To join the Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative (LDDI), please complete the form at http://www.iceh.org/LDDImembers.html.
December 4 - 6, 2006
Atlanta, Georgia
Presented by Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Environmental Health, The 2006 Environmental Public Health Conference has a theme of "Advancing Environmental Public Health: Science, Practice, New Frontiers." The conference committee is now accepting submission forms for abstracts for workshops, posters, and exhibits. The deadline is August 1, 2006.
Website: http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/conference/abstract_submission.htm
LDDI is pleased to welcome a new member:
by Mike Lee, San Diego Union-Tribune
June 12, 2006
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20060612-9999-1n12waste.html
While U.S. politicians debate how best to keep illegal immigrants from crossing the border, huge holes plague America's system for counting and inspecting toxic waste migrating north from Mexico. U.S. environmental officials can't say how much of the waste is trucked in each year, what the top sources of that waste are or which chemicals get transported most through border crossing points, including the Otay Mesa and Calexico stations -- where hazardous waste gets funneled into California.
This lack of data, compounded by spotty inspections, has hampered regulatory efforts at the state and national levels. It also has undermined scrutiny of major waste importers because there is almost no way for the public to know who these companies are without sorting through thousands of forms. Some environmentalists and border regulators even suggest that terrorists could take advantage of the limited inspections to shuttle dangerous materials into the United States. "The federal government really hasn't done its job in terms of having people on the border to check (hazardous cargo)," said Steve Owens, director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. "We see it not only as an environmental issue but a security risk."
Differing definitions of toxic waste, non-standardized forms and Mexico's inability to deal with the quantity of hazardous byproducts are further reasons for the uncertainty. But perhaps what concerns experts most is that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lacks a computerized system to quickly receive and process details about cross-border movements of hazardous waste. The EPA makes do with paper manifests on which truckers list the hazardous waste that they are hauling. Three years ago, the agency abandoned its Haztraks computer database that quantified data taken from those manifests. The EPA had hired a private contractor to do the data entry, and the project was more than two years behind when the program folded in 2003.
Today, the EPA relies on a $30,000-a-year program that is much smaller in scope, and administered by the Border Compliance Assistance Center, a nonprofit educational outfit. The center hires a private contractor in Virginia to replicate some of the data entry that the EPA gave up on. It started compiling numbers on cross-border hazardous waste about 18 months ago. By the time the center's computerized figures are made public, they are several months old and riddled with uncertainties. "We try to capture some of the information, and do the best we can . . . since nobody else is doing it. . . .Sometimes it's difficult to decipher what is going on," said Paul Chalmer, director of the center.
It's unclear how much it would cost to implement a robust system for inspecting and quantifying toxic waste coming from Mexico. It is likely to cost several hundred thousand dollars a year to maintain the data.
Problematic pattern
Critics of the EPA question why a federal agency doesn't have a more high-tech alternative. The agency's plans for adopting an electronic manifest and creating a near-real-time tracking system using radio transmitters are years away from completion. The arrangement is "utterly inadequate for the government or the public's needs to know what hazardous materials are crossing our borders," said Amelia Simpson, director of the Border Environmental Justice Campaign for the Environmental Health Coalition in National City.
Limited oversight on the border fits the U.S. government's larger pattern for toxins, critics say. Environmentalists, university researchers, labor groups, consumer advocates and others have taken the EPA to task in recent months for failing to address concerns about how hazardous chemicals are regulated nationwide. Some EPA officials acknowledged problems with the current border waste program. Without regular inspections, "we can't know who is really complying and who is not," said John Rothman, an EPA lawyer in San Francisco.
The most recent estimates from Chalmer's center show that imports of hazardous waste from Mexico have roughly doubled to more than 43 million pounds per year since the EPA's calculation in 1997. The waste typically starts as chemicals in the United States that are shipped to U.S.-owned maquiladoras, or manufacturing companies, in Mexico. Nearly 3,000 factories line Mexico's northern border. After the maquiladoras use these chemicals, many of them must send the byproducts to the United States for disposal under an agreement between the two countries.
Several border analysts said fractures in the regulatory system probably have increased the number of clandestine dumps in Mexico for hazardous waste that is supposed to be exported. "Imagine the accumulation of toxic waste in Tijuana and Mexico over the last 40 years in canyons and places that no one knows," said Jorge A. Vargas, a professor who specializes at Mexican law at the University of San Diego.
Such concerns are underscored by a 2003 statement in Mexico's official digest for government activity. The statement said only 26 percent of the country's hazardous waste was handled properly. "The remaining 74 percent is disposed of in secret dumps or in inappropriate sites, which represents a significant source of contamination not only for the water, air and ground, but also for humans and animals through direct contact," the statement said.
Ricardo Castellanos Percevault, a top Mexican environmental official in Baja California, said maquiladoras are heavily regulated and comply with waste rules the vast majority of the time. But he, too, lamented the lack of easily accessible data in Mexico about hazardous waste shipments. "We have all the paperwork . . . but the electronic tools are not up to what we need," he said.
'The big picture'
Powered by a federal grant, California boasts the only regular inspection program for hazardous wastes on the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. As a result, waste officials such as Owens in Arizona said it is likely that more and more trucks with toxic waste are heading to the other border states. At least that's the theory. Without a solid national monitoring program, regulators can't be certain. "It's kind of the hazardous waste version of undocumented folks coming across the border," Owens said. "When they tighten up the borders for hazardous waste entry (in California), importers are going to come through Arizona because our borders aren't controlled."
If companies can get away with classifying toxins as less hazardous, they can pay less for disposal and the waste could be mishandled at the landfill. Arizona and other border states rely on U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officials to inspect imports of toxic waste. Customs agents have other pressing issues to worry about, such as illegal immigrants and drugs. Border officials typically inspect a very small percentage of hazardous waste shipments, according to a 2005 report by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, which is sanctioned by the governments of the United States, Canada and Mexico. It described the current controls as ineffective and inconsistent.
Owens has been trying to get money from Arizona's Legislature for three inspectors. In Texas, similar efforts have failed to win political support because of their cost. In California, inspectors aim to make sure the paperwork from truck drivers hauling waste into the state matches what is in the barrels holding the waste. On a typical day at the Otay Mesa port of entry, crews from the California Department of Toxic Substances Control check 20 to 30 inbound trucks that have queued up for hazardous waste inspections. For toxic waste, Otay Mesa is by far the busiest port on the U.S. border. Roughly 24 million pounds cross there annually, according to totals compiled by the data entry specialists in Virginia. Some 19 million pounds cross elsewhere each year.
Juan Manuel Jimenez, a supervisor for the state's Department of Toxic Substances Control in San Diego, says his inspection team has a good handle on specific loads of toxic materials that enter California. But without national numbers to use for comparison, Jimenez can't tell whether the waste that enters the state is proportionate to the waste produced by maquiladoras along its southern border. "We need to have the big picture," Jimenez said.
Low-tech system
Waste products include metallic elements and solvents used in the manufacturing of televisions, circuit boards and other consumer goods. The forms used for tracking such materials are problematic, Chalmer and others said. The papers don't indicate which port the waste came through. Sometimes they are illegible. At other times, they are so general that it is hard to say what is coming across the border.
In the mid-1990s, the EPA joined with Mexican officials to track cross-border movement of hazardous waste by using the Haztraks computer database. It was an attempt to manage the increasing amount of such traffic under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Some regulators found Haztraks useful and it proved popular with researchers and the public. Kathryn Kopinak, a guest scholar at UC San Diego's Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, said she once used Haztraks to show that a major Mexican generator of hazardous waste was drastically under-reporting its shipments to Mexican authorities.
The EPA pulled the plug on Haztraks in 2003, saying the $250,000-a-year program wasn't worth the money partly because of the two-year backlog in data entry. EPA officials said Haztraks wasn't critical for enforcement. They say they are moving toward a more complete waste-tracking system. The agency plans to roll out a standardized hazardous waste manifest form in September. The document will clearly show which wastes are imported and exported in each truck. The EPA also is proposing an electronic manifest that would allow for quick analysis of waste trends and potential problem areas. Agency officials would like to make the companies using the system pay for it, ensuring a steady funding source and raising hopes for up-to-date analysis. That program is still years away from being ready.
Finally, the EPA is starting to experiment with a radio-transmitter identification system that may provide near real-time tracking of waste shipments along the border. That, too, remains a distant reality. "At first blush, one might say if Amazon.com can do (nearly instant tracking of online purchases) . . . why can't we?" said Rothman, the EPA lawyer.
by Jeremy Laurance, London Independent
June 12, 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article799541.ece
The doctor who sparked an international scare over the safety of MMR vaccine is to be charged with serious professional misconduct by the General Medical Council in an attempt by the medical establishment finally to lay the controversy to rest. Andrew Wakefield, who published a research paper in 1998 purporting to show a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, is accused in preliminary charges of publishing "inadequately founded" research, failing to obtain ethical committee approval, obtaining funding "improperly" and of subjecting children to "unnecessary and invasive investigations", The Independent has learnt. The research is said to have caused immunisation rates to slump and cases of measles, mumps and rubella to soar. The research, which appeared in The Lancet, is said to have done more damage than anything published in a scientific journal in living memory.
Detailed charges are being formulated by the GMC's lawyers for presentation in the autumn and a public hearing is expected next year. If found guilty Dr Wakefield, 50, could be struck off the medical register. The GMC has brought the case itself in the public interest. There is no complainant. The investigation has taken two years and lawyers for Dr Wakefield say he and his family are suffering distress caused by the delay in bringing charges.
The research was carried out at the Royal Free Hospital, north London, by Dr Wakefield and 12 other doctors and published in The Lancet in February 1998. The warning about the combined vaccine was amplified by Dr Wakefield at a press conference -- to the disquiet of his colleagues present -- and the subsequent scare led tens of thousands of parents to boycott the vaccine.
Immunisation rates fell over the next five years from more than 90 per cent nationally to a low of 78.9 per cent in early 2003. In parts of London rates fell below 60 per cent. There was a resurgence in cases of the three diseases, including rubella (German measles), according to the Health Protection Agency. The number of cases of mumps soared from 4,204 cases in 2003 to 16,436 in 2004 and to 56,390 cases last year. Since 2003 the MMR vaccination rate has increased slightly and in mid-2005 stood at 83 per cent. A spokeswoman for the agency said: "The fear of Wakefield has dissipated a bit. The figures are coming back up."
In 2004 it emerged that at the time he was preparing The Lancet paper, Dr Wakefield was being paid by lawyers for parents of children allegedly damaged by the MMR vaccine to look for evidence that could be used to help take legal action against manufacturers of the vaccine. He received 55,000 pounds from the Legal Aid Board, which was paid into his research fund but which he had not disclosed to his co-researchers. At least four of the 12 children in the Lancet study were also in the Legal Aid Board funded study. He was accused by The Lancet of failing to declare a conflict of interest that could have influenced his findings.
Richard Horton, the editor, declared the paper "fatally flawed" and said if he had known in 1998 about the conflict of interest he would never have published it. The journal partially withdrew the paper in February 2004 and the following month 10 of the 12 authors withdrew the claim of a link with autism. John Reid, the Health Secretary at the time, called on the GMC to hold an inquiry. Dr Wakefield, a consultant gastroenterologist, left the Royal Free Hospital in 2001 "by mutual agreement". He has since worked mainly in America.
