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Chemical Mixtures May Lead to Cancer

A recently published scientific paper came to a striking conclusion – “the cumulative effects of individual (non-carcinogenic) chemicals acting on different pathways, and a variety of related systems, organs, tissues and cells could plausibly conspire to produce carcinogenic synergies.” In other words, exposure to multiple chemicals at low doses, considered individually to be”safe could result in various low dose effects that lead to the formation of cancer. This is a remarkable observation and conclusion. It is also an important advance in the understanding of the risks chemicals pose to society.

Organized by the non-profit Getting to Know Cancer, a group of 350 cancer research scientists came together in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2013 to address the question of continuous multiple chemical exposures and the risks these exposure pose. Referred to as the Halifax Project, this effort merged two very distinct fields – environmental toxicology and the biological mechanisms of cancer – and provided the opportunity for researchers to look at the diversity of environmental factors that contribute to cancer by examining the impact that exposure to very small amounts of chemicals can have on various systems of the body.

A task force of nearly 200 scientists formed at this meeting took on the challenge of assessing whether or not everyday exposures to mixtures of commonly encountered chemicals have a role to play in cancer causation. The researchers began by identifying a number of specific key pathways and mechanisms that are important in the formation of cancer. Then they identified individual (non-carcinogenic) chemicals that are commonly found in the environment that had some potential to disrupt these systems. A total of 85 environmental chemicals were identified.

The authors found that 59% of these chemicals (50/85) had low dose effects “at levels that are deemed relevant given the background levels of exposure that exist in the environment.” They found that only 15% of the chemicals reviewed (13/85) had a dose-response threshold and that the remaining 26% (22/85) could not be categorized due to a lack of dose-response information. The authors concluded that these results help “to validate the idea that chemicals can act disruptively on key cancer-related mechanisms at environmentally relevant levels of exposure.”

This is an incredibly important observation because it challenges the traditional thinking about how cancer forms in the body. It challenges the notion that all cancers share common traits (considered the “hallmarks of cancer”) that govern the transformation of normal cells to cancer cells. The authors also discuss how the results in this paper impact the process of risk assessment which even its most sophisticated model fails to address continuous exposures to mixtures of common chemicals.

The authors point out how surprisingly little is actually known about the combined effects of chemical mixtures on cancer related mechanisms and processes. This effort however seems to be a very positive step forward.

To read the full paper, go to <http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/content/36/Suppl_1/S254.full.pdf+html>.

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EPA Can Map Environmental Justice Communities – Can They Stop The Poisoning?

Today we know how to identify Environmental Justice communities but what is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) doing to relieve their community burdens? A new mapping tool created by the EPA, called EJSCREEN was recently released. This tool is great for academia or researchers but how does it help environmentally impacted communities? Why is generating information, that community already know because they are living with the pollution and associated diseases daily, more important than helping them?

CHEJ, for example, has worked for over thirty years with Save Our County in East Liverpool, Ohio This community in the 1990’s was defined by EPA as an Environmental Justice community, through their evaluation process which is the same as the mapping categories. Yet nothing has changed as a result of this definition.

  • The hazardous waste incinerator, WTI, still operates and remains for most of the time in violation of air and other standards.
  • Other industries continue to pollute with little enforcement.
  • An elementary school was closed due to the air emissions from the WTI Incinerator stack which is almost level to the school windows (incinerator is in the valley) stack peeked over the embankment. The City was force to shoulder the costs of relocating students and staff.
  • In the past several years new wells were drilled for natural gas extraction and infrastructure.
  • The community has the highest number of cancers in their county than other similar counties in the state.

    Nothing, absolutely nothing, has changed in East Liverpool, Ohio as a result of being defined an environmental justice community.

  • No decision to stop new polluting industries from setting up shop.
  • No action on denying permits, when they have been a significant repeat violator of the laws and regulation, when up for renewal permit.
  • No fee data and information when requested under the freedom of information requests.
  • No additional public comment meetings for new or existing permits. Absolute nothing changed in East Liverpool, OH and so many other communities.

