Industrial pollution is turning Earth's priceless Oceans so acidic, that our children will face the collapse of the entire marine world, a new report warns.
The study, issued by the Royal Society in the U.K., documents the rise of carbon dioxide, or C02, which occurs naturally and is also emitted in the burning of fossil fuels like coal and gasoline.
"If CO2 from human activities continues to rise, the oceans will become so acidic by 2100 it could threaten marine life in ways we can't anticipate," said Ken Caldeira, co-author of the report.
"This report should sound the alarm bells around the world," said Chris Field, director of the Carnegie Department of Global Ecology. "It provides compelling evidence for the need for a thorough understanding of the implications of ocean acidification. It also strengthens the case for rapid progress on reducing CO2 emissions."
Caldeira is a staff scientist at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology in Stanford, Calif. He did the research while at the federal government's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Marine plants soak up carbon dioxide and convert it to food during photosynthesis. The CO2 is also used to make skeletons and shells, which ultimately become sediment on the sea floor. In that way, the oceans act as a giant carbon sink.
Some scientists estimate that more than a third of all human-produced C02 has been absorbed by the oceans.
What could happen:
Caldeira and his colleagues conclude that too much C02 in the sea could have adverse effects. When CO2 gas dissolves into the ocean it produces carbonic acid, which corrodes shells of marine organisms and can interfere with their ability to take in oxygen. If current pollution trends continue, increasingly acidic water could hamper shell and coral formation and negatively impact the lives of crucial organisms such as phytoplankton and zooplankton that form the bottom of the food chain, the scientists say.
Any significant die-off of small creatures would have a deadly ripple effect throughout the watery ecosystem.
But Caldeira is careful to point out that nobody knows how all this might play out.
"We can predict the magnitude of the acidification based on the evidence that has been collected from the ocean's surface, the geological and historical record, ocean circulation models, and what's known about ocean chemistry," Caldeira said. "What we can't predict is just what acidic oceans mean to ocean ecology and to Earth's climate. International and governmental bodies must focus on this area before it's too late."
Anyone with a swimming pool or hot tub is familiar with the terms involved.
Acidity is measured on a scale of pH (potential of Hydrogen). It runs from 1 to 14, with 7 being neutral. Anything that lowers pH makes the solution more acidic. Over the past 200 years, the pH of the surface seawater has declined by 0.1 units, which is a 30 percent increase in hydrogen ions, Caldeira's team determined.
Creating Ice Age effects
The decline is about what occurred as the last Ice Age ended.
"Humans have already had as big a chemical impact on the oceans as going from the ice ages to today," Caldeira told LiveScience. "That change from the ice ages occurred over thousands of years, whereas most of the changes we have produced have come over the last century."
This buildup of hydrogen ions comes with a reduction in carbonate ions, which are the building blocks of calcium carbonate that corals and other organisms use to grow skeletons, according to a separate report last year issued by the The Pew Center on Global Climate Change.
The Pew report, led by Joan Kleypas of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), reached a similar conclusion. Kleypas also said that corals are being damaged by increases in water temperature at the surface, a side effect of the controversial global warming that most scientists say is being exacerbated by industrial emissions.
"Coral reef ecosystems are going to be significantly impacted by climate change," Kleypas says. "They're already being degraded by both climate change and by direct impacts such as overfishing and habitat loss, and the combination of these stresses can be devastating."
Another study in December found that as up to 20 percent world's coral reefs have been destroyed, largely by warmer water and increases carbon dioxide. Reefs serve as homes for other marine life and protect shorelines against erosion.
Kick 'em when they're down
Further, a report yesterday said the sea is becoming less salty due to extra fresh water flowing in as a result of a warmer climate.
Caldeira said this won't have much effect on pH, but it is "further evidence that continued CO2 emissions may be damaging the marine environment in several ways," he said. "Not only are marine organisms having to cope with an increasingly acidic ocean, but they must also deal with decreasing saltiness and possible slowing of the large-scale circulation of the ocean."
If emissions of CO2 continue to rise as predicted in one scenario by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, there will be another drop in pH by .5 units by 2100, a level that has not existed in the oceans for many millions of years, Caldeira's team says.
The results were reached by measuring historic atmospheric C02 from ice cores, Caldeira explained, and through lab experiments and chemical calculations. The findings match the predictions of separate computer models, he said.
Visit LiveScience.com for scientific inquiry with an original point of view.
