recognize how vital it really is.”

We’ll see if that happens. It is difficult to overcome “crippling trust deficit but maybe the companies can begin by taking down the bill boards along the PA highways that claim if you think fracking is dangerous “You’ve been Slimed.” I believe, and it has been my personal experience, that it will be difficult to come back from being a bully in the community to having people sit around the table and have a trusting meaningful conversation. It’s not easy after you have been beaten, robbed and violated to come back and trust those who did the nasty deeds.

The answer is for the industry to stop what they’re doing, not just be more open in communications, and follow the lead of the Irish and other countries. Step back, take a breath, take time to understand what you are actually going to do to communities, the environment, water sources and decide what to do based upon real studies, real science to determine how and if we should move forward.

Today I’m proud to be an Irish woman.

For more information see:

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/state-bans-fracking-until-environmental-tests-are-carried-out-3349818.html

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2012/12/31/gas-drilling-companies-work-on-community-relations/

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Backyard Talk

Today’s Rachel Carson

Today’s Rachel Carson is a woman I know, admire and love, Dr. Beverly Paigen. I was reminded of how important Dr. Paigen is when asked to present her with an award from the Maine Environmental Health Strategies Center.

When I began to think about what I would say about Dr. Paigen I realized how groundbreaking her research was back in 1978 at Love Canal. How when she presented her theories and her research findings around the Love Canal chemicals and adverse health problems she was dismissed, ridiculed, and harassed by those who wanted to silence her, just like Rachel Carson.

Beverly conducted health studies and showed that 56% of the children were born with birth defects. She suggested that this rate may occur in the next generation as well. She found there were more girls than boys born at Love Canal. All of these finding and others were what we are calling today endocrine disrupting chemical effects. In 1978 endocrine disrupting chemicals were not on the radar screen of most environmental health scientists other than in wildlife, as Rachel’s work pointed out.

Beverly demonstrated how the chemicals had likely moved out of the dumpsite the Love Canal and into the homes that surrounded the site. Again she was dismissed. Today, there is a name for this movement of chemicals called vapor intrusion and there is even an EPA approved technology to remove the chemicals from homes called vapor intrusion mitigation technologies.

Beverly like Rachel Carson suffered for her commitment to speak truth to power. She worked for the State of New York Department of Health as a researcher at Roswell Cancer Institute. Her boss was the Health Commissioner who opposed acknowledging anything was wrong at Love Canal. The result of her speaking up . . . of her speaking out . . . was her staff at her research laboratory was cut, as was her budget, space and she was asked to keep a written record of everything she did.

Later she was called in for a personal IRS audit. As the auditor began to open his file a news article about Dr. Paigen fell out. Beverly called foul play and asked the state of New York for an apology for harassing her. The State did publicly apologize.

When the NYS Health Commissioner refused to sign the agreement for millions of dollars in research funds that would come to Roswell and the state from the federal government, she took her research money and left the state. But she didn’t stop her work with the Love Canal families. Beverly continued her research with Lynn Goldman at Oakland’s Children’s Hospital and published the first study on growth and maturation of Love Canal children exposed to environmental chemicals. This study like the others link slow growth of long bones in children with environmental chemical exposures.

All of the studies that Dr. Paigen did at Love Canal were vindicated. NYS Department of health confirmed the birth defect rate of 56% and found that Love Canal children were giving birth to children with the same rate of birth defects. Her studies on abnormal sex ratio were also confirmed as was so many of her other findings.

The State of New York has never apologized for their harassment and unfair treatment of Dr. Paigen. But, Beverly isn’t really looking for an apology she just wants the public health scientists to conduct scientific studies that are not politically manipulated, that answers as best as science can, the questions of environmental exposures and health. People, American families need honest answers in order to make decisions on their lives. Government health scientists need to be left alone to conduct scientific research regardless of the outcome, not be told what to do and say.

I wanted to take this opportunity to publicly say thank you Beverly for your courage, passion and most importantly for providing the groundbreaking scientific findings to the world regardless of the consequences. You are today’s Rachel Carson.

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Using Blood Lead Levels to Set Cleanup Goals

Lead smelter in Kellogg, ID.The creativity of our government regulators never ceases to amaze me. I’ve seen a lot of incredibly stupid and callous decisions in my time, but this one is right up at the top. The US environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 10 and the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality somehow thought it was a good idea to use Blood Lead Levels in children to establish a remedial action objective (RAO) at the Bunker Hill Superfund site in Kellogg, ID. According to a recent peer reviewed paper published in the American Journal of Public Health, this decision is codified in EPA’s 1991 Record of Decision for the Bunker Hill site (1).

