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news analysis 1SA W ed., F eb. 1 6 ,1 9 8 3 ST.LOUIS POST-DISPATCH Dioxin ,<S *A V r9* Cii ^,j Nationwide Concern By Philip S habecoff *1983, New York Times News Service "It gets me that some scientists are saying WASHINGTON CONCERN IS GROWING among public health officials, scientists and legislators that contamination by dioxin, one of the most toxic substances created that dioxin is the most deadly chemical known to man," said Rita M. Lavelle, assistant administrator of the EPA until she was dismissed Feb. 7. "That's not true. It depends on the concentration. In the right concentration, table salt is just as deadly." by man, may turn out to be a serious Ms. Lavelle, who was in charge of national problem for which they are illprepared. Recent tests have confirmed dioxin contamination at 22 places in Missouri, protecting the public from hazardous waste and responding to emergencies such as the one in Missouri, belittled the significance of dioxins as a threat to the environment and public health in an interview before she left and state officials fear the chemical may office. pollute more than 50 sites there. In 1979, the Environmental Protection Agency ipared a list of 31 cities -where mimical manufacturing was likely to produce waste contaminated with dioxin "I am more worried about the threat of other chemicals," she said. "Dioxin is not a national threat." Dioxin is the name given to any of a family of 75 compounds called dibenzo-para-dioxins composed of benzene and oxygen atoms.* and destined for the nation's dumps for When chlorine atoms are added, they become hazardous wastes. Those dumps number chlorinated dioxins, which have been found to in the thousands; their contents are be toxic at low concentrations. largely unknown. There is no reliable information about how much dioxin has been produced or where it is, and there is considerable controversy over what danger it poses to health and the environment. Nobody knows for sure. Rep. James J. Florio, D-N.J., co-author of some of the key legislation regulating hazardous wastes, is worried about the scarcity of information. "This is something of extreme gravity and we have to treat it as such," he said. "I'm not saying we have to bum down every town in the country that has been exposed to dioxins, but this problem deserves close scrutiny, closer than other things." Richard C. Fortuna, staff toxicologist for the House Energy subcommittee headed by Florio, said, "We know that dioxin is a serious environmental problem, but we don't know yet if it is a national emergency." LABORATORY TESTS on animals have linked chlorinated dioxins, even in tiny amounts, to birth defects, skin disorders, liver ailments and other problems. Concentrations as small as five parts per 1,000 billion have caused statistically significant increases in cancer in rats. A single oral dose of 25 micrograms can kill a two-pound chicken. There are a million micrograms in a gram and a thousand grams in a kilogram, and one estimate is that more than 80 kilograms of dioxin was produced in chem ical manufacturing in the United States every year from the 1950s to the mid-70s. Yet dioxin's effects on humans, particularly long term risks, are not clearly understood. Florio is concerned about what he views as legal loopholes that would allow dioxin to continue to move into the environment if it was contained in waste oils that might be recycled, as they were in Missouri, leading to ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS and chemical industry executives do not see any emergency. They view the contamination in Missouri as an aberration and believe there few if any other areas in the country ere dioxin presents a significant health v-;-Jblem. In the hazardous waste dumps, they observe, dioxin and-is nearly clings tightly to soil insoluble in-water. particles And in -- Missouri, they contend,- -the' dangers to exposed humans have been exaggerated in public accounts. the contamination there. He says the EPA should follow the recommendation of its staff to declare dioxins a " hazardous air pollutant," an action the agency has not yet taken. Similarly, Dr. Ellen K. Silbergeld, chief toxics scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, a not-for-profit environmental group, .said-the agency had not acted-on-tong*pending recommendations by its staff that new rules should limit dioxin in water supplies to fractions of a part per 1,000 billion. William N. Hedeman Jr., director of the environmental agency's Office of Emergency Response, said in an interview, "To the best of my knowledge, there are no other Russell Bliss situations around the country." Russell Bliss is the contractor who sprayed the waste oils containing dioxin on horse arenas and roads in Missouri. Hedeman said he was not aware of other areas where dioxin had posed a problem except for Love Canal in Niagara Falls, N.Y., where it was found in an abandoned chemical dump. But he acknowledged, "We don't know how much is out there. We don't know where it is." On the EPA'S 1979 list were .11 ritiej around the country where plants produced chlorophenois. The manutacture of these chemicals produces dioxins, including the deadly 2,3,7,8-T -- tetrachlorodibenzene-pdioxm, l m u . as an unwanted byproduct. f-- The cities on the agency list were St. Louis; Sauget. Ill; Tuscaloosa, Ala.; Jacksonville, A fic r'Fremont, Calif.; San Mateo, Calif.; Orlando, Fla.; Chicago; Chicago Heights, III.;Naperville, 111.; Shenandoah, Iowa; Kansas City, Kan.; Wichita, Kan.; Whiteford, Md.; Midland, Mich.; St. Paul; St. Joseph, Mo.; Springfield, Mo.; Verona, Mo.; Clifton, N.J.; Linden, N.J.; Rahway, N.J.; Niagara Falls, N.Y.; Cleveland; Dover, Ohio; Portland, Ore.; Ambler, Pa.; Philadelphia; Port Neches, Texas; Tacoma, Wash.; and Nitre, Iw.Va. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, an arm of the Departmentof Health and Human Services, is now working on an updated and more complete " national registry" of producers of products that leave dioxins as a byproduct. Dr. William Halperin, chief of the institute's industrywide studies branch, said a major purpose of the registry was to locate workers exposed to dioxin on the job so that the effects of the chemical on their health can be studied. SINCE THE LATE 1970s, the use and production of many of the products that cause the formation of TCDD have been restricted, although not entirely banned. But a significant if unknown amount of dioxin was introduced earlier into various waste streams, and it is likely that someis still escaping into "the environnwhTlhfougiravariety of routes,____.. including the combustion of wastes. `T in s is something of extreme gravity and we have to treat it as such. I'm not saying we have to burn down every town in the country that has been exposed to dioxins, but this problem deserves close scrutiny, closer than other things." Rep. James J. Florio A rough guess at the amount of dioxin The spraying of Agent Orange and other discharged into the environment was made in pesticides and herbicides introduced dioxin a recent interview by Dr. Alvin Young, an directly into the environment. Some of these environmental scientist for the Veterans uses have been suspended by government Administration. Dr. Young is a specialist in order, b u t . other applications continue. that agency's efforts to deal with the Industry officials and some administration problems resulting from Vietnam veterans' authorities argue that dioxin breaks down exposure to Agent Orange, a defoliant that rapidly in sunlight and therefore disappears includes the herbicide 2,4,5-T, which is quickly from the surface. associated with TCDD. He said available But surface contamination found in- figures showed that in 1975. about 800,000 Missouri after many years has led other' gallons of products associated with TCDD had scientists to question whether sunlight does been produced. From what is known about the cause the deadly substance to disappear. And dioxin residues in the manufacturing process, the manufacturing of some other products still he estimated that about 2.1 kilograms of in use forms dioxins as byproducts. -- I toxin was contained in the products Another route by which dioxin can enter themselves and about 80 kilograms was left the environment is through fires involving over as waste in that year.. A kilogram is transformers or other electrical equipment about 2.2 pounds. containing polychlorinated biphenyls, or Dr. Young said that at least that amount of PCBs. When burned at low temperatures, dioxin had been produced annually since the these release substances called "furans," 1950s. While the yearly production has been which are closely related to dioxins, sharply reduced since 1975, "that is a hell of a according to scientists at the EPA. lot of dioxin," he said. But he said he did not One-of the scientists said that such a.fire think dioxin constituted a national health problem, though it might pose a problem in specific areas of the country. several years ago in a government office building in Binghamton, N.Y., produced " maybe the only building in the country There is broad agreement that a where you can't find a single cockroach." The. substantial proportion of dioxin-contaminated building has stood empty since. wastes are now buried in dumps around the Fires or Explosions at plants that produce country. Anne M. Gorsuch, administrator of pesticides, herbicides and other products that the Environmental Protection Agency, involve dioxin, such as the explosion at the recently said there were 12,000 of these "ticking time bombs" ; other experts have put the number of toxic dumps at 50,000 or more. Hoffmann-LaRoche plant in Seveso, Italy, on July 10, 1976, can also provide a path through which dioxin enters the environment. There is little if any information on the; In 1980 a study by scientists of the Dow content of most of these sites. The EPA; Chemical Co. suggested that dioxin could be recently issued a list of 418 "priority" sites,: released from the combustion of organic but it has just begun to act cn same of these materials. They found dioxirls in car mufflers, areas.* Administration officials and chemical fireplace soot, charcoal-grilled steaks, companies contend that the dioxins in the waste dumps do not constitute a serious threat because they adsorb strongly to soil and are cigarette smoke and a variety of other sources. Etcyl Blair and Perry J. Gehring, Dow not water-soluble; therefore, the officials say, scientists and officers, said in a telephone they are unlikely to seep into water tables. But some environmentalists contend that other solvents in the dumps could flush the . dioxin into the water. interview that while it was true that dioxin was present in the environment and was highly toxic, it did not constitute a serious problem. "There is a difference between | RELATIVELY HIGH LEVELS of dioxin toxicity and hazard," Blair said. "Just " have been found in gulls' eggs and fish taken because it is a risk doesn't mean you are in from the Great Lakes and in waterfowl in the danger." He asserted that there were no cases --North'-Central -states:-Dr.-Young-noted-that- ..-where.,.exposure,Jewels,h ad. prauecL&L-be-a. dioxins tend to collect in silt and are ingested hazard to' humans and added, "Statements by bottom-dwelling animals,such,as crayfish about how much of the stuff can kill so many and turtles. people are just not productive." The Dow officials said that employees working with dioxin in the 1960s had developed chloracne, a skin disease, but that surveillance of the workers had turned up no pattern of serious illness. THERE APPEARS to be no agreement in among scientists on the health effects of dioxin where it is known to have entered the environm ent, in substantial quantity: Missouri, Love Canal, Vietnam and Seveso. -- But Dr. Henry Falk, chief of the special studies branch of the federal Centers for Disease Control, remarked that dioxin contamination was "very much regarded as a significant public health problem that needs to be handled with extreme care." "There undoubtedly are other Russell Blisses around the country," Dr. Falk said. "We haven't systematically approached all of the past producers to identify where their products are. That would really be an extensive job." He also said that the acute effects were not the only problem created by dioxin in the environment. "There is a lot of uncertainty about the long-term effects on people," he said. ; Halperin of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health said, "In an occupational setting, exposure to dioxins is clearly a problem." He explained that data collected by Swedish epidemiologists as well as his own studies suggested that exposed workers faced a substantial risk of soft-tissue sarcomata malignant growth. "What we can say about dioxin," Halperin said, " is that it is an extremely toxic agent whose long-term consequences are only beginning to be understood." -- ------ -^V aslaV ; EL" " .- : \ tt $;_ -- V " i ; t e '^xStjjijjhaw