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Killer Whales Serve as Sentinels for Ocean Pollution
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Whales frolicking on Canada’s Pacific coast have become symbols of nature’s wild
beauty. But Orcas have also become sentinels for humankind’s contamination of the
planet.
Despite international efforts to control them, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)
and many other contaminants persist in the environment. And Dr. Peter S. Ross of
the Institute of Ocean Sciences (IOS) at Sidney, British Columbia (B.C.), has
found that "killer whales rank among the world’s most contaminated marine mammals."
High levels of endocrine-disrupting chemicals found in their bodies are weakening
the whales’ ability to reproduce and stay healthy. Dr. Ross is investigating key
questions for killer whales. Where do the contaminants come from?
Seals face their own threats from contaminants. Peter Ross notes that "authorities
in northern Europe in the late 1980’s thought that because population numbers had
risen, harbour seal stocks had recovered. Then a virus wiped out 60 per cent of
them. Contaminants had weakened their immune system."
Harbour seals on the west coast suffer from persistent organic pollutants (POPs)
such as DDT, PCBs, dioxins, and furans. These dissolve in the animal’s fats,
circulate through its body, and can damage the endocrine (hormone-producing)
system and other functions.
Industrialized countries have long banned DDT, PCBs and other persistent toxics.
Canada helped lead the way to the international Stockholm Convention of 2001,
controlling a dozen major POPs. And Canada and other countries offer financial aid
for developing nations phasing out POPs. (Meanwhile, compounds known as PBDEs,
used as fire retardants in many products, have become a cause of concern.)
So how are the contaminants still getting into the marine food chain? Some
developing countries still use POPs, which can enter the sea directly or from the
atmosphere. And POPs produced decades ago in developed countries continue to
circulate in the sea. Still others are newly entering the marine food chain as
they leach out from old industrial sites and dumps.
"Often the contaminant path is hard to pin down," Dr. Ross says. "POPs can travel
long distances in the atmosphere, and then enter lower levels in the food web –
bacteria, algae, zooplankton, fish – before whales or seals ingest them. But in
some cases we can track down the source."
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PCBs contribute to disease susceptibility via immunosuppression.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Kannan, K., Perrotta, E., Thomas, N.J., and Aldous, K.M.
A comparative analysis of polybrominated diphenyl ethers and
polychlorinated biphenyls in southern sea otters that died
of infectious diseases and noninfectious causes.
Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 53(2): 293-302, 2007.
Notes: Southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis) from the California coast
continue to exhibit a slower population regrowth rate than the population in
Alaska. Infectious diseases have been identified as a frequent cause of death.
Infectious diseases caused by varied pathogens including bacteria, fungi, and
parasites were suggestive of compromised immunological health of mature animals in
this population. To test the hypothesis that elevated exposure to immunotoxic
contaminants such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and polychlorinated
biphenyls (PCBs) contribute to disease susceptibility via immunosuppression, we
determined concentrations of PBDEs and PCBs in livers of 80 adult female sea
otters that died of infectious diseases, noninfectious causes, or emaciation.
Concentrations of PBDEs and PCBs in sea otter livers varied widely (10-26,800 ng/g
and 81-210,000 ng/g, lipid weight, respectively). Concentrations of PBDEs in sea
otters were some of the highest values reported for marine mammals so far.
Concentrations of PBDEs and PCBs were significantly correlated, suggesting co-
exposure of these contaminants in sea otters.
Concentrations of PCBs were significantly higher in otters in the infectious
disease category than in the noninfectious category, suggesting an association
between elevated PCB concentrations and infectious diseases in Southern sea
otters.
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Industrial profiteering harms marine life.
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HEALTH problems continue to occur in marine mammals
and human beings because the U. S. government is
unwilling to learn from past mistakes and take action
to control toxic chemicals that harm our citizens, our
marine wildlife and people around the world.
Two years ago the Bush Administration signed the Stockholm
Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, but since
then has done everything possible to eviscerate the
protection from toxic chemicals the treaty provides.
The "TOXIC TEN" marine mammals described in this report
include some of the most beloved animals on earth:
seals, dolphins, and whales. Unfortunately, thanks to the
development and use of persistent organic pollutants
(known as POPs) over the past 70 years, they are not safe "
and neither are we.
As a result, POPs, which include DDT, dioxins, and
PCBs, are some of the most harmful substances on earth
and can be extremely toxic in very small amounts. The
most important thing to understand about POPs is that
once they are released, it is difficult, if not
impossible, to remove them from the environment.
