Document K4Re3gXEB61ko5QEvvN6J8Nx

?- ; N k Environmental disaster area: A witches' brew of long-buried chemicals turns the Love Canal district into a ghost town The Chemicals Around Us Everyone calls it Love Canal, a small neighborhood of several hundred e living in modest Cape Cud-style i just 8 miles from the roarins splendor of Niagara Falls. But last week (t was fast becoming a ghost town--an environmental disaster area fallen victim to a witches' brew oftoxic chemicals that had been buried there over 30 yean ago. More tlun 40 fiuniliet abandoned their homes on 97th and 99th streets, setting up temporary quarters in an Air Force barracks nearby. Mothers and children lined up at the local school to take blood tests. Gov. Hugh Carey, in an electionyear tour, promised the residents that New York would relocate them and buy up their now worthless homes. And Jim my Carter, promising t4 million to match the state's aid, declared Love Canal a Federal emergency area. It was an emergency that built slowly. For as long as 23 yean starting in the 1930a, the Hooker Chemicals and Plas tics Corp. put tons ofchemical wastes in metal drams and buried them in a muddy ditch. In 1953, Hooker deeded the dump to the Niagara Falls board of education, which Riled it in, built a school and let developers put up scores of homes. Ev erything seemed line until the mid1970s, when heavy rains began flushing out the chemicals. Suddenly a stench was everywhere. Trees turned black. Children would throw rocks against the pavement and watch them ignite and flash bright colors. Dogs sniffing in the landfill developed nose lesions mat nev er healed. Ana when children ran across the site, the oozing slime burned holes in their sneakers. TRAGIC COINCIDENCE? More tragically, several children were bom with birth defects. On 99th Street between Frontier and Colvin, people wondered whether it was a coincidence that four mentally retarded children were bom to families on one block. "My daughter has already had three oper ations [for a defective ear)," says Tim Schmeder, 37, who works for a concrete company. "She's scheduled to have three more." Pregnant women miscar ried at a rate 50 per cent higher than normal, and people complained of liver ailments ana nervous disorders. In all, scientists have identified 82 chemical compounds at the site--eleven of them known or suspected carcinogens. "What I want to know," says Robert Neubauer, a laborer who took two separate yearlong layoffs because of a nervous disorder, "is just what the chemicals have done to my kids." These is no answer. The only certain ty is that the people of Love Canal are simply the latest victims ofa burgeoning menace to technologically sophisticated man--toxic chemicals, in a grim update of the Faustian legend, the products and by-products of industrial efforts Id improve consumers' standards of living are threatening those same people wij disease and death. Chemicals vital to packaging, paints, perfumes, plastics and preservatives are causing ailments that range from headaches and skin rashes to sterility and cancer "There are ticking time bombs all over." cau tions Steffen Plehn of the Environmen tal Protection Agency. "We just don't know how many potential Love there are." Scarcely a month goes by without some frightening reminder ofthe chemi cal plague. Last week, toxicologistsat the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported that nitrites, additives that prt^ tect consumers of bacon and other cured Newsweek, August 21, 1978 HONS 006951 as tetrachloride, a carcinogen once used widely in dry cleaning, can be traced on the breath for a fall year. Most disturbing of ail, many chemical hazards do not produce recognizable symptoms for years. Bladder cancer touched off by benzidine, a component of hundreds of dyes, may not be diag nosed until 30 years after exposure. These long latency periods have led epidemiologists to forecast a nirw some time soon in illnesses stemming fromthe post-Worid War II industrial buildup, during which large numbers of new and now suspect chemicals were produced in bulk for the first time. Some ecologists fear that the enormous production of dangerous chemicals is overwhelming nature's ability to cleanse itself. *'We me reducing the capacity of the planet to support man," wanu Thomas Lovejoy of the World Wildlife Fund. No place to bide: PBB-contaminated cattle interred in Michigan metis from botulism poisoning, pro* duced ctncer in the lymph nodes of 13 percent ofthe tnimaJs in an experiment The study, according