Please check the CHE-WA website to stay abreast of the latest postings, news and events: http://washington.chenw.org.
To join the Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE) and CHE-Washington, please complete the form at http://www.healthandenvironment.org/roles/register?&phase=registerform. Be sure to mark that you want to join the Washington State Regional Group at the bottom of the application.
September 1, 2006
Portland, Oregon
at Kaiser Permanente Internal Medicine Grand Rounds
Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility's "In Harm's Way: Toxic Threats to Health" program educates health providers about the linkages between environmental toxins and development, in order to prevent exposure. Health care providers are uniquely positioned to provide information to parents at critical developmental stages and identify opportunities for intervention. The routine well-child exam is an ideal time for families to receive information, understand the links between environment and their child's health, and make changes necessary to minimize exposure. Through providers, information about avoiding exposures to environmental toxins can reach thousands of Oregonians of every age, class and ethnicity.
Website: http://www.oregonpsr.org/programs/InHarmsWayToxicThreatsToHealth.htm
September 7-8, 2006
Bellevue, Washington
at the Meydenbauer Center
The Puget Sound Partnership meets regularly in its quest to develop an aggressive 15-year plan to solve Puget Sound's most vexing problems. The Partnership is holding a series of general public forums and specific scientific forums throughout the summer and fall.
Website: http://www.pugetsoundpartnership.org/
Contact: Martha Neuman, 206-625-0230 or mneuman@sharedsalmonstrategy.org
September 15, 2006
8:30 a.m. - 4:15 p.m.
Seattle, Washington
In order to help US companies prepare for REACH and move beyond the law toward sustainable chemicals management, the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production is organizing a series of one-day training workshops. These workshops will explain the key features of REACH, giving participants a chance to ask experts about how REACH will affect their companies. The LCSP will also provide training in the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling (GHS), the use of sustainable chemicals management, green chemistry, and cleaner production approaches, and how they can help businesses turn REACH around from a challenge to an opportunity. Andrew Fasey, one of the key authors of REACH and the GHS, will be the lead trainer in the workshops, along with LCSP senior staff. The new REACH system will put much more responsibility on companies to collect data on most chemicals on the market, assess the risk of these chemicals, and define safe use down the supply chain. It will also create a new system for dealing with the most hazardous chemicals, in which companies will have to justify continued use of chemicals of very high concern. Any company that exports chemicals or chemical mixtures into the EU, that competes in Europe, the US, or elsewhere with products meeting European standards, or that exports finished products to Europe, will be affected.
Website: http://www.chemicalspolicy.org/registration.shtml
October 19, 2006
9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Tacoma, Washington
This meeting is hosted by the Washington Department of Ecology, and People For Puget Sound is helping with logistics. This event will be free and open to all. The featured speakers will be Steve Weisberg from Southern California Coastal Water Research Project Authority (SCCWRP) and Jay Davis from San Francisco Estuary Institute. Steve and Jay will describe their regional monitoring programs, with a focus on lessons learned. These presentations will be followed by a group discussion about regional monitoring opportunities/challenges for WA.
Website: http://www.ecy.wa.gov/
The Seattle Biotech Legacy Foundation (SBLF) is a philanthropic organization, founded four years ago, with roots in the Seattle biotechnology community. The mission of SBLF is to apply a science-based approach to the interconnected issues of human health, the environment and sustainability. We are an interdisciplinary community of volunteers who collectively offer our financial resources, talent and expertise and embrace a culture of collaboration in our work. After successful creation and implementation of our initial programs, we now seek an Executive Director (our only paid staff position) to help move the organization from a “startup” phase towards a more mature organization.
We are looking for a person who can guide and influence an organization, think strategically, and work in a collaborative manner with various constituencies. Qualified candidates will be able to take the initiative to further our goals by identifying opportunities and recommending courses of action. Applicants should submit a cover letter and resume or CV via e-mail to sblf@sblfoundation.org. For more information about SBLF see http://www.sblfoundation.org.
Position description: http://www.sblfoundation.org/docs/SBLF%20ED%20Job%20Posting.pdf
edited by Ted Smith, David A. Sonnenfeld and David Naguib Pellow
http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/1788_reg.html
Sandra Steingraber, PhD, author of Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment writes of this book: "Challenging the Chip is essential reading for anyone who owns a cell phone or computer. As its vividly written chapters reveal, our digital possessions connect us not only to global information but also to global contamination and injustice. Happily, this book shows us that we can have technology and clean water, too: Electronics sustainability is organic agriculture for iPods."
from Xinhua News Agency, People's Daily
August 22, 2006
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200608/22/eng20060822_295702.html
China's legislature is considering its first ever law to ban the sale of cigarettes and alcohol to 300 million young people below the age of 18. A draft amendment to the Law on the Protection of Minors would compel shopkeepers to display signs saying the cigarettes and alcohol would not be sold to minors. The amendment, submitted to China's legislature on Tuesday for a preliminary reading, contains 25 new provisions, but has no specified penalties.
The draft amendment stipulates that shops or individuals caught selling tobacco and drink to minors will be asked to "correct their mistakes" and receive "administrative punishment", which could include fines. The draft amendment would also prohibit the production and sale of books, newspapers, audio-video products, computer games and cartoons with pornographic, violent, or disturbing content or gambling information to minors, for which offenders would face "severe punishment".
China's Law on the Protection of Minors went into effect in 1992. "Over the past ten years or so, Chinese society has seen significant changes and some new problems are threatening the healthy development of children," said Zhu Mingshan, vice chairman of the Committee for Internal and Judicial Affairs of the National People's Congress (NPC), at the 23rd session of the NPC Standing Committee starting on Tuesday.
from the BBC News
August 22, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5271502.stm
Climatic changes could lead to more outbreaks of bubonic plague among human populations, a study suggests. Researchers found that the bacterium that caused the deadly disease became more widespread following warmer springs and wetter summers. The disease occurs naturally in many parts of the world, and the team hopes their findings will help officials limit the risk of future outbreaks. The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The bacterium Yersinia pestis is believed to have triggered the Black Death that killed more than 20 million people in the Middle Ages.
Rodent hosts
The international team of scientists, who focused their research on Kazakhstan, said the disease was widespread among rodent populations. Writing in the paper, co-author Nils Stenseth from the University of Oslo said: "The desert regions of Central Asia are known to contain natural foci of plague where the great gerbil (Rhombomys opimus) is the primary host. Plague spread requires both a high abundance of hosts and a sufficient number of active fleas as vectors transmitting plague bacteria between hosts," the Norwegian scientist added.
Fleas became active when the temperature exceeded 10C (50F), so a warm, frost-free spring led to an early start to breeding. The flea population continued to grow when the spring was followed by a wet, humid summer, the researcher wrote. The combination of the two seasons' climatic conditions lead to an increase in the number of the insects feeding off the great gerbils, resulting in a greater transmission of plague. The study showed that just a 1C (1.8F) rise in the springtime temperature led to a 59% increase in the prevalence of the disease. The greater prevalence of plague in the region's wildlife increased the risk of local people becoming infected.
Each year, up to 3,000 cases of humans contracting bubonic plague are reported in Asia, parts of Africa, the US and South America. The researchers studied data on infected gerbils, flea counts and climate patterns from 1949 to 1995. Professor Stenseth added that their findings also helped shed light on two of the world's worst plague outbreaks; the medieval Black Death and the Asian pandemic in the 19th Century, which claimed the lives of tens of millions of people. "Analyses of tree-ring proxy climate data shows that conditions during the period of the Black Death (1280-1350) were both warmer and increasingly wet. "The same was true during the origin of the Third Pandemic (1855-1870) when the climate was wetter and underwent an increasingly warm trend," he added.
The researchers hope their findings will help health officials put measures in place to limit the impact of future outbreaks. But Professor Stenseth warned that recent changes to the region's climate suggested that warmer springs were becoming more frequent, increasing the risk of human infections.
by Judy Fahys, Salt Lake Tribune
August 22, 2006
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_4217693
Idaho environmentalists say new data show Nevada mines have chronically underreported their output of mercury that is believed to float into nearby states. "It continues to be a significant public health threat," said Justin Hayes, of the Idaho Conservation League. Utahns and their Idaho neighbors worry that unregulated mercury from the Nevada mines has wound up in the air and eventually in water and wildlife. Now, nine Idaho water bodies have fish consumption advisories, and Utah has three for fish and a blanket warning against eating two species of Great Salt Lake ducks because of mercury. Some of the highest environmental mercury levels ever detected have been found in recent years in Great Salt Lake.
The Idaho group made a public information request to the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection a few months after the regulators adopted new, mandatory mercury monitoring at the mines. Voluntary reductions by four mines have cut emissions from 15,000 pounds in 2002 to about 4,000 in 2004. But Hayes pointed to data recently submitted to Nevada regulators by Newmont Mining Co. that showed the company's Gold Quarry mine reported releasing 200 pounds of mercury in 2004 but that had grown to 650 pounds last year. At its Twin Creek mine, Newmont reported 300 pounds of mercury releases in 2004 but 600 pounds in 2005. "That is a result of finally accurate monitoring," said Hayes. Past emissions were projected by computer, based on measures taken years ago. Newmont Mining did not respond to a call seeking comment.
Mercury is naturally occurring, but it takes on toxic qualities under certain natural conditions in the environment. This poisonous methylmercury builds up in the food chain. When too much is ingested, it can cause neurological problems, including learning disabilities. Children and the unborn are generally thought to be the most vulnerable, so warnings typically focus on women of child-bearing age and children.
In Utah, environmental officials have taken a wait-and-see approach to the gold-mine mercury, saying a better understanding is needed of how mercury gets here. The Utah Department of Water Quality formed a task force on the issue that involves government agencies, environmental groups, trade groups and others. Dante Pistone, spokesman for the Nevada Environment Department, declined to comment on the conservation group's conclusions. He noted that the group already has put his agency on notice that it intends to file suit about mercury controls. "Our policy is not to comment on matters in which litigation is pending," he said in an e-mail. "Although the lawsuit has not been filed yet, we don't want to say anything that might be used by either side."
Barrick Gold said it had good news to report from at least one of its mines. The Goldstrike mine, the nation's largest, saw mercury decline from 2,174 pounds in 2004 to 1,678 pounds last year, reported Rich Haddock, Barrick's environmental vice president. Mercury releases for this year are expected to be less than 1,000 pounds, he said. Meanwhile, the company's newly acquired Cortez mine reported to the state 487 pounds of mercury emissions in 2004 and 849 pounds last year. Haddock said emissions should be around 300 pounds this year.
from BBC News
August 21, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4799445.stm
Tests showed exposing baby mice to constant light keeps the master biological clock in their brains from developing properly. Researchers said this could contribute to an increased risk of mood disorders, such as depression. The Vanderbilt University study appears in the journal Pediatric Research.