According to the authors, “the 1991 ROD for the Bunker Hill mine defined the EPA RAOs for child blood lead levels and stipulated the following criteria measures: (1) less than 5% of tested children should have blood lead levels greater than 10 micrograms per deciliter and (2) less than 1% of tested children should have blood lead levels greater than 15 micrograms per deciliter.” You got that. As long as no more than 5% of the children in Kellogg have blood lead levels greater than 10 micrograms per deciliter (ug/dl) and no more than 1% had levels great than 15 ug/dl, then the site cleanup efforts could be considered “successful” (1).

What was EPA thinking when they decided to use lead levels in children to define the effectiveness of a cleanup? And then, to accept that some children will have blood lead levels that exceed the recommended criteria is unconscionable. Even if this factor was not the sole criterion used to make decisions about the effectiveness of the cleanup, it is still unethical to use the children of Kellogg in this way.

The adverse health outcomes of exposure to lead are well understood. Earlier this year the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) revised its guidelines for lead lowering the blood lead level for protecting children’s health from 10 to 5 ug/dl. At the time CDC’s Advisory Committee for Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention whose recommendations led to this change made it clear that no safe blood lead level in children has been identified.

Lead was mined at the Bunker Hill site for more than 100 years and at one time this was the home of the largest lead smelter in the United States. When the mine shut down in 1981, it left behind a toxic legacy of huge waste piles and residual contamination everywhere. Blood lead testing in children as earlier as 1976 found that 99% of Kellogg children living within 1 mile of the smelter who were tested had blood lead levels greater than 40 ug/dl (2). Today it is much less clear what the blood lead levels are because so few children are tested.

It is an injustice for EPA to treat the residents of Kellogg in this way. The residents In Kellogg have suffered disproportionately not only from lead exposure which continues to this day, but also from social disparities that include unemployment, poverty, and limited educational opportunity. Although there has been substantial cleanup at the site, it remains unclear whether there has been a corresponding improvement in community health and wellbeing. So much more needs to be done. This of course will never be achieved in communities like Kellogg, so long as decision makers think there’s nothing wrong with using the children as canaries in the mine fields.

1. Moodie, SM and Evans, EL. Ethical Issues in Using Children’s Blood Lead levels as a Remedial Action Objective. American J Public Health 2011 101(S1): S156-S160.

2. Landrigan PJ, Baker EL Jr, Feldman RG, et al. Increased lead absorption with anemia and slowed nerve conduction in children near a lead smelter. J Pediatrics 1976 89(6):904-910.

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Halloween Nightmare

I dreamed that just as I entered a Halloween haunted house the first monster I ran into was Frackenstine.  Just like the book Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley about a creature produced by an unorthodox scientific experiment I noticed that the Frackenstine that stood before me was also made up by combining many parts.  Frackenstines legs turned out to be the Ohio legislature that gave the monster his legs to make his way around Ohio, his torso was made of the Ohio oil and gas industry, his arms were the different state agencies that gave the monster the strength to strong-arm Ohio communities by not allowing citizens or local government to have any say into whether or not they wanted this massive industrial process to destroy their community.  The Frackenstine monster was so big I was having a hard time seeing who or what made up the head  but as I moved farther away from the monster I could see that the monsters head was Ohio’s own governor, Governor John Kasich who has become the mouthpiece and cheerleader for industry.

Down a long dark hallway I came to a closed door, as I opened the door I saw a room full of bubbling cauldrons.  As I looked around the room I saw thousands of Material Safety Data Sheets with all of the toxic chemicals blacked out.  There was also a flashing sign that warned of radiation.  While trying to read all of the signs I was suddenly approached by someone dressing in a hazardous materials moonsuit telling me that bubbling brew was safe and not to worry.  Even though he was dressed in protective garb he informed me that I was not allowed to know what was in the bubbling toxic brew and the door was quickly closed in my face.  As the door closed I could hear the sinister laugh of a crazy person who had spent too much time inhaling the toxic vapors of the bubbling cauldrons full of fracking fluid.

As I continued down the dark hallway I turned a corner and was face to face with a Vampire with blood dripping from his fangs. NO wait, it wasn’t blood dripping, I realized his fangs are drilling rigs that were dripping oil and he is hungry for more and more.  He can’t get enough; he is sinking his rigs into hundreds of thousands of acres of Mother Earth just to see if he can find more oil or gas to feed his needs.  I thought if I can just hold out until dawn the sun would destroy this vampire, but I was so wrong.