to an immediate government statement, "leads us to the concern that nitrites may increase die incidence ofcancer." Two months ago, a researcher reported significant chromo some damage among Dow Chemical Co workers exposed to amounts of benzene that were thought well within safety lim its. In May, the EPA warned cities that a chemical component of a mortar regular ly used to repair tunnels and sewers had apparently caused nerve damage among workers who produced it. Ana freight- train derailments threaten thousands of people with explosions and toxic fames from such substances as chlorine and vinyl chloride. Chemically caused illness itself is as old as the industrial revolution, and even the most fervent environmentalists con cede that today's risks don't match those ofa century ago. Then, hundreds of resi- dents of factory towns died early from tuberculosis, pleurisy and other ailments aggravated by exposure to the smoke that belched out of tall chimneys and the effluents dumped untreated into water ways. Today, points out Dr. David P. Rail, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, "most ofus live to be 66, so we're obviously not going around in a poisonous cloud." INVISIBLE TOXINS Yet today's toxins act more insidiously. They are invisible and often scarcely detectable. In one case, exposure to less than one ten-thousandth of ah ounce of dioxin, an impurity caused in the manu facturing process for certain pesticides, led to disfiguring skin lesions. The mod ern poisons are generally widespread Such gloom is not universal. "The al leged impact of chemicals oo health has been exaggerated in a negative way,** claims Elizabeth Whelan of the Ameri can Council on Science and Health, a nonprofit organization formed in March to "combat the chemical phobia rampant across die country." Certainly die scare can be attributed in part to improved methods of detecting toxins and miking them to specific ailments. But there is no doubt that chemical time bombs are ticking away is the envi ronment--and that locating all ui them, let alone disarming them, will prove all but impossible. "There are an awful lot ofchemicals out there that we know very little about," concedes EPA administra tor Douglas Costle. "Not all are toxic, but certain ofthem have toxic properties. We don't know where they are. We don't know in what quantities." At present it is almost impossible far experts to assess the risks even for indus trial workers who come into contact daily with dangerous compounds, let alone the threat to the public. "Unless the effect is overwhelming, you won't notice it," explains epidemiologist Sherry Sefevan of the National Institute for Occupa tional Safety and Health. The relatively small number of current human-expo sure studies have not yet run long enough to produce any conclusive re sults, while extrapolation of animal testa to human beings remains an arcane and controversial art--thalidomide, after all, seemed safe enough in hamsters. The danger is sufficiently clear, how ever, to spur a Federal effort to dean up the compounds. The 1977 Tonic Sub stances Control Act requires cospoeutions to provide the government with experimental data indicating die likely effects on people of all new chemicals that they plan to market Further, the EPA can ban or greatly restrict use ofany chemical now in circulation that pose* a high risk to the public. In effect, the government can now regard chemicals as guilty until proven innocent. 26 Newsweek, Anguat 21. 197B HONS 008952 NATIONAL ATTAIN* cessed in up to 115,000 es tablishments nationwide, our mandate ... will nut be achieved overnight," testi fied Steven Jellinek, EPA's assistant administrator for toxic substances. MORE PRECAUTIONS Even without direct gov ernment prodding, private industry is taking more pre cautions. In 1974, the B.F. Goodrich Co. announced that exposure to vinyl chloride monomer, a substance pro duced during the manufac ture of polyvinyl chloride plastic, could induce a rare type ofliver cancer known as angiosarcoma twenty years later. "Our thought process has been reordered since vi nyl chloride." admits Mon santo Co. vice president Monte ^ Thrnriahf. "We re studying everything as it it were apotential caretnogen.'