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Backyard Talk

Partnership Between University and Community finds Airborne Health Risks from PCBs in New Bedford Harbor Sediment

A unique collaboration between university and community led to an important study evaluating the human health risks posed by airborne polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) coming from sediment in the New Bedford Harbor in Massachusetts. Researchers from Boston University found that the harbor, the home of one of the largest PCBs Superfund sites in the country, is the primary source of PCBs in the air around the harbor. They described the harbor as the “largest reported continuous source of airborne PCBs from natural waters in North America.”
The study found that PCB levels in the ambient air were highest closest to the harbor and that changes in thyroid levels are more likely to occur among people who live near the harbor compared to residents who live further away. These researchers focused on the non-cancer risks posed by exposure to PCBs rather than the cancer risks which EPA used to drive its decisions on the cleanup of the harbor which has been ongoing since the 1990s. So far, more than 425,000 cubic yards of PCB-contaminated sediment has been removed from the harbor as of December 2017 according to the EPA. Much of this waste has been placed in a constructed landfill in the harbor. The local group, Hands Across the River, has been fighting to stop the agency from doing this for years.
In response to requests from residents to monitor the ambient outdoor air for PCBs in places where they live, researchers from Boston University partnered with the Toxic Action Center, the University of Iowa and local residents to identify locations and design a monitoring program to meet community needs. In contrast, EPA selected monitoring locations for convenience or where concentrations were expected to be the highest.
The researchers modeled the data they collected and for the first time were able to estimate residential exposures and health risks for residents living around the harbor. They chose the thyroid as a target of PCB toxicity based on strong evidence in human and animal studies in the scientific literature. They compared thyroid changes in residents and PCB levels in the ambient air near and distant from the harbor and were able to show potential health risks associated with proximity to the PCB contaminated Superfund site in the New Bedford Harbor.
EPA’s response to these findings in part was to say that “the measured levels of airborne PCBs have never exceeded EPA’s health-based criteria.” This of course misses the point that this study identified new health risks beyond what the agency had previously considered. EPA’s standard risk procedures do not capture all health risks. Their focus was on cancer risk. This study focused on non-cancer health risks.
It has long been suspected that PCBs in the sediment of rivers and waterways will evaporate to some degree and eventually become airborne, but industry and government have pushed back arguing that PCBs do not substantially volatilize and if they did, their impact would be insignificant. This study puts that argument to rest.
This study is a remarkable example of what scientists and researchers can do together to address community needs. Scientific information is a powerful tool when university expertise and resources are focused on responding to community concerns. In this collaboration, new risks were identified that EPA had not previously considered. More of these collaborations are needed.

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EPA adds Depue Superfund site to the Administrator’s Emphasis List

The EPA has announced its seventh update to the Administrator’s Emphasis List of  Superfund Sites with the addition of the Depue New Jersey Zinc site in Depue, Illinois. The addition to the list came in partnership with the transfer of oversight from the Illinois EPA to the US EPA. The US EPA with continue to work with the Illinois EPA to move forward with Potential Responsible Party negotiations and soil cleanups. Read More.

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Portland City makes movement towards cleaning Willamette Superfund Site

The Portland City Council approved an ordinance on Wednesday, September 11 to appropriate $2 million towards a cleanup plan for the Willamette Cove Superfund Site. Established as a Superfund site in 2000, the contaminated river has experienced slow cleanup, despite having a total of 150 known potentially responsible parties. City officials have predicted that the plan will take three to four years to complete and a total of $8.1 million that will be divided evenly among at least four of the responsible parties. The city hopes this plan will create greater collaboration with the EPA and encourage other responsible parties to get involved in the cleanup. Read More.

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EPA announces completion of Superfund Task Force

The Environmental Protection Agency announced the completion of the Superfund Task Force and issued the Task Force’s report on Superfund work within the last two years. The announcement was made on Monday at a sight visit to Superfund site, American Cyanamid, of Bridgewater, New Jersey. Present at the site was EPA Assistant Administrator, Peter Wright, and Regional Administrator, Pete Lopez, who presented the Task Force’s targets for continued site cleanups. Read More.