As I was about to exit the haunted house I heard the screams of the banshee foretelling the death of life as we know it.  No longer will we have local communities where we can cross the street without worrying about being hit by one of the thousands of trucks or being harassed by out of state workers that have no since of pride for the community.  We face industrial facilities in places where they have no business being in.

But wait, I suddenly realized I was not asleep, I was not having a nightmare.  What I had thought was a horrible nightmare was indeed reality for many communities in Ohio and across the nation that are faced with the nightmare known as fracking.

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Our Children's Schools Matter – When We Fail-They Fail

It is sad that across the country as new youngsters are entering school they are placed in harm’s way. Their emotions are mixed worried about leaving their home, daily environment and routine, while at the same time excited about their new experiences.  But toxic dangers in the air or nearby are not part of their mantra.

Yet in schools across the country parents are concerned that the location of the school building will threaten the health of their children and possible their children’s ability to lean. For example, in Richmond, Virginia there is a petition, asking the Richmond School Board to ensure the preschoolers of Norrell Elementary, near a landfill are being educated in a safe environment.  Although the petition has gained some national attention to an issue, there hasn’t been any resolution to longstanding concerns to Richmond, Virginia residents.  It hasn’t provided the pressure yet to force authorities to answer parents questions.

It has with 27,370 signatures created awareness about schools on landfills across the country and beyond. And, signatures on this petition has provided energy to beleaguered city residents who feel like they’ve been disregarded and disrespected by authorities.  A new round of testing has been committed of the school building grounds near the landfill but there is no evidence of safety.

“Local resident Kim Allen said, these developments have empowered us as we’ve come to know ourselves as people who make a difference in our community.  I, and other private citizens like me, are lending a voice to concern for the safety of children, children like my four-year-old nephew Malachi. We speak on behalf of ourselves and our families. Being a private citizen is a privilege and a powerful place to stand when addressing the safety of the children who attend Norrell Elementary school.

The question I asked myself was, Would I be okay with Malachi being in the Norrell School building for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week?  My answer . . . I don’t know. Given that concern and the urgent nature of the matter, I helped to initiate the petition.”

Despite working for over thirty years at CHEJ I’m still shocked by the blatant disregard for children’s health year after year.  Schools continue to be built on or near dumpsites like Ms. Allen speaks about or the school built in Detroit literally on top of a Superfund site. Most of these schools, not surprisingly, serve low wealth and communities of color.

Further harming everyone in the school family, when the children fail at the standardized testing it is the parents or the teachers fault — not the fault of the chemicals that inhabit their ability to learn or cause them to be sick and absent too often from school to keep up.

In Houston, Texas their recently built high school, which houses 3,500 students, is encircled by a dozen chemical facilities.  So close that if there is an accident or release at any of them, the children are trapped, left only to put wet paper towels along the window sills.  Yet, the releases from these facilities are constant and as children enter, leave or go outdoors for recess or sports they are exposed to air pollution daily.  Like the other schools when these young people fail at meeting the goals of standardized testing their parents and teachers are blamed.

It is time for all Americans to stand up and speak out about putting our children in harm’s way.  It is our tax dollars that are building these schools and we should have laws that compel schools authorities to build places of learning in safe environments.  Enough is enough.  Our children matter and are the future of our country.

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Protect Your Grandchildren Today – Eat Fat Free – Less Dioxin

A few years ago a study conducted by the NY State Department of health on former Love Canal residents identified two very important facts.  First the rate of birth defects in Love Canal children (those who were children living in the area during the crisis) is as high as it was for adults during exposures while living at Love Canal (56% of children were born with birth defects). The second finding was that there were statistically more girls than boys born to Love Canal children.  Generally it is believed that that change in normal ratio of male/female children is an indicator of exposures to hormone disrupting chemicals.

You may have already heard about these health outcomes in our newsletter or other communications.  It was the recent news about a study of dioxin and rats that reminded me of  the Love Canal studies.  At Love Canal there were 20,000 tons of chemicals buried in the center of the community and one of the chemicals identified in backyards was dioxin.

When I read the recent animal studies around dioxin and how exposures impacts children across generations, I was worried again.  Not only about my family, friends and former neighbors but for all the communities like Time Beach, Mo, Pensacola, FL, the ones people may have heard about but also communities not in the news in Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, Washington and every other community with a paper mill, wood treatment facility and pesticide sprayers.