* That is a tall order. About 1.000 new compounds are introduced to the U.S. mar ket each year, adding to die Derailed lank car in Ohio: 300 people evacuated 70.000 already in circula tion. So far, 26 chemicals Bat Ininltmcntint <* `ggwfr have been indisputably linked with can larilv difficult. So far, the EPA Imi cer in human beings, hundreds more two compound*--ft'B i have been pegged as carcinogenic to animals, and even greater numbers are thought to cause other types of harm to uf ingry. "It's like pulling teeth man and beast. To complicate matters to fit them to move in any direction on further, poisonous chemicals can act in anything," complaint Jacqueline War concert. Smokers exposed to asbestos ren of the Environmental Defense dust, for example, are eight times as Fund. The EPA defends its deliberate likely to incur lung cancer as asbestos approach as inevitable. "With jurisdic workers who do not smoke. "We do not tion over as many as 70,000 chemi encounter toxins singly in real life," cal substances manufactured or pro says Dr. Irving Selikoff of New York's Mount Sinai Hospital. "The fact is, the gents interact." Toxic chemicals appear in a multitude of guises. A few examples: a ASEESTOS. Probably the most ubiqui tous of all hazardous substances, this mineral is suspected as a cause of lung cancer, gastrointestinal cancer and a rare type of lung tumor called mesothe lioma. More than 800,000 tons of asbes tos are used annually in the U.S. to manufacture at least 3.000 products, ranging from floor tiles to automobile brake linings. Beer, gin and medications passed through asbestos filters during their production. In one survey. Arthur Langer of Mount Sinai found traces of the compound in every one of 130 ca davers that he examined. CADMUM. This metal can cause kidney disease, bone embrittlement and an in tensely painful neuralgic affliction ofthe joints named by the Japanese itui itai (ouch ouch). Because of its wide use in plating processes and batteries, cadmi um permeates the environment; when it is smelted, the vapors slip into the atmos phere. According to Swedish research ers, the amounts of cadmium in adults in industrial nations are already approach ing danger levels. THIS (2,3 MbmmopmpyQ PHOSPHATE. Known commonly as Cris, this chemical flame retardant was banned from use in children's nightwear in early 1977 after tests showed it to be carcinogenic. Earli er this month, a House panel warned that not even repeated washings would make tris-treated garments safe, a MERCURY. A basic component ofbatter ies and paints, this liquid metal attacks the nervous system, causing mental re tardation and often death. When re leased into waterways it finds its way into fish, and subsequently into people who consume the fish. Hundreds ofJapa nese died from mercury poisoning in the RONS 008953 tUTHMUU. *rrun* notorious Minamata disaster during the 1960s, which was caused by industrial release of mercury wastes into the water, and thousands of others suffered paraly sis and brain damage. These dangers seem only dimly per ceived by the public until a disaster occurs. In July 1976, an explosion at the Icmesa chemical plant in the Italian town ofSeveso spread a blanket ofdioxin around the region. Within a few days, pets and other animals were dying in the streets, and humans were complaining of skin rashes, itching, vomiting and diar rhea. No human deaths in Seveso have been blamed directly on dioxin poisonliig, but scientists caution that the full effects are not apparent until three years after initial exposure. And deaths attributable to sclerosis ofthe liver, a condition probably exacerbated by dioxin, doubled in the area be tween 1976 and 1977. Such frightening events are not restricted to factory towns. In 1973, a worker at the Michigan Farm Bureau Services, Inc., accidentally mixed the fire retardant polybro- minated biphenyl (PBB) into a batch of animal feed. That set offa chain of contamination that has re sulted in the destruction of 30,000 cattle and 150,000 chickens. At least traces of PBB may have infil trated the bodies of most of Michi gan's pearly 9 million residents. KEPONE POISONING Extreme contamination does not necessarily result from a single in cident. For sixteen months, Life Science Products Co., a Hopewell, Va., subcontractorforAllied Chem ical Corp., manufactured a chemi cal pesticide named Kepone. Work ers claim executives never warned diem die chemical was highly toxic. A series of on-the-iob illnesses raised suspicions, and in July 1975, the plant closed. More than *0 peo ple nave since been identified as victims of Kepone poisoning, and 29 were hospitalised. Their symp toms include tremors, liver dam age, and in one case, sterility. Two children of a Life Science employ ee have also been contaminated by die chemical through contact with their fa