|
 |
|
Coordinated nationally by the Institute for Children's Environmental Health |
To join the Partnership for Children's Health and the Environment (PCHE) and receive this bulletin, please complete the form at http://www.partnersforchildren.org/members.html#member.
March 23 - 26, 2006
Leavenworth, Washington
at the Sleeping Lady Resort
The theme of this year's festival is "Walking the Ecological Line," and it promises to build on the success of the last seven festivals providing four days of great films and workshops. We are currently conducting an international search for great works that you can learn more about on our website.
Website: http://www.hazelfilm.org/2006leavenworth.html.
March 31 - April 2, 2006
New Brunswick, New Jersey
The Science and Environmental Health Network and Environmental Research Foundation have created The Precaution Academy to offer an intensive weekend of training to prepare participants to apply precautionary thinking to a wide range of issues in their communities and workplaces. The Academy is intended to serve the needs of citizen activists, government officials, public health specialists, small business owners, journalists, educators, and the engaged public. Presenters and discussion leaders include Carolyn Raffensperger, Nancy Myers, Ted Schettler, Katie Silberman and Peter Montague. The cost of the Precaution Academy in New Brunswick, N.J. is $350, which includes hotel for 2 nights, plus six meals, and all instructional materials. Participation is limited to 15 people. You may want to check with to learn whether space is available. Send your check to Science and Environmental Health Network, P.O. Box 50733, Eugene, OR 97405
Contact: Sherri Seidmon, sherri@sehn.org
April 1 - 2, 2006
New Haven, Connecticut
at Yale University's Linsly Chittenden Hall, 63 High Street
This conference will convene more than 600 people from throughout the world who are interested in international service, global health, public health and medicine. This conference brings together student leaders and activists, doctors, public health professionals, nurses, Peace Corp volunteers and others. The conference's goal is to inform the public about health divides and empower them to develop solutions to improve access to care for the medically underserved. The keynote address will be "Environment, Behavior and Health: Societies Matter" by Al Sommer, MD, MHS.
Website: http://www.uniteforsight.org/2006_annual_conference.php
by Andrew Silva, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
March 20, 2006
http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_3619574
People who live, work and play next to freeways are receiving heavy doses of the most dangerous type of smog, but houses continue to spring up next to the polluted roadways. "I think you should think very carefully about locating anything near a freeway, especially schools and housing,'' said William Hinds, a professor at the UCLA Department of Environmental Health Sciences.
As scientists learn more about minuscule flecks of dust and chemicals called particulates, the more dangerous the substances are declared. The potential health risks of building homes next to freeways is well known by some officials but hardly recognized by others. "Looking at air toxics is fairly new,'' said Tom Dodson of San Bernardino-based Tom Dodson & Associates, a consulting firm that has worked on several environmental reviews for large-scale projects. "You do not see it very often."
Homebuyers usually don't give it much thought, either. Freddy Matin, 30, just moved into a brand-new home in Fontana about 100 yards from the 15 Freeway. He has two young sons, ages 1 and 2. The smoke-spewing exhaust pipes of big rigs whizzing by are visible just above the sound wall at the end of the street. "They should mention it," Matin said of the air pollution danger. "We didn't think about it. The only thing we thought about was noise."
Two studies by Hinds and his colleagues found that ultrafine particles, those that are so small they can penetrate deep into tissues and organs beyond the lungs, can be 25 to 30 times heavier next to freeways than they are elsewhere. Particulates have been in the news lately because the Bush administration ignored the recommendation of its own scientists and refused to significantly tighten the standards.
Discussions usually focus on particles 2.5 microns to 10 microns in diameter, called PM2.5 and PM10. A micron is one-millionth of a meter. Put another way, take the thickness of a dime, slice it 1,000 times and that's about a micron. A human hair is about 70 microns in diameter, meaning PM10 is about one-seventh the diameter of human hair, while PM2.5 is about one-thirtieth the diameter. In contrast, the largest ultrafines are one-tenth the diameter of PM2.5. Particles that small can actually penetrate into cells and do significant damage, said Jean Ospital, health effects officer for the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
The studies by Hinds on freeway ultrafines was conducted on Interstate 405, which carries upward of 300,000 vehicles per day, and Interstate 710, which sees more than 210,000 vehicles per day, about one-quarter of those being heavy trucks. Thanks in part to those studies, a state law passed in 2003 prohibits schools from being built within 500 feet of heavily traveled roadways unless officials can prove it doesn't endanger children's health. "We know pollution that comes out of cars is especially bad for growing little children," said Suzanne Wierbinski, chief of staff for state Sen. Martha Escutia, D-Montebello, who introduced the legislation.
The legal definition of a heavily traveled roadway is 100,000 vehicles per day. I-15 between Summit Avenue and Glen Helen Parkway sees about 130,000 vehicles per day, including heavy diesel trucks. The environmental review for the Coyote Canyon Specific Plan along that section of I-15, completed in 2001, did not address threats to future residents from freeway pollution. The studies on the concentration of ultrafine particles near freeways came out in 2002.
Fontana Mayor Mark Nuaimi said houses immediately next to freeways are a pet peeve of his, but that's because of noise and general quality of life, not specifically because of the health threat. "As an elected official, it's not something that gets on our radar," he said. Along freeways he favors building businesses or apartments and condominiums because there is much less outdoor activity. He then wondered if apartments are a bad idea right next to a freeway.
The original design of the Coyote Canyon project had houses even closer to the freeway, but officials wanted them on the other side of the frontage road, Nuaimi said. By coincidence, that probably reduces the health risk significantly. The studies found that levels of ultrafines drop almost to background level beyond 150 meters.
For new developments, it's almost the flip-side of an environmental justice issue, namely that lower-income people often live along the most polluted corridors, including freeways and rail yards. But the houses springing up mere yards from Interstate 15 in Fontana are selling for $700,000, and a new park is being constructed right next to the freeway. "Well-off people are entitled to clean air, too," quipped Carol Gomez, transportation program manager for the AQMD.
Rialto is banking on extensive high-end development, including housing, along Interstate 210 after the freeway extension is finished in 2007. City leaders envision the soon-to-be-closed Rialto Municipal Airport, just south of the I-210 extension, as a bustling mix of commercial and residential development. Businesses would be close to the freeway and housing would be set farther away. That's on purpose, City Manager Henry Garcia said. "We are very cognizant of particulates," he said. "We are planning to have some type of buffer from the freeway."
The city of Chino has gone even further. As a "clean air city," it prohibits homes or schools from being built within 1,000 feet of a freeway. Chino Mayor Dennis Yates sits on the governing board of the AQMD, and describes himself as a business-friendly Republican. He also is an aggressive and dedicated smog fighter. "The AQMD set out guidelines for land use, and we encourage cities to follow those," he said, adding that in Chino, "We always take it one step further."
Last year, the AQMD published guidelines for cities and counties that encourage putting distance between smog-producing facilities and homes, hospitals and child-care centers. AQMD itself has no authority to impose land-use regulations, which are controlled by cities and counties. The recommendations were distributed to all the cities in the four-county district and meetings with planners were held to inform them of the document.
The guidelines warn that numerous studies show toxic air contaminants can lead to cancer and other health problems, including "birth defects and other reproductive damage, neurological disorders, and damage to the respiratory system." The guidelines, which are purely advisory, were drafted after complaints that residential development was creeping up against commercial development and vice versa, said Laki Tisopulos, assistant deputy executive officer of the AQMD. "We want to alert decision-makers to this," he said. "We've had schools, apartment buildings, located right next to a freeway."
An extensive study by AQMD concluded in 2000 found the general cancer risk just from breathing the air in the region is about 1,400 in a million. Most of that risk comes from diesel soot, one of the largest contributors of particulates. Cities and counties should adopt planning rules that take those risks into account, Tisopulos said.
by Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post
March 20, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/19/AR2006031900868.html
NEW YORK -- Judith Schreiber, the chief scientist for the New York attorney general's Environmental Protection Bureau, is not a professional tour guide. But she's become expert in giving what she calls "the Broadway Tour of Dry Cleaners," a walk along the Upper West Side in which she points out the environmental hazards that lurk within hundreds of cleaning establishments. With its 912 dry cleaners in five boroughs, New York City is the nation's epicenter of dry cleaning. Who knows why New Yorkers have more dry cleaners than any other city in the United States? New York is a large city, to be sure, but it is also a place where a half-dozen shops cater to an haute couture clientele who willingly pay $150 an item. Perhaps it's because they dress better than other Americans, or they're more fastidious. Maybe they recoil at wrinkles or simply run out of hangers on occasion.