The researchers say their findings suggest special care baby units should try to minimise a baby's exposure to artificial lighting -- possibly by using a day/night cycle. Each year about 14 million premature babies are born worldwide, and many are exposed to artificial lighting in hospitals.
Synchronized cells
Previous research has found infants from neonatal units with cyclic lighting tend to begin sleeping through the night more quickly, and gain weight faster than those from units with constant lighting. In all mammals the master biological clock is located in an area of the brain called the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN). It influences the activity of many organs, including the brain, heart, liver and lungs and regulates the daily activity cycles known as circadian rhythms. The SCN is filled with special clock neuron cells whose activity is synchronized follow the 24-hour day/night cycle.
The Vanderbilt team had already shown SCN neurons in adult mice begin drifting out of a phase after the animals were exposed to constant light for about five months. This is accompanied by a breakdown in their ability to maintain their normal nocturnal cycle.
Telltale glow
The latest study found that newborn mice were even more vulnerable to the effects of constant light than the adults. The Vanderbilt team used genetically modified mice whose clock neurons produced a bright glow when active. They found neurons in baby mice exposed to the normal light cycle quickly became synchronised. In contrast, neurons in those animals exposed to constant light were unable to maintain coherent rhythms. However, when these animals were then exposed to the day/night cycle of light their neurons rapidly fell into line.
The scientists then exposed some mice to constant light for a much longer period -- and found that two-thirds were unable to establish a regular pattern of activity on an exercise wheel. Conversely, newborn mice who spent their first three weeks in a day/night cycle were able to maintain their normal daily rhythm when later exposed to constant light.
Lead researcher Dr Douglas McMahon said more work was needed to establish whether disruption of a baby's biological clock could increase their vulnerability to mood disorders. "All this is speculative at this point. But, certainly the data would indicate that human infants benefit from the synchronizing effect of a normal light cycle."
Efforts underway
Professor Andrew Shennan, an expert in obstetrics for Tommy's, the baby charity, said the link between light exposure and its effects on mood and behaviour were quite firmly established. "Currently, any babies who are admitted to a special care baby unit are going to be exposed to incredibly harsh lighting to facilitate care, at anytime day or night that it is needed. "Many units now try and reduce adverse stimuli including lighting for periods during the day and at night.
"As a result of this research the potential benefit of reducing unnecessary light exposure must now be investigated, as it would seem that there is a strong possibility that this could improve the development of the body clock." Newborn mice provide a good model for premature human infants because baby mice are born at an earlier stage of development than humans, a stage closely equivalent to that of premature babies.
by Bill Wolfe, Louisville Courier-Journal
August 21, 2006
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060821/BUSINESS/608210333
For nearly two years, Jeffersonville, Ind., mattress maker Mark Strobel fought a federal proposal for tougher fire standards for his industry. The new rules, he argued, would lead companies to lace bedding with toxic fire-retardant chemicals such as boric acid and antimony. But since the final approval of the Consumer Product Safety Commission regulation, which takes effect next July, Strobel has changed tactics. His 32-year-old business, Strobel Technologies, will focus on producing "clean" mattresses that will be exempt from the new rules if prescribed by a physician or chiropractor. "For me, the best thing to do is save as many people as I can from the exposure risk. So I set up a retail outlet here at the factory to offer prescription beds that don't include the toxic chemicals," Strobel said.
One of his first customers in the new showroom was Benita Conn, a Louisville radio station account manager who came to the store with her husband, Keith, in part because of concerns about chemicals. "You hear so many horror stories" about dangerous chemicals that can cause cancer, she said. "You always want to look out for your own safety. Plus, we have a 12-year-old at home and occasionally she will sleep in our bed when she's sick." The Strobel beds might be more susceptible to fire, Benita Conn said, but "it's a trade-off." "I think you're more likely to get cancer from the chemicals that you breathe and are exposed to in our society nowadays than you are (at risk) from fire, to be honest with you," she said.
Strobel hopes worries about chemicals will bring more customers to the outlet at 3131 Industrial Parkway. But this isn't the first time his company has changed direction. Regulations, technology and customer tastes can change, and the ability to adapt is key to survival, Strobel said. The University of Kentucky graduate learned business basics from his father, who owned a Louisville aerosol-products company. After college, Strobel said, "I knew I wanted my own business. I wanted a growth industry. I was ... sleeping on a water bed, and it occurred to me: Water beds are something that really sell well. And they did -- in the '70s and '80s."
Strobel began making bed frames at a western Louisville shop in 1974, then opened a store on Bardstown Road. In 1976, he changed business strategies, realizing that it would be more profitable to make the water-bed mattresses and buy the frames from another supplier. He also moved his operation to a Jeffersonville industrial park. By the 1980s, the popularity of water beds began to decline, and Strobel switched gears again, moving into producing conventional mattresses. Strobel Technologies is one of about 550 mattress companies nationwide, but larger companies dominate the industry, he said, with the 10 largest controlling 90 percent of the market.
The new standards threaten to make things more difficult for smaller companies, Strobel said, because of the added costs of production, testing and certifying mattresses. It costs $4,000 to $5,000 per model for testing, and the typical manufacturer has about 25 models, Strobel said. "It's going to hurt all the smaller manufacturers" to comply, he said, but larger manufacturers can more easily absorb the extra cost.
Mattresses already must be able to withstand a lighted cigarette. Under the new federal standards, pioneered under a California law, they must be able to endure an open flame. Strobel said he also was alarmed to learn more about the chemicals that can be used to increase flame resistance. "At first I didn't know what boric acid was. ... Then I found out it was roach killer, and it's acutely poisonous," he said. Other treatments include decabromodiphenyl oxide, a suspected cancer-causing chemical, and antimony, a naturally occurring element that can also cause assorted health problems. Although the new regulations won't go into effect until next summer, many manufacturers have already complied with the requirement.
To Strobel, it made no sense to put such chemicals in bedding. "Your nose is right next to the mattress, and you're breathing that, whatever comes out. And whatever leaches to the surface, you're absorbing through your skin," he said. He began a one-man campaign against the standards, contacting new media and launching http://www.peopleforcleanbeds.org.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission doesn't foresee a problem, however. "We looked at all kinds of real-world scenarios -- things like bed-wetting, jumping on the bed, sweating, etc. In the end, the tests proved that even under the most extreme-use conditions, there is an insignificant risk of health problems to consumers," said commission spokeswoman Patty Davis. "Consumers who purchase a new mattress that meets the standard will be adding an important layer of protection to their home" and "lives will be saved," Davis said. The regulation had the support of the International Sleep Products Association, a trade group.
But Dr. Doris J. Rapp, a certified environmental medical specialist and pediatric allergist in Scottsdale, Ariz., sides with Strobel. "The fire retardants are very bad," she said, adding that boric acid is highly poisonous. "They tell you if you're going to use it around your house for cockroaches, to be careful to wear gloves and mask and keep your pets away from it. "I hardly think that that is something that should be put in the top of mattresses that children and adults bounce up and down on."
Strobel acknowledges that the issue is settled. He now runs ads touting the benefits of mattresses that are "toxin free." He hopes to market them through chiropractors, and drum up sales through his Jeffersonville factory showroom. He also sells online at http://www.prescriptionbeds.com. "My biggest problem," Strobel said, is "to try to get the word out about the chemicals."
by Brent Jones, Baltimore Sun
August 21, 2006
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.demolition21aug21,0,7400201.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines
As a piece of heavy machinery picked at rubble heaped where a block of rowhouses once stood, Robin Carter-Morton scanned the debris in search of public enemy No. 1 -- dust. To hold down the dust, the debris had been soaked with water, but it was drying out under the relentless summer sun, so Carter-Morton ordered workers to hose it down again. "We're not going to get rid of all of the dust," said Carter-Morton. "But we do try to minimize it as much as possible."
Carter-Morton is overseeing the demolition of more than 500 vacant houses in East Baltimore near Johns Hopkins Hospital. There's a science to her work: The houses are being razed using strict guidelines based on research by Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health. The guidelines call for minimizing dust, lead emissions, rodent infestation and other potential hazards. The land is being cleared to make way for a life sciences and technology park that will include offices, retail stores and housing. The $1 billion project is expected to generate 6,000 jobs and link biotech firms with Hopkins researchers.
Carter-Morton works for East Baltimore Development Inc., the nonprofit group managing the project. More than 250 families were relocated before the demolition began. Since it started last month, more than 378 houses have been torn down. As she tours the area, dust is one of the hazards she's especially concerned about. Exposure to high dust levels has been linked to allergies, asthma attacks and other health problems.
EBDI reviewed the research of Dr. Mark Farfel and his colleagues at the Bloomberg School of Public Health when it drew up the guidelines for the demolition. City health officials, community residents and a private demolition contractor also provided input. For six years Farfel studied demolition projects in the city, noting inadequate control of dust, lead emissions, wastewater accumulation, public access to the demolition site and other safety hazards, according to EBDI. To test the effectiveness of the guidelines, 16 houses in the project area were razed last summer and the results were monitored, EBDI officials said.
According to EBDI's manual for the demolition project, the following e safeguards have been implemented:
EBDI Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Robert C. Penn, said there have been few complaints about dust from neighborhood residents. Before the demolition began, the company gave away 250 vacuum cleaners to residents living near the demolition area. "There has been no real significant dust," Penn said. "We had a couple of buildings, because of the weak structures, they went down kind of fast, and you had a puff. So I don't want to say it was no dust, but they have been real good in terms of wetting down [the] site, so in a matter of seconds, it was gone."
But officials with the Save Middle East Baltimore Action Committee, a community group that's voiced opposition to the demolition, tell a different story. Marisela Gomez, the group's executive director, says she has received 10 to 15 stories of residents who have suffered from the increased dust in the area. One woman said she had to go to the hospital because she was having trouble breathing, according to Gomez. Gomez said people have been complaining about the dust, "since the demolition started." "It really is increased stress on the residents," she said. "People are saying it's stressful and depressing to come out and see the noise and dust and traffic."
As the demolition work enters the homestretch, the focus for P&J Contracting, the firm charged with clearing the site, has begun debris removal. Every hour, several two-ton covered trucks carrying damp rubble head toward Honeygo Landfill in Baltimore County. The debris is wetted down at a check point before heading out to Ashland Avenue. The project area is bound by Eager Street to the north, Ashland to the south, Broadway to the west and Washington Street to the east.
Nearly 7,000 tons of debris have been removed, and officials expect another 153,000 tons when the project is finished. Once the debris is cleared, workers will remove the foundations and footers of the former units. "It is going to take a while," Penn said. For now, though, rubble in some areas rises to fence level, a height of about 6 feet. EBDI officials say the debris will not get higher.
With continued good weather, the demolition and debris removal is expected to be complete by Oct. 31, the original target date. Despite steamy, hot weather in which temperatures soared into triple digits, workers have yet to miss a day.