ther. And vast tracts of the James River and die seafood-rich mouth ofthe Chesa peake Bay have been declared ofT-Iimits to fishing because they arc tainted. As a result, Allied Chemical pleaded no contest to 940 misdemeanor charges of violating antipollution laws, and was fined |13.2 million. The fine was re duced to 95 million after Allied agreed to establish an 96 million environmental endowment fund for Virginia and to con tribute 95JZ million to help clean up the Kepone. Life Science Products was con victed on 153 counts and fined 93.8 mil lion, and its president and vice president were convicted, fined 925,000 apiece, and placed on probation for five years. Critics were not satisfied. "The econom ic incentive for using these compounds," charges Dr. Irma West of California's Department ofHealth, "is so much great er than the incentive to protect the work er and the public." WARNING SIGNS Companies that manufacture or use chemicals have frequently been accused of ignoring warning signs of chemical danger. In the '50s, for example, experts at the Dow Chemical Co. spotted poten tial health hazards in chloromethyl ether, a key ingredient ofcertain plastics. Dow limited its employees' exposure to the toxic compound. But other compa nies did not follow its lead and, as a Test for asbestos poisoning: A long fuse result, say Federal health officials, doz ens of plastics workers needlessly con tracted lung cancer. Even when they are interpreted cor rectly, warning signs do not necessarily remove risk. "All our statutory authority is cast in the language of risk-benefit analysis," explains EPA administrator Costle. "You go out and assess the risks, and you weigh them in making a judg ment against the benefits ofhaving a par ticular chemical... The use of the word `judgment' implies that you will make a call on which reasonable men differ." There are plenty of opportunities to dif fer. Scientists from industry and govern ment dispute with environmentalists such basic issues as the validity ofanimal tests for humans or the relationship be tween public benefits and public risk*. Tests on animals tare two major objec tions: the effects of chemicals on tab animals' bodies may be quite different from those on humans, as in the tragi* thalidomide case; and the doses o* chemicals fed to laboratory animals an often much higher than humans would ever encounter. This latter issue truer spectacularly last year when the Food and Drug Administration announced that it would ban saccharin because the artificial sweetener caused bladder can cer in experiments with rats. Politicians, industrialists and frustrated dieters aUkr protested that the amount of saccharin given to the rats was equivalent In hu man consumption ofhundreds ofcans ol diet soft drinks daily. Such an amount of any substance, the crib ics charged, would produce can cer. Researchers disagree: thou sands of chemicals do not cause cancer or any other ailment, what ever the dose. Thus, they beheveii a small number of animals fed gross quantities ofa suspect rhsari cal get sick, there is potential risk to at least some people who con stime only small quantities of th same substance. DIFFICULT CHOICE In some cases, it might be mow dangerous to do without toon chemicals. Ifasbestos were bonnet from brake linings, for instance less efficient substitutes might teas to more automobile deaths. Some times there seems to be no answer In 1972, die Federal governing* ordered that all children's sleep wear be made fiame retardant Fh* years later, the Consumer Produc Sefety Commission announced h ban on tris, the most widely eaei retardant because animal testu showed it to be carcinogenic. An otherproduct. Fyroi FR-2, was sob T stituted. Now the Environmentn I Defense Fund wants ammdacttsr | ers to put warning labels on Fyvo f FR-2, on the ground that it may als 1 cause cancer. Protecting people from' kiUe chemicals is an extraordinarily complex task. Most of die suspect cone pounds play some role, direct or indfc rect in increasing human comfort. They can be neither ignored nor banned akn getber. No one has offered a marine hu compromise. "We look back on the Mid die Ages, and we say, `No wonder tkr had bubonic plague--they used t throw their garbage in the streets', muses EPA administrator Costle. "Nn I just hope that in the year 2089 m grandchildren don't look bark on ths generation and say, 'No wonder the had problems--look at all the chemical just carelessly introduced into the env ronment, uncontrolled'." 28 MONS 008954 Neweweek, Auguat 21. 197