This devotion to cleanliness, however, has a downside. Its name is perchloroethylene, or perc, and it's the solvent that more than 28,000 dry cleaners nationwide use to make sure clothes are just so when they are returned to customers. The chemical is a hazardous air pollutant linked to cancer and neurological damage, and the federal government is on the verge of imposing new national standards to limit perc's reach. While dry-cleaning workers are most at risk -- according to scientific studies, they have a higher chance of getting cancer than the average American -- residents living near a dry-cleaning establishment are also in danger, Schreiber said. In Manhattan, examples of this sort of close quarters abound, with nearly 88,000 New Yorkers living within 65 feet of a dry cleaner. "The people in those buildings have no idea they're being exposed to perc," Schreiber said as she strolled up Broadway. "We have a public health threat here, and we have to protect people."
Schreiber once took a casual survey along with an Environmental Protection Agency official to see which kind of establishment dominated the streets of the Upper West Side: dry cleaners, nail salons or Starbucks stores. Dry cleaners won, with Starbucks coming in second. Those kinds of statistics worry public health advocates such as William Becker, who lobbies for state and local air pollution officials in Washington. "The public health risks from dry cleaners that share a building with residences or other businesses are alarming. If these were Superfund sites, they would have been shut down long ago. If these were drinking water supplies, the spigots would have been turned off immediately."
EPA officials have issued a three-tiered proposal aimed at controlling perc and its vapors. About 15 major dry cleaners would have to install machines to recapture emissions, while nearly 27,000 smaller facilities -- many in buildings that also house offices and day-care centers -- would have to detect leaks and cut emissions by conducting the wash cycle and the dry cycle in one machine. About 1,300 dry cleaners located in residential buildings would either enclose their machines or do the wash cycle and the dry cycle together. Any new residential dry cleaner could no longer use perc. "Risks from most dry cleaners across the country generally are low, and our proposed requirements would make them even lower," said William Wehrum, acting assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, when he issued the proposal in December.
Schreiber is not impressed. The new federal rules are modeled on the standards New York state adopted in 1997, which she and others think are not stringent enough. The Bush administration is taking public comments on the issue until Thursday and plans to finalize the rule by July 13.
Two couples who lived for years above a dry cleaner at 104th Street and Amsterdam Avenue think the government should keep cleaners out of residential buildings altogether. The four of them: Danny O'Brien and Mori Mickelson, who still live in the building, and Cathy Sears and Daniel Robbins, who moved out, all started experiencing health problems in the mid-1990s that they later linked to perc from the cleaners below. They all had elevated perc levels in their blood, urine and even breast milk; when Schreiber tested them, she found they had the same kind of neurological function problems that dry cleaning workers experience, including vision impairment. The four withheld rent from their landlord and eventually won most of that rent in court. New York City's Health Department, under pressure from then-New York public advocate Mark Green, forced the dry cleaner to stop using perc in 1996.
Mickelson, who passed out one day in August 1997 while nursing her baby boy Levi, said she still fears her family's health could be affected by exposure to some remaining perc. "I hope we all end up healthy, but it's too soon to tell, isn't it?" she asked, as 9-year-old Levi played with Sears and Robbins's 10-year-old daughter Molly.
Meanwhile, 20 blocks away, Landmark Cleaners owner Paul Breitstein is waiting to hear if federal authorities will make him install more expensive equipment to contain the exhaust from his shop. "When it comes to the government, they pretty much do what they want," Breitstein said. "I just abide by what they set so I can continue to do business."
by Jennie Daley, Ithaca Journal
March 20, 2006
http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060320/NEWS01/603200314/1002
ITHACA -- At least three structures on North Meadow Street are eligible for mitigation after levels of a toxic dry cleaning substance in some places were found to be thousands of times above the state's allowable limit. According to test results recently filed at the Tompkins County Public Library, levels of perchloroethene, also known as perc, were as high as 680,000 micrograms per cubic meter in soil samples taken from around Angelo Dry Cleaner. Seven other soil samples in the test area ranged from about 100,000 to 630,000 micrograms per cubic meter. The tests centered around 315 N. Meadow St. where a dry cleaner has operated since the 1920s.
In years past, before perc was regulated, anything from chemical-soaked filters in the garbage to leaky solvent containers provided easy routes for perc to seep into the ground. Evidence of such practices was found when test results showed extremely high levels of perc and its byproducts, including tricholorethene (TCE), concentrated around the store's dry cleaning machines. From there, the chemical plume mostly followed groundwater pathways traveling north towards Cayuga Lake.
Two other buildings demonstrated levels of contaminants high enough to merit mitigation, according to the state's action matrix for soil vapor intrusion. One is directly south of the business and the other is across North Meadow Street from the dry cleaners. In all of the buildings tested, some level of perc registered in indoor air samples, as well as in every sub-slab test taken. The various addresses are used for a range of purposes including a bank, restaurant and residences.
What will happen now that these numbers are known is not clear. The DEC was not available for comment on Saturday and store owner Jim Kellogg said this was the first he had heard of the results. "I don't even know where they tested, other than in the store," he said. "They thought that they would put in an aeration system underneath Angelo's but I don't know what they're going to do."
Kellogg, who was aware of the many potential health hazards associated with perc and the numerous regulations surrounding it, stopped using the chemical in 1999. He switched to a petroleum-based product that reportedly has fewer concerns associated with it.
by Jean Mikle, Asbury Park Press
March 20, 2006
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060320/NEWS/603200323/1070/NEWS02
DOVER TOWNSHIP -- Don't count on the government to keep you safe. If local cancer activists have learned one thing during the past decade, it's that the community must remain vigilant to protect itself. "The voice the government hears needs to be a strong one," said Linda L. Gillick, who has led the Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer Cluster since it was founded in 1996. "A strong voice comes from the community. Don't expect someone else to be involved. Get involved yourself. People don't become interested until after they are affected."
Township resident Bruce Anderson is president of Toxic Environment Affects Children's Health, or TEACH, a group for families of children with cancer. He shares Gillick's skepticism about government officials. "You're the last line of defense for your family," said Anderson, whose 25-year-old son, Michael, is in remission after being diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia when he was 10. "We're all brought up to think that government is going to protect us, but it's not true." Resident Joseph Kotran agrees. "Government isn't there to solve our problems," said Kotran, whose daughter, Lauren, 11, has battled cancer of the nervous system. "They are there to manage them."
Gillick, Kotran and Anderson speak from long experience dealing with sometimes-reluctant government agencies. Ten years ago, this sprawling suburban community was hit with frightening news: a state Health Department report that showed there were three times the expected rate of childhood brain and central nervous system cancers in a section of town bounded by Vaughn Avenue, Bay Avenue, the Garden State Parkway and the Toms River.
A plight ignored
The health department report caused a furor in a town where residents like Gillick had been attempting to sound the alarm about higher-than-normal cancer rates for years. Gillick had founded Ocean of Love, a support group for families of children with cancer, in 1988, and for years before 1996, she had expressed concern about the number of children with cancer in Dover. She had also spent years lobbying state officials to update the New Jersey State Cancer Registry, which by 1997 had a seven-year backlog of unrecorded cancer cases. She pushed for Ocean County to be included in federal epidemiological studies of childhood cancer, but, until March 1996, nothing happened.
When news about the health department report broke 10 years ago, Herbert Roeschke, who then headed the Ocean County Health Department, at first noted that the report was based on a small number of cases that should not necessarily be cause for alarm. Roeschke quickly amended his statement to one of concern, but it was too late. Residents responded by picketing the health department, and, at an emotional public meeting that drew more than 1,200 people, would not let then-state Health Commissioner Len Fishman speak for more than 90 minutes.
A short time later, the state health department and the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Control announced the start of a massive study of childhood cancer in Dover, a study that cost $13 million and lasted for nearly six years. The study drew associations between exposure to contaminated drinking water from United Water Toms River's Parkway well field and air emissions from the former Ciba-Geigy Corp. plant to elevated levels of leukemia in girls. Scientists were unable to find an explanation for the higher-than-normal rates of brain and central nervous system cancers. They also were unable to explain why exposure to polluted water and Ciba's air emissions were not associated with elevated leukemia levels in boys. Researchers have stressed that the small number of cancer cases studied in Dover Township makes it possible that the associations seen between air and water pollution and leukemia development in girls could be caused by mere chance.
"A high number"
The final epidemiological study was released three years ago. Gillick is pleased to note that the number of childhood leukemias diagnosed in Dover has fallen over the past several years, but is frustrated that there has been no corresponding reduction in brain and central nervous system cancers. Gillick said she is aware of eight cases of children diagnosed with cancer in Dover last year, what she termed "a high number." In a town of Dover's size, with about 95,000 people, four to five new cases of childhood cancer can be expected to be diagnosed each year, state health officials have said. "I think there has been a big improvement in the leukemias," she said. "But our biggest concern is the neurological, and it's still high in the county. It alone says, "We're not done.'"
Gillick's own son, Michael, who is also a member of the citizens committee, has battled neuroblastoma, a nervous system cancer, for almost all of his 27 years. Gillick, Anderson and other activists point out that much more work needs to be done to protect Dover, and other communities, from environmental hazards.