    Thank you EPA for providing a tool for academics, for communities to say yes our community qualifies (although they already knew) and for real estate and banking institutions to provide information that will make it more difficult for families in Environmental Justice communities to secure a home improvement loan or sell their property.

    Now can you spend some time and money on reducing the pollution burdens and assisting with the medical professionals for disease related injuries.

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    ATSDR Fails Community Once Again

    In July of 2013, an explosion occurred at the WTI/Heritage Thermal Services (HTS) hazardous waste incinerator in East Liverpool, OH. Incinerator ash that had built up on the inside of the incinerator stack suddenly fell off causing a huge cloud of dust contaminated with heavy metals and other toxic substances to be released from the stack. An estimated 800 to 900 pounds of ash were released into the surrounding community. The plant manager advised residents to wash fruits and vegetables from their gardens and to replace food and water for pets and farm animals. Save Our County, a local group that has been fighting to shut down the incinerator for more than 20 years and other local residents were quite alarmed by what happened and asked whether this latest accident further put their health at risk.

    The state regulating agency’s response was to invite the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) to evaluate what risks the residents might have suffered. More than a year later, ATSDR released its report which concluded that the “trace amount of toxic metals in the surface and subsurface soils of the residential area west of the HTS facility affected by the July 2013 ash release are not expected to harm people’s health. The reason for this is that the concentration of these metals found in the soils are below levels of health concern.”

    It’s not clear how ATSDR came to this conclusion when some of the data included in the report clearly show contaminant levels that exceeded levels of health concern. Two (of 13) soil samples, one on-site and one off-site, both downwind, had the highest levels of contaminants of concern (though they never disclosed what these levels were). The arsenic levels found in the surface soil of the surrounding community generally exceeded public health levels of concern, ranging from 14 to 57 parts per million (ppm), averaging 20 ppm. The public health level of concern is 15 ppm.

    There is also data on two wipe samples (of 8) collected by HTS immediately after the accident that were found to contain 3,600 ppm arsenic; 13,000 ppm lead and 8,000 ppm nickel. These samples were collected from areas on-site where trucks at the facility were staged. These are all extraordinarily high and well above public health levels of concern.

    Similarly, two wipe samples collected from the community had arsenic levels at 277 ppm and lead at 819 ppm, both levels well in excess of levels of public health concern. The report refers to a third sample collected from the surface of a black S10 pick-up truck with arsenic at 296 ppm and lead at 1,046 ppm also well above public health levels of concern.

    Despite all of these results that exceeded public health levels of concern, ATSDR concluded that there is no cause for alarm and that the toxic metals released into the community “is not expected” to harm people’s health. It’s like someone at ATSDR wrote the conclusion without ever reading the report or looking at the data.

    The ATSDR report simply ignores the data that exceeds public health levels of concern and draws its conclusions as though these high levels did not exist. How can anyone trust a government agency that operates this way?

    This is what communities across the country have grown to expect from ATSDR – conclusions that are unresponsive to community concerns about potential health risks but protective of industrial pollution. Some things never change.


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    It’s Time to Move Beyond Risk Assessment

    Risk assessment is the standard method for evaluating exposure to toxic chemicals, despite the fact that it’s nearly impossible to do a risk assessment that is objective and accurate. There are just too many hard-to-measure factors affecting the chance that any one chemical will harm us and if so, how and to what extent, and too many ways for personal bias to change the results. For example, there’s been a long argument about whether arsenic causes cancer. We do know that it’s poisonous. It probably does cause cancer, but many people seem to be immune. So we’re not sure how many cases might occur, and what amount of arsenic might cause cancer. Also, it doesn’t seem to cause cancer in animals, so there’s no way to put the information together. When there are information gaps, the only thing we can do is build-in an extra safely factor, by making the “allowable” level a certain amount less than what we think the “safe” level is. But is that really the answer?