The Government's chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, accused Dr Wakefield of mixing "spin and science". But Jackie Flether of the support group Jabs, representing parents concerned about vaccination, said: "The GMC charges are totally unfounded and seem to be a total witch hunt against Andrew Wakefield and the research team. All the researchers did was raise a red flag [about MMR] and say more research was needed." All the doctors are believed to have denied professional misconduct.
by Jim Ritter, Chicago Sun-Times
June 12, 2006
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-ama12.html
Doctors are drawing attention to an emerging environmental worry -- pollution of lakes and rivers by drugs flushed down toilets. A Baylor University study found trace amounts of Prozac in fish downstream from a sewage treatment plant in Texas. And the U.S. Geological Survey found pharmaceuticals and other organic chemicals in 80 percent of 139 streams sampled in 30 states.
The American Medical Association, now meeting in Chicago, is considering resolutions calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct comprehensive studies on the topic. "It's a huge, huge issue for us in the future," said AMA delegate Dr. Gail Baldwin of Duluth, Minn.
Nation's medication use grows
Prescription and over-the-counter drugs end up in waterways after patients excrete them or flush unused pills down the toilet. Sewage plants are designed for industrial pollutants. They're not equipped to remove chemicals from drugs and personal care products such as cosmetics, perfumes and sunscreens.
The problem isn't new. But it's been getting more attention the past few years because of the nation's growing medication use. Moreover, increasingly sophisticated test labs now can detect chemical concentrations as small as one part per trillion.
No major EPA studies
While minute amounts of drugs are showing up in drinking water supplies, the major concern is the potential damage to fish and other aquatic life. Among the possible effects, according to the EPA:
Sex steroids from drugs such as birth control pills might cause male fish to develop female traits and change behaviors in both sexes.
Dumping human and livestock antibiotics into the environment could hasten bacteria developing resistance to antibiotic drugs.
The class of anti-depressants that includes Prozac and Zoloft might have major effects on shellfish spawning and other behaviors.
Most of the research so far has been done in Europe. The U.S. EPA has gathered information but has done no major studies. A federal task force is trying to figure out how to study the complex issue, said EPA spokesman Dale Kemery. "Regulations are not on the horizon at this point," Kemery added.
People typically discard pills when the drugs last beyond expiration dates, cause unacceptable side effects or don't work. Patients can safely discard unwanted pills at key hospitals, senior centers and police stations. For locations, call 311 (Chicago) or (773) 869-7724 (suburban Cook County).
by Kari Lydersen, Washington Post
June 12, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/11/AR2006061100720.html
MOLE LAKE, Wis. -- Tina and Rick Van Zile are members of the Mole Lake Ojibwe tribe here in northern Wisconsin. Each spring for more than 15 years, they have gone spearfishing together, engaging in a tradition for their tribe and gathering food that is vital to their diet. But in recent years they have added something new to the old ways -- they consult a color-coded map that tells them which of the more than 50 lakes in the region have the highest mercury levels. "I wouldn't even dream of going to these red ones," said Tina Van Zile, pointing to one of the lakes designated as having the highest mercury content.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 22 states including Wisconsin have statewide mercury advisories, and 23 more have advisories for specific bodies of water. Typical advisories warn children and women of childbearing age against eating more than one game fish per month. The mercury in the fish can cause neurological damage in children and fetuses as well as health problems in adults.
Because fishing is so central to the traditions, social life and economic sustenance of many Indian tribes, the warnings have special significance for them. "Fishing is a big part of what we eat and how we eat; it ties back to the culture and traditions of who we are as a people," said Mole Lake tribal leader Wayne LaBine. He describes mercury as an organ of "Mother Earth's body" that has been turned into a toxin through exploitation of natural resources such as coal. Mercury is emitted from coal-burning power plants, paper mills and older chlorine plants. "Fossil fuels were not intended to be burned like this, so the balance of the Earth is thrown off and mercury is misplaced," LaBine said.
Along with taking part in the traditional spring spearfishing season and the sucker season that follows it, many Ojibwe from Mole Lake and surrounding tribes angle throughout the summer, ice-fish in the winter and make a yearly trip to fish with nets in Minnesota. Fish dishes are served at ceremonies, funerals, fundraisers and other occasions. Most families have a freezer stocked year-round with fish, in bags labeled with the fish's size and lake of origin so they know its mercury risk.
Tribe member Steve Tuckwab said that when Mole Lake elders go to ceremonial meetings with other tribes where fish is served, "I tell them maybe they shouldn't eat that fish because they don't know what lake it's from and how safe it is." Like berry picking, maple tapping and wild-rice gathering, spearfishing is one of the ways that tribal members preserve and honor their roots. It also has contemporary political significance.
Mercury Warnings a New Part of Tribe's Tradition
In the 1980s and early 1990s, spearfishing Ojibwe were besieged by non-Indian protesters who would shout racist slurs and throw stones and beer bottles at them. The protesters were angry that a series of court decisions had affirmed the tribal members' treaty rights to fish and hunt out of season on off-reservation land that the tribes had ceded to the government in the mid-1800s.
Under agreements between tribal and governmental authorities, Ojibwe can spearfish during a two-week period each year when walleye are spawning. They go out at night in small motorboats, sighting the fishes' glowing eyes in the beams of flashlights and skewering their catch with a swift stab of a five-pronged spear. "After the right was given to us by the courts, we have to exercise it or it could be lost again," said Rick Van Zile, who often hears complaints about Indian fishing rights from the non-Indians he works with on construction jobs. "It's a tradition."
Mercury is a problem for Indian tribes nationwide. In Northern California, the Gold Rush left a legacy of mercury in lakes because liquid mercury was used to separate gold from silt and ore. Scientists at the University of California at Davis estimated there are 100 tons of mercury in the sediments of Clear Lake, a fishing ground for Pomo Indians. Most came from the nearby Sulphur Bank Mercury Mine, which operated through the mid-20th century. The International Indian Treaty Council, a group that works on issues of indigenous rights, says that between 3 million and 8 million pounds of mercury was absorbed into the environment in California during the Gold Rush years.
Besides its cultural significance, fishing is also an important source of cheap protein for many low-income Indians living on reservations. "You're dealing with an underprivileged and impoverished population; we don't have the choice of going to the store and buying the leanest-cut meat," said Bob Shimek, a Minnesota coordinator of the Indigenous Environmental Network, who said he suffered months of strokelike symptoms caused by mercury after weeks of eating northern pike three times a day.
Mercury is more concentrated in older, larger fish and in fish higher on the food chain. So aggressive public-awareness campaigns by the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission in the Midwest and the International Indian Treaty Council in California urge people to eat smaller fish and to vary the type, mixing walleye, muskies and pike, which are higher on the food chain, with smaller varieties. "The educational part is challenging," said Shimek, who is making it a personal mission to get the word out about mercury. "I run into people who say, 'These fish were good enough for my grandmother and grandfather, so they're good enough for me.'"
by Betsy Querna, U.S. News & World Report
June 12, 2006
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/060612/12organic.htm
Grocery shoppers across America have been witnessing a subtle but revolutionary change on store shelves. Organic products are popping up in the cereal aisle, amid rows of canned goods, and beside bottles of salad dressing. Though organic food has been around for decades, it used to be found mainly in specialty stores like Whole Foods or confined to a tiny corner in the produce section.
Today, most grocery stores stock big organic brands like Earthbound Farm. Wal-Mart plans to double its organic offerings this summer in some stores, and grocers like SuperValu and Safeway recently unveiled organic house brands. Major food companies have grabbed up organic brands. General Mills, for example, owns the organic brands Cascadian Farm and Muir Glen. Some food producers are even rolling out organic versions of existing products. You can now fill your cart with Ragu organic pasta sauce, Snyder's organic pretzels, Orville Redenbacher's organic butter popcorn, and later this summer, organic Kraft macaroni and cheese. "With Wal-Mart in the game and Safeway and just about everyone else, organic is at a tipping point," says Samuel Fromartz, author of the new book Organic, Inc. "It's really gone mainstream."
Getting specific. With so many more choices, consumers may wonder what they're really getting when they buy this newfangled organic food. Though the organic label is often perceived as synonymous with healthful, virtuous, or just plain better, organic has a specific definition, set in 2000 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture after years of varying standards muddled its meaning. In a nutshell, organic produce cannot be grown with pesticides or most synthetic fertilizers, while animals must not be injected with antibiotics or growth hormones. Organic farms undergo a rigorous certification process and are inspected for compliance by an independent agent.
To earn the "100 percent organic" label under the USDA system, a food must contain only organically produced ingredients. Next in line is "organic," in which at least 95 percent of the ingredients must be organic. The other 5 percent must be an approved ingredient. Those are mostly preservatives, thickeners, or other things such as baking soda and spices. Here and with "100 percent organic" foods, consumers may also spot the USDA seal. Products that have at least 70 percent organic ingredients can sport the term "made with organic ingredients." Any less and the food gets no boasting rights beyond noting the organic elements in the list of ingredients. (In some cases, you will see a certifying agent seal. More details are at www.ams.usda.gov/nop.)
Got that? It's a mouthful, so to speak, and consumers often think that the organic label means so much more. "It's confusing because the organic certification is a process certification, not a product certification," says Mike Hamm, professor of sustainable agriculture at Michigan State University. "It says nothing about the quality of the product, its freshness, or its nutritional value."
What consumers should do, experts say, is carefully consider each organic purchase. There may be no reason to buy an organic version of a favorite food when its conventional counterpart is little or no different and most likely cheaper. On average, organic food costs 30 to 50 percent more than conventional food. Heinz's Classico pasta sauce usually sells for about $3; the organic version is a dollar more. Many expect the new players, especially Wal-Mart, to prompt a marketwide price drop. The retailing behemoth has said its organic products will cost only 10 percent more than its nonorganic products. What's more, shoppers need to keep in mind that the jury is still out on whether organic food is more nutritious or safer. For years, scientists have been fiercely debating the health benefits of organic food, and studies so far have been small and equivocal.
While organic fruits and vegetables do usually have fewer pesticides than their conventional cousins, there is no consensus on how harmful those pesticides are to humans. Joseph Rosen, a professor of food science at Rutgers University who has been studying pesticides for more than 40 years, contends that the amount of pesticides on produce is too small to hurt and that the liver efficiently flushes them out. Other experts dispute that notion, and some shoppers don't want to take the risk.
Choosy buyers
Pesticides may be more of a concern for children because their small bodies are less able to metabolize pesticides -- and they ingest more food per pound of body weight than adults, according to a 1993 National Academy of Sciences report. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician at Mount Sinai School of Medicine who chaired the report committee, advises parents to go organic on the fruits and vegetables their kids consume a lot.
To reduce potential exposure to pesticides without breaking the bank, consumers should become choosy fruit buyers. A 2003 Environmental Working Group study that looked at USDA pesticide data from more than 100,000 pieces of produce found that those with the most pesticides include strawberries, peaches, nectarines, bell peppers, and spinach. Because of the way they are grown or their heartiness, conventional broccoli, asparagus, mangos, and bananas are less likely to have pesticides.