The independent panel monitoring the air will host an open meeting in September, inviting residents who want an update on the air and soil samples. The community action committee is scheduled to meet with residents in the coming weeks as well. Carter-Morton is serving as EBDI's point person for problems before then. "They know they can come to me if they see anything out of the ordinary," Carter-Morton said.
by Karen Dillon, Kansas City Star
August 21, 2006
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/15321984.htm
Vincente and Guadalupe Ojeda didn't know the windowsills and porches of their 86-year-old dream home could poison their children. But during a visit this summer to WIC, a government nutritional program, two of the Ojedas' four children tested positive for lead in their blood. Almost invisible lead dust coming from the cracked and peeling paint in their Kansas City, Kan., home was poisoning them, health investigators said. "I felt really bad when I found out," Guadalupe Ojeda said later.
Decades after the hazard first became known, lead paint poisoning remains the leading environmental health risk to children in Missouri and Kansas, experts say. Indeed, Kansas City ranked 19th among large cities for childhood lead poisoning in 2004, although in population it only ranks 40th. The city had 214 new cases that year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Mary Zahner, a nurse for the childhood lead poisoning prevention program in Wyandotte County, said many people don't know that lead poisoning is still common. Use of lead paint was outlawed in 1978, but it remains in many houses. The Environmental Protection Agency has begun an initiative to tackle lead poisoning in children, and Kansas City and Kansas City, Kan., each have received $3 million grants.
It only takes a minuscule dot of lead dust -- smaller than the tip of a pencil -- to begin poisoning a child or infant. The result can be bizarre behavior, learning disabilities, decreased IQ, seizures and, if the source is not eliminated, sometimes death. The Clinton administration in 2000 set a goal to eliminate childhood lead poisoning by 2010. To achieve that, in the next two years the EPA would have to reduce the estimated cases to 90,000 from about 400,000 cases in 1999-2000. But EPA officials here acknowledge they are behind schedule.
Many children in Kansas City are not tested, even though state law requires annual testing for those between the ages of 6 months and 6 years who live in designated high-risk areas. Much of Kansas City is considered high risk. Only 19 percent of Kansas City children under 6 were tested last year, according to preliminary data.
Althea Moses, EPA environmental justice program manager, said she doesn't think many doctors test unless parents request it. "I live in a house that was built in 1905, and I had to demand that my kids be tested," Moses said. "That requirement is not being enforced." Susan Thomas, coordinator of Missouri's prevention program, agreed, but also noted that some children are not taken to the doctor regularly.
Area pediatricians have received reminders in past years about lead testing, but it's probably time to do it again, said Holly Daniel, a pediatrician and president of the Greater Kansas City Pediatric Society. "The further you are from the older part of the city, the less you think about lead paint and materials," she said.
In addition, Missouri law requires day-care centers in high-risk areas to keep an annual record proving children have been tested, Thomas said. How well it's enforced is unclear. That's because the statute has no penalties attached, she said. Kansas doesn't have the same requirement and also doesn't require testing, although it is strongly recommended.
About 79 percent of homes in Kansas City were built before 1978. In Kansas City, Kan., it's about 86 percent. Edward and Swana Pace, who live in a century-old house in Kansas City, discovered through a routine medical checkup this year that two of their five children have lead poisoning. Still, they didn't understand the seriousness of the problem until health investigators and nurses swarmed through their house seeking the source of the lead, which came from old paint on windowsills and the porch. It's scary to know that you can have something in your house that can do that to your kids," Swana Pace said.
The children most affected are usually poor and living in the inner city. The Kansas City Health Department projects that 1,100 children have been affected by lead, but because the testing rate is so low, it's difficult to be accurate, said Amy Roberts, coordinator of the city's childhood lead poisoning program. It's also difficult to know how many children suffer serious damage. Those numbers are not tracked, because it can take years for such effects to become evident, according to the CDC. But Mary Jean Brown, chief of the CDC's prevention branch, said researchers have not identified any level of lead in the blood without adverse consequences.
The $3 million grants are intended to get out the message and to pay for testing, which is crucial because children often don't show symptoms until damage has already occurred. Normally the test -- requiring a pinprick on a fingertip -- costs $10 to $15. With the help of the EPA, both cities are setting up workshops, booths at events and free lead screenings.
As a result, Zahner said, a young girl who was recently tested is undergoing treatment in a hospital to decrease the lead level in her circulatory system. Tests also showed seriously high levels of lead in Emmanuel, 2, and Simon Ojeda, 3. Results are pending on the other two Ojeda children. The toddlers were ingesting lead dust as they played in their yard, looked out windows and crawled across the porches.
Now there also is money to help clean up affected homes. Like the Pace home, the Ojeda family home will get new windows and the porches will be repainted after removing the lead paint, said Cory Lambrecht, program manager of Lead Safe KCK. One of the best ways to alleviate the problem is to have children wash their hands often, the EPA advised. Moses said the EPA also is working to enforce laws requiring landlords to inform prospective renters that a lead hazard exists.
by Michael Milstein, Portland Oregonian
August 21, 2006
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/115612892556170.xml&coll=7
Portland General Electric has surprised environmentalists by backing tighter -- and probably pricier -- controls on toxic mercury emissions from its coal-burning power plant near Boardman. But there's a catch that environmental groups hotly oppose: PGE wants credits for limiting its mercury output that it could sell to power plants elsewhere in the country, allowing other plants to continue polluting. Selling the credits would help offset the costs of installing mercury control equipment at PGE's plant, so the full costs would not be passed to customers, said Stephen Quennoz, PGE's vice president of power supply, at a public hearing last week.
Environmental groups contend that selling the credits would let PGE make money from controlling pollution that it should be cutting back anyway. They also argue the trading of credits would merely shift releases of the toxic compound from plants that clean up their act to others that don't, putting neighbors of the dirtier plants at risk. Some states prohibit their power plants from participating in such credit-trading. But the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is proposing to allow participation by the Boardman plant, Oregon's only coal-burning plant.
Mercury is a poisonous metal that drifts long distances in the atmosphere before rain deposits it in rivers and lakes, where it enters the food chain. Eating contaminated fish can cause developmental delays and other harmful effects, especially in young children. Mercury's toxic effects are pervasive and difficult to control. Only about a quarter of the mercury exhaled by the Boardman plant falls out of the air within 1,000 miles, according to the DEQ. Much of the mercury that ends up in Oregon arrives from distant sources such as power plants in China. So cutting mercury pollution in Oregon will not sharply reduce the amount of mercury that ends up here, scientists say.
Many of those testifying at a public hearing last week said the state has an obligation to reduce mercury coming from Oregon, no matter where it ends up. Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality is devising new rules for PGE's Boardman plant under a nationwide program to reduce mercury emissions from power plants. The agency toughened its proposal after a public outcry that its first approach was too weak.
The DEQ has proposed requiring PGE to reduce mercury emissions from its plant by 90 percent six years from now, one of the toughest control strategies proposed by a Western state. The Boardman coal plant is the second-largest industrial source of airborne mercury in Oregon; first is a cement plant in the Eastern Oregon town of Durkee that has no mercury controls. Mercury also comes from natural sources such as forest fires. The plant provides 26 percent of PGE's generating capacity, enough to supply 200,000 customers.
Meanwhile, the business group Associated Oregon Industries has petitioned the DEQ to assess the extra costs of requiring mercury controls at the Boardman plant. A state law enacted last year requires agencies to convene an advisory committee to assess the costs of new regulations, if petitioned by a group likely to be affected. Associated Oregon Industries is making use of the law -- the first time it has been applied -- to demand a closer look at the costs surrounding the proposed mercury limits, state officials said. The DEQ is putting together the committee.
DEQ officials estimate the mercury control rules could raise electricity rates in Oregon by up to two-tenths of 1 percent, but industry groups disagree. Associated Oregon Industries argues PGE could pass on the costs through higher rates. It says rate hikes could hurt small businesses that operate on thin profit margins and companies that use lots of energy. "I can't think of anything that has broader impacts than the cost of electrical power," said John Ledger, vice president of Associated Oregon.
Mercury controls would probably cost up to $20 million to start out and up to $5 million annually after that, the DEQ estimates. The Boardman plant is also likely to have to install controls for other pollution, such as sulfur dioxide that contributes to acid rain. Those will cost up to $170 million initially, and up to $28 million a year afterward, the DEQ estimates. PGE owns 65 percent of the plant. Its share of the plant's electricity is worth about $100 million each year, the company said.
PGE has cautioned that mercury control equipment is in the early stages of development. Quennoz said the company supports the DEQ's timeline and will push the available technology to comply. Quennoz said it will be expensive, though. He urged that PGE get most of the mercury credits allocated to Oregon under the national trading system. Under the mercury credit system, PGE would accumulate credits if it reduces its mercury emissions below mandated levels. Then it could sell those credits to other plants that have not reduced their emissions.
The approach would help PGE recover some of the costs of pursuing cutting-edge mercury controls, Quennoz said. Also, it would help spread the costs to plants in other parts of the country that would benefit if Boardman is releasing less mercury into the atmosphere, he said. For information on the DEQ mercury control proposal, visit http://www.deq.state.or.us/aq/mercury/index.htm.
by Dana Perrigan, San Francisco Chronicle
August 20, 2006
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/20/REGMLKLAOE1.DTL
The next time you're feeling a bit under the weather and need some medical advice, don't call a doctor. Call a real estate developer. "In many ways," Dr. Richard Jackson said, "they have more of an impact on the health of the nation than all of us doctors wagging our fingers." A pediatrician, professor and one of the nation's leading experts in the field of public health, Jackson isn't referring to the diagnostic capabilities of developers. He's referring to the powerful -- and often overlooked -- impact the communities they build have on the health of those who live in them.
Since World War II, said Jackson from his office in UC Berkeley's University Hall, the majority of communities have been built for cars instead of people. What may have been good for the cars, however, turns out to be bad for people: The rate of obesity and diabetes among U.S. citizens has reached epidemic proportions. Twenty-two percent of school-age children are obese. The number of stomach-stapling surgeries is growing faster than any other procedure. Ten percent of U.S. citizens have Stage II diabetes. Depression is the nation's most prevalent disorder.
In 1973, Jackson said, 66 percent of kids either walked or biked to school. In 2000, only 13 percent did so. Perhaps the biggest reason for that drop-off has been the practice of building schools on cheap land, located farther away from housing developments. "We are looking at, right now, $1 in $6 going into health care costs. At the rate we're going, this will be the first generation to live less than their parents. The implications are really remarkable."
Jackson's dire predictions should not be taken lightly. He's the former director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Currently a professor at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health, he received the Presidential Distinguished Executive Award for his work on improving environmental public health.