POPs tend to travel long distances and accumulate in water,
soil, sediments, and plant and animal tissue where they
remain for long time periods. POPs that have been banned in
the United States for decades can still be found in the
environment. The POP found most commonly in the environment
is the group of chemicals called polychlorinated biphenyls,
or PCBs. This report details an analysis that found our
favorite sea animals have built up toxic levels of PCBs and
that people, specifically those whose diets consist primarily
of seafood, are not far behind.
The worst part of this story is that our policy makers are
not learning from past mistakes. They continue to allow
production and use of other chemicals that are very
similar to the banned chemicals in that they are
persistent and toxic to humans and marine life. In the
past few months, new studies have been released showing
that chemicals such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers
(PBDE), used as a flame retardant in everyday items such
as furniture and clothing, and perfluorooctanoic acid
(PFOA), used in the manufacturing process for Gore-Tex and
Teflon, pose serious health risks to humans and animals.
Recent studies based in California have shown that women
there have three to 10 times more PBDE in their breasts
than either European or Japanese women. Interestingly,
PBDEs could not be found in preserved human blood samples
from the 1960s.
Consistent with the findings on PCBs in this Oceana report,
marine mammals may bear the greatest toxic burden with these
emerging chemicals. Harbor seals tested for PBDEs in the San
Francisco Bay area have among the highest known levels of
these chemicals in the world.
Chemicals like PFOA and PBDEs are used because manufacturers
are not required to prove that they are safe for human
health and the environment. The United States needs a system
to stop the proliferation of these new toxic chemicals. We
should know by now that controlling the production, use, and
release of these chemicals prevents their widespread toxic effects.
Chemical manufacturers should be required to prove that
new chemicals are not toxic before they are used. Oceana
urges Congress to pass legislation to prevent the manufacture,
sale, and use of new chemicals that are harmful to the
environment " particularly marine life " and human health.
Unfortunately, despite the lofty statements by the President
when he signed the treaty, the Bush Administration prevented
the passage of legislation that would make the United States
a full partner in the international agreement to control POPs.
Even though the chemicals in the treaty have already been
banned in the United States, the Administration refuses to
include provisions that could prevent the production and
use of additional toxic chemicals. This short sighted view
designed to protect the chemical industry will only result in
increased toxicity in wildlife and humans, and as this report
shows, many of our most beloved marine mammals will bear
the brunt of the burden.
For more than a decade, Brian Gorman has been the government's voice on salmon in Seattle.
But as of 2006, the Bush administration officials have directed that all questions about salmon policy in Washington state be handled by political appointees, often as far away from living salmon, as Washington, D.C.
"I essentially have been told that I can't speak about salmon issues to reporters," said Gorman, chief spokesman in Seattle for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which oversees Northwest salmon policy.
Toxic pollutants in the ocean ecosystem have massive impacts on the plants and animals.
Heavy metal poisoning (such as lead and mercury) from industrial fallout collect in the tissues of top predators such as whales and sharks.
This type of poisoning can cause birth defects and nervous system damage.
Dioxins from the pulp and paper bleaching process can cause genetic chromosomal problems in marine animals and may even cause cancer in humans.
PCB's (polychlorinated biphenyls) typically cause reproduction problems in most marine organisms. PCB's usually come from older electrical equipment.
Poly-aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH's) are another source of marine toxic pollution and typically come from oil pollution and burning wood and coal. These PAH's are responsible for causing genetic chromosomal aberrations in many marine animals.
Radiation (toxic waste dumps) poisoning is also possible in the ocean environment. Scientists know very little about how radiation affects marine organisms but it cannot be a good thing.
Some marine species such as a population of Beluga whales living in the Saint Lawrence River area in Eastern Canada are in serious trouble because of marine toxic pollution. These Beluga whales are the victims of ocean pollution ranging from PCB's to heavy metals as well as other toxic industrial pollutants.
and chemical compounds can be found in sewage sludge, and scientists are developing 700 to 1,000 new chemicals per year.