Recently, several small studies have shown that organic fruits and vegetables might also have higher amounts of protective antioxidants. The thinking: Without pesticides, the plant must rely on its own defenses to shoo away bugs; one way it does this is to make more antioxidants. Still, it's only a hypothesis. "I wouldn't tell my mom or neighbor to go buy organic because it has more antioxidants," says Kathleen Merrigan, director of the agriculture, food, and environment program at Tufts University and an author of the USDA organic standards rule. "I would tell them to buy it because it has fewer pesticides."
In the dairy case, organic milk gained popularity in the early 1990s when many big dairies began using the controversial recombinant bovine growth hormone to help increase a cow's milk production. Some groups say it can increase the risk of certain cancers or contribute to the early onset of puberty in girls, though the Food and Drug Administration found no human health issues -- nor did a Canadian panel that examined the hormone in the late 1990s.
Space to roam
While health concerns motivate many buyers, others prefer organic milk for more humanitarian reasons. Many organic milk producers are small farmers, and their cows are often given more space to roam than cows at large dairies. In fact, major organic dairy producers such as Horizon have come under much criticism for their pasture size. On an Idaho farm that's taken the brunt, the cows "are very comfortable," says Kelly Shea, a Horizon vice president. "They have a nice life." Shea adds that the company is now converting more land to organic there so the cows can have more room and increase their grass consumption. The USDA is currently seeking comments on a rule that would nail down the amount of pasture required for these cows.
On conventional farms, animals are routinely given hormones and antibiotics, which could be passed on to your dinner plate. Though there is no scientific consensus about whether these substances cause health problems, shoppers who want to avoid them can look for other phrases on meat packages. "You are not necessarily going to see the organic label," says Keecha Harris, a national nutrition consultant for the Head Start program. "You are going to see how the animal is raised." Beef that is marked "pasture-raised," for example, means the cow grazed on grass, and "free-range" denotes chickens that aren't confined to small cages. Or the package of pork chops might state that no growth hormones or antibiotics were used or that the pig was fed an all-vegetable diet. Some stores, such as Whole Foods, set their own guidelines for the meat they buy, and thus the packages may not be labeled. The best way to figure it out: Ask the butcher.
These days, the biggest organic explosion is in the middle of the store, where the cereals, frozen foods, and processed packaged goods are sold. Experts urge shoppers to remember that the organic label means one thing and one thing only. So the corn in Orville Redenbacher's organic microwave popcorn comes from an organic farm; Heinz's organic ketchup uses organic tomato concentrate and organic sugar. Shoppers still need to flip over those jars and packages and scrutinize the nutrition facts, says Dawn Jackson Blatner, a registered dietitian with Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Organic food and regular food should be viewed with the same skepticism when it comes to calories and fat. Take Whole Foods organic chocolate truffles made with organic cocoa beans, organic vegetable oil, and organic cane sugar. With just three candies packing more than half of the daily allowance of fat, they're not exactly a health food. But, "they taste pretty good," says Fromartz.
In the end, nearly everyone -- even the most ardent organic fans -- recommends that a consumer's first goal be a nutritionally balanced diet. Then the organic decision comes into play. "What people should be doing is getting more fruits and vegetables regardless of whether they're conventional or organic," says Harris. "A cheese puff is a cheese puff is a cheese puff."
by Tim Johnson, Burlington [Vermont] Free Press
June 11, 2006
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060611/BUSINESS/606110303/1003&theme=
One of the fastest growing waste streams in Vermont and across the country -- old computers and other electronics -- contains toxics that nobody wants to see trickling into a real stream. The business of recycling and harvesting electronic components is also growing fast, spawning cautionary tales typically illustrated by photos of morose children standing in the Third World dumps, surrounded by heaps of computer junk exported from the United States.
As with many businesses, there are practitioners who are up-front and environmentally responsible, and there are practitioners who are, well, like "Tom." "My name is Tom and I'd like to inquire about purchasing large amounts of computer scrap all sold as is," read an e-mail message that was received in Vermont on May 17. "Tom" said he was looking for "any amount which makes a full container load of equipment ... container supplied by me. supplier loads the container." Tom's e-mail address was through a Web site with a phone number out of Brooklyn, N.Y. Tom did not respond to questions e-mailed by The Burlington Free Press.
What becomes of -- what should become of -- a computer that is thrown away? The question grows in urgency as rates of obsolescence accelerate. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the average lifespan of a personal computer fell from 4.5 years in 1992 to two years in 2005. The most environmentally friendly answer is that workable components will be reused or repaired; that precious metals (such as gold, palladium) will be salvaged; and that toxics -- in particular, the lead that's contained in the glass of CRTs (cathode ray tubes, as in computer monitors or TVs) will be separated and recycled or legally disposed of. The good news is that this is what happens to a good share of the electronics that people in Vermont get rid of through their local waste districts.
Anybody's guess
What share of Vermont's e-waste winds up in the hands of unscrupulous exporters and ultimately atop waste piles in Nigeria or China? That's anybody's guess. A 2004 report by the state's Department of Environmental Conservation estimated that 23 percent of the state's discarded computers were collected for reuse or recycling by solid waste districts, nonprofits and private businesses, including Recycle North in Burlington and the Computer Barn in Barre. In 2005, according to state statistics, towns and waste districts collected 392 tons of electronic waste (up from 245 tons in 2004) through programs charging recycling fees of $5 to $15 per unit.
Much of the e-waste collected in Vermont and elsewhere in New England winds up at Good Point Recycling in Middlebury. Good Point takes anything with a cord and charges by the pound. Fees pay the wages of a dozen employees, who check out which parts are usable, which aren't, and sort it all across 15,000 square feet of warehouse space burgeoning with shipping containers of hard drives, monitors, cables, mouses, control boards, and so on.
What happens to it all? Some components are sold on eBay. Unusable CRTs are sent to domestic recyclers who put the leaded glass into new CRTs. Usable CRTs -- depending on the brand -- may be exported to Asian factories that rely on used parts to assemble TVs and computers that are marketed locally or repackaged and sold as new.
Presiding over all this is Robin Ingenthron, who founded Good Point in 2003 and was active in an Addison County electronics recycling program before that. Ingenthron cut his teeth at Electronicycle, a publicly contracted electronics-recycling company in the state that's on the cutting edge of the field in this country -- Massachusetts. Massachusetts gave a boost to electronic recycling when it banned CRTs from landfills. California has a similar ban. Vermont does not (although it does prohibit such disposal of mercury-containing liquid crystal display monitors). Two bills that would have banned the landfilling of electronics and imposed fees on manufacturers to cover recycling costs died in the Vermont Legislature this year. One of the Senate sponsors, Claire Ayer, D-Weybridge, said she plans to try again next session.
Ingenthron contends that Vermont is second only to Massachusetts in the amount of electronics recycled per capita. He believes that Vermont's system -- regular collections by the waste districts at a modest fee -- is particularly effective. He cites a 1998 state survey that found that "80 percent of the people would prefer to pay $5 to recycle or reuse than to throw it away for free."
The prize
Gold -- in chips and circuit boards -- is one of the prizes in old computers. The older the computer, the more gold it's likely to contain, Ingenthron said, adding that Asia leads the world in gold consumption per capita, and that e-scrap is richer in gold and other metals than mined ore. How is the plated gold removed? "There is a cheap and not very effective way to get the gold out," Ingenthron said, "via 'aqua regia' acids -- extremely poisonous."
If a boatload of computer waste arrives in Asia or Africa, the value of precious metals alone, plus a few salvageable parts, can cover the whole expense. Junk -- such as unusable CRTs -- is thrown on a dump or into a river.
A principal source of e-waste exports is the United States, according to the Basel Action Network, a Seattle nonprofit that has been campaigning vigorously for years against the dumping of hazardous waste in the developing world. BAN estimates that more than half the electronic waste collected in the United States is exported and states in a recent report, "The Digital Dump": "The e-waste recycling and disposal operations found in China, India and Pakistan are extremely polluting and likely to be very damaging to human health. Examples include open burning of plastic waste, exposure to toxic solders, river dumping of acids and widespread general dumping."
Besides lead, the EPA lists cadmium, mercury, chromium and "brominated flame retardants" in plastic casings as "contaminants of concern in old electronics." Cell phones also may contain arsenic and beryllium. None of these is a healthy addition to air or groundwater, in Vermont, Nigeria or anywhere else. The 2004 Vermont report concludes: "While the state cannot point to data showing significant environmental impact from the disposal of electronics, the potential exists for some air and groundwater contamination from landfilling or incinerating these devices."
by Deborah L. Shelton, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
June 10, 2006
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/newswatch/story/73EAAB094D35562E862571890055BED8?OpenDocument
In 1965, cigarette packs did not display warning labels. As recently as 1976, the government supplied discounted cigarettes in K-rations and C-rations to troops. And until 1990, you could still light up on a plane if the flight lasted longer than two hours. Times have changed. But have they changed enough?
Some public health advocates say many parts of the St. Louis region are behind the times when it comes to creating smoke-free environments. As of May, 11 states were considered "smoke-free" because of universal smoking bans at workplaces and other public places such as bars and restaurants, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation based in California. Missouri and Illinois are not among them, although 122 ordinances have been passed in Missouri and 49 have been enacted in Illinois.
"The difference is the strength of the ordinances," said Cathy Calloway, a senior field representative in government relations for the American Cancer Society. They range from regulations requiring non-smoking sections in restaurants to towns that are 100 percent smoke-free in public places. "We consider only five in Illinois and two in Missouri to be strong ordinances," said Calloway, who is based in Iowa.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Hospital Council announced May 31st that smoking would be banned on the properties of most area hospitals in September. More than a decade ago, smoking was prohibited inside their facilities, but the new rules would broaden the ban to include outside areas, including parking lots. As many as 34 hospitals in Missouri and five in the Metro East might implement the new regulations.
Even so, Pat Lindsey, executive director of Tobacco Free Missouri-St. Louis Coalition, said the metro area has a long way to go. "We're at the bottom," she said. "Smoking bans are being implemented all around us. Illinois is going gangbusters. Kansas is about to do a few things, and here we sit."
Critics of the restrictions, including representatives of the tobacco industry and some smokers, say some laws already go too far. "Smoking cigarettes is something I always thought was up to the individual," said John Britton, a former lobbyist for the tobacco industry who smokes four packs a day. "If somebody wants to smoke, let them smoke. If they want to eat eight hamburgers a day, let them eat eight hamburgers a day."
You would be violating the law if you lit up on some beaches on both coasts or on a public playground in New York City or in a car in Arkansas if a child young enough to be in a restraint seat was present. Local health departments in Massachusetts were recently given the go-ahead by the state Supreme Court to ban smoking in private clubs and meeting halls, leaving only homes and a few indoor places in the state exempt from anti-tobacco regulations. A proposed ban in Boca Raton, Fla., would prohibit smoking by city employees, even when they are at home. "When they try to ban smoking in private residences and cars, I think you are talking about an issue of personal rights," said Craig Fishel, a spokesman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.
Public health advocates say characterizing the issue as a battle of rights is misleading. "Can you show me in the Constitution where they have the right to smoke," said Stan Cowan, program coordinator for the tobacco use prevention program, Missouri Department of Health. "It's not a constitutional prerogative to smoke in the presence of others and force them to breathe in that air. People do have a right to clean air."