Studies have shown, Jackson said, that where we live plays an important role in how much we exercise. How much we exercise determines, to a large extent, how healthy we are. If we live 50 miles from where we work and spend two hours a day rubbing fenders with other commuters, we're going to have a lot of stress and a lot less time to exercise and spend with our families. If we live in a neighborhood that promotes walking and cycling and has access to public transportation and open space, we'll live healthier lives.
"This is really about prevention," said Jackson, who considers development a health issue. The scientific evidence linking health and the environment can't be ignored, he said. Studies have even shown that hospital patients who have a view of open space through their windows heal faster than those who don't. With this in mind, England's National Health Service is redesigning all hospitals there. Poorly designed communities are difficult to move around in, especially for disabled and elderly residents who, without easy access to public transportation and other amenities, often end up living in isolation.
Jackson's predictions aren't all dire. A number of factors, he says, are coming together to aid in the move toward designing and building healthier communities. One is the rapidly rising cost of gasoline. Another is the huge body of scientific evidence on global warming. Still another is the growing number of developers who are learning to care as much about healthy design as the bottom line. "It all starts with a positive vision," Jackson said. "If you don't have the vision, it's not gonna happen."
Jackson, who recently spoke at the Pacific Coast Builders' Conference in San Francisco, recalls encountering resistance from builders at such conferences several years ago. There was a tendency to believe that what was good for the environment was not good for business. "It angered a lot of people," he said. "What I'm finding now, however, is that the more-established builders are not happy with the communities they're developing. They want to do something different."
As the executive director of the Local Government Commission, a nonprofit organization in Sacramento that conducts research on land use, transportation and water issues for local governments, Judy Corbett has helped developers make the transition. Eleven of the largest developers, she says, are now doing 25 percent of their business in urban infill development. "We have provided guidelines for some interested developers," Corbett said. "Some were doing the typical sprawl kind of development, building isolated residential units, but now they're doing a lot to put in pedestrian paths, parks and health facilities."
One of the biggest changes Corbett has noticed is the number of cities resurrecting their downtown areas, many of which were abandoned during the flight to the suburbs and left to deteriorate. "They've realized that they lost the heart of their communities," Corbett said. After Lodi rebuilt its downtown infrastructure, she said, a number of businesses came back to the area. She also lauds Hercules' mixed-use development, connected by pedestrian walkways, as "a model of what you can do." All the homes in a development project in Sacramento's Midtown, an older area of the city, sold out the first morning they were offered for sale.
Unfortunately, says Corbett, there are obstacles to building healthier communities. Neighborhood resistance is a big one. So are some of the planning and zoning codes that were written to accommodate the sprawl type of development, instead of the mixed-use, higher density variety. Despite the obstacles, Corbett remains hopeful. "I think it's the way of the future," she said. "We just have to do the work to get there."
"It's certainly more complicated," said Mike Ghielmetti, president of Signature Properties in Pleasanton. "It's more time-consuming. But it's certainly more rewarding." Encouraged by the success of its mixed-use development in Pleasanton's Hacienda business park during the '90s, Signature -- founded by Ghielmetti's father in 1983 -- followed with projects in San Francisco's Panhandle area, Mission Bay, Oakland and the Richmond waterfront. Urban infill development, says Ghielmetti, requires patience, diplomacy and finesse. Some areas have been contaminated and need to be cleaned up. There are restrictions because of an area's historical features that must be dealt with, as well as the formidable and sometimes conflicting demands of competing neighborhood organizations and preservation committees. "It's our job to create plans that have balance," Ghielmetti said. "You are literally creating a new neighborhood. And it's a complete neighborhood. We're building homes for the most diverse group of people -- and I think that's a healthy thing. We're proud of that."
Unlike much of the urban development that took place in the '60s, which Ghielmetti says placed too much emphasis on the automobile and large structures, Signature tailors its plans with the pedestrian in mind. For one thing, Ghielmetti likes stoops, such as those in New York's Greenwich Village, which bring neighbors outside and help create a sense of community. In 18 months, Signature plans to break ground on a large-scale, mixed-use, mixed-income project along the Oakland waterfront. Half of the 64-acre project will be devoted to public parks. Plans for the remaining half include 3,100 residential units (15 percent of which will be affordable) and 200,000 square feet of commercial and retail space.
Randall Lewis, executive vice president and director of marketing for Lewis Operating Corp., shares that philosophy. A developer for the past 30 years, Lewis says his company, which is headquartered in Southern California, started making health a key component of its projects six or seven years ago. Development plans include features that encourage walking, safety and physical fitness. Some include recreation centers, gymnasiums and tennis courts. "Now we focus on master plan communities," Lewis said. "We buy bigger pieces of property. Normally, there will be multiple types of housing with a higher degree of planning on how people live." Although much of its development is in Southern California, it has built integrated communities consisting of 2,000 homes or more in Fairfield, Rio Vista, Lincoln and Rancho Cordova.
The shift to developing healthier communities, says Lewis, was the result of several things -- learning about the groundbreaking research done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, intellectual curiosity and the death of his parents four years ago. "Some of it was altruistic," Lewis said, "wondering how our company can make a difference. All of us want to be successful, but we also want to do something meaningful."
by Libby Quaid, Associated Press, Contra Costa Times
August 20, 2006
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/15320654.htm
WASHINGTON -- California importer Frank Lettieri is being sued for not warning his customers that his balsamic vinegar contains lead. True enough, he says. But you would have to drink more than a pint of the vinegar every day to reach the government limit for safe exposure to lead. Most people just sprinkle a few drops onto salads or bread. Regardless, a voter-passed law in California says consumers have a right to know about lead and other harmful chemicals. "The ironic part is, it will kill you in California, but it won't kill you in Nevada," Lettieri says. "It won't kill you anywhere else in the country."
Rather than wrestle with labeling laws that vary from state to state, the food industry wants Congress to prohibit states from requiring food warnings that are tougher than federal law. In March, the House overwhelmingly approved legislation that would pre-empt state warnings. The Senate held a hearing on the issue in July. As many as 200 state laws or regulations could be affected, according to the Congressional Budget Office. They include warnings about lead and alcohol in candy, arsenic in bottled water, allergy-causing sulfites and mercury levels in fish.
Opposition is fierce, especially in California, where voters put their right-to-know law on the books 20 years ago. Known as Proposition 65, the law has been used to reduce arsenic in bottled water, mercury in fish and lead in candy and dishes. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said state warnings can fill critical gaps in federal law. Californians passed Prop 65 "because they wanted to know if dangerous contaminants were in their food and drinking water," Boxer said at the Senate hearing. "And they knew such a law would encourage food manufacturers to provide a safer product -- because who wants to buy bottled water with an arsenic warning label?" Boxer said.
The food industry insists the California law is being exploited by bounty-hunting trial lawyers. Exhibit A: Small-business owner Bill Stadtlander. He makes Wheatena, a hot breakfast cereal that is so wholesome, the federal government agrees it is good for your heart and bones and may reduce the risk of certain cancers. But a lawyer in California says Wheatena could kill you. Stadtlander is being sued because his cereal contains cancer-causing acrylamide, a chemical that forms naturally when starchy foods are baked or fried. "I don't put acrylamide in my product. All I do is toast my product," said Stadtlander, whose company, Homestat Farms, is based in Dublin, Ohio. "If anybody has a stove or an oven, as soon as you start browning starches, you're creating acrylamide."
Acrylamide is giving the food industry heartburn. The chemical has a long history of industrial use, but, four years ago, Swedish researchers discovered it can occur naturally in foods such as french fries, potato chips, cookies, crackers, cereal and bread. As a result, California is suing McDonald's, Burger King, Frito-Lay and other companies to make them warn customers about acrylamide in french fries and chips.
California is not going after little guys like Lettieri and Stadtlander, said a spokesman for California Attorney General Bill Lockyer. The state targeted major burger and chip makers because their products have higher levels of acrylamide and are consumed to a greater degree, spokesman Tom Dresslar said. At the same time, Lockyer lobbied successfully for a law to curb abusive Prop 65 lawsuits, Dresslar said. "You work to target the abuses and, as a result, strengthen the law," Dresslar said. "You don't junk it because some lawyers are out there abusing it."
Despite the reform measures, most companies decide it is far cheaper to pay the plaintiffs than to try to win, said Michele Corash, a lawyer who represents businesses in Prop 65 matters. She said Lettieri and other balsamic vinegar companies could argue successfully that lead occurs naturally in grapes that are used to make vinegar. Lettieri said he understands the need to protect people from harmful chemicals, but in California the law has gone from protecting consumers to harming businesses like his. "I think that line's been crossed. It's being abused for financial purposes," he says. The importer decided to settle the suit and began adding labels to warn grocery shoppers that his vinegar may contain lead. "It cost me a ton of money," Lettieri said. "And I don't think the public is going to be any safer."
by Celeste Mackenzie, Canadian Press
Aug 20, 2006
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/health/060820/x082006.html
OTTAWA (CP) -- As politicians and celebrities have their blood tested to raise awareness about toxins in our bodies, some experts say the results will be of little use to Canadians. "It won't give us any guidance about how common these findings are across a representative sample of Canadians, so it doesn't tell us anything," said Bill Liess, a risk expert at the University of Ottawa's McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment. "The real question is: are levels of certain contaminants in our blood what we should worry about?"
University of Toronto hematologist Aaron Schimmer goes as far to say the tests could be alarmist. "People will make the leap of faith that because they are there, they are doing harm, but that's not been established," Schimmer said. "The appropriate thing to do is a controlled study where you measure these toxins and you correlate that with clinical evidence of toxicity."
Federal cabinet ministers Rona Ambrose and Tony Clement are the latest to donate blood as part of an awareness campaign by the Toronto non-governmental organization, Environmental Defence. NDP leader Jack Layton and artist Robert Bateman's are also taking part. Results are to be made public this fall. The blood study comes in the wake of a documentary by CBC journalist Wendy Mesley about the huge number of toxins found in her blood following a breast cancer diagnosis.
Rick Smith, director of Environmental Defence, says a precautionary approach is needed. Blood and urine tests his group performed on more than 20 adult and child volunteers for its recent reports Toxic Nation and Polluted Children, Toxic Nation, showed the presence of dozens of toxins Canadians are exposed to via industrial and agricultural processes and consumer products. Smith said that for many substances, there are no federal or international safe level standards, and even where there are, research has resulted in the levels being pushed down.
The politicians' samples will be tested for 102 compounds in seven categories including PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), stain repellants, non-stick chemicals and organochlorine pesticides such as DDT. Rick Waddel, a spokesman for Health Minister Tony Clement, said the tests are a starting point for knowing what kind of toxins are in Canadians' bodies.
In May, and on the heels of the Environmental Defence reports, Health Canada announced the country's first study of body levels of environmental chemicals beginning in 2007. Working with Statistics Canada, it will conduct a two-year Health Measures Survey of 5000 Canadians aged six to 79. It says the study will produce statistically valid national data on Canadians' exposure to about 70 environmental chemicals such as lead, mercury and selected pesticides.