Here is the scary news. “Pregnant rats exposed to an industrial pollutant passed on a variety of diseases to their unexposed great-grandkids.” Washington State University scientists found that third-generation offspring of pregnant rats exposed to dioxin had high rates of kidney and ovarian diseases as well as early onset of puberty. They also found changes in the great-grandsons’ sperm. The great-grandkids – the first generation not directly exposed to dioxin – inherited their health conditions through cellular changes controlling how their genes were turned on and off, the researchers reported. The dioxin doses used in the study were low for lab rats, but are higher than most people’s exposures from the environment. The study raises questions that won’t be easy to answer about people’s exposure to dioxins from food and industrial sources.

Dioxin builds up in the body and has up to a decade-long half-life in humans, so scientists say a woman who becomes pregnant even 20 years after exposure is at risk of transmitting the consequences of her exposure to later generations.  Most human studies of dioxins have focused on the direct exposure in adults and fetuses. A study of a 1976 industrial accident in Anshu Seveso,  Italy, documented health defects in the grandchildren of women that conceived as long as 25 years after exposure to dioxin. No human studies have investigated how a person’s dioxin exposure will affect their great grandkids.

So what does this mean for the millions of people directly exposed dioxin and almost everyone eating dioxin contaminated foods daily?  The average American is at 77% of the level below which exposures are considered to be safe.  That level is set for adults not babies and small children.  Children have different eating habits than adults. They tend to eat more dairy products that are high in dioxin. Dioxin is prevalent in foods that are high in saturated fat, primarily meat and dairy.

This information really reaffirms that everyone needs to eat foods with little animal fats and fat free dairy to protect our great, grandchildren.  It also should send an urgent message to EPA to get industries to clean up and stop producing dioxin pollution now.  We can’t wait nor can our grant grand babies.  Read more:

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EPA Proposes Short-term Limit on TCE Exposures

The U.S. EPA has made a remarkable decision recently to protect the health of people exposed to trichloroethylene (TCE) in indoor air, primarily as a result of vapor intrusion of TCE vapors from groundwater. The Region 9 EPA has proposed a Remedial Action Level (RAL) for acute (short term) exposure to TCE of 15 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m3) or 2.8 parts per billion by volume (ppbv). RALs are developed to protect residents exposed to chemicals in indoor air. The regional EPA staff is awaiting approval from EPA headquarters. This exposure limit was proposed to prevent against possible cardiac birth defects when pregnant women are exposed to TCE vapors. TCE is one of the most common chemical contaminants found in the environment. It is used primarily as vapor degreasing solvent to clean metal parts.

This new RAL was proposed as part of the cleanup efforts for the Middlefield-Ellis-Whisman (MEW) Superfund site in Mountain View, CA. The proposed exposure limit is based on EPA’s recently completed health assessment of TCE that set a reference concentration (RfC) for chronic exposure to TCE of 2.0 ug/m3. This reference dose is a level that EPA estimates a person can inhale over the course of their lifetime without causing any adverse health effects.

What’s unique about this proposed exposure limit is that EPA chose to use the reference concentration, which is considered a continuous lifetime exposure, as a daily average exposure. The proposed RAL assumes that a single daily exposure during the first trimester of pregnancy could result in an adverse developmental effect. I believe this is the first time that EPA has proposed a short term exposure limit for any chemical. This is a remarkable event.

The chemical industry of course has cried foul, arguing that using the RfC to create a short term exposure limit is inappropriate and that there is too much uncertainty about short term exposures to TCE. A report prepared by consultants for the chemical industry went on to say that by creating the short term RAL, the agency is considering “an overly strict standard that will cause unnecessary precautions and alarm.” No surprises there.

What it actually does is provide genuine protection for people exposed to TCE (and likely other chemicals) in homes where vapor intrusion occurs from contaminated groundwater. This is a good thing that EPA should be applauded for and encouraged to do more of. Local residents in CA support the EPA’s proposal. The Center for Public Environmental Oversight who has been active at the MEW Superfund site and on vapor intrusion issues has written to EPA asking that headquarters adopt the Region 9 proposal nationwide. EPA has not yet made a decision.

In the meantime, several states including California and New Jersey are following the EPA Region 9‘s lead and have begun using or are considering developing short term exposure limits for TCE. If you are involved in a situation with vapor intrusion of volatile chemicals like TCE, use the short term exposure limit for TCE as a guide to evaluating the risks you face. It’s a lot better than what the chemical industry would have you use.