Stephen Lester of the Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Wastes has compiled information from researchers at Cornell University and the American Society of Civil Engineers showing that sludge typically contains the following toxins:
In addition, a 1994 investigation by the US General Accounting Office found that "the full extent of the radioactive contamination of sewage sludge, ash and related by-products nationwide is unknown." Most of the radioactive material is flushed down the drain by hospitals, businesses and decontamination laundries, a practice which has contaminated at least nine sewage plants in the past decade. [12]
In 1977, EPA Administrator Douglas Costle estimated that by 1990 treatment plants would be generating 10 million tons of sludge per year, a thought that "gives us all a massive environmental headache." [13]
Today there are about 15,000 publicly-owned wastewater treatment works in the United States, discharging approximately 26 billion gallons per day of treated wastewater into lakes, streams and waterways. Before treatment, this wastewater contains over a million pounds of hazardous components. Sewage plants use heat, chemicals and bacterial treatments to detoxify 42 percent of these components through biodegradation.
Another 25 percent escapes into the atmosphere, and 19 percent is discharged into lakes and streams. The remaining 14 percent -- approximately 28 million pounds per year -- winds up in sewage sludge. [14]
Once created, this sludge must be disposed of in some fashion. The available methods include: incineration (which releases pollution into the air), dumping into landfills (which is expensive, and often lets contaminants leach into groundwater), and ocean dumping (where it has created vast underwater dead seas). A fourth approach -- gasification, using sludge to generate methanol or energy -- is favored by EPA's Hugh Kaufman as the "most environmentally sound approach, but also the most expensive." [15]
A fifth approach -- using sludge as plant fertilizer -- was considered hazardous to health and the environment until the 1970s, but it has the advantage of being inexpensive.
As budget concerns mounted in the late 1970s, the EPA began to pressure sewage plants to adopt the cheapest method available -- spreading sludge on farm fields. [16]
THE FARMED SALMON PROBLEM
The greatest risk for human exposure is through eating tainted fish. Fish swim in waters polluted with PCBs and absorb the toxin. It is accumulated in the fatty tissue of the fish. The fish at greater risk are larger fish because they feed on smaller contaminated fish, in a process called bioaccumulation, and get higher PCB levels. The most prevalent danger to PCB exposure today is through consuming farm raised salmon. These farmed salmon are fed fish feed that is designed to be high in fish oil. They are fed ground up fish, which have PCBs in their fatty tissue. It is this fatty tissue that is most utilized in making high fish oil content. Therefore, these farmed salmon ingest dangerous levels of PCBs and often make them unsafe to eat more than once in a month.
The Pew Charitable Trust recently completed a report on the status of farmed salmon concerning dangerous PCB levels. They tested the levels of farmed salmon against wild caught salmon. The study team was made up of 6 researchers from various fields of the sciences; they bought and tested 2 metric tons of salmon. The PCB levels in the farmed salmon averaged 5 times the safe EPA standards. The EPA sets standards for food consumption based on a graduated scale, that matches content of contaminant with amount of consumption recommended. They recommend only one meal per month with PCB levels between 25 and 48 parts per billion (ppb), and twice a week for levels of 4 to 6ppb, for instance. The Pew study found levels that recommended eating farmed salmon only once a month. They also found that on average farmed salmon had concentrations of health threatening contaminants 10 times higher than wild salmon, saying the farmed salmon was “consistently and significantly more concentrated”.
The Environmental Working Group also performed PCB tests on farmed salmon. According to their findings, 70% of the farmed salmon tested were PCB contaminated and 90% of farmed salmon failed EPA health limits for weekly consumption, 6ppb, usually exceeding average by 4.5 times. If this PCB level were found in salmon caught in the wild, then the EPA would restrict consumption to 1 time per month, but because they are bought not caught, consumption is not restricted.
Most researchers believe that the reason for the high PCB contamination levels in the farmed salmon is due to their feed, which is ground up fish, similar to the problems that caused Mad Cow disease, because cows were ingesting ground up cow contaminated by their own feces. In 3 independent studies (Jacobs 2002, Easton 2002, CFIA 1999) researchers tested 37 different fish feeds from 6 countries and found PCB contamination in every case. PCBs builds up in salmon 20-30 times the levels of PCB build up in fish feed and environment (Jackson 2001) because of its lasting quality in its fatty tissue and the nature of bioaccumulation. So low levels of contamination in fish feed can be representative of very dangerous levels in the farmed salmon.
The consumer can determine whether the salmon is farmed or not usually by asking the seller where the fish is from. Though it is confusing because the seller may reply, “The Atlantic”, this means that the salmon is farmed, whereas “Pacific” or “Alaskan” salmon are wild. The Pew report also found that American farmed salmon contained less PCBs than European farmed salmon, showing Scottish farmed salmon to be most contaminated and Denver farmed salmon to be least. So knowing where the farming occurs can also determine risk levels.