No smoking at work
Anti-smoking efforts are aimed primarily at creating smoke-free workplaces. Cancer Society polls show that up to 70 percent of the public wants legal protections from secondhand smoke, Calloway said. "Protecting the health of workers and patrons is the goal of these policies," Calloway said.
In Illinois, 19.9 percent of adults smoked in 2005, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Missouri, 23.4 percent of adults smoked. Nationally, the percentage of smokers was 20.6. Yet only a handful of Missouri communities have strong smoke-free ordinances, said Cowan. Those communities include Maryville and Arnold, which ban smoking in restaurants, and Ballwin, which forbids smoking in workplaces including bars.
In Illinois, 21 smoke-free ordinances have gone into effect this year alone, after a change in state law gave municipalities the authority to regulate smoking in public places. The law went into effect Jan. 1. "It's been like dominoes," Calloway said. The municipalities that have enacted ordinances include DeKalb, Chicago, Urbana and Bloomington, said Kathy Drea, public policy director of the American Lung Association of Illinois. More than 40 others are in the process of enacting ordinances, she said.
It's no coincidence that Missouri has one of the lowest tobacco taxes in the country and one of the highest smoking rates, said Dr. Jim Blaine, a family doctor and chairman of the Missouri Partnership on Smoking or Health, a statewide consortium of 30 public health groups. A physician for over 30 years, he said 90 percent of his patients who smoke want to quit but have a difficult time doing so.
Smoking-related illnesses kill more than 9,000 people a year in Missouri and secondhand smoke kills up to 1,500 a year, according to the Missouri Department of Health. Restrictions can have an immediate public health impact, Drea said. Studies published in the British Medical Journal and other medical publications have reported declines in lung cancer deaths, asthma attacks and hospital admissions for heart attacks after smoking bans were implemented.
Bans also motivate more people to quit. "There is a direct correlation between smoking bans and lower smoking rates," said Christine Winter, a spokesman for the American Cancer Society. Some studies have reported a 30 percent drop in smoking after a workplace goes smoke-free.
from the British Broadcasting Company
June 10, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5062860.stm
German researchers found rats exposed to the sunscreen chemical 4MBC had raised levels of thyroid stimulating hormones and heavier thyroid glands. The gland sits in the neck and produces hormones to regulate metabolism. If thyroid levels are altered it can cause lethargy, but Charite University said more research was needed to see if this also happened in humans.
Another chemical benzophenone 2 was also found to alter thyroid hormone levels, but the effect was reversed by other chemicals present in sunscreens. One in 50 people -- mainly women -- are affected by altered hormone levels.
Lead researcher Professor Josef Kohrle said more research was needed to test the findings, which were presented to the European Congress of Endocrinology. "These are initial studies which show that UV(ultra-violet light)-absorbing chemicals in sunscreens have an effect on animals, so we need to test these findings in humans before coming to too many safety conclusions. We also need to bear in mind that sunscreens have a beneficial effect in protecting against skin cancer, and so the last thing I'd say to anyone just now is to stop using sunscreens, but less extensive direct sun exposure might be better."
Dr Prakash Abraham, of the British Thyroid Association, said the findings were interesting but agreed people should not be put off using sunscreens just yet. "I have not heard of this happening before, more research is needed."
by Jason Mohr, Helena Independent Record
June 10, 2006
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2006/06/10/helena_top/a01061006_01.txt
A test of 38 Helena Valley wells from the North Hills to Montana City showed trace amounts from a range of pharmaceuticals and personal care products, according to sampling done by state and local water-quality experts. The study was the first of its kind in Montana. Using data collected last year, all but three of the public and private wells tested also found the presence of antibiotics, bug spray, caffeine, ibuprofen, steroids -- and even lotion.
Meanwhile, Lewis and Clark County officials said they probably won't be able to build a proposed central Helena Valley sewer extension in one shot. The line was proposed to replace some aging wastewater systems.
The study's findings were contained in a report by Montana Department of Environmental Quality researchers Kathleen Miller and Josephy Meek. The study authors couldn't be reached Friday afternoon, but City-County Health Department watershed expert Jim Wilbur said the report isn't cause for undue alarm. He said the contaminants were found at very low concentrations. But the results demonstrate the humans impacts on the water they use, Wilbur said. "These chemicals are pervasive in our society," Wilbur said. "What we flush down our septic systems...does not disappear. To us, it's confirmation that humans are having an impact on our groundwater."
The study was a cooperative effort of the DEQ, the City-County Health Department, and the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology. The Environmental Protection Agency now requires bacteria testing of public water supplies, which can indicate nitrates. Nitrate contamination is usually due to one of three sources: fertilizers, livestock and septic systems.
The report anticipates proposed federal rules regarding groundwater. And it comes during an ongoing public debate about an extension of city wastewater services. County Administrator Ron Alles said Friday the county won't likely be able to build the proposed four-mile, $4 million extension to Sierra Road. But they can help existing neighborhoods hook up -- with city approval. Developers of the 325-lot Aspen Trails Ranch subdivision north of the Helena Regional Airport are pursuing a city-approved extension. A county-approved Grasslands subdivision to the north may do the same, Alles said.
Some of the wells in the study were chosen randomly, while others were picked due to suspected contamination. The well locations were roughly concentrated north of East Helena, west of Helena, and the central and north Helena Valley areas, according to a map in the study. "Every time someone gets in the shower and washes off sunscreen, it makes its way into the groundwater," said WQPD administrator Kathy Moore in a prepared statement. "When thousands of people are using sunscreen every day, and then washing it off into the groundwater, the impact adds up quickly."
Pharmaceuticals and personal care products have likely been in the groundwater for some time, Moore said, but the county previously didn't have the equipment to test for them. The City-County Health Department recommended throwing old medications away in the garbage. The old medications can be put in a plastic pop contained with bleach or water to render them unuseable, she said.
by Deborah Smith, Sydney Morning Herald
June 10, 2006
http://www.smh.com.au/news/science/out-of-sight-and-out-of-control/2006/06/09/1149815315545.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
FOR a technology that is predicted to transform our lives -- and, perhaps, even our species -- creams and powders to beautify the face may seem unlikely candidates to be among the first goods off the production line. But the international cosmetics industry has been quick to embrace nanotechnology -- the engineering of materials on an extremely small scale. Many manufacturers promote the fact their cosmetics, soaps, shampoos, deodorants and sunscreens contain materials in nanoparticle form -- less than 100 nanometres across, or a thousandth the thickness of a hair -- as a high-tech advantage.
But these tiny ingredients have made them a big target. Cosmetics are the first consumer products to become a focus for concerns that some nanotechnologies could be harmful to human health or the environment. While Australian regulators say there is no evidence products used here are unsafe, environmental groups have called for a worldwide ban on the release of any more products that contain nanoparticles. Preliminary studies shows nanoparticles could be toxic, says Georgia Miller, a spokeswoman for Friends of the Earth. Yet no country requires specific safety testing of nanoscale ingredients. "This represents one of the most dramatic failures of regulation since the introduction of asbestos," she claims.
The term nanotechnology covers a wide variety of technologies that are expected to have as much impact this century as electricity and computers did in the last. Because properties such as electrical conductivity, magnetism and colour change when materials are engineered on a very small scale, nanotechnologies are likely to revolutionise medicine, energy production, environment monitoring and communications. Possible applications range from the miraculous to the mundane, from very strong fibres to help regenerate spinal cords to coatings for bathroom showers so they clean themselves.
But with the promise comes the possible peril. The ability of nanoparticles, for example, to pass through the blood brain barrier because of their small size could be a boon for the delivery of drugs, or a hazard. No one yet knows.
A Federal Government taskforce developing a national strategy on nanotechnology is due to report by the end of the month. And nanotechnology enthusiasts and critics alike have raised safety as a priority that needs to be addressed. The National Health and Medical Research Council has called for an urgent review of the available information on the potential hazards in its submission.
Nanotechnology has also been identified by the Department of Defence as an emerging occupational health and safety issue. Dr Ian Gardner of the Defence Centre for Occupational Health in Canberra says important issues include the exceptionally rapid spread of nanoparticles throughout the body in experimental animals. There is also a risk nanotubes -- tiny, very strong cylinders often made of carbon -- could trigger the immune system to deposit tissue in inappropriate places in the body. "They also have potential as warfare agents," he says.
The very low level of public awareness about nanotechnology and its possible social and ethical impacts, including the eventual enhancement of humans and the fusing of living and non-living materials, also worries consumer groups, including the Australian Consumers Association and Public Health Association. Development of a national strategy should be delayed until there has been more feedback on what people want from nanotechnology, through public meetings, citizens' forums and public education campaigns, they argue. Scientists, keen to avoid a repeat of the consumer backlash against genetically modified food, where the science moved faster than public acceptance, also want the public to be more aware of nanotechnology before it has a big impact.
But having a strategy as soon as possible will be the best way to ensure this happens, says the convener of the Australian Research Council Nanotechnology Network, Professor Chennupati Jagadish. "We have been very slow in developing a national strategy," he says. Rarely a week passes without advances in nanotechnology being reported. Dutch researchers, for example, last month succeeded in constructing the world's smallest transport system inside a glass chip (see graphic). They used proteins from cells as the trucks and roadway in a tiny tunnel and directed the traffic with an electric field. "It is really exciting work," says Sydney nanoscientist associate professor Justin Gooding, of the University of NSW.
Applications are still a long way off, but one possibility is a lab-on-a-chip device for diagnosing diseases, where tiny trucks are designed to pick up a particular protein and deliver it to an analysis site, he says. The medical research council also predicts nanotechnology will lead to "groundbreaking innovations" in medicine, such as improved diagnosis, better imaging of tumours, and defence systems against bioterrorism and emerging infections.
The health risks with nanoparticles were raised two years ago by Britain's influential scientific body, the Royal Society. It recommended that "until more is known about the environmental impacts of nanoparticles and nanotubes their release into the environment should be avoided as far as possible". If added to commercial products they should undergo a full safety assessment, it said.
Miller, of Friends of the Earth, says preliminary studies show carbon nanotubes and carbon nanoballs can cause brain damage to fish, kill water fleas and produce a toxic response in human liver cells. "However, these nanoparticles are being incorporated into consumer products designed to be used directly on the human skin without product manufacturers being required to demonstrate their safety." The organisation has released a list of 116 products that may contain nanoparticles.
According to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, which regulates sunscreens, about 70 per cent of sunscreens containing titanium dioxide and 30 per cent of those containing zinc oxide have these ingredients in nanoparticle form because this makes the sunscreen clear rather than white.
But after a review of the scientific literature this year, the administration concluded these nanoparticles would be a concern only if they penetrated living skin cells. And "the weight of current evidence is that they remain on the surface of the skin and in the outer dead layer of skin".
Dr Margaret Hartley, the director of the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme, which oversees cosmetics, says the Friends of the Earth report has been useful in highlighting the nanoparticles issue, but the report is only able to speculate about what is in the products. Most of the cosmetics it identifies are also applied to the skin, like sunscreens. "And the work the TGA has done is very sound and is not showing any risk to human health." More of a concern, she says, would be products where nanoparticles could be inhaled into the lungs. And to ensure safety, the scheme has recently asked manufacturers of all chemical products, including cosmetics, to inform them of the amounts and nature of any nanoparticles in their products.
