Document ymDrp2LjqY1Q95BbJmk5em2jV

I{ /l< i. al Pages 1-1S Exhibits / CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS IN THE MATTER OF Excerpt of CALENDAR, September 22, 1981 A video-taped transcription. JACK HYNES EXPOSES MAJOR HEALTH THREAT IN NEW BEDFORD MONS 011211 Registered Prefessionei Court/Conference Reporters ' II TrwMfit Street SetMri, MMuehutttU KIM 1 MS. JACOBSON: Jack. Hynes reveals a 2 major health threat in New Bedford. 3 MR. GOYETTE: It is the most serious 4 problem in the world and there is a high health impact 5 economic impact. It is one huge ball rolled into one 6 * ** 7 MS. JACOBSON-. Food, we buy it in stores 8 and restaurants, we pay our money and we assume that it l 9 is safe to eat, but is it? 10 Right here in Massachusetts a 11 potentially deadly game of passing the buck has 12 allowed chemically poisoned food into the City of 13 New Bedford. Calendar Correspondent Jack Hynes !4 discovered that lobster contaminated with the toxic 15 chemical PCB is being fished out of New Bedford Harbor. 1 Most of Bedford lobster is sold in New Bedford area, 17 but some is shipped as far away as Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, and the question is,are Government officials playing roulette with the public health? MR, GOYETTE: Do you know that this area is closed to lobster fishing? ANNOUNCER: New Bedford Harbor,poisoned with the toxic chemical PCB.closed to lobster fishing by the Department of Public Health since 1979. No one HONS 011712 1 is supposed to lobster in this area, but no one 2 enforces the law, so they do. 3 MR. GOYETTE: Is that your color, black j 4 and orange? (Inaudible) out of you. 5 ANNOUNCER; State Representative Sparky Goyette wants to stop the illegal fishing. He 7 confronts a lobsterman fishing the poisoned waters. S MR. GOYETTE; I an going to put out a 9 report in writing so you know where to fish. 10 ANNOUNCER: Recreational lobstermen 11 called ''Ten Potters" and commercial lobstermen, 12 too, regularly fish these fertile waters. The lobster s 13 they catch here are often contaminated with high 14 levels of PCB's. Certain eel and flounder are also IS contaminated. That is because the floor of New 16 Bedford Harbor is coated with up to 110 tons of the 17 toxic chemical, IB PCB's are suspected of causing cancer. 10 MR, GOYETTE: PCB's are highly toxic and 20 we have tons of them and that is the reason why New 21 Bedford is unique, Small in area, but pollution 22 tremendously high. 23 ANNOUNCER: This lobsterman is not 24 concerned about PCB's or fiahing bans or Sparky MONS 011713 4 Goyette. He will continue to pull his pots from these polluted waters and no one will stop him from doing it. The question is why? MR. GOYETTE: There is no reason any lobster pots being there at all. All you need is enforcement. MR. HYNES: New Bedford is all about the ocean and fish and lobsters and men who make their living from the sea. In fact, this small city has the largest fishing fleet along the entire east coast. It also has, according to some experts, the largest pollution problem in the entire world and this is a story about what is not being done about it. MR. GOYETTE: It is the most serious problem in the world and has a high health impact, economic impact. It is one huge ball rolled into one. ANNOUNCER: The number one pollution problem in the world and the State of Massachusetts can't even enforce a simple fishing ban. Representative Roger "Sparky" Goyette is Chair man of the state Hazardous Waste Commission. MR. GOYETTE: It is now a law or enforce ment by constitutional powers,the Department of 1 Public Health establishes a closure and if we ere 2 not going to enforce the laws of the Commonwealth, 3 then how could people sleep at night knowing it is 4 any issue. It could be a drinking water problem, 5 it could be any contamination in the Commonwealth. 6 ANNOUNCER: Last year between 75 and 100 7 million dollars worth of fish came through New 8 Bedford Harbor. Almost all of it was caught in the 9 rich fishing region called George's Bank and Grand 10 Bank. There ia no PCB problem with that fish, but 11 lobster, eel and bottom dwelling flounder are another 12 story altogether.They1 re found in large numbers in 13 areas that are heavily polluted with PCB's. 14 Lobster pots dot the contaminated area because IS many lobstermen go where the lobsters are even if it 16 means breaking the law. And many of those who obey 17 the law often find themselves at a disadvantage. 