Document xxLqv8bZEQdaaz03OeJ46ReJ

oestemoer iv. f/9IZyU'J i.Ol'JS pa?c 301 MARTIN PRAISES EPA'S USE OF CHEMICAL RELATIVE RISK ANALYSIS Environmental Protection Agency found a new ally lost week in Congressional chemist Rep. James Martin (R.-N.C.) who told a symposium at the American ChemicaL Society convention to "say a nice word about EPA now and then." Speaking at the ACS bi-annual meeting in Washington, D.C., Martin praised the agency on two counts. First, he endorsed EPA's view on what he called relative risk assessment, e.g. that oil chemicals that are toxic do not pose the same risk and should be treated differently. Martin said that it is not enough to prove that a chemical is toxic; you have to consider its relative potency and whether or not there is human ex posure to it. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, with their "yes-no, plus-minus, black-white" approach to regulation, whereby all chemicals found to cause cancer in animals get the same regulatory treatment, is "obsolete," the Congressman said. Secondly, he complimented EPA for taking great efforts 10 Solicit and review public comments on the development of regulations, which is a sign that it is maturing, he said. Schweitzer Sees Lack of Progress Under TSCA Not all featured speakers at the ACS meeting viewed EPA in the same favorable light. The former director of EPA's toxic program, Clenn Schweitzer, voiced criti cism over the agency's environmental commitment. EPA is failing in its duty to protect the environment, he said, because the agency's regulations issued under the Toxic Substances Control Act are "not designed to minimize environmental impacts." Schweitzer listed four major areas of concern within EPA that should be ad dressed: 1) management lacks an understanding of its toxic leadership role; 2) EPA does not understand the chemical industry; 3) F.PA concentrates too much on legalis tic approaches toward toxic regulation; and 4) EPA fails to defend the environment al benefits of its toxic effort. To improve the program, Schweitzer suggested forming a commission to review EPA's TSCA implementation; exempting small-volume chemicals from its rules; and as sessing the costs of all TSCA regulations. Researchers Find Flyash Free of Dioxin ' Over 3,000 technical papers were presented at the ACS meeting. Highlights from papers on several toxic chemicals follow; In an apparent contradiction to Dow's report last year that dioxins are everpresent by-products of combustion processes, researchers from the Univers ily of California, Davis, reported that particles from coal-fired power plants do not contain dioxins in smokestack emissions. Brenda Kimble and Michael Cross sdid that they were unable to detect TCDD in the flyash using techniques designed to find the compound at one part per trillion levels. However, Dr. Christoffer Rappe from the University of Umea, Sweden, who has found traces of several dioxins in oil-fired incineration processes, told reporters later that the Davis researchers were looking for only one (TCDD) of several forms of dioxins and that they could have easily missed the higher chlorinated dioxins in their analysis. Male fertility in the U.S, may be declining as a result of exposure to \toxic substances, Dr. Ralph Dougherty reported. Dougherty examined sperm densi ties in seminal fluid from 132 volunteers from Florida State University and found that 23Z of the men were functionally rterilc. According to Dougherty, a drop in sperm densities since 1929 from 100 million/ml to 20 rullion/ml today may be due toxic compounds. He found pentuchloropheuole, hexachlorobcnzcnc, polychorobiphenyls nncT DDT tr.ctnbol itea above background levels in the semen tested. a l'CHs- carried in the water supplies on the surface of bacteria may pose .-1 health hazard, according to the NUS Corp. of Fittsbuip,, lVnn. NUS icports ilm concentrations of chlorinated pesticides or J'CJln can increase from 50-1OOU iu water containing h.ictoi in. The problem is that unlike ocher PCI! absorbers, hue to tciin do not precipitate out of the water tmLil colonies .become grossly over sized; so in (lie me.nit ime, the bacteria remain in the water and cany tire chemic als all tlu* way to the tap. HONS 206846