Smith said he hopes the study will lead to concrete action and is not just an excuse to delay regulatory changes. "Whether you are talking about water pollution, air pollution, or toxics in our homes, Canada lags behind virtually every other jurisdiction in the industrialized world -- there's no way the government can wait another two years or five years before acting."
Health Canada spokeswoman Renee-France Bergeron said the data will provide a baseline for tracking trends in population exposure, and allow comparisons with data from other Canadian as well as foreign studies. "This will contribute to the body of evidence needed to assess population exposures and health risks, to inform future research studying the links between exposure and health outcomes, and provide information to help prioritize health and environmental interventions," Bergeron said.
Meanwhile, under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 23,000 substances found in consumer goods and used in industrial processes must be classified by Sept. 14 according to the risk they may pose to human health and the environment. The substances were temporarily grandfathered under the 1999 Act.
by Elizabeth Shaw, Flint [Michigan] Journal
August 20, 2006
http://www.mlive.com/news/fljournal/index.ssf?/base/news-38/1156085892178770.xml&coll=5
GRAND BLANC TWP. -- Without the pressure of having to report pollution through the Toxic Release Inventory, would the former Vemco Inc. have cleaned up its act? Maybe not, suggests Mike Shriberg, director of Environment Michigan, a nonprofit watchdog group. "That's a textbook example of why the TRI is so important. It's one of the most powerful tools citizens have to monitor pollution in their area," Shriberg said. The state forced Vemco, now Cadence Innovation, to pay $1.1 million in fines and install nearly $3 million in pollution-control equipment in 2001 after the auto parts supplier was revealed to be the county's top polluter.
"The whole success of the TRI hasn't been because it's a strong regulatory program. The strength behind it is it's one of the only ways the public finds out about these releases. "Companies high on the TRI have a strong incentive to lower releases simply because when the public knows and gets angry, it makes them do something about it."
But the public's right to know could be at risk, Shriberg warned. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed cutting back TRI reporting to every two years -- adding another year's delay before the public finds out about a release -- and allowing companies to release ten times more of a toxic chemical before it has to be reported.
Right now, companies must report in detail any toxic release of more than 500 pounds, or if they use more than one million pounds of any toxic chemical in their production processes. Some companies report TRI data voluntarily even if they're below those thresholds. But with the proposed higher threshold, it's possible that half of the companies in Genesee County that now report releases no longer would have to say exactly how much they're releasing or where it's going.
The EPA proposal also would reduce reporting requirements for so-called Persistant Bioaccumulative Toxins, or PBTs. One of those PBTs is lead -- on the rise at four of the county's top ten polluters. All are GM plants. "These are the worst of the worst, (chemicals) so toxic they need to be reported no matter what level they're released at," said Shriberg. "They are long-lived and very destructive to living organisms. They don't dissipate and in fact can become more threatening over time as they start concentrating in the food chain."
In May, the U.S. House of Representatives defeated the EPA proposal. But some fear it could come up again this fall in the Senate. "The EPA has far from given up on this," Shriberg said. "People need to contact their senators right now and make sure they say no to reducing the TRI."
Any changes to the reporting system would have a ripple effect, said Ruth Borgelt, TRI coordinator for the state DEQ. "It's not only the community and public health agencies who use this data. These companies also use it," said Borgelt. "In an overall context, the simple fact they have to report their releases forces them to look at their facilities, and their numbers go down." And that's just the way industrial neighbors want it to remain. "It's good to know that information's there if someone wants it," said Martin. "You've got a right to know what's out there. Without knowledge, we would have nothing."
by Elizabeth Shogren, National Public Radio
August 20, 2006
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5673484
Most of country's 420 coal-fired power plants still lack advanced pollution controls, even though the equipment to clean up their hazardous exhausts has been widely available for many years, according to Environmental Protection Agency officials.
Serious Health Hazards
The federal government has long known that the plants harm public health, but in recent years, science has shown that they are deadlier than Congress realized when it adopted major air-pollution laws. The EPA now estimates that each year, tens of thousands of older Americans die early from heart or lung failure, and younger Americans suffer asthma attacks, as a result of tiny particles or soot from power plants. Both sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emitted by the plants form fine particles or soot. "These are much smaller than the width of a human hair, so they can deposit very deep in the lungs and can contribute to a lot of respiratory effects, as well as cardiovascular effects," says Jonathan Levy, a professor of public health at Harvard University who studies power-plant pollution.
Exhausts from coal-fired power plants also create haze, which mars scenic views, and cause acid rain, which kills trees and pollutes streams. Coal-fired power plants are the biggest emitters of sulfur dioxide and major emitters of nitrogen oxides.
Legal Loophole
A loophole in the 1970 Clean Air Act allows older plants to avoid installing advanced pollution controls that would slash these deadly emissions. "Older power plants, when the Clean Air Act came on line, were not required to meet the same emissions requirements of new power plants, because of the potential expense and engineering difficulty. So that led them to not need to install the same emissions controls. And that perpetuated over the decades," Levy says.
The Clinton administration tried to close the loophole by enforcing a long-ignored provision of the act: It requires plant owners to install advanced pollution controls if they modify or expand their plant. The EPA and states have been fighting power companies in court over the issue. "To think that well over half of the plants burning coal still don't have any significant pollution controls -- it's really an extraordinary evasion of the law that the industry has perpetrated here," said Peter Lehner, chief of the New York Attorney General's environmental protection bureau.
So far, the federal courts are split. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear one of the cases in November. Meanwhile, the Bush administration's EPA rewrote Clean Air Act regulations to favor the industry's interpretation. But the change that would have been most effective in helping industry avoid installing expensive pollution controls on old coal-burning power plants was blocked by a federal court in March.
A Widespread Pollution Problem
Coal-fired power plants supply half of the nation's electricity. In 2004, two-thirds of this power came from plants without scrubbers, devices that can remove up to 98 percent of sulfur dioxide from power-plant emissions, according to a recent EPA analysis. Even more of this power was produced without the advanced controls that can strip 90-95 percent of the nitrogen oxides form the exhausts.
Recognizing the problem, the Bush administration put in place new regulations to force coal-fired power plants in the 28 states in the eastern half of the country to reduce emissions. The system sets pollution caps for emissions for all the plants. It allows plants that reduce pollution faster to sell "pollution credits" to plants that are slower to clean up.
A Long Way to Clean Up
Still, by 2010, only 40 percent of the electricity generated with coal will be from plants with advanced controls for nitrogen oxides; less than half of it will be from plants with scrubbers, according to the EPA analysis. Ten years later, more than 40 percent still will come from plants without advanced controls for nitrogen oxides, and more than a quarter from plants that lack scrubbers.
Environmentalists say the EPA's analysis shows that the Bush administration's approach is too slow to clean up plants that so clearly threaten Americans' health. "Those big, dirty, grand-fathered belchers are an inordinate share of the pollution problem," said John Walke, an attorney for the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council. "Why are people continuing to have to live next to those plants and suffer -- and in some cases, die? Because the Bush administration made the political calculus that we're willing to live with that over the next two decades."
Too Many Exempt Plants?
Walke analyzed EPA data on individual coal-fired generating units. He found that even in 2020, 68 percent of the 1,041 total coal-fired, electric-generating units in the eastern half of the U.S. still will lack scrubbers or advanced nitrogen oxides controls. EPA officials stressed that many of the power plants that haven't installed scrubbers or advanced controls for nitrogen oxides have cut pollution in other ways. Some have switched to coal that contains less sulfur. Others have installed pollution-control equipment, but it's less effective than scrubbers or advanced controls for nitrogen oxides. "You can count scrubbers, but that won't give you a complete picture of all the measures plants are taking to cut pollution," said John Millett, an EPA spokesman.
Other Harmful Emissions Remain Unregulated
The federal government has done even less to control two other harmful air emissions from power plants: mercury, which falls into waterways and ends up in fish that people eat; and carbon dioxide, which contributes to climate change. Coal-fired power plants are the biggest source of mercury air pollution, and one of the biggest sources of carbon dioxide. Last year, the EPA announced a plan to reduce mercury emissions, but it wouldn't require advanced technology to cut the emissions for more than a decade. The federal government does not regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
by Jonathan D. Rockoff and Hanah Cho, Baltimore Sun
August 19, 2006
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-te.bz.fda19aug19,0,6795062.story?coll=bal-health-headlines
WASHINGTON -- A Baltimore company received yesterday the first permission that federal food regulators have ever granted for killing a common but sometimes deadly bacteria with a mixture of viruses added to foods. The mixture of six viruses, developed by Intralytix Inc., aims to sharply reduce the 500 deaths and 2,500 illnesses caused in Americans each year by exposure to the bacteria often present in some uncooked meats and poultry. After four years of review, the Food and Drug Administration said the antimicrobial combination was safe and works in deli meats and other ready-to-eat foods.
John Vazzana, chief executive officer of Intralytix, described the approval of the mixture as a "huge milestone" in the fight against bacteria and antibiotic-resistant bacteria that cause food-borne illnesses. The viruses, he said, "are very specific, and they won't kill or destroy any other organism that is there. The only thing they will do is kill their target bacteria." The combination of viruses that Intralytix developed kills various strains of the Listeria monocytogenes bacteria, a widely occurring microbe that especially sickens pregnant women, their fetuses and adults with weakened immune systems.
Before final processing, food manufacturers would spray the mixture on sliced ham, turkey and other foods that usually aren't cooked or reheated before eaten. Cooking and reheating, as well as processing, kills the Listeria bacteria, but foods can become contaminated after processing or even while sitting in a refrigerator.
Judged safe, effective
Consumers shouldn't notice any difference in the taste or color of foods sprayed with the mixture of bacteriophages, as the bacteria-killing viruses are called, the FDA said. Also, the agency found Intralytix's recipe safe and effective even among men in their 20s, who eat the largest quantities of ready-to-eat foods and consequently would ingest the largest amounts of the viruses. Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist at the Center for Food Safety, a nonprofit public advocacy group based in Washington, said bacteriophages were safely used in the Soviet Union to kill bacteria during surgeries and other medical treatments. He said the only possible harm he could envision from the viruses' use as a food additive was allergic reactions in some people. "But that's always an issue, and we are exposed to these things all of the time," he said. "I generally wouldn't be concerned about it."
In its application for FDA approval, Intralytix said it would purify the viruses during manufacture to reduce any potential for allergic reactions. An FDA review of studies on the company's combination of viruses, completed earlier this year, found that they were safe and effective, including for children. The U.S. Department of Agriculture will provide additional regulation, monitoring its actual use in foods. "As long as it is used in accordance with the regulations, we have concluded it's safe," said Andrew J. Zajac, of the FDA's office of food additive safety.