Craig Brock, of ACCORD Australasia, an advocate for the consumer, cosmetic, hygiene and specialty products industry, says nanoparticles are not widely used in cosmetics and personal care products routinely used in Australia, and all products have undergone stringent safety evaluation. The group is very keen, too, for a national strategy to clarify the regulatory pathway for new products based on nanomaterials. "Given its enormous practical benefits, it is not in the interests of the Australian public for nanotechnology to become the next ideological battleground for anti-technology groups," he says.
from Reuters News Service
June 9, 2006
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/36730/story.htm
LUXEMBOURG -- Thirteen of the European Union's top trading partners, including the United States, Australia and Japan, urged the EU on Thursday to re-think legislation designed to protect people from toxic chemicals. The United States, long a critic of the EU's Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals (REACH) bill, said in a joint statement with the other countries that they were concerned the rules would hurt trade and be hard to implement. The law requires properties of roughly 30,000 chemicals produced or imported in the EU to be registered with a central agency. Those of highest concern, like carcinogens, would require testing and authorisation to be used.
"Trading partners uniformly agreed that modifications reducing the potentially disruptive impact of REACH on international trade and improving its workability would improve the legislation," the statement, issued after a meeting of ambassadors and officials, said. Brazil, Chile, India, Israel, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa, and Thailand were also listed on the statement.
EU ministers approved a version of REACH last December, shortly after the European Parliament backed a version of its own. The law was designed to protect people and the environment from the adverse effects of chemicals found in a wide range of products like paint, detergents, cars and computers. The bill is slated to go through a second reading in parliament later this year and then differences between lawmakers and member states will have to be thrashed out.
In the statement the countries urged the EU to address their concerns during this next phase of the legislative process. One major sticking point is likely to be the authorisation phase. Parliament approved a measure that would require companies to substitute safe substances for dangerous ones when alternatives are available. The ministers' version does not include mandatory substitution.
by Cindy Drukier and Rory Xu, Epoch Times Toronto
June 9, 2006
http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/6-6-9/42493.html
There's something is in the air at the Aamjiwnaang First Nations reserve near Sarnia, Ontario. But it's not just in the air. It's also in the water, the soil, and in the residents themselves: alarming levels of toxic chemicals, believed to be behind the area's skewed birth ratios. In Aamjiwnaang, two girls are born for every boy.
On June 1, Environmental Defence released Polluted Children , Toxic Nation, yet another study confirming that in the towns of Ontario's notorious "Chemical Valley," people are polluted. Chemical Valley is the ominous nickname for the sprawling industrial complex that makes up Canada's largest concentration of petrochemical manufacturing plants -- 40 percent of all such facilities in the country. The Aamjiwnaang (pronounced ham-jew-nong ) reserve, near Sarnia, sits squarely in the heart of the valley, where smokestacks from companies such Dow, Suncor, Shell, Imperial Oil, Nova, LanXess (Bayer), and Royal Polymer define the landscape.
The Aamjiwnaang reserve was established in 1827. In the 1960's, the petrochemical companies started to move in, taking over most of the band's land. Today, the reserve sits on 3,250 acres, a fraction of its original size, and is home to approximately 850 Chippewa people. The community is literally enclosed by heavy industry on three sides with the polluted St. Claire River to the west of it. The chemical stench in the air is palpable.
The Toxic Nation researchers tested children and parents in five families from across Canada for a broad range of commonly used toxic chemicals such as stain repellents, flame retardants, mercury, lead, DDT and PCBs. Three generations of the Plain family from the Aamjiwnaang community were among them. Wilson Plain Sr., 66, was found to have 32 chemicals in him, including the study's highest concentrations of PFOS (Perfluorooctane Sulfonate), PCBs and organochlorine pesticides. His son, Wilson Jr., 44, registered 36 chemicals, the highest total number, and his granddaughter Jessie, 14, contained 20 chemicals. "All of us are contaminated," said Wilson Plain Sr. "What's most shocking is my granddaughter, who has chemicals in her body that were banned before she was even born. Canadians have the right not to be polluted by these chemicals."
A History of Pollution Problems
The findings were disturbing but not totally surprising to Ron Plain, Chair of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation Environment Committee. "Our own studies have found heavy metals, such as mercury and lead, in the sediment throughout our community. It is worrisome to know that they are polluting our families."
The St. Claire River, which forms the border with Port Huron, Michigan, was identified as an "area of concern" in the mid-1980s as part of a bilateral effort to clean up the Great Lakes. But the problems didn't go away. During the nearly 20 years of clean-up efforts an additional 800 toxic spills -- from both sides of the border -- occurred in the river, says environmental watchdog Lake Ontario Waterkeeper. And in a recent Ontario provincial survey of local companies, virtually none were found to comply with the laws regarding spills. And that's not all -- a Pollution Watch report released last year named three Chemical Valley facilities in the Top 10 Ontario Respiratory Polluters list.
Severely Skewed Birth Ratios
Chemical contamination has long been a source of anxiety in the Aamjiwnaang community. Last summer, a study confirmed what was already obvious to everyone on the reserve: the number of girls there was far greater than the number of boys. A community participatory research project with the University of Ottawa found that between 1993 and 2003, only 41.2 percent of babies born on the reserve were male. The normal sex ratio for humans is roughly 105 males born for every 100 females (about 51.2 percent males). This pattern held true for Aamjiwnaang babies prior to the 1990s, but then something changed. Since 1993 girl births have been steadily outnumbering boy births and the gap continues to widen. Today, two girls are born for every one boy.
The big question, of course, is why? The leading theory is that the skewed birth ratios are due to Aamjiwnaang's industrial neighbours. The Toxic Nation study concludes that "although there are several potential factors that could be contributing to the observed decrease in sex ratio of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, the close proximity of this community to a large aggregation of industries and potential exposures to compounds that may influence sex ratios warrants further assessment into the types of chemical exposures for this population."
Hormone Mimics
The compounds the report refers to are generally known as "endocrine disruptors." Everything that shapes who we become -- including our nervous and immune system development, organ and tissue growth, metabolism, intelligence, behaviour, and sexuality -- is governed by the body's endocrine system. It develops mostly during gestation and early childhood. The endocrine system is made up of glands that deploy hormones, or chemical "messengers," to distant body parts telling them how to develop in the future. In this dizzying delivery system, each message must be sent at precisely the right time and must be received by a single specific target cell. Once the bond occurs, a chemical reaction is triggered and the fate of the cell is sealed. Although years may pass before the effects are seen, our bodies and minds are nonetheless programmed during these narrow windows of time in early life.
Many of the synthetic chemicals that have been unleashed into the environment since World War II -- such as pesticides, dioxin, PCBs, lead, mercury, styrene, household cleaners, cosmetics, PVC plastics in plastic wrap, water pipes, and others -- are imitating the body's natural hormones by bonding with the receptor cells or blocking messages altogether. And they are wreaking all manner of biological havoc. One result is altered birth ratios. It's not until the 56th day of gestation that the Y-chromosome kicks into action by telling the so far unisex sex gland to develop testicles. From here, the development of the male body and brain depends upon the testes issuing the right hormonal cues at the right time. One miscue and everything is altered.
Twenty-three of the chemicals found in the bodies of participants in the Toxic Nation study are known endocrine disruptors. Many of the pollutants produced in Chemical Valley also appear on the endocrine disruptors list. The theory is that these chemicals mimic, or interfere with, the hormones that produce male gender. This theory might also explain a variety of other abnormalities seen in the community, such as deformed puppies and kittens, fish in Lake St. Claire with both male and female reproductive organs, and woman experiencing multiple miscarriages. And on top of that, one in four school children on the reserve experiences developmental delays. All of these problems could be explained by endocrine interference.
A community meeting was held in Aamjiwnaang on Tuesday to discuss the Toxic Nation findings. While the problems run deep, many say the causes are clear. As one meeting participant said: "How are we going to stop the technology? We are supposed to live with the environment in harmony. The technology is growing fast; it also brought pollution to earth. The pollution not only affects human beings but also affects fish life, bird life... How are we going to stop it?"
Plain says the community of Aamjiwnaang is determined to do something about the pollution they believe is causing chemical pollution in their bodies. "The results of [the Toxic Nation] study have confirmed that this is not an Aamjiwnaang issue, nor is it a Chemical Valley issue, but it is an issue of national proportions."
by Barbara Barrett, Raleigh News & Observer
June 8, 2006
http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/448377.html
WASHINGTON -- There's a proposal in Congress that some people say could affect the safety of hush puppies, oysters, bean sprouts and other foods served in North Carolina and across the nation. Others say it would simplify food regulation without compromising safety. The bill, pushed for years by Sen. Richard Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican, would make food labels and regulations uniform nationwide, eliminating the patchwork of state-by-state rules in favor of federal law. It is aimed at rules in some states that require warning labels on foods with harmful ingredients.
What the bill would mean for state food inspections is unclear. And that's a concern for state officials, because more than 80 percent of food safety inspections are done at state and local levels. "What we don't want is this legislation to remove our right to develop laws to ensure safety," said Joe Reardon, director of food and drug protection for the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Across the nation, 39 states' attorneys general, along with the national associations of agriculture departments and food inspectors, oppose the bill. Its language is too broad and vague, they say. North Carolina has taken no position. Attorney General Roy Cooper hasn't reviewed the bill, a spokeswoman said.
The bill says federal law would pre-empt state regulations. States that want to keep their own rules would have to petition the Food and Drug Administration for approval. The Congressional Budget Office has called the scope of the legislation "ambiguous." It estimates the bill would cost the FDA $100 million over the next five years, including $400,000 a pop to sort through an estimated 240 state petitions.
Burr, the bill's chief sponsor in the Senate, says the legislation makes for good policy and would protect consumers and food companies from scattershot rules. "I'm a businessperson," Burr said in an interview Tuesday. "And that will never change." Striding across his Senate office to a closet, Burr pulled out a package of crackers from Lance, the Charlotte snack maker. "It makes absolutely no sense," he said, "to suggest to any business that in the future they may have to market their product in 50 different configurations in 50 different states." Burr said the bill would not prevent states from inspecting food.
Assumed safety
The issue can be baffling to consumers who just want to get groceries. When Samantha Struckmann of Raleigh shops for food, she isn't thinking about whether the bagged salad has E. coli or the shellfish once swam in coliform bacteria. She's focused on her grocery list and keeping two small boys in check. "I just assume everything's safe," said Struckmann, a stay-at-home mom whose sons are 3 months and 3 years old. Most consumers do, said Charlie Ingram of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture. "The average consumer probably doesn't know the amount of safety checks that are done," he said. "This legislation prevents our state and local people from carrying out their duties."
North Carolina inspects foods including bakery goods, frozen treats, dairy products, seafood, candy, ready-to-eat fruits and vegetables, meat, salads and sandwiches, Reardon said. The state uses its own criteria, without federal guidance. It conducts more than 22,600 bacterial tests a year, looking for such microbial pests as E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus.