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Backyard Talk

Changing the Traditional Understanding of How Chemicals Affect Our Health

The way scientists think about how chemicals cause their toxic effects is changing. Recent scientific research tells us that the traditional notion of how chemicals act is being replaced by a better understanding of the actual features of exposures to environmental chemicals. These features include the timing and vulnerability of exposures, exposures to mixtures, effects at low doses and genetic alterations called epigenetics.
Traditional thinking tells us that how much of a chemical you are exposed to (the dose) determines the effect. This principle assumes that chemicals act by overwhelming the body’s defenses at high doses. We’re learning now that this principle is not always accurate and its place in evaluating risks needs to be reconsidered. What we now know is that some chemicals cause their adverse effects at low exposure levels that are not predicted by classic toxicology.
Recent research has shown that environmental chemicals like dioxin or bisphenol A can alter genetic make-up, dramatically in some cases.  These changes are so powerful that they can alter the genetic material in eggs and sperm and pass along new traits in a single generation, essentially by-passing evolution.
It wasn’t too long ago that scientists believed that the DNA in our cells was set for life, that our genes would be passed on from one generation to the next, and that it would take generations to change our genetic makeup. That’s no longer the case.
This new field – called epigenetics – is perhaps the fastest growing field in toxicology and it’s changing the way we think about chemical exposures and the risks they pose. Epigenetics is the study of changes in DNA expression (the process of converting the instructions in DNA into a final product, such as blue eyes or brown hair) that are independent of the DNA sequence itself.
What researchers are learning is that the “packaging” of the DNA is just as important as a person’s genetic make-up in determining a person’s observable traits, such as blue eyes, or their susceptibility to diseases such as adult on-set diabetes, or to the development of lupus.
The environment is a critical factor in the control of these packaging processes. We may be born with our genes, but epigenetics changes occur because of environmental influences during development and throughout life. These influences include chemicals in the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and they appear to contribute to the development of cancer and other diseases.
Epigenetics may explain certain scientific mysteries, such as why certain people develop diseases and others don’t, or why the person who smoked for 30 years never developed lung cancer. There is still much to learn, but an early lesson to take away from this emerging science is that we need to rethink our traditional ideas of how chemicals affect our health.
For more information see
https://www.healthandenvironment.org/environmental-health/social-context/gene-environment-interactions

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Philadelphia Refinery Explosion Yet Another Close Call With Hydrogen Fluoride

This past month, Philadelphia was rocked by a massive refinery explosion that released smoke and toxic chemicals into the sky. The explosion occurred at 4am and was visible throughout the city, and residents were warned to shelter in place until the fire was more contained.
Luckily, reports indicate that no one was killed, but five workers were injured in the explosion. The refinery in question, Philadelphia Energy Solutions, has been responsible in the past for 72% of Philadelphia’s toxic emissions. After this explosion, the refinery will close.
However, the explosion was nearly deadly, as the fires could have moved to burn tanks containing Hydrogen Fluoride, an incredibly dangerous chemical that can be lethal even if inhaled in small doses. Hydrogen Fluoride is a commonly used in oil refineries across the US, and these refineries commonly burn— like the Husky Superior Refinery in the Twin Ports area of Wisconsin in April of last year. In the Husky Refinery explosion, the HF tanks were about 200 feet away from the fires and narrowly missed being hit by debris. If the HF tanks had been detonated in the Philadelphia Refinery explosion, hundreds of thousands of people’s lives would have been at risk.
While the Philadelphia refinery is closing, the Twin Ports Refinery is not, nor are many HF using refineries across the United States. Even though many citizens have demanded that these refineries remove the chemical from there practice, it is not currently banned in the United States. Why, then, are oil companies continuing to risk disaster? <Read More>
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Matt Rourke // Associated Press
Matt Rourke // Associated Press
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Is EPA Stifling Science on Chemical Toxicity Reports?