Preventing contamination
"Is there something in place to prevent what happened here?" asked Kim Pascarella, a member of the citizens committee who lost his 14-month-old daughter, Gabrielle, to neurological cancer in 1990. "There is nothing." Pascarella, the treasurer of TEACH, continues to press for legislation that would require water systems located near hazardous waste sites to be tested for the chemicals that are dumped in those sites. There is no requirement to do so, and Pascarella and other members of TEACH believe such a testing program could have prevented much of the water contamination problems here. "The Toms River case was preventable," Pascarella said. "They found the contamination right away, they knew the chemicals that were dumped, and they just didn't test for them."
Pascarella is referring to the history of United Water Toms River's Parkway well field. In the summer and fall of 1974, Ocean County's public health coordinator, Charles I. Kauffman, asked that a carbon filtration system be installed on Well 26, a public drinking water well then owned by the Toms River Water Co. Kauffman made his request shortly after chemical pollutants, including trichloroethylene, a suspected carcinogen, were found in dozens of private wells in the area. Eventually the state condemned 148 private wells in the area.
The pollutants had seeped into the private wells from Reich Farm, located off Route 9 in Dover's Pleasant Plains section. Well 26 was located closest to Reich Farm, a former poultry farm off Route 9 where 4,500 drums of chemical waste from Union Carbide Corp.'s Bound Brook plant had been dumped by an independent trucker in 1971. State officials began an investigation after receiving Kauffman's request, but eventually the state Department of Environmental Protection determined there was no evidence chemical contaminants had reached the public drinking water supply. Researchers now estimate that the plume of contamination reached the Parkway well field by 1982, but the pollutants were not found until 1987. At that time, chemical contaminants, including tricholoroethylene, were found in three wells, including Well 26.
New controversy
Unless residents remain vigilant, something similar could happen again, the activists fear. They say that recent developments involving United Water show the need for residents to become involved.
"Be involved, get involved, help out by writing letters to senators, the governor, etc., whatever it takes to get things done," is the advice Anderson gives to concerned residents.
In October, United Water was fined $104,000 by the state Department of Environmental Protection for exceeding its state water allocation permit in three of the past five years. The DEP banned new connections to United's system in early September, a move that has essentially stopped almost all construction in Dover, South Toms River and the Holiday City and Silver Ridge sections of Berkeley. Last month, the water company was fined again -- $64,000 this time -- for failing to tell the DEP or the public about seven instances of elevated radiation levels in its system that were discovered during testing in 2005.
Once again, citizens committee members were frustrated that the public did not learn until after the fact that they may have been exposed to water that contained elevated levels of naturally occurring radiation. "This has been going on for the 10 years that we have been involved in this investigation," Gillick said. "There is something very wrong here when this is continued to allow to happen." Gillick and the other activists want the community to know that the citizens committee is still there, still active and still working to make Dover Township safer.
At least one resident of a neighboring town is grateful the citizens group still exists. Former Beachwood Councilman Thomas H. Schiffermiller, who occasionally attends citizens committee meetings, praised the group on March 6 after a lengthy discussion of DEP rules for radiation in drinking water. "Thank God for this committee," Schiffermiller said after making a statement about United Water. "If you were not up there, fighting for us, I don't think we would ever really know what's going on."
by Dan Shapley, Poughkeepsie Journal
March 19, 2006
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060319/NEWS04/603190374
Any business that pollutes the air or water, or handles solid or hazardous wastes in New York must now make a special effort to inform low-income and minority neighborhoods of projects that might affect them under a new state Department of Environmental Conservation policy. Pollution that harms the environment and threatens human health is often more acute in poor and minority neighborhoods. These environmental problems can be seen as one of a set of interconnected factors that contribute to poverty -- from poor health and the need to work multiple jobs to thin political clout and subpar schools. These communities often don't organize to fight environmental problems as wealthy suburban neighborhoods do.
The new policy is part of the DEC's effort to improve what it calls "environmental justice" by ensuring these neighborhoods are well informed and more likely to act on their own behalf. Larry Fauntleroy, a member of the Dutchess County Human Rights Commission, said the policy could help in places such as the north side of the City of Poughkeepsie, depending on its execution. "When these decisions are made about certain communities, like the north side, the north side is not involved," he said. "People tend to fix things from where they're standing without going into the neighborhood -- eating at the table with the people, so to speak."
Twelve parts of the mid-Hudson Valley are highlighted on new state maps identifying the areas with high populations of impoverished and/or minority people. The maps were posted recently on the DEC's Web site. Any business applying for a major permit to operate or upgrade in or near the identified areas must take steps at the outset of the permitting process to inform neighbors about the project and permitting process. They must contact leaders and groups, hold public meetings and establish local repositories for documents. Outside of these neighborhoods, a company would be required only to publish a legal notice in the local newspaper.
The projects may also be subject to more intensive environmental impact studies during the state Environmental Quality Review Act process. Typically, local municipal planning boards coordinate those reviews.
Grants to be made available
Community groups active in addressing environmental problems in the identified neighborhoods will also soon be eligible for state grants up to $25,000, under a new program financed by the Legislature. Eleanor Thompson, a Beacon councilwoman who lives in one of the identified neighborhoods, said she's long been concerned that hazardous waste from past industry in the area may have been a factor in local illnesses. She fought breast cancer twice. "I still do believe it's a problem, because of what's happened to me," she said. "When you think about these things, the effect of it, you don't really know. It takes years for these things to develop."
The DEC maps use 2000 Census data and Environmental Protection Agency guidelines to identify areas with high minority or impoverished populations. The maps don't indicate the areas are affected by specific environmental problems. "We describe them as potential environmental justice areas," said Monica Kreshik, the DEC's environmental justice coordinator. "We don't have an analysis tool that tells us they are disproportionately impacted by environmental problems."
Marilynn A. Vetrano, the executive director of the Dutchess County Human Rights Commission, called the maps and notification "an extremely good strategy." "It's long overdue," she said.
by Kayla Webley, Oregonian
March 19, 2006
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1142558762117440.xml&coll=7
SEATTLE -- Huge puffs of steam rise from the Lafarge North America cement plant. A barge at a nearby shipping yard gets packed with building supplies, food and cars bound for Alaska. Trucks rumble by on muddy roads hauling wares in and out of the working waterfront on Seattle' extreme south end. Just a few blocks away, the small South Park neighborhood -- one of the city's poorest areas -- holds its own in what has become an industrial wasteland on the bank of the lower Duwamish River. Some houses are just feet from the river's edge. When the weather gets warmer, children play in the dirty sand or pile in inner tubes and head to the water.
This is the kind of place that Gov. Chris Gregoire is targeting in a wide-ranging plan to clean up Puget Sound, the 90-mile inner arm of the Pacific that encompasses four of Washington state's largest cities. Work on the Duwamish -- in the heart of Seattle's industrial core -- is under way and serves as an example of what state leaders hope will happen elsewhere around the Sound.
The Legislature just approved $52.4 million for more than 20 additional cleanup projects from Commencement Bay in Tacoma to Bellingham Bay -- $10 million more than Gregoire requested. The Duwamish highlights the urgency of the overall initiative to scrape up or cap toxic sediments throughout the region. The federal government put the river's lower reaches on its Superfund list of the nation's most contaminated sites in 2001. The sediment is laden with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, mercury and other deposits from the city's historic heavy industries. "The area is clearly a threat to the environment and human health," said Rick Huey, the state Department of Ecology's project manager for the Duwamish cleanup. "The fact that people fish in the river, the nearby tribes use the river and the residents in the area raised our concern on the human health side more than an area farther away from human life would."
Public warnings
In South Park, every public access point to the waterway has warnings about contaminated fish and other marine life written in multiple languages, including Spanish for the mostly Latino residents. The Department of Ecology holds an annual community gathering to warn people about the danger in their backyard. About 5,000 people live in the neighborhood of apartment buildings and houses lining one side of the Duwamish as it empties into the Sound.
The Duwamish looks nothing like it used to. Wetlands once lined the free-flowing river on either side. But by the early 1920s, it was confined into a straight channel, with excess mud from digging the 50-foot-deep waterway dumped on either side, creating uplands and islands. Industry thrived then on the Duwamish: chemical plants, slaughterhouses, steel mills, food processing plants, asphalt facilities, and log and rail yards are among the obvious contributors to some of the contamination in years past. The area is still home to shipyards, Boeing manufacturing plants and cement plants, but they must follow strict environmental regulations that have helped curb pollution.