    The public wants greater protection from exposure to toxic chemicals than provided by the traditional quantitative risk assessment approach which has many limitations and uncertainties. Instead, support has grown for use of a precautionary approach that promotes (1) preventive action, (2) democratic and transparent decision-making with the broadest possible public participation, and (3) a shifting of the questions being asked (e.g., instead of asking what level of risk is acceptable, asking how much risk can be avoided; what is the need; why is it needed; who benefits and who is harmed; and what are the alternatives?) as well as the presumptions used in decision-making (e.g., shifting the burden of proof to the proponents of potentially harmful activities, and placing public health above other considerations).

    In its 2009 report, Science and Decisions, the National Resource Council (NRC) of the National Academies acknowledged that risk assessment is “at a crossroads” facing “a number of substantial challenges”, that “its credibility is being challenged”, and that the “regulatory risk assessment process is bogged down”.  The report made a number of recommendations that focused on improving the methodology of risk assessments (e.g., thorough evaluation of uncertainties and variability, unified dose-response approach to cancer and non-cancer endpoints, broadening the assessment of cumulative and interacting health risks and stressors), and improving the relevance or utility of risk assessments for decision-making (e.g., involving all stakeholders at the earliest stage of the planning, design and scoping of the risk assessment, and increasing the transparency of the assessment methods and process).

    The NRC recommended two major shifts: (1) “that risk assessment should be viewed as a method for evaluating the relative merits of various options for managing risk”, with the risk management questions being “clearly posed, through careful evaluation of the options available to manage environmental problems at hand,” casting light on “a wider range of decision options than has traditionally been the case”; and (2) aligning closely the technical analysis with the problem at hand so that the risk assessment will be relevant to the needs of the decision-makers and stakeholders who are addressing the problem (e.g., a “one size fits all” approach to risk assessment will not be appropriate for such very different problems as regulating a chemical and deciding on a site remediation approach).

    These recommendations are now more than 5 years old, and there’s little evidence that government is adopting these recommendations. Doing so should improve the ability to interpret hazards, contamination levels and population exposures, dose-response relationships, and cumulative risks (exposures from multiple pathways, complex mixtures, multiple stressors, and factors affecting vulnerability), as well as the evaluation of a wide range of alternative options (e.g., inherently safer technologies, alternative ways to achieve the same goal, etc.). It could also provide a way to integrate the risk assessment tool within a broader precautionary approach that seeks to reduce or avoid exposures to toxic chemicals, which the public is actively calling for. It’s time to stop accepting risk assessment as the best we can do to evaluate risks and adopt more a holistic approach to protecting public health and the environment.


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    EPA Laws & Regulations Really Don’t Matter

    How can ordinary people win justice from an agency that seems to care little about their own laws and regulations? Take for example the recent report that the hazardous waste incinerator (WTI) in East Liverpool, OH. It stands tall next to the Ohio River and has released toxic substances above allowable limits 195 times over 175 days. This is not new for this facility. In fact CHEJ years ago went all the way to the Supreme Court in the state of Ohio to have the incinerators permit revoked. At that time the incinerator was only within compliance (legal limits) two quarters over a number of years.

    The area surrounding the incinerator was defined as an Environmental Justice community, by the Environmental Protection Agency. As such the community should have seen tighter enforcement, more access to information and new polluting industries proposed would be weighed against the already high pollution in the area before allowed to be built.

    None of that happen. In fact, a freedom of information request was made on several occasion for information because no one would provide the information through a simple request. Those freedom of information requests were able to be fulfilled but not without the low wealth community paying about $1,500. EPA refused to waive the fee for compiling the information. Fracking and injections wells were welcome in the area and operating today with little regard to the existing community toxic burden.