The illness caused by the Listeria bacteria carries flu-like symptoms, such as fever, muscle aches and sometimes, stomach pains. It can lead to severe headaches, a stiff neck, loss of balance and convulsions. Food manufacturers have been searching for additives that would target Listeria, Salmonella and other bacteria that sicken consumers. They have relied on antibiotics to kill bacteria, but the microbes have developed resistance to some of those drugs. Although the incidence of listeriosis is rare among the 76 million food-borne illnesses contracted each year, it's responsible for a disproportionately large percentage of hospitalizations and for many deaths. Since 1987, regulators have been sampling ready-to-eat foods for the bacteria, but the sampling process destroys the product and thus can't be widely applied, according to the American Meat Institute, an industry association.
Perdue's part
Julie DeYoung, a spokeswoman for Perdue Farms in Salisbury, said the chicken processor would consider using Intralytix's mixture. "The industry is always looking for more effective ways to control pathogens in the processing environment," she said. Perdue awarded $1 million to Intralytix to spur the development of viruses that would fight Listeria and Salmonella, Vazzana said.
Based in Camden Yards, Intralytix was founded in 1998 to develop viruses that would attack antibiotic-resistant bacteria in humans, Vazzana said. The company, which has 12 employees, finished developing the anti-Listeria mixture in 2001 and asked the FDA to approve it in 2002. It has licensed the product for marketing and sale to another company, which Vazzana declined to disclose. In the next year or so, Vazzana said, Intralytix plans to seek FDA approval for bacteriophage products against E. coli and Salmonella.
by Anahad O'Connor, New York Times
August 19, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/19/nyregion/19hudson.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=nyregion&adxnnlx=1156204899-O0IV2H4VagvqvSTRXXNxNA
CROTON-ON-HUDSON, N.Y., Aug. 14 -- On a recent cloudless afternoon, Croton Point Park seemed to be a fishing paradise. The tide was low; the breeze was soft. Families picnicked and people stood along the shore with fishing rods, casting out into the Hudson in hopes of catching and carrying away one of the river's coveted bluefish or striped bass. The only problem -- though it was invisible -- was in the fish themselves. "We've been coming here to get our fish for many years, and it's been great," said Miguel Tejada, holding a sleek fishing rod in his hands as his wife and two small children looked on. "I have heard people say that you should not eat the fish here too much, that the fish are not safe. But I'm not really worried."
For years, state health officials have warned that because of mercury and PCB contamination, women of childbearing age and children under 15 should not eat any fish from the Hudson River, and other people should do so only sparingly. Studies and surveys have nonetheless found that many people are either unaware of those warnings or, like Mr. Tejada, simply ignore them. But scientists are finding that the consequences for those who turn a blind eye are hard to overlook. An examination of 124 anglers at a half-dozen piers and fishing clubs along the lower Hudson River found that those who reported eating locally caught fish -- about 80 percent of the group -- had about twice as much mercury in their blood as the others, according to a recently released study.
That report is the first to document the levels of mercury in anglers who regularly get their meals from the lower Hudson, which the health department defines as south from the Rip Van Winkle Bridge near the town of Catskill. The study found that those who did so had an average of 2.2 nanograms per milliliter of mercury in their systems. That level is below the safe baseline of 5.8 nanograms per milliliter recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency, but still worrisome to scientists who say the health effects of long-term exposure to those levels of mercury are not well understood. The report, by a team of researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, was published in the June issue of the journal Environmental Research.
"This was an eye-opener for us," said Anne L. Golden, an assistant professor in the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine who was involved in the study. "The knowledge level was high, but people were taking educated risks. They were still eating the fish they caught, and in quantities that definitely exceeded the recommended limits." The study showed that most anglers, including those who never eat local fish, shared their catches with family, friends and acquaintances. Perhaps most alarming was that nearly 40 percent said they gave locally caught fish to women of childbearing age. That is something scientists have warned against, because mercury and PCB can be stored in the body and passed on to children during pregnancy or while nursing. When exposed to levels of mercury above the federal limit -- and possibly even below it, some scientists argue -- a fetus or an infant can suffer neurological damage.
Since many people who eat local fish have at least some knowledge of the warnings, scientists and health officials have struggled to understand why so many people risk their health. The explanation may have something to do with the invisible nature of the threat, said Edward Horn, a senior scientist with the State Department of Health. People see the water, which looks clean; they see the fish, which look healthy, he said, so they think there is no danger. "Any harm from eating the fish is not obvious," Dr. Horn added. "In other words, people don't get sick the next day. It's not the kind of harm that is easily linked to what they do."
Mercury is released into the atmosphere largely by coal-fired power plants and by solid-waste incinerators. In the form of methylmercury, it drifts into lakes and rivers, where it is absorbed by fish and shellfish and gradually passed up the food chain. Two of the types of fish in the Hudson that accumulate the highest concentrations of mercury, striped bass and bluefish, are also among the most popular among local anglers, surveys find. In detailed advisories over the years, the state has been warning most adults to eat those fish and others from the Hudson no more than once a month.
But getting the word out has not been easy. For a long time, one way the state distributed the warning was by including it in the packet that anglers receive when they buy fishing licenses. But a license is not required to fish the waters of the lower Hudson River, so many anglers never receive those pamphlets. "The further south you go down the Hudson, the more anglers you find without licenses," Dr. Horn said.
The hurdles are also cultural. In Harlem and other popular fishing spots along the southern end of the Hudson, experts say, some of the anglers come from impoverished homes where it is more feasible to pull fish from the river than to buy them. Others are immigrants from the Caribbean and Central America, who say that fishing for food has always been a way of life for them. Mr. Tejada, who lives in Tarrytown and is from Guatemala, regularly fishes at Croton Point Park. He said that he and many of his friends and relatives who also came to the United States from Guatemala learned to fish as children. "I've been fishing all my life," said Mr. Tejada, who is 40. "And so has everyone in my family. It's something we have always done together."
by Todd Hartman, Denver Rocky Mountain News
August 18, 2006
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4926052,00.html
The explosion of oil and gas development on Colorado's Western Slope and in bordering states is driving up smog levels along the Front Range, pushing pollution regulators to consider emissions controls for the industry statewide. Already, state health officials have proposed ramping up existing pollution limits on oil and gas drillers in Weld and Adams counties to reduce ozone levels that continue to surpass federal health limits in the Denver area. Now regulators at Colorado's Air Pollution Control Division want to widen their efforts. They have proposed a reduction in emissions linked to drilling rigs, engines and storage tanks in gas fields across the western half of the state, including hot spots such as the San Juan Basin in southwestern Colorado and the Piceance Basin in Garfield County.
With fossil-fuel extraction quickly accelerating across the West, regulators believe that ozone-forming pollutants are making their way to the Front Range from even farther afield, including drilling-site clusters in northern New Mexico, parts of Utah and the oil and gas basins of southwestern Wyoming. "It's hard to put a number or a percentage on it, but we know that we get significant ozone concentrations that are transported into the Front Range area," said Mike Silverstein, a top Colorado air-quality regulator.
Not all, or even most, of the blighted air is likely linked to oil and gas development. But regulators say the industry is the one significant source of ozone-forming pollutants that's on the increase, as drillers flock to pump in response to market demand, high fuel prices and a political climate favoring aggressive extraction. Another significant piece of evidence tying elevated ozone levels to oil and gas exploration: Pollution monitors in rural regions of the West with little industry other than fossil-fuel drilling are showing upward trends.
In perhaps the starkest example of such a pattern, monitors in the lonely landscapes of southwestern Wyoming -- save for deer and antelope herds and fast-multiplying oil rigs -- showed ozone levels at unhealthy numbers in the winters of 2005 and 2006. Winter, with its short days and low temperatures, is typically a season for reduced ozone, which thrives on hot weather and long periods of sunlight. The winter ozone spikes were events unusual enough to prompt the Environmental Protection Agency's top air-quality regulator in the Rocky Mountain region to register his concern with state environmental officials in Wyoming last month.
It's ozone from regions such as the Jonah Field in southwestern Wyoming that appear to be, at least in part, pushing up ozone levels in metro Denver. That's because ozone and the pollutants that form it can persist in the atmosphere for days, gathering within air masses that drift around the region and settle over the Front Range, regulators say. "We have airflow from different regions at different times," Silverstein said. "Predominant airflow is from the southwest, or south, but we get northerly winds, too. We're looking at ozone concentrations at Rocky Mountain National Park that could be influenced by oil and gas emissions in Wyoming." Colorado regulators say ongoing efforts in other states, including Wyoming, to ramp up emissions controls on oil and gas operations could help reduce ozone levels locally.
Meanwhile, in Colorado, regulators are floating plans to require, among other things, oil and gas storage units that emit more than 20 tons of ozone-forming pollutants per year to add controls. Such a rule would apply statewide and would be in addition to even more stringent emissions controls northeast of Denver, in Weld and Adams counties. There is a need to move quickly, they say, as Denver is on the cusp of violating the federal government's clean-air standards for ozone. Statewide emissions curbs could help prevent that, they say, and allow government and industry to avoid an EPA intervention that could make it harder for industry to expand in the region. "We know we want to get out in front of the curve so we're not looking at (noncompliance)" with EPA standards, Silverstein said.
Ken Wonstolen, senior vice president of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association, said his organization wants to see more evidence that ozone transport from the Western Slope is driving up ozone levels in the Denver region. While not disputing it outright, he said the state needs more data to support requiring more emissions controls. "I think there's a lot of unknowns" about ozone moving from the Western Slope, Wonstolen said. He argued that the ozone could as easily be linked to heavy population and industry in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Phoenix, and massive coal-fired power plants in the Four Corners region. Additionally, he said state regulators are moving too fast. They are trying to push emissions controls statewide at the same time they are calling for toughening smog controls on oil and gas operations northeast of Denver. Wonstolen believes health officials need to "de-couple" the issues and resolve them one at a time. Such an approach would give the industry more time to grapple with the proposals, he said.
But environmentalists, alarmed by ozone levels that are putting Denver on the edge of public-health standards, say regulators should move ahead. "It's not going to hurt to reduce ozone-forming compounds from across the state," said Jeremy Nichols of Rocky Mountain Clean Air Action. "Transport (to the metro area) is part of the issue, but (so is) protecting human health in other communities. . . . I don't see why (statewide controls) shouldn't be implemented."
by John Heilprin, Associated Press, Guardian
August 18, 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6022419,00.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government won a round Thursday in a long-running dispute over how much authority it has to force industrial plants to cut air pollution. Its victory over Cinergy Corp. in a federal appeals court in Chicago could help the Supreme Court decide the issue in a similar case this fall. The Supreme Court's decision -- which is shaping up as a test of the Bush and Clinton administrations' competing legal approaches for cutting air pollution -- would affect up to 17,000 industrial plants and the unhealthy air breathed by 160 million Americans.