The shellfish oversight program does follow federal guidelines. But in many cases North Carolina's rules are stricter, said Wayne Mobley, who oversees shellfish safety for the state. North Carolina closes some of its shellfish beds in the summer, for example, because warm waters can lead to dangerous toxin outbreaks. But federal law would allow harvesting there. The state requires live oysters be kept in refrigerated coolers; federal rules allow for shell stock to be placed on ice. "We really don't need the FDA to tell us how to do it," said Mobley, a section chief in the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Many opponents think the bill is aimed at a California law, called Proposition 65, passed by voters in the 1980s. It requires companies to put warning labels on items containing ingredients that cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive problems. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who opposes the federal bill, says the law has kept lead from candy and arsenic from bottled water.
Susan Stout, a lobbyist for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, said her group doesn't want to restrict inspections. It just wants to ensure that labeling rules are the same from state to state. "We want to make sure what's done is based on the best science available and done for all consumers," she said.
Some grocery shoppers are skeptical. Struckmann, of Raleigh, said she has less confidence in federal overseers. "I don't think they're as strict as the state is," she said. Dilip Barman, president of the Triangle Vegetarian Society, said California's rules have helped all consumers. "No matter where you live, it gives you a feeling of empowerment as a citizen to have input in state government and how food is labeled," said Barman, who lives in Durham. "I think there should be more disclosure in food."
Burr first introduced the bill in 1998, when he was in the House. The bill passed the House overwhelmingly in March.
Food industry support
Burr's political campaigns have long been supported by the agribusiness industry. In Burr's run for the Senate in 2004, he raised $156,236 from the food processing and sales industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington. Only President Bush and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry raised more. The same year, Burr was the second highest recipient of agribusiness money among Senate candidates, getting more than half a million dollars, according to the center. Burr shrugged off the connection. "We must've hit a nerve," he said. "Everybody's shooting at us. I truly believe they can't argue with the policy, so they're going to attack it."
by Charlie Goodyear, San Francisco Chronicle
June 7, 2006
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/07/BAGOSJ9NND1.DTL&type=health
San Francisco's Board of Supervisors gave final approval Tuesday to legislation that would make the city the first in the nation to ban the use of certain chemicals in the manufacture of plastic baby bottles, pacifiers and toys on the grounds that they could harm young children. The Child Safety Product Ordinance, introduced by Supervisor Fiona Ma in January, is scheduled to take effect Dec. 1. It would prevent the manufacture, sale or distribution in San Francisco of products intended for the use of children younger than 3 if they contain bisphenol A. Some forms of phthalate, a chemical used to soften plastics, also would be prohibited. A similar measure failed to pass in the California Legislature after opposition by chemical companies and retailers that argue that science has yet to show a serious health risk.
Supervisor Jake McGoldrick tried to delay Tuesday's vote by one week, saying he had been contacted by the owners of city companies who fear the legislation will hurt their business. McGoldrick said he wanted the city's Small Business Commission to examine the legislation. But a majority of the board voted against a delay. "This is an important piece of legislation," said Ma, who noted the commission had been sent a copy of her ordinance. "We need to pass it as soon as possible." Ultimately, the board voted unanimously to approve the measure.
In other action Tuesday, supervisors approved 9-2 legislation that would limit the number of new parking spaces in downtown San Francisco. Under the ordinance introduced by Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, developers of new residential buildings could provide no more than three parking spaces for every four new units of housing. The ordinance also would limit any above-ground parking structure to one story. The legislation is similar to a measure approved by the board this year but vetoed by Mayor Gavin Newsom.
The board also passed legislation introduced by Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval that would require city elected officials to identify the source of funding for trips taken outside the state if paid for by others, as well as the purpose of the trip, itinerary and a list of anyone accompanying them.
by Paul D. Thacker, Environmental Science & Technology
June 7, 2006
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2006/jun/science/pt_plastics.html
A chemical that leaches out of plastics has been discovered to modify the developing brains of female mice, who later behave much more like their brethren. This latest study builds on a growing body of literature about the toxicity of bisphenol A (BPA) and raises questions about its effects in humans.
In 1936, researchers found that BPA acts much like the hormone estrogen. Scientists now estimate that more than 6 billion pounds of the chemical are manufactured for use in products such as polycarbonate plastic -- the resin lining food cans -- and dental sealants. Citing the precautionary principle, city supervisors for San Francisco recently banned the chemical for use in products, such as baby bottles, that are intended for use by children under 3 years of age.
In the latest study, published in the journal Endocrinology, Beverly Rubin, an associate professor of cellular biology at Tufts University, and colleagues placed tiny pumps into female mice. From the 8th day of pregnancy until the 16th day of nursing, these pumps released doses of BPA into the mothers. This time period is critical because on the eighth day of development, embryonic mice begin growing neurons in a region of the brain that is critical for sexual behavior. Most importantly, says Rubin, the concentrations administered were very tiny. One set of mothers was exposed to doses of 250 nanograms per kilogram per day (ng/kg/d) of BPA, while the other set was dosed at only 25 ng/kg/d. "The levels of bisphenol A that were used are within the range that is estimated to be found in humans," she says. Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 95% of Americans excrete at least 100 parts per trillion (ppt) of BPA in their urine.
The scientists then examined the brains and behavior of the new generation of mice. In a section of the brain that controls the sexual cycle, female mice have 2-3 times as many neurons as males. But female mice who had been exposed to BPA while still in the womb were found to have fewer neurons than usual in this area of the brain. Female mice are typically more energetic than males, but the activity level of females who had been exposed to BPA dropped and mirrored that of their brothers. "We found that the differences between males and females, at least for these two markers, were obliterated," adds Rubin.
But Steve Hentges, executive director of the American Plastics Council, says he finds little that is compelling in the research. "This study is of limited relevance to human health. A more robust study should be done," he says. "We are within the human exposure range," counters Ana Soto, a Tufts professor of cellular biology and coauthor of the paper. She points out that other studies have found that BPA can lead to problems of the reproductive tract in both male and female rodents. "There is plenty of evidence now that low-dose levels lead to problems," she adds. Few studies have reported on how BPA might harm humans. One study found that exposure to BPA is associated with recurrent miscarriage.
For almost two decades, Fred vom Saal, a professor of biology at the University of Missouri, has been investigating chemicals that alter the hormone system. "The findings reported in this study show permanent changes to the brain at doses that are 2000-20,000 times lower than what is estimated to be safe," he says. In January, vom Saal published an article that examined 120 papers on BPA. Of these studies, 109 found effects on experimental animals from low doses -- 40 of them at concentrations below the U.S. EPA's recommended safe level of 50 micrograms/kg/d. However, he reported that 11 studies funded by industry found no effect from BPA.
And in a paper published in Cancer Research, scientists discovered that BPA can permanently alter DNA in rats. Like in the Rubin study, researchers exposed fetal rats to BPA at similar levels to those found in humans. When later tested, the male rats had DNA with an altered methylation pattern. Methyl groups act like switches and when attached to DNA can shut down gene expression. In this case, the excess methylation occurred on genes that regulate the function of the prostate, a gland that is influenced by hormones. Rats with this disrupted methylation pattern showed an increased incidence of precancerous prostate lesions.
Commenting on Rubin's research, Scott Belcher, an associate professor of pharmacology at the University of Cincinnati, says that the work does an excellent job of measuring low-dose responses in classic behavior and neuroanatomical studies. Last December, Belcher published an article in Endocrinology reporting that rat brains were affected by BPA at doses below 1 ppt. "It was very surprising to see how the effects correlate with levels that have been found in humans," he says.
by Lizz Thrall, Environmental Science & Technology
June 7, 2006
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2006/jun/tech/lt_nanoparticles.html
In a new study posted to ES&T's Research ASAP website, researchers report that titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles can trigger rapid and long-lasting defensive responses in mouse microglia, specialized cells that protect the brain from harmful external stimuli. The study -- according to corresponding author Bellina Veronesi, a researcher at the U.S. EPA's National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory -- is the first to examine the potential neurotoxicity of nanoscale TiO2, which is widely used in consumer products like sunscreen and cosmetics.
Scientists at EPA and elsewhere are studying the potential neurotoxicity of nanoscale TiO2 by monitoring the defensive reactions of microglia.The authors followed a protocol for nanotoxicity testing that they hope other researchers will adopt in order to facilitate comparison across studies. "You carefully characterize the particles," Veronesi explains, "and you begin with a very simple in vitro model. Then you move up the ladder" to more complicated systems and in vivo experiments.
Evidence is mounting that relatively nontoxic materials, like TiO2, become increasingly harmful at smaller sizes. Although they have yet to study the phenomenon in humans, toxicologists have begun to explore how nanomaterials spur the generation of biologically active molecules, known as reactive oxygen species (ROS), that can damage cells by inducing oxidative stress. Certain physical and chemical properties -- including size, surface area, and surface charge -- interact to determine how likely nanomaterials are to cause oxidative stress in biological systems.
But these same properties can be dramatically altered in solution, explains Greg Lowry, a professor of environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and a coauthor of the paper. Nanoparticles may cluster and form larger aggregates, for example, changing their effective size and surface area. "When you put these metal nanoparticles in water, they don't behave [ideally]," says Lowry, "and you have to understand that response."
After characterizing solutions of commercially available TiO2 nanoparticles -- Degussa's Aeroxide P25, used as a thermal stabilizer and in catalysis applications -- Veronesi and her colleagues exposed cultured microglia to the particles at concentrations ranging from 2.5 to 120 parts per million. Microglia respond to stimuli by engulfing them, in a process known as phagocytosis, and releasing chemicals in an "oxidative burst" designed to eliminate the offending stimuli. By monitoring a chemical signature of ROS formation over the course of 2 hours, the researchers found that TiO2 nanoparticles provoked a rapid and prolonged release of ROS by the microglia.
Although the microglia generate ROS as a defensive mechanism, a prolonged release can actually be harmful to the brain. "[Microglia] themselves are almost invincible to the danger of oxidative stress," explains Veronesi. "When they release ROS to the [brain] environment, however, they can damage surrounding cells." A similar mechanism has been implicated as the cause of neuronal damage in certain neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
The authors' next step is to determine whether neurons are harmed by the ROS triggered by nanoscale TiO2. According to Veronesi, a pilot study has shown that some neurons exposed to TiO2 initiate cellular processes that can ultimately progress to cell death, although she stresses that the findings are still preliminary: "It's a very lengthy process and... this [study] is just the ABCs. But it's solid data, and it can be pursued with confidence."
"I think they set the stage for future work," agrees Lisa Opanashuk, assistant professor of environmental medicine at the University of Rochester. "The most important aspect [of this research] is the [extensive] particle characterization." Opanashuk notes that "ROS analysis is a good step to look at potential reactivity at the cellular level." But she adds that researchers should also look for signs that nanoparticles are activating antioxidant defense systems or leading to inflammation.
"I think taking this altogether, it's a very nice story and it emphasizes [that] we need to be careful," says Wolfgang Kreyling of the GSF Institute for Inhalation Biology (Germany). Kreyling, who has extensively studied the translocation of nanoparticles in the body, notes that certain nanomaterials have been found to cross the blood-brain barrier and persist in the brain.