    When CHEJ fought in court for the renewal permit to be revoked the local group Save Our County, filled the court room with local people. Three judges sat in the front of the room and listened to arguments from both sides. The community argument was clear, the company is breaking the law and have been for years and no one will do anything about it except collecting on a small number of fines and penalties. To WTI those fines are predictable and just the cost of doing business. The community is suffering from a multitude of adverse health impacts.

    Ohio has this regulatory system that allows innocent people to be poisoned. The court ruled against the community when CHEJ helped them to appeal the permit. The judge said he had nothing to hang his hat on and said he understands why his court room is full of unhappy people. The judge said that because according to Ohio regulations, if a company is out of compliance – but has a plan to come into compliance – than they are considered in compliance.

    What if that was the rule for everyday people and laws. For example, if you were found to be driving while drunk (DUI), but have a plan to go to alcohol anonymous, then you are not considered in violation of the law – worst you can continue to drive while under the influence, possibly killing innocent people—just like WTI.

    EPA and the state of Ohio among other states need to right this wrong. It is the innocent victims that suffer the diseases and taxpayers who are burdened with the cost of those diseases and destruction of the environment and all living things.

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    EPA’s EJ 2020 Action Agenda

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released a draft for public comment of its EJ 2020 Action Agenda (EJ 2020) Framework. This strategy document lays out its plan for continuing to address environmental justice in the context of the agency’s work. EPA is hoping to build on its EJ 2014 Action Agenda and expand that work through commitments that will continue over the next five years. EPA is seeking input on the draft EJ 2020 Action Agenda framework. The public comment period runs from April 15 to June 15. The agency is planning to conduct informational and dialogue sessions during this comment period and is encouraging the public to submit written comments. For more details, see: www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/plan-ej/.

    As described in the draft framework document, “EPA’s environmental justice efforts seek to protect the health and environment of overburdened communities, support them to take action to improve their own health and environment, and build partnerships to achieve community health and sustainability.”

    The agencies goal through 2020 is to make a visible difference in overburdened communities by:

    • Deepening  environmental justice practice within EPA programs to improve the health and environment of overburdened communities;
    • Collaborating with partners to expand our impact within overburdened communities; and
    • Demonstrating progress on outcomes that matter to overburdened communities

    Key elements to the EJ 2020 plan include incorporating EJ in rulemaking; considering EJ in permitting; advancing EJ through compliance and enforcement; supporting community based programs; fostering administration-wide action; and developing science and legal tools for considering environmental justice in decision-making. The framework document also includes a chart that defines the agency’s status and progress in achieving these key elements. In addition, EPA has established a one-stop informational “Resource for Communities” web portal as well as a new EJSCREEN tool that quantitatively identifies areas with potential EJ concerns by using environmental, health, demographic and enforcement indicators.

    Contacts on environmental justice are included for each of the 10 EPA regions and for each of 13 major divisions within the agency such as the Office of Air and Radiation, Office of Water, Office of Research and Development, etc.

    EPA will make the draft document available on April 15th on its Environmental Justice website at: www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/ej2020/. Comments can be submitted electronically to: ejstrategy@epa.gov, or via hard copy to: Charles Lee at lee.charles@epa.gov. If you have any questions, please contact Charles Lee via email or at 202-564-2597.


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    Environmental Justice – Learning from Ecuador

    In a previous blog by CHEJ’s Science Director, Stephen Lester, we saw that Environmental Justice (EJ) communities are not at all confined to the US. In fact, they may be even more prevalent in developing countries, and their struggles can help us better learn how to fight for justice in our own communities.

    One such example is in the South American country of Ecuador, where Texaco, later annexed by oil giants Chevron, polluted massive portions of the Amazon rain forest with their oil drilling operations for nearly 40 years during the later half of the past century. Between 1954 and 1990, the amount of contamination dumped in Ecuador’s Amazon portion is estimated to be over 30 times greater than the oil spilled during the Exxon Valdez disaster.