18 MR. GOYETTE. And 1 feel for the honest 19 lobsterman who refuses to break the law, but he is 20 losing money, others are making it. 21 ANNOUNCER: It is hard enough to make it 22 in this business without worrying about PCB's. That 23 is polychlorinated biphenyls described as benzine 24 rings surrounded by chlorine. There are over 200 MONS 011715 different kinds of this man-made chemical which was used in manufacturing application until the mid 1970's. It is thought by some scientists that the more chlorine in the molecule the more toxic the PCE. But how dangerous is it if you regularly eat seafood contaminated by PCB's? Plenty according to Dr. Phillip Cidley (phonetics), an expert in pollution control and management. DR. GIDLEY: What bothers me is I know down the road thirty to forty years in this city we will probably have twenty-five to twenty-seven extra cases of cancer and one to two extra cases of cancer deaths if we proceed to eat this shellfish and lobster at this rate. MR. HYNES: These little items are the source of New Bedford's problems. They are discarded electrical capacitors filled with a toxic chemical, PCB. Up intil 1975 they were made by two companies . here in New Bedford which dumped their toxic wastes into the river and harbor. Now, six years later, thes : capacitors still dot the shoreline contaminating the nearby water. ANNOUNCER: Cornell-Dubieer sits on the edge of New Bedford's outer harbor. For over thirty HONS 011716 1 years it discharged FCB waste into the nearby water 2 Upstream on the Acushnet River another company, 3 Aerovox, dumped its PCB waste into the river which 4 feeds the harbor. Another company uses PCB's today 5 and when they dumped the waste it was not known to be 6 dangerous and it was not illegal. Today, supposedly, 7 they know better. But hundreds, perhaps thousands, 8 of electrical capacitors still lay rotting in the 9 mud behind the Aerovox plant. Nothing has been done 10 to clean them up. 11 MR. McCAVITT; What shows on the surface 12 probably represents only the tip of the iceberg. 13 There are probably tons and tons of these capacitors 14 in here and they do have PCB's in them i IS ANNOUNCER: Larry McCavitt is a regional 16 director for Coastal Zoning Management. He has been 17 trying to get this dumpsite cleaned up ever since he 18 discovered that It was contaminated with PCB's. 19 MR. McCAVlTT We have indicated to people 20 at the Department of Environmental Quality Engineering 21 well over a month and a half ago that this problem 22 existed and, to my knowledge, no action has been taken 23 by them on this matter. 24 ANNOUNCER: Why not? Why wouldn't they BEND&EN ittAalalMX MONS 011717 1 Jump right in on it? 2 MR. McCAVITT: That is a good question, 3 that it a question you might want to ask the people 4 at DEQE directly. 1, myself, have not been able to 5 get a satisfactory answer out of people at DEQE. 6 MR. HYNES: We didn't have any better 7 luck than Larry McCavitt. The closest we got to 8 DEQE was the outside of their building in downtown 9 Boston. After three weeks of phone calls we gave up 10 trying to get an answer from the Department of 11 Environmental Quality Engineering, but we did ask 12 Clifford Tuttle, President of Aerovox Corporation. 13 He reminded us that the Company changed ownership in 14 1978 and the present owners were not involved in the t 1$ manufacturing of PCB capacitors or the dumping of 16 PCB waste. They don't believe that.they inherited the 17 PCB problem behind their plant. 18 MR. TUTTLE: As 1 understand it, and 1 19 have never seen those capacitors, they were put out 20 there in 1950--in '60. We don't feel any 21 responsibility. I reported their existence to EPA 22 in 1974 and sugested that they probably should be 23 cleaned up. They haven't taken action on it. We 24 feel that if we did, we would be admitting a HONS 011718 1 responsibility that we don't really own. 2 ANNOUNCER: So no one, apparently, takes 3 responsibility for the mess behind Aerovox and 4 potentially deadly PCB's continue to leach into the 5 nearby river. They also enter Che harbor through 6 this sewage treatment plant, because pipes leading 7 into and out of the plant are coated with PCB's The 8 theory is that lobster and some fish ingest PCB's 9 Lobstermen in illegal areas catch the PCE filled 10 lobster and sell it at market and when you or 1 sit 11 down to a lobster dinner we don't know whether or not 12 we are eating contaminated food. That is why the 13 Massachusetts Department of Public Health issued a 14 fiBhing ban. It covers three regions of the Acushnet 15 River and New Bedford Harbor. Area 1 in red is the 16 most heavily contaminated. The PCB's came 17 exclusively from the Aerovox plant. No fishing is 18 allowed here. A massive hurricane dike at the base 19 of the harbor has contained much of the PCB's within 20 Area 1. 