The facilities are major sources of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, which contribute to smog, acid rain, soot and other fine particles that lodge in people's lungs and cause asthma and other respiratory ailments. The Cinergy case turned on whether its power plants could spew more pollutants into the air when they modernized to operate for longer hours. The Environmental Protection Agency said no, because Cinergy should have gone through a federal permit process, and the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago agreed. "Cinergy's suggested interpretation, besides not conforming well to the language of the regulation ... would elude the permit requirement," Circuit Judge Richard Posner wrote for a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court.
The Cinergy case is one of the lawsuits the Clinton administration filed in 1999 against electric utilities in the Midwest and South. The government contended that 51 aging, coal-burning power plants in 10 states, primarily in the Ohio Valley and the South, illegally polluted for two decades. The cases were attempts to enforce a neglected and red tape-laden 1977 provision of the Clean Air Act. It requires a company to get a federal permit and install costly pollution controls when modernizing a facility and significantly increasing emissions.
A month before President Clinton left office in 2001, Cinergy agreed to settle its case and spend $1.4 billion to reduce air pollution at 10 coal-fired power plants in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. But soon after President Bush took office and said his administration would review the Clinton-era enforcement cases, Cinergy backed out of the agreement.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court took the unusual step of agreeing to an environmental group's request that it take up a related case. The court accepted Environmental Defense's request that it hear a case involving Duke Energy Corp., based in Charlotte, N.C., over the same issue as the Cinergy case. Duke Energy acquired Cinergy in April. No one at the company could be reached immediately for comment Thursday. In the Duke case, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Richmond, Va., concluded the opposite of what Posner wrote. Posner took aim at that court Thursday. "In so ruling, the Fourth Circuit stepped out of its bounds," Posner wrote. "But in any event, the argument's premise is incorrect."
Vickie Patton, an Environmental Defense attorney, said the Cinergy ruling will be pivotal, since it comes from one of the most influential federal court of appeals. She said the Chicago court's decision sends "a powerful signal that it is time to address the serious human health and environmental impacts of coal-fired power plants."
After Duke won, the Justice Department asked the 4th Circuit to reconsider. But the Bush administration then asked the Supreme Court not to overturn the favorable ruling for Duke. Solicitor General Paul Clement explained that EPA had responded by issuing new regulations. Those regulations were struck in March by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which said the Bush administration had resorted to "a Humpty Dumpty" interpretation of the law that contradicted Congress' intent.
by Shannon Moneo, Toronto Globe and Mail
August 17, 2006
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060817.BCSEAFOOD17/TPStory/National
VICTORIA -- A federal study is looking at various kinds of seafood eaten in Vancouver Island native communities to determine whether the dietary staples are contaminated by toxic chemicals. Many natives eat seafood daily, but no one knows how contaminated their food sources may be. That point was driven home when some elders from the Ahousaht First Nation, from western Vancouver Island, asked the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Health Canada whether harbour seals were safe to eat. The elders had heard that Canada's whale-eating Inuit have high levels of contaminants, compared with southern Canadians.
When government officials had no answers for the Ahousaht, Health Canada provided $190,000 for a one-year study, which will wrap up next August. The work is being led by Peter Ross, a 43-year-old marine mammal toxicologist who raised alarm bells about the marine environment in 2000 when he found that B.C. killer whales were one of the most chemically-contaminated animals in the world.
During a three-week period, Dr. Ross and his research team visited five coastal communities ranging from the isolated to the urban -- Ahousaht, Campbell River, Nanaimo, Port Renfrew and Quatsino Sound -- to examine the sea life used as food by local natives. The team took slices of skin and fat from harbour seals, sockeye salmon fillets, the hepatopancreas organ and muscle of Dungeness crab, and whole butter clams. The samples are being tested for levels of toxic chemicals such as dioxins, furans, PCBs, flame retardants and DDT, all of which can accumulate in the bodies of humans and animals. "We're out there to allay concerns. It's not all about shutting down their food supply in favour of supermarket food," said Dr. Ross, who works for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans at the Institute of Ocean Sciences in North Saanich. "There's probably very important needs that first nations have to derive from traditional foods," he said, noting that more than 100 B.C. coastal native communities rely on seafood for their diet.
In the next phase of the study, 60 native people from the five Vancouver Island communities will document their seafood-eating habits. Tom Child, a 27-year-old member of the Kwakiutl First Nation who is working on his master's degree in science, is helping with the study. "The bottom line is, we don't have data on this region," said Mr. Child, who worries that industries such as logging and shipping have endangered traditional food sources around Vancouver Island.
Quatsino First Nation Chief Fran Hunt-Jinnouchi, who was raised in the traditional style on the northwest tip of the island, said that in a recent seven-day period, she ate salmon and crab on four of the days. She wonders what will become of native culture if the study finds that people are at risk because of eating salmon, crab and clams. But even if the study finds that traditional sea fare is toxic, native communities will still have an innate need to harvest the ocean for food, social and ceremonial purposes, she said. "We're coming to a point of the last vestiges of what defines us," explained the 46-year-old chief.
Dr. Ross stressed that it is crucial aboriginals do not forgo traditional fare in favour of supermarket food, with its high levels of sugar that can result in health problems such as diabetes. In some Vancouver Island native communities, diabetes is already rampant.
by Blythe Bernhard, Orange County Register
August 17, 2006
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1245631.php
The closer you live to traffic jams, the harder it is to breathe. People with asthma who live within 500 feet of busy streets or freeways are three times as likely to end up in the hospital compared with asthmatics who live in low-traffic areas, according to a UCLA study released today. "The community should be aware of traffic's effects on asthma," said Ying-Ying Meng, the study's lead author and a senior research scientist at UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research. The study compared health surveys of thousands of Los Angeles and San Diego residents to neighborhood traffic patterns, and is thought to be applicable statewide.
Severe asthma attacks requiring hospitalization also occur more often in children and others with low incomes, the study found. Other studies have shown that asthma rates increase in relation to freeway proximity. Vehicle pollution has also been linked to cancer, birth defects and cardiovascular disease.
A UC Irvine researcher who also studies the impact of air pollution on health called the study's findings "disconcerting." "When an asthmatic ends up in an emergency department or worse yet hospitalized, this is quite a severe event," said Ralph Delfino, an associate professor of environmental epidemiology at UCI. Meng said the UCLA research team plans to share the latest information with legislators in hopes of stricter laws regarding vehicle emissions and community planning. A state law passed in 2003 already prohibits new schools within 500 feet of freeways.
Air pollution is especially potent to kids' developing lungs. About 15 percent of Orange County children have asthma, and the numbers are rising quickly. Kids' asthma attacks accounted for nearly 9,000 trips to local emergency rooms last year. The condition is also the top health factor in school absences.
That's where the Breathmobile comes in. The roving clinic visits schools countywide to screen for asthma and allergies, educate students and parents, and treat asthmatic kids. Children's Hospital of Orange County's Breathmobile is one of six operating nationwide.
Brandon Goldberg's parents learned he had asthma when he threw himself out of his crib as a baby, struggling to breathe. Since Brandon went to the Breathmobile last year, his asthma has stabilized. The Mission Viejo High sophomore and basketball player notices changes in his breathing only when the weather changes drastically. "I think (the Breathmobile) is the best thing in the world," said Irwin Goldberg, Brandon's dad. "It's convenient. There's no waiting like at the normal doctor's office. Since he's come here he's been out of the hospital." He's not alone. After a year of being treated at the Breathmobile, kids see their emergency room visits reduced by two-thirds, said Dr. Stanley Gallant, medical director.
With a $500,000 grant from the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, CHOC plans to get a second van running and double to 40 the number of schools it visits. The clinic's four employees also work with school nurses and make home visits to improve kids' environments. Parents are encouraged to stop smoking and keep the air at home as clean as possible. Aside from pollution, asthma attacks can be triggered by dust, animal dander and even cockroaches.
The asthmatic kids who visit the Breathmobile each get their own treatment program, including drug inhalers, and financial assistance if they need it. The results are proven, said Dr. Gallant. "We're getting the kids back in school and we're cutting down on health care utilization."
by Troy Graham and Sam Wood, Philadelphia Inquirer
August 16, 2006
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/15282427.htm
The list of 1,846 sites dropped from New Jersey's record of contaminated properties includes landfills, chemical companies, airports, and a perplexing array of homes, restaurants and schools. "This list raises much more questions than it answers," said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club. "But on face value, most would have to have further investigation." The sites were dropped from the Department of Environmental Protection list of about 14,000 known and suspected contaminated sites near the end of the previous administration -- possibly in 2005.
The list came to light after a DEP inspector discovered a day-care center had opened on one of the dropped sites -- an abandoned thermometer factory in Franklin Township, Gloucester County. Testing found high levels of mercury in the ground and air, and Kiddie Kollege closed on July 28. More than 60 children and staff members were tested for mercury. Although about one-third had elevated levels, they shouldn't suffer any long-term effects, state health officials have said.
The DEP released the list late yesterday. It includes 88 sites in Burlington County, 77 in Camden County, and 45 in Gloucester County. All 1,846 sites will be restored to the list, Tittel said, adding that he had spoken about the matter to DEP Commissioner Lisa P. Jackson. "Many of the sites are companies that the DEP should be suing to force a cleanup, or cleaning up themselves and then billing the polluter," Tittel said. "Taking those sites off the list is one of the worst instances of government malpractice I've ever seen."
Jackson said in an interview last week she did not know why the sites had been dropped, because her predecessor, Bradley M. Campbell, had made the decision. Jackson took office in February. Campbell said that "there was never any directive to reduce the list" of known contaminated sites, and that the decision was up to the department's professional staff, not officials at his level. Removing the Franklin Township site, he said, was "a serious error and shouldn't have occurred."
Jackson said last week that the Franklin Township thermometer factory was still on the list in 2004 when it was converted to a day-care center. She said dropping the site from the list had been a mistake but had nothing to do with Kiddie Kollege. "I agree with the judgment that until a place is cleaned, it should remain on the list," she said. Jackson said no work was being done on any of the sites so the DEP was reevaluating each. That was how the Kiddie Kollege situation was discovered, she said. "We were doing the reassessment we said we'd do," she said.