Today, the upper five-mile stretch of the Duwamish shows no signs of significant contamination. The problem is the last 5.5 miles before it reaches the Sound. The worst deposits are PCBs, commonly used years ago as coolants and lubricants in transformers, capacitors and other electrical equipment. They break down extremely slowly, said Allison Hiltner, the Environmental Protection Agency's project manager for the Duwamish cleanup. PCBs have been linked to cancer and other health problems, and their use has been banned in the United States since 1977. The Duwamish also has other toxins, including mercury, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, commonly found in coal, tar, crude oil and creosote, and phthalates, substances used to make vinyl and plastic flexible. Overflow from sewage pipes and more than 100 storm drains also often runs directly into the Duwamish during heavy rains.
Targeting hot spots
Government agencies have been well aware of the Duwamish pollution since the 1970s. The Environmental Protection Agency, the state Department of Ecology, the Port of Seattle and Boeing are working together on the Superfund cleanup.
The Department of Ecology identified seven known hot spots on the river, or as Huey put it -- no brainers for cleanup. The agencies also are doing a study to pinpoint other contamination in the lower Duwamish and determine how extensive it is. So far, Seattle and King County have paid $8 million to dredge up contaminated sediment at one of the seven sites, and two more are set for similar dredging within the next two years. Once the study is complete, dredging will begin at the rest of the sites. Some contaminated sediment isn't in danger of shifting, so it will be covered with clean soil and left as-is.
Six-year South Park resident Bill Pease said he's glad the neighborhood is finally getting some serious attention, but he's gotten used to taking precautions. "Most of us would like to see the river cleaned up, of course, but it's not like we live in fear," Pease said. "So long as we're not swimming or walking in the river or eating things that are walking around the bottom of the river, it is not an immediate threat to our health."
by Judy Fahys, Salt Lake Tribune
March 18, 2006
http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_3616817
The Udy family huddled around the computer this winter to keep an eye on state legislation with particular importance to their community in Plymouth. They looked up the wording. They listened to lawmakers debate the whys and why-nots. They wanted to see HB138 become law and put a $5 "bounty" on bullet-sized pellets of mercury found in the junked cars that are fed into the Nucor Steel mill, where Wesley Udy works as an electrician.
After weeks of suspense for the Udys, lawmakers passed the bill. And Wednesday, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. signed it. It is important to get the pellets out of the wrecks because when they are incinerated, they poison the air, land and water with toxic mercury. In the environment, mercury transforms to methylmercury. It builds up and can become a neurotoxin that is especially harmful to unborn and young children.
Mona Udy would not describe herself as an environmental activist. However, the mother of five, ages 3 to 12, wants a healthy environment for her family. "The world I live in," she said, "I want it to be safe for me and my kids."
Utah lawmakers wouldn't describe themselves as environmentalists, either, and HB138 nearly got derailed. The auto industry, while supporting the concept, wanted a lower bounty, $1 or $3, perhaps. With 18 states already requiring switch removal or contemplating it, automakers announced their nationwide agreement last week with metal recyclers and environmentalists to spend $4 million over the next three years on mercury removal. Millions of cars made before 2003 contain switches smaller than a cell phone that use the mercury pellets to control anti-lock brakes and convenience lights under hoods and in trunks. Estimates suggest there are 35 million of them still in vehicles on the road.
Nucor recycles more than 250,000 vehicles each year that might contain the switches. Nucor reports releasing about 139 pounds of toxic mercury into the air each year. Coal-fired power plants, the largest non-natural source of mercury emissions, release about 49 tons of mercury each year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In addition, mercury switches account for about 11 tons of mercury waste.
Nucor said added anti-pollution equipment to remove the mercury might cost millions of dollars. Charles Territo, spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, indicated the new national agreement makes laws like Utah's unnecessary and that nationwide switch removal could be in place next month. The association's Utah lobbyists urged Huntsman last week not to act on HB138. "We believe the most effective way to collect switches is to have an effective national program in place," Territo said.
Bill sponsor Rep. Ronda Menlove, a Garland Republican and Sunday school teacher for some of the young Udys, said it was important for the state to get a program in place now. She noted that neither she nor state regulators had been briefed on the association's nationwide program. Her coalition included Nucor, which is in her district; the Utah Department of Environmental Quality; the Great Salt Lakekeeper; the Utah Rivers Council; and the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah. The coalition proved critical to preserving the $5-a-switch bounty, which was considered essential to the program, based on the experience of other states. Senators considered cutting the recovery fee to $1 or $3.
Of all 104 legislators, only Republican Sen. Dan Eastman, an auto dealer who represents Bountiful, voted against the bill. Under Utah's law, automakers would pay the bounty, along with switch collection and disposal. "We'll see what the national program looks like," Menlove said. "Then we'll go from there."
Udy was pleased when she heard about the governor's action. "Woo-hoo," she said. "That will be one more step to make Nucor safer."
by Michael Janofsky, New York Times
March 18, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/18/politics/18enviro.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=1142687349-kFFgfALb1f0VkDRoU78KcA
WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court on Friday overturned a clean-air regulation issued by the Bush administration that would have let many power plants, refineries and factories avoid installing costly new pollution controls to help offset any increased emissions caused by repairs and replacements of equipment. Ruling in favor of a coalition of states and environmental advocacy groups, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the "plain language" of the law required a stricter approach. The court has primary jurisdiction in challenges to federal regulations.
The ruling by a three-judge panel was the court's second decision in less than a year in a pair of closely related cases involving the administration's interpretations of a complex section of the Clean Air Act. Unlike its ruling last summer, when the court largely upheld the E.P.A.'s approach against challenges from industry, state governments and environmental groups, the new ruling was a defeat for the agency and for industry, and a victory for the states and their environmentalist allies. In the earlier case, a panel including two of the three judges who ruled on Friday decided that the agency had acted reasonably in 2002, when it issued a rule changing how pollution would be measured, effectively loosening the strictures on companies making changes to their equipment and operations.
But on Friday, the court said the agency went too far in 2003 when it issued a separate new rule that opponents said would exempt most equipment changes from environmental reviews -- even changes that would result in higher emissions. With a wry footnote to Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass," the court said that "only in a Humpty-Dumpty world" could the law be read otherwise. "We decline such a world view," said their unanimous decision, written by Judge Judith W. Rogers, an appointee of President Bill Clinton. Judges David Tatel, another Clinton appointee, and Janice Rogers Brown, a recent Bush appointee, joined her.
The winners this time -- more than a dozen states, including New York and California and a large group of environmental organizations -- hailed the decision as one of their most important gains in years of litigation, regulation and legal challenges under the Clean Air Act. The provision of the law at issue, the "new source review" section, governs the permits required at more than 1,300 coal-fueled power plants around the country and 17,000 factories, refineries and chemical plants that spew millions of tons of pollution into the air each year. "This is an enormous victory over the concerted efforts by the Bush administration to dismantle the Clean Air Act," Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, whose office led the opposition from the states, said in an interview. Mr. Spitzer, who is running for governor, said the ruling "shows that the administration's effort to misinterpret and undermine the statute is illegal."
Howard Fox, a lawyer for Earth Justice, which represented six environmental and health groups in the case, called the ruling "a victory for public health," adding, "It makes no sense to allow huge multimillion-dollar projects that drastically increase air pollution without installing up-to-date pollution controls."
The E.P.A. issued only a brief statement, saying: "We are disappointed that the court did not find in favor of the United States. We are reviewing and analyzing the opinion." The decision is unlikely to be the last word; several circuit courts or appeals courts have considered or decided related cases, and the issue may eventually reach the Supreme Court. Some in Congress say the uncertainty demands an overhaul of the Clean Air Act itself, but there has been no real movement in that direction in recent years.
The new ruling addressed the administration's effort in 2003 to offer relief to energy companies that faced costly settlements of litigation brought by President Clinton's E.P.A. The agency proposed exemptions for companies whenever upgrades to their equipment amounted to less than 20 percent of the replacement cost of the equipment. In effect, that made perennial repairs of old equipment a more attractive alternative in many cases than its outright replacement. Energy companies said the two rules the administration proposed in 2002 and 2003 would help them expand energy supplies at lower cost to consumers. But environmentalists said the change would result in just the kind of increased pollution that the law was intended to control.
The Clean Air Act calls for companies to build plants with up-to-date control technologies, and the new source provision was a way to ensure that as time goes by, pollution controls must be modernized along with the plants themselves. Industry groups, which had challenged the first E.P.A. rule last year as not being flexible enough, were aligned with the agency this time. In general, they have been close partners with the Bush administration in environmental matters, pushing for greater economic considerations in the creation of any new policy.
The 20 percent threshold in the overturned rule would have enabled plant operators to make many repairs and upgrades without spending additional tens of millions of dollars for more advanced pollution controls. In settlements under the old rules, some companies faced costs of more than $100 million. "This is a terrible decision," said Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a trade organization, arguing that the "any physical change" definition created financial instability for plant operators who spent as much as $800 million for a new boiler. He and other industry leaders expressed hope that the court ruling might induce Congress to pass new legislation that would include New Source Review, a step that he said would make it easier for plant operators to plan for their future upgrades and investments.