Although Kreyling has not determined whether TiO2 nanoparticles reach the brain, he has already seen that they can spread from the lungs to other organs. He cautions that the concentrations used in Veronesi's research may be higher than actual exposures, but researchers cannot know for sure. Future translocation studies will be critical, Kreyling says, "because if you don't have particles in the brain, then you don't have to look for interactions with microglia. Even if it's only a fraction, then you have to look at the interaction."
by Dave Curtin, Denver Post
June 7, 2006
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3907371
In Steamboat Springs, skiers inhaled particles from road sanding until a cleaning program dampened the dust and swept the streets. It took a paving program in Cripple Creek to cut airborne grit in the mining camp turned casino town. Now, the federal Environmental Protection Agency wants to end air-quality rules for such coarse-particle dust in rural areas -- exempting small towns, farms and mines. Colorado environmental officials say that's a mistake.
The EPA's own scientific advisory panel also opposes the move. "The EPA has not provided a compelling rationale as to why we should stop," said Margie Perkins, director of air pollution control at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. The proposed standard would undo programs that have reduced high levels of dust and soot, Perkins said.
The EPA proposal slated to be adopted this fall would regulate "big dust" -- inhalable particles one-quarter the size of a grain of salt -- only in urban areas. "We're talking only about certain parts of the country where there is a prevalence of brake- lining debris, industrial dust, tire pieces, coke-oven emissions," said John Bachmann, the EPA's associate director for science policy, in Washington, D.C. "All the stuff that can be found in urban areas," Bachmann said.
Still, Steamboat Springs sees dust -- which is trapped in the air during the winter when an inversion keeps pollution over the city -- as an issue. "Dust is a real concern in our community, and I suspect we'll continue to sweep," said Jim Weber, director of public works for Steamboat Springs. "But we are concerned about our funding source drying up," Weber said. The town receives about $100,000 annually in highway funds for its street-sweeping program.
The air-quality rules have also prodded Cripple Creek, Lamar and Pagosa Springs, among others, to clean up. To combat the dust and soot, the towns were put on plans that included woodburning bans, street sweeping and dampening of dirt roads, Perkins said. The proposed EPA rule -- exempting rural areas with fewer than 100,000 residents -- would lift those requirements for these towns, Perkins said. "If they fall into that situation again, do we just forget about it?" Perkins said.
Some critics also point out farm dust contains manure and pesticide residues, while toxic chemicals are found in mining dust. "There's not enough evidence to know if it's harmful in the concentrations you find in rural areas," the EPA's Bachmann said. "We're not sure we should push the standard to the entire nation."
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association in Washington, D.C., said agricultural dust should only be monitored, not regulated. "Under the Clean Air Act, there must be evidence of substantial adverse health effects, and there is no such evidence," said Tamara McCann-Thies, the association's director of environmental issues. Under the EPA proposal, the number of monitors in Colorado would be cut to 11 from 31, including all monitors in rural areas.
The American Lung Association, the American Heart Association and the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America are against the proposal. "The EPA put politics above science by exempting mine and agricultural activities from any kind of a standard, and we think that's completely wrong," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Washington-based Clean Air Watch. The EPA's clean air advisers -- a committee that includes Dr. James Crapo of National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver -- also objected to the EPA proposals in a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. The committee "neither foresaw nor endorsed a standard that specifically exempts all agricultural and mining sources and offers no protection ... in areas of populations less than 100,000," according to the March 21 letter.
by David Templeton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
June 7, 2006
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06158/696277-85.stm
Noting that "babies are at the greatest risk," a group of 44 medical, public health and environmental officials statewide is pushing the state Legislature to adopt stricter standards for mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.
The state has until November to adopt tougher regulations proposed by the Department of Environmental Protection. If the standards are not adopted, the state would be required to use U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations permitting a slower rate of compliance and allowing power plants to buy credits from more compliant companies rather than reduce their own levels of mercury emissions.
Bills have been introduced in the state House and Senate to require the state to adopt less stringent EPA standards, prompting the 44 medical and public health officials to hold a statewide teleconference yesterday to call for passage of the stricter state regs. They said people backing the federal standards have not read volumes of health studies on mercury's health effects or have chosen to ignore the evidence. They likened opposition to stricter standards to the tobacco industry's rejection of evidence that cigarettes cause cancer, and paint and gasoline companies discounting data that lead in paint and gasoline impairs childhood development. "We need to get rid of mercury as much as possible and as soon as possible," said Dr. James E. Jones of Physicians for Social Responsibility, noting that "prevention is the way to approach this." "There is no safe level," he said. "The principle has to be, the less mercury the better."
The state Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee held a third hearing yesterday in Harrisburg on a bill its chairwoman -- state Sen. Mary Jo White, R-Venango County -- introduced to force adoption of less restrictive EPA standards. She said it was necessary because stricter state regs would force power plants to add technology to reduce mercury emissions and cause energy costs to rise for consumers. Ms. White also said there's no definitive evidence mercury ingestion among state residents is causing negative health effects.
But officials attending yesterday's teleconference said certain senators are ignoring evidence that counters their viewpoint. "How many times do we have to go through this argument?" said Dr. Conrad Daniel Volz, co-director of Exposure Assessment and Control Division of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute's Center for Environmental Oncology. The group that included 19 medical doctors said low to moderate exposure to mercury before birth can cause developmental problems -- delayed walking and speech and diminished performance in tests of attention, fine motor function, language, visual-spatial abilities and memory. The group said 630,000 newborns each year are at risk of serious neurological and developmental impairment due to mercury exposure.
A Penn State University study, which the DEP released last week, said mercury emissions cause hot spots in communities near power plants. The university said water samples collected for eight years showed a 47 percent increase in mercury levels downwind from power plants, as compared with a Tioga County community with little direct exposure to mercury emissions.
But a state coalition of organizations representing power companies, unions, chambers of commerce and manufacturers said DEP's data showed no direct link between power plant emissions and mercury hot spots. They said DEP's conclusions are "simply not true."
Dr. Volz, as well as others attending yesterday's news conference, said the evidence is clear: Mercury emissions cause hot spots and lead to increased mercury contamination in fish, which in turn causes higher levels in humans who consume those fish. He said minorities and more impoverished people fish the local rivers and eat walleye, catfish and other species they catch, despite alerts against consumption of local fish. "People in Pittsburgh eat appreciably more fish [from local rivers] than once thought," he said.
by Jeff Montgomery, Wilmington News Journal
June 7, 2006
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060607/NEWS/606070366/1006
Delaware's largest power plants may have to spend as much as $750 million to curb smog, soot and mercury emissions under a newly announced proposal that state officials said Tuesday will save lives and improve public health. The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control's "multi-pollutant strategy" includes provisions that are tougher than upcoming federal requirements for nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and mercury emissions. Draft regulations are scheduled for release by Sept. 1, with a public hearing later in the month. "We're making good on a long-overdue commitment to clean up the air and reduce mercury emissions," said James D. Werner, DNREC air- and waste-management director.
Electricity generating costs could rise by about 20 percent for the state's largest electricity producers. Pollution releases at peak generating rates would drop by 76 percent for nitrogen oxides and 87 percent for sulfur dioxide when the regulations take full effect in 2012. The state plan also would prevent looser federal mercury control regulations from taking effect later this year. The federal approach would allow utilities to buy or sell "credits" for mercury emission rights. That system could help dirtier generators postpone spending on equipment to stop releases of mercury, a toxic metal that accumulates in the environment and can cause neurological damage, especially in children. "It's been our position since day one that we should not be in the business of trading a neurotoxin," said Ali Mirzakhalili, DNREC air-quality program manager.
Work began last year
DNREC began work on the new rules last year, aiming for "significant" cuts in air pollution from state coal- and oil-fired plants. Officials took the step after federal studies found Delaware power plants would probably continue operating with outdated pollution control systems despite new national regulations. Without state action, local generators could gain a price advantage over cleaner plants in surrounding states -- eventually increasing production and making Delaware's air worse. The proposal would mainly affect NRG Energy's Indian River plant near Millsboro, Conectiv Energy's Edge Moor power plant in Fox Point and Dover's McKee Run power plant.
Industry representatives had recommended looser standards earlier this year. Dover officials urged DNREC to exempt the capital city's much-smaller generating station, citing the high cost of compliance and importance of backup electricity to government centers. "We're still relatively early in the process. We're going to review the materials that DNREC presented today to determine its potential impact on our generating units," said Bill Yingling, a spokesman for Conectiv Energy. NRG officials said they also want time to study DNREC's plan.
Environmentalist unimpressed
Delaware Nature Society representative Dominique Baron described the plan as "a good first step." Alan Muller of the environmental group Green Delaware said that DNREC's approach would make little difference in short-term pollution levels. So far, it's been a process that has strived mightily and produced a mouse," said Muller. He also criticized a recent Delaware Economic Development Office recommendation for greater attention to the burden utilities would face, and said that state public health and utility regulators should be playing a more active role.
In March, Conectiv and NRG Energy offered to support requirements for pollution "scrubbing" technologies that could curb emissions by up to 70 percent for some compounds. The regulations would target nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide -- important ingredients in smog and acid-rain formation -- as well as mercury. State officials said the effort also could play a part in longer-term efforts to reduce industrial emissions of carbon dioxide, which has helped to raise global average temperatures, possibly altering the world's climate.
Coal-burning power plants in Wilmington and Millsboro now rank as the state's top sources of toxic pollution and, after motor vehicles, are the top contributors to high ozone and soot pollution across the state. Ozone and soot are believed to worsen asthma and respiratory disease levels. Local power-plant smokestacks also have been tentatively linked to high nitrogen levels in area waterways and unacceptably high mercury contamination in Delaware Bay fish tissues. The American Lung Association gave New Castle's air quality a failing "F" grade based on ozone and soot pollution in a report on nationwide conditions in 2005. Kent and Sussex counties both failed for ozone levels and received a "D" for soot.
NRG is considering the Indian River site near Millsboro for a new 650-megawatt, $1 billion power plant that would convert coal to cleaner-burning fuel gases. DNREC's regulations could allow for looser "transitional" pollution rates if companies agree to shut down and replace dirty plants with systems that meet modern standards.
by Aditi Risbud, U.S. News & World Report
June 6, 2006
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/060606/6leadfree.htm
In the tiny trenches of your computer's processor, countless electrons race along at breakneck speed, hanging left and right turns through wires, diodes, and other doodads made partly of toxic metals. It's the kind of circuitry that industry has built for decades, without giving much thought to the environmental consequences from trace materials buried deep in electronic gizmos' guts. But not for much longer. Tough new rules are forcing one of the biggest manufacturing overhauls in the history of high technology, with winners and losers yet to be sorted out.
Beginning July 1, the European Union will enforce a set of "green" mandates requiring all new computers, appliances, and telecommunication devices sold in the EU to be free of hazardous substances including lead, mercury, and cadmium. The EU move is meant to promote recycling and slow the buildup of hazardous substances in landfills. For electronics manufacturers and supply chains in the United States, China, and Japan, however, the change presents serious problems. Both the solder and components used to create circuit boards are made with materials containing lead. So, a tried-and-true manufacturing technology will have to be completely revamped. Nearly every electronics market segment, from dishwashers to PlayStations, is affected. Only medical, military, and aerospace products are exempt from the July 1 deadline.
"The EU mandate imparts a double-edged sword of opportunity," says Frank Bernhard, a technology economist at Omni Consulting Group in Davis, Calif. "On one hand, it delivers the promise of environmental efficiency, but it also raises the distinct possibility of a trade imbalance as the transition takes effect." According to a 2005 projection by the World Trade Organization, China alone could face a $37 billion loss in foreign trade once the EU mandates are in place.