21 Area 2 in orange is heavily contaminated with 22 PCB's from Comell-Dubieer and outflow from Area 1 23 through the dike opening. This region is closed 24 to all lobster, eel and bottom dwelling flounder BEND&EN unelalMA HONS 011719 It is one of the richest lobster areas in the Spring and the Fall. Area 3 in the yellow is closed only to lobstering and tests are now being conducted to see whether the lobster here regain contaminated. But no one questions Area 2, it's heavily contaminated. People should not eat lobster from there, but they do because no one enforces the ban. MR. GOYETTE: Why wasn't the closure carried out? You have never had a closure of there, never, especially Area 3. And the violations are in Area 2 that upsets me greatly and it should upset everybody. ANNOUNCER: In 1960 the Army Corps of Engineers built this massive hurricane dike to hold up against tha fury of Atlantic storms. They took precautions to make sure that the City of New Bedford was protected against potential disaster. In 1979 the Massachusetts Department of Public Health issued a fishing ban to protect the citizens of New Bedford from a different kind of potential disaster, that is deadly chemical pollution. But unlike the dike, the fishing ban is not protecting the community The ban is being ignored because it isn't being B5N0&EN MONS 011720 TI 1 enforced. The potential for disaster here is very 2 real. VOICE: We cannot tell you for certain 3 how many people are going to get tick, how many 4 children are going to be affected, how many unborn S children are going to be affected, but we know 6 there is a significant probability that this could 7 happen. 8 ' ANNOUNCER: John Ferrington, chemical 9 oceanographer and research scientist at Woods Hole 10 Oceanographic Institute, one of the leading experts 11 on PCB pollution in New Bedford. 12 MR. FERRINGTON: Certainly, the scientists 13 and regulators involved would feel terrible if they 14 thought that there were some malformed children out IS there because they hadn't proceeded to do their duty 16 in this particular case, despite economic^- hardships 17 on some segments of the population. 18 MR. MARKEY: I am concerned that PCB's 19 exist there, but I don't think it is a real health 20 problem like it has been made out in some quarters. 21 ANNOUNCER: This is New Bedford Mayor 22 John Markey. He doesn't believe that commercial 23 lobstermen are fishing closed areas and he doesn't 24 HONS Oil 7^1 think it is his problem. MR. MARKEY: 1 certainly am not going to hire six people to go down there and stop the fishing. If the State imposed it let them enforce it. 1 just don't believe that there is anybody out there'fishing, certainly commercially. There might be tome , youngsters that go out in a Whaler or something, but I don't believe that there is anybody out there conmercially fishing, I just don't believe VOICE: Now there are people that are fishing Inside of them areas right now and a lot of j them 1 don't blame them for fishing in there. Why, 1 they have fished there all their life. They don't 14 I know where to fish, to go lobstering, other places and 15 there is no enforcement of the law and the bans are 16 supposed to be closed, it is supposed to be closed 17 in them areas. But what good is the closure if they 18 have no enforcement? 19 ANNOUNCER: Chuck Connor has been a 20 commercial lobsterman for fifteen years. Like many 21 lobstermen, he obeys the ban and doesn't fish in 22 contaminated areas, but he says Is costs him thousands 23 of dollars a year to steam out past Area 3 and if he 24 has to do it everyone should. BSND&EN mmcIiimN MONS 011722 . . MR. CONNOR: The ban is no good whatsoever, because there is no enforcement of it. And if they enforce a ban then that is another situation, then everybody has to stay out, and that is the only proper way to do it. 1 rather see it open all the way inside again, but if it is not going to be open for me it is not going to be open for anybody, as far as I am concerned. ANNOUNCER: So while some people pay the price for obeying the law others flaunt it without penalty. The Department of Public Health issued the fishing ban, but they have no power to enforce it, They put up signs announcing the ban, most of them were vandalised ,and they informed other State agencies, Joe Apopka (phonetics) is Assistant Commissioner of Public Health. MR. APOPKA: No, we don't consider this a voluntary ban, this is a regulation of the Commonwealth. However, again, we do not have the power to enforce it and that is the reason that we ask Mr. Coates to enforce it for us. ANNOUNCER: Mr. Coates is Phil Coates, Director of the Division of Marine Fisheries. If HONS 