    In 2003, over 30,000 affected Ecuadorians – many of them indigenous people – filed a class-action lawsuit against Chevron, accusing the oil company of being directly responsible for more than 1,000 cancer deaths. Years of legal battles and stalling tactics by Chevron ensued, but in a recent development the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that a prior decision by an Ecuadorean court fining Chevron $9.5 billion in 2011 should be upheld.

    Although it is still unclear what body would have the authority to enforce the ICJ’s ruling, this decision is a massive victory for the people of Ecuador. Their perseverance – over 10 years of struggle and activism – lead to this development. In addition, despite having severely limited monetary resources and little education as well as political influence, they found strength in numbers. More than 30,000 individuals came together and organized for the cause. They used the small connections they had to draw in NGOs and other organizations to help them in their cause.

    In the end, the people from Ecuador may yet achieve retribution and justice from the multibillion company that polluted their homes and killed their loved ones. As for us, we should congratulate and learn from their hard work and determination.

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    World Wide Environmental Justice Map



    A terrific new resource is available to identify environmental justice (EJ) communities worldwide. The Environmental Justice Organizations, Liability, and Trade (EJOLT) has developed a worldwide interactive EJ Atlas. In an article published recently in the Guardian of London, an interactive map was published that you can click on a button and read the story about the struggle of local grassroots community based groups to address toxics waste sites, oil refineries, deforestation and much, much more.

    According to the Guardian, “the EJ Atlas aims to make ecological conflicts more visible and to highlight the structural impacts of economic activities on the most vulnerable populations. It serves as a reference for scientists, journalists, teachers and a virtual space for information, networking and knowledge sharing among activists, communities and concerned citizens.”

    The article goes on to say that the atlas was inspired by the work of participating Environmental Justice organizations including the World Rainforest Movement, Oilwatch International, OCMAL, the Latin American Observatory of Mining Conflicts, whose work fighting and supporting impacted communities for over 20 years has helped articulate a global movement for environmental justice. The atlas is a project of Ejolt, a European supported research project that brings together 23 organizations to catalogue and analyze ecological conflicts. The stories were entered by collaborating activists and researchers and moderated by a team at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

    “Beyond stories of disaster and degradation, the struggles documented in the atlas highlight how impacted communities are not helpless victims. These are not only defensive and reactionary battles but proactive struggles for common land, for energy and food sovereignty, for Buen Vivir, indigenous ways of life and for justice. The environment is increasingly a conduit for frustrations over the shape of capitalist development. Tracking these spaces of ecological resistance through the Environmental Justice Atlas highlights both the urgency and the potential of these movements to trigger broader transcendental movements that can confront asymmetrical power relations and move towards truly sustainable economic systems.”

    Last year the U.S. portion of the Atlas went live and included the 40 most influential environmental justice cases in U.S. history as identified from a national survey of environmental justice activists, scholars, and other leaders. The survey and mapping effort were led by professors Paul Mohai and Rebecca Hardin and a group at the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment.

    Below are links to the article and the Atlas, including a link that takes you directly to the U.S. portion.

    Mapping the Global Battle to Protect Our Planet

    http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/mar/03/mapping-environmental-protest-justice-defending-land?CMP=share_btn_tw#img-1

    Map of Environmental Justice Conflicts in the U.S.

    http://ejatlas.org/country/united-states-of-america

    Map of Environmental Justice Conflicts Worldwide

    http://ejatlas.org/



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    Fracking and Common Sense

    Does fracking really have the potential to contaminate our country’s drinking water supply? Can a process that occurs thousands of feet below the surface really affect it? The gas and oil industry has spent millions and millions of dollars to convince regulators and the American public that fracking is safer than a Volvo. And although their millions have largely succeeded in raising debate on the issue, it only takes some common sense to see how drinking water can be contaminated by this process. Here are only a few (of the probably thousands) of the ways in which drinking water contamination may happen:

    1. 1. Fracking Fluid: Fracking fluid is a toxic soup of different chemicals that together act to prime and dissolve the shale, as well as force gas/oil towards the surface. Oil and gas companies have kept the exact contents of the fracking fluid they use a secret, claiming that it is confidential business information. However, a new ruling in the state of California has pushed companies to reveal over 200 distinct chemicals used in fracking fluids. Many of these chemicals are known carcinogens and neurotoxins such as toluene and formaldehyde. Workers can easily be exposed to these chemicals and communities surrounding drilling sites are at risk from accidental spills.
    2. Drilling: Fracking pipelines dig down to depths of over 10,000 ft. belowground. All throughout, they are encased by rings of cement or other similar materials to prevent chemicals from seeping into the drill-hole’s surrounding. How the heck can you fully encase a 10,000-foot hole that is barely a foot in diameter in cement? It’s like inserting a 10-foot paper straw into beach sand and expecting it not to break along the way. The simple logistics of it mean that there are bound to be cracks and other imperfections that will inevitably allow fracking fluid and collected gases to leech out into the surroundings. In fact, a study published by experts from Duke, Stanford, Dartmouth and the University of Rochester found direct evidence that linked groundwater contamination to faulty casings in gas wells. Other reports estimate that between 5-7% of new gas wells leak due to structural deficiencies, and that number skyrockets to 30-50% as they age.
    3. Wastewater: Wastewater, or “produced water” as the industry calls it, is the byproduct of fracking. It contains the mix of chemicals found in fracking fluid as well as other naturally occurring contaminants from groundwater that are washed out of the fracked shale. This wastewater is then either re-injected into the ground to help force more oil to the surface, heated to make steam and injected to soften heavy oil deposits, stored in surface reservoirs, or most of it is injected underground. Here is where it does it’s damage. Trucks carrying wastewater oftentimes leak it out as they transport it, storage ponds are notoriously porous and injection wells suffer from the same structural problems as gas wells. In short, wastewater will likely find it’s way out and into our groundwater reserves.

    There are many, many more ways in which groundwater may be contaminated by fracking. The vast amounts of money spent by industry have led some people to believe the lie that it is a safe and clean technology, but we only need to use our common sense to see just how it can take away one of our most prized resources.

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    Why The West VA Oil Spill Will Not Be The Last

    A ball of fire engulfed the town of Mount Carbon West Virginia. In a freaky déjà vu moment reminiscent of the events of April of last year in Lynchburg VA, a train hauling more than 100 tankers derailed during a snowstorm on Monday in West Virginia. Just like last year, the train operator was CSX. Just like last year, a local river was contaminated. And just like last year, the train was carrying crude oil from the increasingly fracked Bakken formation in North Dakota.

    These moments of déjà vu are increasingly becoming common. In a 10 month period from March 2013 to January 2014, 10 major crude oil spills occurred due to train accidents. In the last week alone, two major oil railcar incidents made headlines – one being the incident in West VA and the other a similar accident in Ontario, Canada.

    Why is all this happening? Simple. Oil and gas production has increased exponentially in the past few years mainly due to the fracking boom that has taken over the country. The amount of oil being transported through rail has increased from 9,500 carloads in 2008, to over 400,000 in 2013 according to the Association of American Railroads; and 2014 figures are expected to far surpass this number. More oil equals more trains – and more trains equal more accidents.

    The oil and gas industry has spent millions of dollars to convince the nation that fracking is safe and environmentally friendly. Its several potential dangers, from groundwater contamination and exhaustion to public health and social issues, are unquestionable truths that are clouded in the eyes of the public by constant streams of money from the industry. Now, the increase in railroad accidents, like the Mount Carbon spill, are a new threat to add to the long list of hazards due to fracking. And as this new danger gains more media attention, the oil and gas industry will be the reason why this oil spill will not be the last.