This is the question that journalist Jim Daley raised recently in an article published in Scientific American. According to the article, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is substantially changing the program that evaluates the toxicity of chemicals by shifting staff and program emphasis from the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) to duties related to implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Daley writes that “Former EPA officials contend that the shake-up takes chemical assessments out of the hands of career scientists, potentially to the detriment of public health.”
As evidence of this shift, Daley writes that that the agency has reduced the number of its ongoing chemical toxicity assessments from twenty to three.
The IRIS Program began in 1985 to support EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment by identifying and characterizing the health hazards of chemicals found in the environment. The IRIS program has become the most respected scientific program in the agency. Its health assessments are the backbone of EPA risk analysis work and is the preferred source of toxicity information used by EPA to determine public health risks. It is also an important source of toxicity information used by state and local health agencies, other federal agencies, and international health organizations.
The TSCA program on the other has a much narrower focus which is primarily on reporting, record-keeping and testing requirements, and restrictions relating to chemical substances and/or mixtures, according to EPA’s website. Certain substances are not covered by TSCA including food, drugs, cosmetics and pesticides. While the 2016 amendment to TSCA greatly improved this regulation, it did not address its narrow focus. This shift began with the leadership of Andrew Wheeler who took over for a beleaguered Scott Pruitt as administrator of EPA in July 2018.
One EPA official who declined to be identified was quoted in the Daley article saying that IRIS and TSCA are “very different” in their approaches to evaluating the public health risks posed by exposure to chemicals. “One could make the argument that this is political interference, in that high-level people are saying which methodology we should be using to assess the safety of a chemical. “And the policy’s pretty clear that they’re not supposed to do that.”
Bernard Goldstein, Professor Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, who served as EPA Assistant Administrator of the Office of Research and Development (ORD) from 1983 to 1985, summed it up this way in the Daley article, “I really see this as part of a restructuring of EPA in such a way that science will have very little to do with what EPA is basing its regulation on, and that we will end up with much weaker regulations in terms of protecting public health. “It’s troubling, in large part because it’s very consistent with an overall approach – a very astute approach – to take out the inconvenient facts.”  Also cited in the same article was a comment by Thomas Burke from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a former EPA lead scientist adviser and Deputy Administrator of ORD from 2015 to 2017, “’any  reduction’ of the number of IRIS chemical assessments ‘is a loss for public health and, unfortunately, puts populations who are exposed at risk.’”
Read the full article here.

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Elementary school to be constructed near hazardous waste site in North Carolina

A new elementary school in Moore County, North Carolina, is to be constructed between two Superfund sites threatened by high levels of air pollution, NC Policy Watch reports. According to the city, the site bears no heightened risk of contamination, but CHEJ science director Stephen Lester isn’t so sure. Stephen shares CHEJ’s findings that there is no scientifically proven “safe distance” from pollution sites, and he calls into question effectiveness of current school siting guidelines. He recommends that parents sending their kids to the new Aberdeen elementary school in the future be incredibly vigilent about changes in their children’s health.
The Moore County case is particularly relevant because the new Aberdeen elementary school would serve primarily low-income students and students of color. In many ways, constructing a new elementary school is a push toward progress, as existing Aberdeen elementary schools were built during the segregation era. However, the new elementary school’s future location could potentially mean disproportionately exposing students of color and low income students to environmental contamination. As Stephen says, children are at higher risk for health complications from pollution contamination, and no child should have to face health complications due to pollution. <Read more>
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Train station in Aberdeen, North Carolina
Train station in Aberdeen, North Carolina

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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Internal emails reveal how the chemical lobby fights regulation

Jayne DePotter spent almost a decade making her Michigan jewelry studio a second home for young artists seeking direction, seniors looking to exercise their hands and minds and new immigrants in search of community. <Read more>.

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Opinion: Fix trade secret law to protect precious water from fracking

If the public is going to have a robust debate about the merits of fracking, both sides need to know what’s being pumped into the ground. <Read more>.