John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, called the ruling "a significant setback to business efficiency" and environmental quality. The government has 45 days to decide whether to seek a review of the ruling by the entire appeals court.
by Marla Cone, Los Angeles Times
March 16, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-perchlorate16mar16,0,2915942.story
Warning that babies are especially vulnerable, a federal panel of scientists has lambasted the Environmental Protection Agency's health goal for a toxic chemical that has widely contaminated drinking water and foods, particularly in Southern California. The EPA's new goal for perchlorate, an ingredient of solid rocket fuel, "is not supported by the underlying science and can result in exposures that pose neurodevelopmental risks in early life," wrote Melanie Marty of California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, who chairs the EPA's Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee.
The letter from the committee of 26 scientists, sent to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson on March 8, warned the agency that it is putting babies at unnecessary risk of neurological damage. The EPA's interim goal for perchlorate, announced in January, "does not protect infants and should be lowered," the scientists said in their letter. It is the second time in less than two months that an EPA scientific advisory panel has criticized the Bush administration for proposing a standard or guideline for a pollutant that would not adequately protect public health.
Most perchlorate contamination comes from military bases and aerospace plants. In California, at least 350 water wells have been contaminated by perchlorate, largely in the Los Angeles Basin, according to the Department of Health Services, and it has also tainted supplies in about 40 other states. There is no current enforceable national standard for perchlorate in drinking water. But six weeks ago, the EPA set an interim goal of 24.5 parts per billion. The idea was to guide cleanup of industrial and Pentagon waste sites and contaminated drinking water until the federal agency decides on a standard that drinking water must meet. California recently proposed a much tighter goal of 6 ppb, and on Monday, Massachusetts proposed a standard of 2 ppb. California's goal, set by Marty's agency, is not enforceable because the state Department of Health Services has not yet set a drinking water standard.
In animal studies, perchlorate has been shown to disrupt thyroid hormones. Low thyroid hormone levels can obstruct the brain development of fetuses and young children, causing subtle reductions in their intelligence and other mental abilities.
EPA officials were unavailable Wednesday for comment on the letter. The EPA has said its decision was based on a 2005 recommendation of a "safe" dose from a committee from the National Academy of Sciences. Some scientists have questioned the findings of that committee, saying that the dose was set too high, and also suggested that the EPA is misconstruing some of its advice.
The scientists on the children's health panel said they were troubled that the EPA's goal assumes that exposure comes only from drinking water, not from food. Perchlorate has been widely found in milk, cheese, lettuce and other crops, which are tainted by irrigation water, as well as in human breast milk and baby formula. Out of 33 samples of milk purchased in Los Angeles and Orange counties in 2004, perchlorate was found in all but one, according to tests by the Environmental Working Group, an environmental health advocacy group. The scientists on the committee wrote that food tainted by perchlorate-contaminated irrigation water "is an obvious concern given the widespread detection of perchlorate in lettuce and milk."
They advised the EPA to set an enforceable standard for drinking water, and to pay special attention to protecting fetuses from perchlorate exposure in the womb and babies from contamination from breast milk or formula. "Perchlorate is an important ... toxicant because of widespread exposure and the potential for impairment of the thyroid during critical stages of brain development," Marty wrote. "The risk posed by this environmental agent is preventable by appropriate agency action." "It's time for the EPA to wake up and listen to what the states and its own advisors are saying: Perchlorate is a threat to children at very small doses," said Renee Sharp, an Environmental Working Group scientist who obtained the scientists' letter Tuesday. "The Bush administration has given no sign that it's going to set a national drinking water standard, and the EPA's recommendations leave children at risk."
The Environmental Working Group, which has advocated a perchlorate standard of 1 ppb or 2 ppb, said that an average 1-year-old, weighing about 25 pounds, would exceed the EPA's safe dose for perchlorate after drinking just one cup of milk per day.
Perchlorate is widely used by the U.S. military and defense contractors as the explosive component of rocket propellants, and also is used in fireworks and other explosives. It has been found at 45 of the nation's 1,500 Superfund sites, which are the nation's worst hazardous waste sites, and the EPA's goal would affect the extent of cleanup there and at other sites. Sources of the contaminant include the now-closed Kerr-McGee chemical plant near Las Vegas, which contaminated the Colorado River, which provides drinking and irrigation water in Southern California. That contamination has been reduced by a company-sponsored cleanup.
In February, the EPA's clean-air scientific review committee challenged the agency's proposed health standards governing particulates, tiny pieces of soot that are considered the nation's deadliest air pollutant. The scientists said the agency ignored most of their recommendations to curb particulates, which could lead to additional heart attacks and deaths from asthma and other respiratory ailments.
by Rebecca Renner, Environmental Science and Technology
March 15, 2005
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2006/mar/policy/rr_PFOAreduction.html
The U.S. EPA's call to eight manufacturers to voluntarily eliminate PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid), its precursors, and related chemicals has been hailed as a regulatory breakthrough by environmental scientists. "This is a new way of regulating that could set a precedent for other contentious substances," says environmental-fate pioneer Don Mackay at Trent University (Canada). "This is much quicker and more effective than the litigation road," he says. The approach, which asks companies to do the work without requiring it through a new regulation, might be good for emerging contaminants, such as pharmaceuticals or endocrine-disrupting chemicals, he adds.
On January 25, EPA asked companies that make or use PFOA, its precursors, and other chemicals with similar structures to reduce manufacturing emissions and cut back on the chemicals' presence in products by 95% in 4 years' time, with levels in the year 2000 as a baseline. EPA also wants the companies to eliminate these chemicals no later than 2015. So far, officials at DuPont have accepted the challenge. Last year, EPA fined DuPont $16.5 million for allegedly withholding information on PFOA's health effects and on drinking-water contamination near one of its plants.
Susan Hazen, EPA's acting assistant administrator for the Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances, said the agency will eventually classify PFOA and associated chemicals as persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) when they are added to the Toxics Release Inventory as part of the initiative. Such a classification would mean that the threshold for reporting releases would be smaller than for non-PBT chemicals. The levels at which PBT chemicals must be reported range from 0.1 grams to 100 pounds, depending on the toxicity of the chemical. The agency has no plans to regulate or ban the chemicals, as long as the voluntary effort works.
EPA asked officials at DuPont, 3M/Dyneon, Arkema, AGC Chemicals/Asahi Glass, Ciba Specialty Chemicals, Clariant, Daikin, and Solvay Solexis to commit to its plan by March 1, 2006. Companies should submit their 2000 baseline numbers for emissions and product content by October 31, Hazen said. DuPont has been working to cut its PFOA emissions. The company plans to reduce PFOA emissions 98% and to remove more than 90% of volatile residuals from its products by 2007, according to previous announcements. Hazen praised DuPont for its leadership, as did Kenneth Cook of the advocacy organization Environmental Working Group. DuPont, he said, "seems to be committed to using its formidable powers of invention" to tackle this problem. Swiss-based Clariant recently phased out fluorosurfactants, used in polishes and paints, although the company's chief communications officer, Walter Vaterlaus, denies that environmental considerations played a role. Meanwhile, 3M and other companies are developing alternatives that do not bioaccumulate.
Industry observers say that although PFOA is an essential processing aid for products such as nonstick Teflon and other high-performance plastics, its emissions are largely under control and little PFOA is present in products. But companies will face a bigger challenge to remove precursors or residuals from fluorinated surfactants, and from fluoropolymers, used for stain protection. Academics and EPA scientists are still studying PFOA's toxicity. At high doses, it causes developmental problems, liver cancer, and low birth weights and depresses the immune system in laboratory rats and mice. But the low levels that are ubiquitous in the U.S. population have not been linked to any adverse effects.
On February 15, EPA's independent Science Advisory Board (SAB) voted to recommend that PFOA be classed as a "likely human carcinogen". The vote is not final until the SAB sends its report to EPA. But if the agency adopts the classification, it would trigger a complete EPA cancer risk assessment. "We will use the SAB final report to mesh with additional research to develop a risk assessment," says Ernesta Jones, an EPA spokesperson. Jones says no date has been set for the start of a risk assessment, adding that it is likely to be a lengthy process. "That is why we are moving ahead with the stewardship program [the voluntary program], and that is why we are hoping that all the companies will sign on."
EPA's announcement comes just a month behind Environment Canada's decision to craft a plan for action to control releases of perfluorinated chemicals, including PFOA, into the environment.
Encouraging signs exist that the environment can respond quickly to such elimination schemes, says University of Toronto chemist Scott Mabury, who praised EPA and Environment Canada for heeding the emerging science that links the breakdown of the residual precursors in fluorosurfactants and polymers to PFOA and longer-chain perfluorinated acids. Mabury points to recent measurements showing that PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate) levels in Arctic polar bears are declining. He believes that this decline stems from 3M's voluntary withdrawal of PFOS in 2000.