HEALTH EFFECTS
The EPA has found that PCBs negatively affect many different areas of the body and most of the major systems. Perhaps most importantly, the EPA has found PCBs should be regarded as carcinogens. Studies performed on animals have found definite correlation to conclude that PCBs cause cancer in animals, and the EPA calls PCBs “probable human carcinogens”. Most often, they have found the effect of PCB exposure to result in liver cancer in humans.
There have also been tests performed on Rhesus monkeys (who have very similar makeup to human beings) that showed many other ill effects of PCBs. These tests have found weakening of the immune system and changes in the thyroid hormone levels that are concurrent with human symptoms due to high exposure. The Rhesus monkey experiments also found reduction in birth weight, conception, and live birth rates from exposed mothers. The effects of the PCB contamination was also long lasting, affecting childbirth much after exposure. The same was true for human children born to mothers who were exposed to PCBs in their workplace. Newborn monkeys who were exposed also showed neurological deficiencies in visual recognition, short-term memory, and learning.
REGULATION OF PCBs
The regulation of PCB exposure is rather complicated due to the many ways exposure can occur. Because the highest exposure comes through ingestion of contaminated fish, that is the most important part of regulation. Any fish recreationally caught in the wild is regulated by the EPA, who use their graduated scale determining how often that fish is safe to eat, which was updated in 1999. If the PCB level is higher than 48ppb, the EPA recommends never eating that fish. As discussed earlier, studies have shown that most farmed salmon, the category of fish shown to have the highest contamination levels, have levels between 24 and 48ppb, which means that the EPA would recommend consumption only 1 time a month. The EPA, however, does not regulate farmed salmon or commercially caught salmon, the FDA does. The FDA’s standards are 500 times less protective than the EPA and have not been updated since 1984. All the available data cannot sway their decision, however, because for the FDA to make a policy change, they must perform their own study, something 20 years overdue. The FDA defends its refusal to administer stronger PCB standards because they contend that the high levels of helpful Omega-3 fatty acids in farmed salmon outweigh the negative effects of high PCB levels.
www.psr.org (Physicians for Social Responsibility)
www.ewg.org
Given that less than 0.001% of Earth is living Ocean... I am surprised that the millions of tons of dumped and deadly manufacturing byproducts are not mentioned as often as the rising CO2 levels and rising temps in the only living Oceans in the entire universe.
Larry
http://OpenDoorWorld.org
Seafood faces collapse by 2048
REF: CNN WASHINGTON (AP)
-- Clambakes, crabcakes, swordfish steaks and even humble fish sticks could be little more than a fond memory in a few decades.
If current trends of overfishing and pollution continue, the populations of just about all seafood face collapse by 2048, a team of ecologists and economists warns in a report in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
"Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world's ocean, we saw the same picture emerging. In losing species we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems," said the lead author Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
"I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are -- beyond anything we suspected," Worm said.
While the study focused on the oceans, concerns have been expressed by ecologists about threats to fish in the Great Lakes and other lakes, rivers and freshwaters, too.
Worm and an international team spent four years analyzing 32 controlled experiments, other studies from 48 marine protected areas and global catch data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's database of all fish and invertebrates worldwide from 1950 to 2003.
The scientists also looked at a 1,000-year time series for 12 coastal regions, drawing on data from archives, fishery records, sediment cores and archaeological data.
"At this point 29 percent of fish and seafood species have collapsed -- that is, their catch has declined by 90 percent. It is a very clear trend, and it is accelerating," Worm said. "If the long-term trend continues, all fish and seafood species are projected to collapse within my lifetime -- by 2048."
"It looks grim and the projection of the trend into the future looks even grimmer," he said. "But it's not too late to turn this around. It can be done, but it must be done soon. We need a shift from single species management to ecosystem management. It just requires a big chunk of political will to do it."
The researchers called for new marine reserves, better management to prevent overfishing and tighter controls on pollution.
In the 48 areas worldwide that have been protected to improve marine biodiversity, they found, "diversity of species recovered dramatically, and with it the ecosystem's productivity and stability."
While seafood forms a crucial concern in their study, the researchers were analyzing overall biodiversity of the oceans. The more species in the oceans, the better each can handle exploitation.