Because few companies can afford to make one set of products for the EU and another for the rest of the world, most will follow the directive. "What's happening in Europe has a way of coming across the ocean," says Bernhard. "It's changing the overall ecosystem of technology." Indeed, the EU mandate has triggered a global response, and other countries are rapidly adopting similar restrictions. Australia, Canada, South Korea, and Taiwan have all accepted the EU directive, and Japan and China have developed their own restrictions on hazardous substances. The U.S. electronics industry, which uses less than 2 percent of the world's lead, has no pending federal directives, but the state of California has issued a hazardous-substances law to take effect next January. To remain a player in the EU market, experts say, U.S. companies will go lead free, with or without local legislation.
Lead-based solders have been a mainstay in circuit boards over the past 50 years because of their low melting temperature, low cost, and high reliability. AIM, a global solder maker based in Rhode Island, has now developed lead-free versions by alloying tin with copper or nickel. Pursuit of even better substitutes continues in many labs. C.P. Wong, a researcher at Georgia Tech, is working with Intel to develop a coating for the tin-based solder -- "like siding on a house," says Wong -- that can boost reliability.
This is the biggest change in the electronic packaging industry in the last 100 years," says Robert Rietkerk, a sales manager at AIM. "It's happening as we speak." Avago Technologies is already providing lead-free components for cellphones, sensors, and LEDs to top-tier companies such as Motorola, Nokia, and Siemens. "We've been in the planning process for a long time," says Allen Chien, an Avago program manager.
Although larger manufacturers can weather the financial storm, smaller companies are left scrambling. Lead-free solders must be processed at higher temperatures, meaning companies must purchase new equipment to meet the requirements. A typical solder machine, says Rietkerk, costs somewhere between $30,000 and $150,000. What's more, tin metal costs up to 10 times as much as lead.
The increase in manufacturing cost could trickle down to consumers, slowing shipments and pushing up prices. According to a 2005 Global Sources survey of 359 companies in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea, approximately two thirds of these companies are expecting product prices to jump as much as 10 percent.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says the transition to lead-free solders presents a "significant opportunity for risk reduction" through the decreased use of lead, which is associated with a variety of health problems. The lead-free mandate could also help reduce the 220 million tons of electronic waste dumped into landfills each year in the United States alone. Ultimately, no matter which edge of the sword drives governments to make the shift, it's going to be a lead-free summer for solder.
by Michael Pollan, New York Times Magazine
June 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/magazine/04wwln_lede.html?ex=1150344000&en=1410a38b6780bdf4&ei=5070&emc=eta1
"Elitist" is just about the nastiest name you can call someone, or something, in America these days, a finely-honed term of derision in the culture wars, and "elitist" has stuck to organic food in this country like balsamic vinegar to mâche. Thirty years ago the rap on organic was a little different: back then the stuff was derided as hippie food, crunchy granola and bricklike brown bread for the unshaved set (male and female division). So for organic to be tagged as elitist may count as progress. But you knew it was over for John Kerry in the farm belt when his wife, Teresa, helpfully suggested to Missouri farmers that they go organic. Eating organic has been fixed in the collective imagination as an upper-middle-class luxury, a blue-state affectation as easy to mock as Volvos or lattes. On the cultural spectrum, organic stands at the far opposite extreme from Nascar or Wal-Mart.
But all this is about to change, now that Wal-Mart itself, the nation's largest grocer, has decided to take organic food seriously. (Nascar is not quite there yet.) Beginning later this year, Wal-Mart plans to roll out a complete selection of organic foods -- food certified by the U.S.D.A. to have been grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers -- in its nearly 4,000 stores. Just as significant, the company says it will price all this organic food at an eye-poppingly tiny premium over its already-cheap conventional food: the organic Cocoa Puffs and Oreos will cost only 10 percent more than the conventional kind. Organic food will soon be available to the tens of millions of Americans who now cannot afford it -- indeed, who have little or no idea what the term even means. Organic food, which represents merely 2.5 percent of America's half-trillion-dollar food economy, is about to go mainstream. At a stroke, the argument that it is elitist will crumble.
This is good news indeed, for the American consumer and the American land. Or perhaps I should say for some of the American land and a great deal more of the land in places like Mexico and China, for Wal-Mart is bound to hasten the globalization of organic food. (Ten percent of organic food is imported today.) Like every other commodity that global corporations lay their hands on, organic food will henceforth come from wherever in the world it can be produced most cheaply. It is about to go the way of sneakers and MP3 players, becoming yet another rootless commodity circulating in the global economy.
Oh, but wait...I meant to talk about all the good that will come of Wal-Mart's commitment to organic. Sorry about that. When you're talking about global capitalism, it can be hard to separate the good news from the bad. Because of its scale and efficiency and notorious ruthlessness, Wal-Mart will force down the price of organics, and that is a good thing for all the consumers who can't afford to spend more for food than they already do. Wal-Mart will also educate the millions of Americans who don't yet know exactly what organic food is or precisely how it differs from conventionally grown food.
The vast expansion of organic farmland it will take to feed Wal-Mart's new appetite is also an unambiguous good for the world's environment, since it will result in substantially less pesticide and chemical fertilizer being applied to the land -- somewhere. Whatever you think about the prospect of organic Coca-Cola, when it comes, and come it surely will, tens of thousands of acres of the world's cornfields -- enough to make all that organic high-fructose corn syrup -- will no longer receive an annual shower of pesticides like Atrazine. O.K., you're probably registering a flicker of cognitive dissonance at the conjunction of the words "organic" and "high-fructose corn syrup," but keep your eye for a moment on that Atrazine. Atrazine is a powerful herbicide applied to 70 percent of America's cornfields. Traces of the chemical routinely turn up in American streams and wells and even in the rain; the F.D.A. also finds residues of Atrazine in our food.
So what? Well, the chemical, which was recently banned by the European Union, is a suspected carcinogen and endocrine disruptor that has been linked to low sperm counts among farmers. A couple of years ago, a U.C. Berkeley herpetologist named Tyrone Hayes, while doing research on behalf of Syngenta, Atrazine's manufacturer, found that even at concentrations as low as 0.1 part per billion, the herbicide will chemically emasculate a male frog, causing its gonads to produce eggs -- in effect, turning males into hermaphrodites. Atrazine is often present in American waterways at much higher concentrations than 0.1 part per billion. But American regulators generally won't ban a pesticide until the bodies, or cancer cases, begin to pile up -- until, that is, scientists can prove the link between the suspect molecule and illness in humans or ecological catastrophe. So Atrazine is, at least in the American food system, deemed innocent until proved guilty -- a standard of proof extremely difficult to achieve, since it awaits the results of chemical testing on humans that we, rightly, don't perform.
I don't know about you, but as the father of an adolescent boy, I sort of like the idea of keeping such a molecule out of my son's diet, even if the scientists and nutritionists say they still don't have proof that organic food is any safer or healthier. I also like that growing food organically doesn't pollute the rivers and water table with nitrates from synthetic fertilizer or expose farm workers to toxic pesticides. And the fact that animals raised organically don't receive antibiotics or synthetic growth hormones. Sounds like a better agriculture to me -- and Wal-Mart has just put the force of its great many supermarkets behind it.
But before you pour yourself a celebratory glass of Wal-Mart organic milk, you might want to ask a few questions about how the company plans to achieve its laudable goals. Assuming that it's possible at all, how exactly would Wal-Mart get the price of organic food down to a level just 10 percent higher than that of its everyday food? To do so would virtually guarantee that Wal-Mart's version of cheap organic food is not sustainable, at least not in any meaningful sense of that word. To index the price of organic to the price of conventional is to give up, right from the start, on the idea, once enshrined in the organic movement, that food should be priced not high or low but responsibly. As the organic movement has long maintained, cheap industrial food is cheap only because the real costs of producing it are not reflected in the price at the checkout. Rather, those costs are charged to the environment, in the form of soil depletion and pollution (industrial agriculture is now our biggest polluter); to the public purse, in the form of subsidies to conventional commodity farmers; to the public health, in the form of an epidemic of diabetes and obesity that is expected to cost the economy more than $100 billion per year; and to the welfare of the farm- and food-factory workers, not to mention the well-being of the animals we eat. As Wendell Berry once wrote, the motto of our conventional food system -- at the center of which stands Wal-Mart, the biggest purveyor of cheap food in America -- should be: Cheap at any price!
To say you can sell organic food for 10 percent more than you sell irresponsibly priced food suggests that you don't really get it -- that you plan to bring business-as-usual principles of industrial "efficiency" and "economies of scale" to a system of food production that was supposed to mimic the logic of natural systems rather than that of the factory.
We have already seen what happens when the logic of the factory is applied to organic food production. The industrialization of organic agriculture, which Wal-Mart's involvement will only deepen, has already given us "organic feedlots" -- two words that I never thought would find their way into the same clause. To supply the escalating demand for cheap organic milk, agribusiness companies are setting up 5,000-head dairies, often in the desert. These milking cows never touch a blade of grass, instead spending their days standing around a dry-lot "loafing area" munching organic grain -- grain that takes a toll on both the animals' health (these ruminants evolved to eat grass, after all) and the nutritional value of their milk. But this is the sort of milk (deficient in beta-carotene and the "good fats" -- like omega 3's and C.L.A. -- that come from grazing cows on grass) we're going to see a lot more of in the supermarket as long as Wal-Mart determines to keep organic milk cheap.
We're also going to see more organic milk -- and organic foods of all kinds -- coming from places like New Zealand. The globalization of organic food is already well under way: at Whole Foods you can buy organic asparagus flown in from Argentina, raspberries from Mexico, grass-fed meat from New Zealand. In an era of energy scarcity, the purchase of such products does little to advance the ideal of sustainability that once upon a time animated the organic movement. These foods may contain no pesticides, but they are drenched in petroleum even so.
Whether produced domestically or not, organic meat will increasingly come not from mixed, polyculture farms growing a variety of species (a practice that makes it possible to recycle nutrients between plants and animals) but from ever-bigger Confined Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFO's, which, apart from using organic feed and abjuring antibiotics, are little different from their conventional counterparts. Yes, the federal organic rules say the animals should have "access to the outdoors," but in practice this often means providing them with a tiny exercise yard or, in the case of one organic egg producer in New England, a screened-in concrete "porch" -- a view of the outdoors. Herein lies one of the deeper paradoxes of practicing organic agriculture on an industrial scale: big, single-species CAFO's are even more precarious than their conventional cousins, since they can't use antibiotics to keep the thousands of animals living in close confinement indoors from becoming sick. So organic CAFO-hands (to call them farmhands seems overly generous) keep the free ranging to a minimum and then keep their fingers crossed.
Wal-Mart will buy its organic food from whichever producers can produce it most cheaply, and these will not be the sort of farmers you picture when you hear the word "organic." Big supermarkets want to do business only with big farmers growing lots of the same thing, not because big monoculture farms are any more efficient (they aren't) but because it's easier to buy all your carrots from a single megafarm than to contract with hundreds of smaller growers. The "transaction costs" are lower, even when the price and the quality are the same. This is just one of the many w