Mackay praises the EPA action plan for involving all parties. The voluntary approach "cuts across the problem of toxicity," Mackay says. "Substances that are persistent and bioaccumulative are automatically of concern," because left unchecked they will build up to detrimental levels.
by Janet Pelley, Environmental Science and Technology
March 15, 2005
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2006/mar/science/jp_climatechange.html
With a solid scientific consensus on the reality of global warming, the next research hurdle is to describe the impacts and what can be done to mitigate them. A growing body of work links climate to the spread of human and animal infectious diseases, but the relationships between pathogens and their hosts are complex. Predictions of how these dynamics will play out over the long run in a changing climate remain controversial.
USGS
These endangered Hawaiian akepa can no longer find refuge from avian malaria, as warmer summertime highs allow the disease to climb mountain slopes. Human infectious diseases have been on the upswing since the 1970s and 1980s, says Duane Gubler, an epidemiologist at the University of Hawaii. Dengue fever, not considered a major public-health problem in the mid-20th century, now strikes 50-100 million people each year, he says. More than 3000 children die from malaria each day, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). And emerging diseases, including West Nile virus and Lyme disease, are spreading across North America.
Many scientists suspect that global climate change may be a major contributor to the emergence and resurgence of at least some of these infectious diseases. WHO estimates that infectious and noninfectious diseases -- such as heat stroke and asthma from smog exacerbated by warmer weather due to climate change -- already claim 150,000 lives each year. However, the scientists interviewed for this story say that links between human disease and climate change are difficult to tease out.
Fortunately, nonhuman diseases are not influenced by as many factors, and this makes them ideal systems to study, says Rick Ostfeld, a disease ecologist at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies. "There are now dozens of examples of diseases where changes in temperature and precipitation are clearly implicated," he says.
Harlequin frog extinction
Climate change has altered patterns of a fungal infection, leading to the extinction of two-thirds of tropical harlequin frog species in Central and South America, according to new research published on January 12 (Nature 2006, 439, 161-167). The authors found that warmer sea and air temperatures generated clouds that created optimal conditions for a pathogenic chytrid fungus that kills frogs.
Likewise, warming Arctic soil temperatures are accelerating the growth of a nematode worm parasite of musk oxen, according to a new study by Susan Kutz, a wildlife pathologist at the University of Calgary (Canada). The recently discovered parasite matures inside ground-hugging snails that are eaten by musk oxen. The parasites then work their way to the lungs and lay eggs in large cysts that typically number 100 per animal. For most of the past century, cool temperatures slowed parasite development, forcing the worm to overwinter in its snail host and face a measly 1% chance of surviving until spring. But in 12 of the past 13 years, soaring soil temperatures have allowed the worm to develop in one season, boosting the infection rate. This may be one factor driving a 50% decline in musk oxen since 1980 in a heavily infected area of Canada's Northwest Territories, Kutz says.
Climate trouble in paradise
Meanwhile, avian malaria is invading higher elevations on Hawaii's mountains, where threatened native birds once found refuge from this deadly pest carried by introduced mosquitoes. At temperatures below 13 °C, the parasite is unable to mature inside mosquitoes to its infectious stage, says Lenny Freed, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Hawaii. Although average annual temperatures have held steady at Freed's study site, he has documented more consecutive days of summer temperatures above the 13 °C threshold for malaria infectivity. New research on archived blood samples reveals that malaria infection rates began to climb about a decade ago, he says. "It offers a glimpse of what could be expected with climate warming," he adds. Because Hawaiian birds evolved in the absence of mosquitoes and malaria, they have few defenses and could become extinct if they lose their lower-temperature mountain refuges.
On the basis of these types of studies, fingering global climate change as a driver of disease is intuitively tempting, says Bob Holt, an ecologist at the University of Florida. Climatic conditions set the distribution and abundance of disease-carrying vectors, such as mosquitoes that transmit the malaria parasite, he explains. "The bulk of the vector-borne diseases are tropical, and it's expected that a warmer world will boost their numbers and range," he says.But sensitivity to climate doesn't always lead to more cases, Holt cautions. In theory, if climate change renders a host less able to mount an immune defense and it therefore dies more quickly from the disease, global warming could weed out infection from the population over the long run, he says.
Or, a warmer but more variable climate could work to the disadvantage of disease vectors, says Greg Glass, a disease ecologist at Johns Hopkins University. He and his colleagues analyzed 30 years of data on mosquitoes and climate in Maryland and found that one of the most important factors determining summertime abundance of some species -- such as Culex pipiens, the species often considered the vector of West Nile virus in the eastern U.S. -- is the maximum temperature in winter. For species that overwinter as fertilized adult females, a warm spell in January that causes them to emerge from safe hiding spots makes them vulnerable to subsequent cold snaps. If climate change leads to more variable winter weather, as some models predict, it could actually reduce populations of mosquitoes in temperate zones, he says.
Human activities complicate the situation
Human intervention adds another layer to understanding the complexity of vector-borne diseases, especially human diseases, Ostfeld says. Malaria transmission is influenced by public-health infrastructure, the use of bed netting and pesticides, agricultural practices, and nutrition, making it difficult to pull out a climate signal from the data. "It's a fairly sure bet that insects that are currently restricted by cold will spread north as the climate gets warmer," says David Rogers, an ecological epidemiologist at the University of Oxford. But whether and how much the diseases they carry with them will spread are unknown, he says. "To capture malaria in a model, you've got to quantify all the variables, such as mortality rates," Rogers says. But values for some variables, such as the efficiency with which the malaria parasite travels from humans to mosquitoes and back again, simply don't exist in the literature, he says.
Rogers and his colleagues took a different approach by mapping the global distribution of malaria and using the data to get the disease itself to tell the researchers what its climate limits are -- how much temperature, rain, and vegetation it needs to survive. When the scientists projected this climate envelope 50-80 years into the future, they found that malaria's geographic boundaries would change only 5-6% compared with the present. Although roughly 400 million people would be newly exposed to the disease at its northern boundaries, another 400 million people live in areas where the disease would disappear, so these effects would cancel each other out, he says. Although the net number of people affected by the disease won't change, the effects won't be trivial as the toll of malaria is lifted from one group and shifted onto another, Rogers adds.
Researchers have not yet been able to produce convincing evidence that malaria cases will grow with a warming climate, mainly because of the strong disagreement between different climate models at the regional level, especially for precipitation, says Francisco Doblas-Reyes, a climate forecaster at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting. However, a strong push exists for more cooperation between epidemiologists and climatologists, and lessons learned with short-term forecasts can build a base of understanding for eventually making long-term disease forecasts, he says.
Doblas-Reyes and his colleagues recently developed a climate model that can anticipate malaria outbreaks in Botswana up to 5 months in advance (Nature 2006, 439, 576-579). Researchers applied 3 coupled ocean-atmosphere climate models to 22 years of data on climate and malaria in Botswana. Rainfall is the primary driver of malaria in Botswana, because it provides breeding habitat for the parasite's mosquito vectors. "Our system makes predictions with as much accuracy as a system that makes forecasts 1 month in advance based on observed precipitation at the end of the rainy season," Doblas-Reyes says. The forecasts will help public-health officials garner national and international funding for medicine, bed nets, and pesticides far in advance of outbreaks.
By showing that malaria cases respond to climate signals and by developing a methodology for forecasts, Doblas-Reyes and his colleagues are building the foundation for eventually connecting long-term climate change to effects on human health, says Rita Colwell, a molecular microbial ecologist at the University of Maryland. By combining remote-sensing and satellite imagery with details on parasites and their hosts, scientists can now make robust short-term forecasts of risk for other human diseases, she says.
Predicting cholera epidemics
"We can now predict how serious cholera epidemics will be and when they will occur in Bangladesh," Colwell says. Infamous for causing deadly diarrhea in humans, cholera is a marine bacterium that is normally found in the gut and on the surface of copepods, microscopic animals that eat algae. People pick up the disease when they drink untreated brackish water in rivers and at the heads of estuaries, she says. Colwell and her colleagues have found that cholera populations soar when copepods gorge themselves on algal blooms. This relationship has allowed researchers to craft a model that accurately predicts cholera incidence rates 4 months in advance on the basis of temperature and height of the sea surface and chlorophyll concentrations. The cholera model also performs well off the western coast of South America, where outbreaks are associated with El Nino years, Colwell says. El Nino weather patterns are predicted to increase in intensity and frequency as the globe warms. As with malaria in Botswana, the forecasts will help public-health teams target medicines and preventive measures.