Bill Wolfe, New Jersey field director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said he was "shocked" by the list of once-deleted properties. "I was expecting homes with leaky oil tanks and mom-and-pop shops," Wolfe said. "For landfills and chemical plants to be taken off the list is just reckless and irresponsible." About 50 landfills and 100 chemical plants will go back on the list. The roster also now includes Bader Field Airport in Atlantic City, a former Nike missile base in Evesham, Interstate Industrial Park in Bellmawr, Camden Iron & Metal Inc., Penn Jersey Rubber & Waste Co. in Camden, Vanguard Vinyl Siding Inc. of Gloucester City, MPC Industries in Pennsauken, Ancora Psychiatric Hospital in Winslow Township, and Manhattan Electric Cable Corp. in Bridgeton.
from NCHS/National Health Interview Survey
August 15, 2006
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhis.htm
The Division of Health Interview Statistics (DHIS) of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) announces the availability of a provisional report: "Summary Health Statistics for U.S. Children: National Health Interview Survey, 2005". This report is number 231 in the series: NCHS Vital and Health Statistics Series 10 reports. Two companion 2005 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) Summary Health Statistics reports focus on health statistics of the U.S. population and of U.S. adults. These reports will be available within the next one to two months.
The report on the U.S. child population presents statistics from the 2005 NHIS. Available statistics include selected health measures for children less than 18 years of age, classified by sex, age, race, Hispanic origin, family structure, parents' education, family income, poverty status, health insurance coverage, residence, region, and health status. The topics covered are asthma, allergies, learning disability, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), prescription medication, respondent-assessed health status, school-loss days, usual place of health care, time since last contact with a health care professional, unmet dental need, time since last dental contact, and selected measures of health care access and utilization.
Selected Highlights from the Report:
In 2005 most U.S. children under 18 years of age enjoyed excellent or very good health (82%). However, 9% of children had no health insurance coverage, and 5% of children had no usual place of health care. Thirteen percent of children had ever been diagnosed with asthma. An estimated 7% of children 3-17 years of age had a learning disability, and an estimated 7% of children had ADHD.
by Kathie Marchlewski, Midland [Michigan] Daily News
August 15, 2006
http://www.ourmidland.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17055621&BRD=2289&PAG=461&dept_id=472542&rfi=6
People whose yards have higher levels of dioxin also have higher levels of dioxin in their bodies. Specifically, people living in Midland and Saginaw counties near The Dow Chemical Co.'s Midland plant have higher levels of the toxin in their blood than people living in Jackson and Calhoun counties -- where there is no Dow plant and where dioxin levels are similar to levels across the country. Dr. David Garabrant, University of Michigan professor leading the $15 million Dow-funded study, will release the results of a two-year dioxin exposure study today at a 1 p.m. meeting of more than 100 stakeholders including local government officials, health departments and environmental groups. The public is invited to a 6 p.m. meeting today at Saginaw Valley State University, Curtiss Hall. The study has been available on line since this morning at its homepage, http://www.umdioxin.org.
The study examined exposure levels only, not potential health effects. Whether the results are good or bad and for whom remains a question. "Our job was to go out and find facts, and we did find facts," Garabrant said. "I don't know if you'd say it's good or bad for anyone. We found that what's in the environment is contributing to what's in people's bodies, but it's small." The study shows that people living in the control group in Jackson and Calhoun counties -- chosen for its demographic likeness to Midland and Saginaw counties -- have median levels, the level at which half are above and half below, of 25 parts per trillion of dioxin in their blood. People in the Tittabawassee River floodplain have 32 parts per trillion, people near the floodplain have 29 parts per trillion, and people in Saginaw and Midland but away from expected contamination have a median of 28 parts per trillion. People who live in Midland north and northeast of the Dow plant had a median level of 24 parts per trillion.
In Jackson/Calhoun, 25 percent of people had levels higher than 36 ppt in their blood, but in the floodplain, 35 percent had levels higher than 36. Overall, floodplain residents' levels were 28 percent higher than Jackson/Calhoun's residents. "The absolute increases were small, but sometimes the percentages were not," Garabrant said.
Fluctuations in dioxin levels across populations are attributed to factors such as age, sex and body mass index, or the amount of fat a person has. But the U-M study identified a variety of factors that contributed to higher dioxin levels in residents here, including recreational activities such as swimming, biking, hiking or picnicking on the Tittabawassee River, the Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay, working at Dow, and gardening. Eating fish also raised dioxin levels in the blood. That's the case for fish that is store bought, caught elsewhere, or caught from the Tittabawassee River, Saginaw River or Saginaw Bay, but especially the locally contaminated fish. "We can see an overall indication that eating fish contributes to your body burden," Garabrant said. The study showed that levels increased by 1 to 2 percent for each year a person reported eating fish from the Tittabawassee River, Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay. Eating other wild game, such as deer or turkey, did not appear to affect levels.
One participant who look part in the study -- there were 1,324 in all, 946 of whom gave blood -- had a blood level of 240 parts per trillion, far higher than the around-50 ppt level that would be expected for that person's age. More than a dozen people had levels higher than 100 parts per trillion. Age is an important factor in dioxin levels, and was in this study. Garabrant said the population in Jackson/Calhoun counties was an average of four years younger than those living on the floodplain. "The longer you live, the longer you are in contact with dioxin," he added. Older people have higher levels of dioxin in their bodies no matter where they live -- during the 1970s, contamination in the national food supply was at its peak -- but the study found the age factor to be amplified for people who lived in Saginaw and Midland between 1940 and 1959, and attributes the increase to Dow's operations during that time period.
The study's findings are not isolated to the Tittabawassee River or areas of Midland known to be contaminated. People who lived outside of known contamination areas but in the Saginaw Valley region also had higher levels of dioxin in their blood. Activities, age and eating habits aside, residing on contaminated soil was found to increase levels of dioxin in the blood by about 2 percent. Researchers found that for each 1,000 parts per trillion of dioxin in soil -- the highest level found in this study was over 15,000 -- the level of dioxin in blood increased by 0.7 ppt. "It looks like a small number in magnitude, but it is statistically significant," said Alfred Franzblau, professor of occupational medicine at U of M. Statistically significant means the difference is unlikely to be due to chance. What is biologically significant remains a matter of opinion.
Dow officials have said that according to company studies, dioxin has no ill effects on people other than chloracne, a skin disease made widely known by the poisoning of Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko. Linda Birnbaum, of the Environmental Protection Agency and a world-renowned dioxin expert, however, told Midlanders last year in a presentation that scientific studies show repeated links between dioxin exposure and disease -- even at background levels in the general population. "We have strong and repeated associations in human studies," she said. "We believe they are real." She acknowledged it is impossible to tell on a case-by-case basis if a health issue is the direct result of dioxin. Cancer is one such example: The risk because of dioxin exposure is slight when compared with the already existing risk for developing the disease. One in three, maybe one in two, people will develop the disease in their lifetimes, Birnbaum said. Dioxin exposure is expected by some to add a nearly invisible additional risk of 1 in 1,000. But there are host of other health effects associated with dioxin, including reproductive issues, birth defects and diabetes, she said.
Garabrant stressed that the dioxin exposure study is not an indicator of potential health effects. It answers only the question of whether people have dioxin in their bodies as a result of living on dioxin-laced dirt. Garabrant said the team of researchers plans to present its work at an international conference on dioxin this month, and will return to the Saginaw Valley region beginning this fall to host technical meetings, open to the public, on the findings. A portion of the study analyzing other dioxin congeners is not complete, but will be presented as it is finished.
by Ely Portillo, Kansas City Star
August 15, 2006
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/15280097.htm
WASHINGTON -- A new recycling initiative could remove tons of potentially deadly mercury from the environment, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, but critics and state administrators of similar programs are questioning whether the program will work, calling it underfunded and unrealistic. The program, which the EPA and leaders of the steel and auto industries announced last Friday, centers on mercury-filled switches that control automatic lights in cars. The switches are the fourth-largest source of mercury pollution in the U.S. each year, according to EPA estimates.
Mercury-filled switches haven't been used in new cars since model year 2003, but tens of millions of older cars have mercury switches that will be crushed when they're recycled. If a car's mercury switch is recycled with the rest of the car, the mercury either leaks into the ground or is vaporized in steel furnaces, falling miles away. The metal can build up in living tissues and damage the nervous system. It's especially dangerous to pregnant women and their unborn children.
The new program, which starts next month, will work on a voluntary basis. Automakers and steel manufacturers will contribute $4 million to a fund to educate junkyards about the benefits of removing mercury switches, which they can then dispose of properly. The program would safely dispose of 75 tons of mercury over the next 15 years, according to the EPA. About 13.5 million cars are recycled each year. The program "will definitely produce a reduced level of mercury," said Nancy Gravatt, spokeswoman for the American Iron and Steel Institute, a lobbying group that promoted the program. She said it's much more cost-effective "than going to the steel manufacturers and having them spend billions of dollars on some new technology" to eliminate mercury from their emissions.
Steelmakers who buy junked cars with the switches removed won't have to install air-purifying devices to remove mercury from their waste, since there shouldn't be any mercury present in the recycled car steel. But critics say that junkyards won't remove the switches because the program won't pay enough for each mercury switch they pull out. Some salvagers will remove the switches to help the environment, said Carole Cifrino of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, but many won't because there's no money in it. "This will just be too much extra work for no benefit to them," she said. "A financial incentive to remove and collect switches increases participation."
The state of Maine has had a mercury switch removal program for four years and has only recovered 10 percent to 15 percent of cars' switches. Maine recently increased its payment per switch from $1 to $4 to boost participation. The EPA has set a national target of recovering 90 percent of mercury switches. It costs about $3 worth of labor to remove each switch, said Mark Ryder of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, which signed on to the national program. "The only way you're going to get those folks invested in consistently removing those switches is by paying them to do so," he said. Ryder called the $4 million fund "minimal." Washington state alone has a $1 million fund for switch removal. A $3 reward for removing switches is absolutely necessary to Washington state's program, said Dennis Bowhay of the Washington Department of Environmental Protection. "It doesn't take long to pull a mercury switch out of any given car, but the bounty provides that little extra incentive to actually look and go do it."
Even if all of the $4 million went toward payments, junkyards would receive only $1 per switch if the EPA's stated goal of removing 4 million switches in three years is met. But the EPA said that junkyards still will be pressured to remove the switches because steelmakers will prefer buying scrap cars that don't have them.
by Susan Gilbreath and Philip H.Kass, reported in the American Journal of Epidemiology
July 13, 2006
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/kwj241v1
This retrospective cohort study evaluated adverse birth outcomes in infants whose birth records indicated maternal residence in villages containing dumpsites potentially hazardous to health and environment. Outcomes included low or very low birth weight, preterm birth, and intrauterine growth retardation. Infants from mothers in villages with intermediate and high hazard dumpsites had a higher proportion of low birth weight infants than did infants from mothers in the referent category. More infants born to mothers from intermediate and high hazard villages suffered from intrauterine growth retardation. On average, infants weighed 36 g less and 55.4 g less when born to highly exposed mothers than did infants in the intermediate and low exposure groups, respectively, an effect even larger in births to Alaska Native mothers only. No differences in incidence were detected across exposure levels for other outcomes. This is the first study to evaluate adverse pregnancy outcomes associated with open dumpsites in Alaska Native villages.