"Even bugs and weeds make clear, measurable contributions to ecosystems," said co-author J. Emmett Duffy of the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences.
The National Fisheries Institute, a trade association for the seafood industry, does not share the researchers alarm.
"Fish stocks naturally fluctuate in population," the institute said in a statement. "By developing new technologies that capture target species more efficiently and result in less impact on other species or the environment, we are helping to ensure our industry does not adversely affect surrounding ecosystems or damage native species.
Seafood has become a growing part of Americans' diet in recent years. Consumption totaled 16.6 pounds per person in 2004, the most recent data available, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That compares with 15.2 pounds in 2000.
Joshua Reichert, head of the private Pew Charitable Trusts' environment program, pointed out that worldwide fishing provides $80 billion in revenue and 200 million people depend on it for their livelihoods. For more than 1 billion people, many of whom are poor, fish is their main source of protein, he said.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation's National Center for Ecological Synthesis and Analysis.
The EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) requires industrial facilities of a certain size
and in certain sectors to report annual discharges of about 650 chemicals and chemical
categories (e.g., arsenic and “arsenic compounds”) sent to publicly owned treatment
works. These 650 substances represent only a portion of the more than 75,000 chemicals
registered in the United States for commercial use.
PCB problems found at site 30 years late
Monsanto dumped toxic waste in UK
Inquiry after chemicals found at site 30 years after their disposal
John Vidal, environment editor
Monday February 12, 2007
The Guardian
Evidence has emerged that the Monsanto chemical company paid contractors to dump thousands of tonnes of highly toxic waste in British landfill sites, knowing that their chemicals were liable to contaminate wildlife and people. Yesterday the Environment Agency said it had launched an inquiry after the chemicals were found to be polluting underground water supplies and the atmosphere 30 years after they were dumped.
According to the agency it could cost up to £100m to clean up a site in south Wales that has been called "one of the most contaminated" in the country.
A previously unseen government report read by the Guardian shows that 67 chemicals, including Agent Orange derivatives, dioxins and PCBs which could have been made only by Monsanto, are leaking from one unlined porous quarry that was not authorised to take chemical wastes.
The Brofiscin quarry on the edge of the village of Groesfaen, near Cardiff, erupted in 2003, spilling fumes over the surrounding area, but the community has been told little about the real condition of what is in the pit. Yesterday the government was criticised for failing to publish information about the scale and exact nature of this contamination.
Douglas Gowan, a pollution consultant who produced the first official report into the Brofiscin quarry in 1972 after nine cows on a local farm died of poisoning, said: "The authorities have known about the situation for years, but have done nothing. There is evidence of not only negligence and utter incompetence, but cover-up, and the problem has grown unchecked."
Much of the new information about Monsanto's activities in Britain in the 1960s and early 1970s has emerged from court papers filed in the US and previously unseen internal company documents. They show how the company knew from 1965 onwards that the PCBs - polychlorinated biphenyls used mainly as flame retardants and insulaters - manufactured in the US and at its plant in Newport, south Wales, under the trade name Aroclor, were accumulating in human milk, rivers, fish and seafood, wildlife and plants.
The documents show that in 1953, company chemists tested the PCB chemicals on rats and found that they killed more than 50% with medium-level doses. However, it continued to manufacture PCBs and dispose of the wastes in south Wales until 1977, more than a decade after evidence of widespread contamination of humans and the environment was beyond doubt.
A high-level committee within the company was given the task in 1968 of assessing Monsanto's options and reported contamination in human milk, fish, birds and wildlife from around the world, including Britain. "In the case of PCBs the company is faced with a barrage of adverse publicity ... it will be impossible to deny the presence and persistence of Aroclors. The public and legal pressures to eliminate or prevent global contamination are inevitable and probably cannot be contained successfully," the committee reported.
The report, which was shown to only 12 people, said: "The alternatives are [to] say and do nothing; create a smokescreen; immediately discontinue the manufacture of Aroclors; respond responsibly, admitting growing evidence of environmental contamination ..." A scrawled note at the end of the document says: "The Big Question! What do we tell our customers ... try to stay in business or help customer's clean up their use?"
Monsanto stopped producing PCBs in the US in 1971, but the UK government, which knew of the dangers of PCBs in the environment in the 1960s, allowed their production in Wales until 1977.