Although diseases are sensitive to climate, a host of other factors also affect the prevalence of disease. A good example is mosquito-borne dengue fever, which made a dramatic global reemergence in the 1970s and 1980s, raising suspicions that climate change is largely to blame. But research presented at the Forum on Climate and Disease at Yale University on December 9 indicates that climate is not a major factor and that demographics, culture, economy, and environment are influencing transmission. Eradication measures begun in the 1940s, including spraying of pesticides, virtually eliminated dengue from the tropical Americas by 1970, Gubler says. Shortly afterward, the eradication programs ended, and the mosquito species that transmits dengue re-invaded the whole region from Argentina to Florida and Texas. "Dengue is closely associated with population growth and urbanization," Gubler says. However, sound housing construction, screens, air-conditioning, and television -- which keeps people indoors while mosquitoes are feeding -- can dramatically reduce disease incidence. For instance, from 1980 to 1999, Texas reported only 64 cases of dengue, while Mexican states directly across the border reported 62,514 cases. Relatively low human population density and aggressive mosquito control make large outbreaks unlikely in the U.S., Gubler says. In addition, a second mosquito species that is an inefficient epidemic vector is out-competing the more efficient dengue-transmitting species in the U.S., he says.
Like dengue, cases of Lyme disease are unlikely to grow significantly in North America, but for different reasons. The distribution of the deer ticks that carry the Lyme disease bacterium is regulated by climate, says Durland Fish, an epidemiologist at Yale University. Fish and his colleagues used the Canadian global-warming model to examine how climate change would alter the distribution of the ticks and of potential cases of Lyme disease. "We found that [a warmer climate] would move distribution of the vector further north, into Canada, and there would be less of it in the south," he says. Because the ticks will be moving out of densely populated areas and into more sparsely populated ones, the number of cases is not expected to rise, he says. "Although progress awaits better and more field surveillance data and modeling methods, a significant amount of ecological theory and empirical data exist that link anthropogenic environmental change and pathogen emergence," Colwell concludes.
by Robert Golledge, Cape Cod Times
March 15, 2006
http://www.capecodonline.com/archives/
BOSTON -- Massachusetts yesterday became the first state in the nation to propose drinking water and cleanup standards for the toxic chemical perchlorate. The Bay State standards -- 2 parts per billion -- would be much stricter than those suggested by other states, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. military, which is the primary user of the chemical and is responsible for perchlorate contamination at the Massachusetts Military Reservation.
To purchase the full article, please visit http://www.capecodonline.com/archives/.
by Julie Bick, New York Times
March 12, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/business/yourmoney/12organic.html?ex=1142917200&en=eaa3268209553c27&ei=5070
REACHING into their nylon lunch bags at school, Casey and Cameron Lilley pull sandwiches made of organic ingredients out of wax paper wrappers, and sip water from coated aluminum containers from Switzerland. Their mother, Shawn Lilley, had carefully chosen the packaging. At a recent gathering of kindergarten mothers in Seattle, Ms. Lilley told the women that chemicals could leach from plastic bags and other plastic containers into food. Since then, a few more kindergartners have shown up with sandwiches in wax paper. "Shawn researches these kinds of things, and it's not that much more expensive, so we switched," said Linda Walker, who packs lunch daily for her three children.
Whether the information on chemical hazards comes from magazines, the Web or the playground, many parents are changing their buying habits to try to protect children from what they see as dangers. Information on what exactly is toxic, however, is scant and sometimes conflicting. The Environmental Protection Agency has approved 80,000 chemicals for consumer use, said Dr. Leonardo Trasande, assistant director at the Center for Children's Health and the Environment at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Of those, 2,800 are produced in volumes of more than a million pounds a year, but fewer than half the high-volume ones have been studied for toxicity, he said.
Until more information is available about those chemicals, Dr. Trasande recommended that parents focus on common and significant risks, like lead, pesticides and tobacco smoke, in their children's environment. Some plastics contain additives like bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates. These have been found to be harmful in animal studies, said Dr. Wade V. Welshons of the University of Missouri in Columbia. And the Centers for Disease Control has detected them in the urine of a majority of the thousands of people it has tested in the United States. BPA is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in polycarbonate packaging for all types of food "based on numerous safety tests," according to the Society of the Plastics Industry, a trade group. But Dr. Welshons said a re-evaluation is needed, focused on the last five years of research. Many plastic bags and wraps are made with 100 percent polyethylene, so Dr. Trasande and others call them safer.
Ms. Lilley began buying organic foods nine years ago, when she became pregnant with her first child. Since then, the newsletter from the Puget Sound Community Co-op, where she shops, combined with Web research, has persuaded her to buy wax paper bags, dye-free detergent and other cleaners that emphasize natural ingredients. "There's so much out there that I can't protect them from," she said of her children. "At least their home and the food they eat should be as safe as I can make it."
Scientists can detect toxic chemicals in remarkably small concentrations in the environment and in foods, and even in umbilical cord blood. But studies showing that certain chemicals in high concentrations are damaging to lab animals may not indicate similar health effects from the much smaller doses to which humans are exposed, said Dr. David Eaton, director of the University of Washington's Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health. "Of course we should try to keep toxins out of our air, food and water," he said, "but my motto is 'prudence without paranoia.'"
The difficulty for consumers is knowing which, if any, changes to make in what they buy. And the decisions don't stop at organic foods. Expert opinions vary widely, and the gray area is vast. Dr. Charles M. Yarborough, a member of the Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee of the E.P.A., said there were almost no easy answers for parents. "It's hard to say something is dangerous or not dangerous," he said. "There are questions of exposure levels, the age of the child, the toxicity of the chemical and other factors." He added, "After all, water is toxic if you drink too much too fast."
Dr. Trasande says children are especially vulnerable to toxins because their body systems are developing. "Once they go off track, you can't hit the rewind button," he said. Because of their lower body weight and proximity to the ground, where residue may linger, children feel the effects of household chemicals more than adults, he said.
Jeffrey Hollander, president of Seventh Generation in Burlington, Vt., says he has witnessed a growing interest in his company's nontoxic, biodegradable household products, like laundry detergent. He attributes this in part to new parents who suddenly find familiar cleaners less attractive. "Their attitude is, 'Why take the risk that a product may be harmful if we don't have to?' " he said. Sales at Seventh Generation have grown 30 to 40 percent a year for five years, to hit annual sales of $50 million, he said, led by products like unbleached diapers.
Parents' buying patterns can lead to industry changes. While phthalates can be used in some children's toys in the United States, parental pressure led the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1998 to ask manufacturers to take them out of teething rings and pacifiers, according to Dr. Welshons. "The science was there for some time before, but until parents exerted pressure, such as by not buying the toys, they didn't change the formulation," he said. The same grapevine that encourages parents to stop buying some products can help sales of others. Since August, the Center for Environmental Health, a nonprofit group in Oakland, Calif., has sued 24 lunchbox makers and retailers, after their vinyl lunchboxes were found by two independent labs to contain lead. E-mail messages flew from parent to parent.
Cool Tote, a company in Sparks, Nev., that makes lead-free nylon and cloth lunchboxes, found an immediate increase in sales on its Web site. "We started getting a lot more interesting to people," said Bruce Clancy, the chief executive. Another site, Reusablebags.com also started to offer the product line and now sells about 100 Cool Tote lunch bags a week. In response to public concerns, the Consumer Product Safety Commission tested 60 vinyl lunchboxes made by a variety of manufacturers, including some named in the suits, and found that "in most cases, children would have to rub their lunchbox and then lick their hands more than 600 times every day, for about 15-30 days," to create a health hazard.
Not everyone agrees with the government's conclusions. The safety commission "has always lagged behind the most current science where lead toxicity is concerned," said Dr. Herbert L. Needleman, professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and a co-author of "Raising Healthy Children in a Toxic World." "Most scientists who are actively working in the area now agree that there is no safe lead exposure level for children." A spokesman for the safety commission, Scott Wolfson, said, "We recognize there are differences in the opinions, but we all desire the same thing -- that no child have lead poisoning." He added, "There are federally agreed-upon levels of accessible lead beyond which children should not be exposed."
It may take a long while for parents to get much scientific information on what is toxic to their children. In 2000, Congress authorized the National Children's Study, to follow 100,000 children from the womb to age 21. The goal was to understand how natural and synthetic environmental factors affect child development. The study would also examine why conditions like asthma, developmental disabilities, obesity and childhood cancer were on the rise. Last September, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development announced seven sites where the study would start, including Queens in New York. Recently, though, the Bush administration proposed to halt the study as part of budget cuts. The cost for a national introduction in 2007 was projected to be $69 million. A cost-benefit analysis was performed as part of the study's preparation, said Dr. Peter Scheidt, director of the study. "The childhood illnesses and conditions that this study addresses are so burdensome and costly to the nation," he said, "that any measurable impact the study has, even on one of the major conditions for one year, would pay for the cost of the study." Parents, meanwhile, will have to make up their own minds. "It's not cheaper; it's not more convenient," Ms. Lilley said, "but if there's even a chance it reduces our kids' health risks, we buy it."
by Lani Perlman, Dallas Morning News
March 10, 2006
http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/dn/religion/stories/031106dnrelenvirochurch.b80a3d5.html
Scott Freeman is not your typical tree-hugger. For years, he said, he believed that concern for the environment was "all a bunch of liberal politics." But, added the senior pastor of Northside Church of Christ in Waco, "the more I began to pray and pay attention to the change in climate and the way we pollute, I began to see how deep the need is." Now Mr. Freeman, a father of three, is trying to be better about recycling. He's talked to his wife about composting. And in early September, he became one of 86 church leaders to sign the Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation, a call to conservation from religious conservatives.