01U23 enforcing this ban is a hot potato Phil Coates knows how to pass it along with the best of then. MR. COATES: No, we don't have the enforcement here is rather interesting. Like .1 say, the people who would do any enforcing would be either food and drug inspectors or(theoretically,environmental affairs and they are not in our department. ANNOUNCER: If you had diffulty under standing that you might just be getting some idea as to why nothing is being done to insure the public against eating PCB contaminated food. It is called passing the buck. MR. COATES: And 1 agree.there has been a lot of bureaucratic buck passing. VOICE: Quite frankly, 1 don't enforce what the State says. VOICE: We cannot enforce the ban and it is their responsibility to enforce it. VOICE: We don't enforce. I have regu latory authority and I rely on the divisional law enforcement for enforcement. HYNES: So far no sickness or disease has been linked to PCB pollution in New Bedford, but chat doesn't mean that people aren't getting sick from HONS 011724 1 15 PCS'*. In fact, here in New Bedford people could be dying of cancer from PCB pollution and no one would know. That is because no one has really studied the problem. But in a small sample of twenty-one New Bedford residents there were some disturbing findings, ANNOUNCER: Eight of the twenty-one people tested had elevated PCB'levels in their blood and the woman who had the highest level never worked with PCB's, she just ate fish from the river and harbor. MR. PETLEY: Will 1 sometime later in life come down with cancer? That is a basic point that 1 am interested in. ANNOUNCER: Joseph Petley has a PCB blood level almost two and a half times the national average. He used to work as an engineer at Aerovox. MR. PETLEY: There is a great deal of concern to everybody; it should be. But many people are afraid to find out if they are going to have, if they have cancer or they are going to have cancer. They are afraid, very afraid of it. VOICE: 1 have been tested for PCB's. 1 HONS 011725 16 have twenty-two parts per million in my blood because 1 have been eating, 1 have grown up in this area, 1 have been eating fish from the Acushnet River all my life, and lobster, too. How do I know that this PCB isn't going to effect m in a few years from now. 1 am not getting any younger, you know. . ANNOUNCER: The problem, of course, is this, it will take years to cleanup New Bedford Harbor. Estimates run as high as $130,000,000 to eliminate PCB's from Area 1 alone and no one yet knows where that money will come from. Suing the two companies that dumped the PCB's will probably bankrupt them, put people out of work without coming up with anywhere close to the money needed for the cleanup. So while the harbor remains polluted, the only protection for the public is a two-year old fishing ban that isn't enforced. As long as some lobstermen continue to fish contaminated water the public can't know whether the lobster it eats is contaminated with PCB's or not. Now enforcing the ban brings into question the quality of all lobster sold in New Bedford. Enforcing the ban, of course, would eliminate the problem. Until that happens, though, some people find chat the only solution is BEND&EN HONS 011726 17 1 Imposing their own ban, 2 VOICE: No, 1 wouldn't eat any lobster 3 end I love seafood. I wouldn't eat any lobsters 4 taken out of New Bedford because PCB's, once you 5 ingest it, it is in your body forever. 6 VOICE: I haven't eaten either lobster, 7 shellfish, and recommend that no one does so. VOICE: I wouldn't eat lobsters from the 9 New Bedford Harbor area until it has been proven to 10 me beyond any doubt that they are safe from a public 11 health standpoint. 12 VOICE; If they make a law and they don't 13 enforce it, the law is no good. 14 MS. JACOBSON: The Department of IS Environmental Quality Engineering wrote us a letter 16 after they got wind of our story. They said, among 17 other things, that they have requested federal aid IB through the national super fund. They expect that 19 tha strategy will be finalized by the end of the 20 year and the cleanup in New Bedford Harbor will 21 proceed as soon as possible. In the meantime, of 22 course, the public's only protection is a fishing 23 ben that isn't enforced. 24 HONS 011727 I, PATRICIA A. BUCKO, Registered Professional Reporter in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts do hereby certify that this is a true and accurate transcript of the proceedings, to the best of my ability, reported from a videotape. Dated this 23rd day of September, 1981. PATRICIA A. BUCKO, RPR, Notary Public. My Commission expires: 9-5-86. HONS 011728 BSND&EN suedatmwV