"Because we have sinned, we have failed in our stewardship of creation," the statement says. "Therefore we repent of the way we have polluted, distorted, or destroyed so much of the Creator's work." It adds, "Because we await the time when even the groaning creation will be restored to wholeness, we commit ourselves to work vigorously to protect andheal that creation for the honor and glory of the Creator."
Jim Ball, executive director of the Evangelical Environmental Network, called the ministers' manifesto "groundbreaking." His group, based in Wynnewood, Pa., orchestrated the release of last year's statement. The ecological goals of the "creation care movement" sound like the Sierra Club's agenda: Protect the water, the air, the land, and the creatures that inhabit them. But biblical imperatives are fundamental to the evangelists' movement. Pollution, for example, is regarded as "the earthly result of human sin" which has led to "a perverted stewardship, a patchwork of garden and wasteland in which the waste is increasing." And helping the developing world economically is important because "godly, just, and sustainable economies ... reflect God's sovereign economy and enable men, women and children to flourish along with all the diversity of creation."
Caring for creation: Text of the ministers' environmental letter.
Such a religious focus means the evangelical ministers "are going to start redefining these issues," Mr. Ball said. "People understand global warming as an environmental issue. With our statement, we are helping people to understand that climate change is much more than an environmental issue." It's a sign that, by chemically altering the Earth's atmosphere, "we are pressing against the finite limits God has set for creation," the statement said.
Mr. Ball said the real thrust of the "green Christians" movement is "people care. ... All of the Bible's teachings about caring for others ... love others as yourself, that applies to concerns about pollution." The ecological initiative creates an odd alliance between the goals of evangelical Christians, who are often conservative in their political views, and traditional environmentalists, who tend to bend toward the left. For this reason, use of the term "creation care" is important, said Calvin DeWitt, a professor at the University of Wisconsin and the founder of the Au Sable Institute, a Christian institute dedicated to better understanding of the natural world. He said some ministers shy away from being identified as environmentalists. "Some of them will hug a tree at some point, but they'll hug it because the Creator hugs it, not because some environmentalist hugs it."
Tony Campolo, a popular Christian author and professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pa., said the ministers' movement "may be one of the signs that the hegemony that the Republican Party has on evangelicals might begin to crack." President Bush and many other Republicans have won the strong support of Christian voters by opposing gay marriage and abortion, he said. But now, "people are raising their heads and saying these are not the only two issues -- what about poverty and the environment?"
Melanie Griffin, director of environmental partnerships at the Sierra Club, said the ministers' help is welcome. "I think we all share the values of stewardship," she said. "I see real hope for this to be a healing and unifying force in the country." And if the alliance seems ideologically odd to some, "the politicians are just going to have to catch up with the people." She added that this is hardly the first time conservative Christians have joined hands with environmentalists. When Newt Gingrich and his conservative vanguard took control of the U.S. House in the mid-1990s, Ms. Griffin said, evangelicals were key to defeating an attempt to dismantle the Endangered Species Act.
The ministers' statement is a first step in the Evangelical Environmental Network's campaign. The group plans pro-environmental television and radio spots in states with influential legislators. It is also organizing informational campaigns in churches and educational events at Christian colleges. The network is the same group that in 2002 launched the "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign, an effort to persuade Christians "that our transportation choices are moral choices" and that a modern-day Savior wouldn't haul himself around in a mammoth, gas-guzzling SUV.
Dr. DeWitt, of the Au Sable Institute, said evangelical environmentalism is helping to connect science and religion. "The world cannot allow us to separate people and environment," he said. "What's more important, the economy or the environment? Well, that's a dumb question. It's a question you shouldn't be able to ask."
AND GOD SAID ...
Many Bible passages are cited as support for the belief that Christians are called to be stewards of the Earth. A few of those noted in relation to An Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation are these (from the New International Version):
Psalm 19:1-4: The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
Psalm 24:1, I Corinthians 10:26: The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it.
Isaiah 24:5-6: The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore earth's inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left.
Isaiah 55:12: For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Hebrews 1:2-3: In these last days He has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
Hosea 4:1-3: Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites, because the LORD has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: "There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land. There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are dying."
Jeremiah 4:18-28: "Your own conduct and actions have brought this upon you. This is your punishment. How bitter it is! How it pierces to the heart! ... Disaster follows disaster; the whole land lies in ruins ... "
Revelation 21:1-5: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth ... He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"
by LIZZ Thrall, Environmental Science and Technology
March 1, 2006
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2006/mar/science/lt_drugsinwater.html
Although discoveries of Prozac in drinking water and cocaine in Italian rivers get plenty of press, little is actually known about what happens when people are exposed to the mixtures of drugs being found in the environment. But researchers at Italy's University of Insubria have taken an important step. In the first study to examine the effects of a drug mixture at environmental levels on human cells, posted today to ES&T's Research ASAP website, they report that a combination of pharmaceutical compounds inhibits the growth of embryonic kidney cells in laboratory tests.
Researchers in Europe began in the early 1990s to identify trace amounts of certain therapeutic drugs in surface waters and groundwater. Since then, survey campaigns in Europe and the U.S. have found about 100 such compounds in surface waters, groundwater, sewage, effluent from wastewater treatment plants, and even tap water -- at levels as high as parts per billion. Pharmaceutical compounds enter the environment through several different pathways, including improper disposal and the excretion of nonmetabolized drugs. Often, waters test positive for more than one substance.
Researchers agree that aquatic species face the greatest risk from exposure to low levels of pharmaceuticals, such as synthetic hormones, which can act as endocrine disrupters at environmental levels. However, little is known about the potential human health effects arising from complex drug mixtures. Corresponding author Franceso Pomati and his colleagues set out to fill this gap. "To make a proper risk assessment," Pomati explains, "we needed some data about not single drugs, taken one by one, but a mixture that was representative of the real conditions in the environment."
The researchers designed a cocktail of 13 drugs -- including several antibiotics, the popular pain reliever ibuprofen, and a highly toxic cancer medicine -- to mimic the mixtures found in several Northern Italian rivers and in wastewater. Individual component concentrations ranged from 10 to 1000 nanograms per liter. "The mixture is complex in terms of [what has] been used [in laboratory tests] before, but it's nothing; it's simple in comparison to what's been found in the environment," says Pomati. To his surprise, Pomati observed that this mixture of drugs at environmental levels inhibited the growth of human embryonic kidney cells. After 48 hours of exposure, cell proliferation was reduced by 10-30% compared with controls. However, no inhibition was observed when cells were exposed to only the toxic cancer drug at environmental levels.
The results show that the growth inhibition is not due to the single most cytotoxic compound alone. But that does not conclusively prove that synergistic or additive effects exist between drugs in the mixture, cautions Thomas Heberer of the Institute of Food Chemistry at the Technical University of Berlin. To show that the individual drugs behave additively, Heberer suggests that researchers should analyze the effects of compounds with a common mode of action, such as antibiotics, alone and in various mixtures. Nevertheless, many researchers speculate that such interactions are present, although environmental impact assessments for new pharmaceuticals in the U.S. and Europe are not required to take the possibility of mixture effects into account.
Pomati and his colleagues used proteomic and genomic assays to determine the mechanisms of growth inhibition. They found that the drug mixture stimulated the expression of cell cycle regulation genes and certain proteins (kinases) that signal cell stress. These responses often indicate a slower rate of cell division and thus less cell proliferation. According to Bent-Halling Sørensen, a professor of chemical toxicology at the Danish University of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the proteomic and genomic assays used by Pomati and his colleagues are becoming increasingly popular in the field of environmental toxicology to study pharmaceuticals. "But you'll have to remember that you have to translate something going on in an assay to real life," he cautions, "and that's a big jump."
Another challenge lies in determining the bioavailability of the pharmaceutical compounds, says Heberer, and this may depend on solubility and other chemical properties. "So the question is: What really ends up in the cells or close to these cells?" Pomati concurs that extrapolating from cells to organisms is difficult, but he believes that an understanding of the effects of pharmaceutical mixtures in the environment is needed. "We have to demonstrate scientifically a correlation between what we see in vitro and what we see in vivo. Organisms, they are much more complex than cells, but that doesn't mean they're less sensitive."