Yesterday Monsanto, which has split into several corporate entities since 1997, said in a statement: "On behalf of [former parent company] Pharmacia Corp, Monsanto is handling issues related to the historical manufacture of PCBs in Wales. We continue to work with the Wales Department of Environment and other regulatory bodies to resolve these issues. A thorough review ... will show that Pharmacia did inform its contractors of the nature of wastes prior to disposal, and that Pharmacia did not dump wastes from its own vehicles."
Solutia, the spin-off from Monsanto which now owns the Newport site, said it was giving Monsanto and the regulatory agencies "information as requested".
The Environment Agency Wales said it was investigating the contents of the site: "This is one of the most contaminated sites in Wales and it is a priority to remediate because it is so close to habitations," said John Harrison, the agency's manager of the Taff/Ely region. "There is ground water pollution, but we do not think at present there is any danger to human health. We have spent about £800,000 so far investigating the tip. Our legal team is gathering all the evidence and we are trying to apportion costs."
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
BY ERIK ROBINSON, Columbian staff writer
PBDE: A flame retardant intended to save people is harming Salmon in the
Columbia River, according to new research released Monday in Vancouver.
The research, summarized during a scientific conference at the Red Lion
Hotel at the Quay, revealed the presence of a chemical flame retardant
within the tissue of juvenile salmon in the river.
The level of polybrominated diphenyl ethers, commonly known as PBDEs, in Columbia
River salmon far exceeds levels found within fish swimming near downtown Seattle.
Scientists have linked PBDEs to neurological damage and thyroid issues in
rodents, and researchers suspect similar effects in aquatic life.
The common fire-suppression compound is an example of emerging contaminants
afflicting the river.
Like pharmaceuticals and other increasingly common pollutants that find
their way through wastewater treatment plants and into the environment,
PBDEs won't just kill billions of salmon outright. It just make em dumber... (lesser intelligrunt).
"If a predator comes, they may not get out of the way," said Lyndal
Johnson, a zoologist with the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle.
"They just wouldn't be able to find prey as effectively." (survive)
The Environmental Protection Agency last year placed cleanup of the Columbia
on a par with six other major waterways in the country, so scientists are
focusing more attention on toxic pollutants in the river.
Uncovering new layers
In some ways, the river is cleaner since the days when industrial pipes
dumped pollutants unfettered by laws such as the Clean Water Act of 1972.
"What we're finding now is the stuff you can't see," said Jennifer Morace,
a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Portland. "It's the stuff
we didn't know enough to ask about before that we're seeing now."
Morace teamed with Johnson on the study conducted for the bi-state Lower
Columbia River Estuary Partnership. The research, underwritten by a $2.3
million grant from the Bonneville Power Administration, will serve as the
backbone of a report due to be finalized later this summer.
"Much more needs to be done," said Debrah Marriott, director of the estuary
partnership. Members of the estuary partnership hope to use the report as a
starting point for continuing to monitor and improve water quality in the
Columbia, a huge water body that drains an area the size of France.
Johnson and Morace also found so-called "legacy" pollutants, production of
which has been banned in the United States since the 1970s. The pesticide
DDT and polychlorinated biphenyls, used as an industrial lubricant, both
appeared in fish tissue but their concentration appears to be declining in
the water.
PCBs don't readily break down in the environment.
A small and relatively safe amount lay suspended in the air, water or
sediment backed up against hydroelectric dams. A tiny bottom-dwelling
critter acts like a biological sponge, scooping up the toxins and thereby
concentrating them. A bigger fish eats the critter, and a person ultimately
eats the fish. Never in this cycle does the toxin simply break down in the
environment, (never...)
Measuring the Interaction Between the Healths of Coral Reef Ecosystems and Coastal Communities
* Hatcher, G H (hrac(at)eastlink.ca) , Hatcher Research Associates Corp., 34a Fenwood Road, Halifax, NS B3N 1G8 Canada
Hatcher, B G (Bruce\_Hatcher(at)CapeBretonU.ca) , Hatcher Research Associates Corp., 34a Fenwood Road, Halifax, NS B3N 1G8 Canada
Hatcher, B G (Bruce\_Hatcher(at)CapeBretonU.ca) , Cape Breton University, Bras d'Or Institute P.O. Box 5300, Sydney, NS B1P 6L2 Canada
AGU.org: Coral reefs are the world's most celebrated indicators of ocean health. While the global trajectory of coral reef health is now well documented, and the accompanying loss of economic benefits increasingly demonstrated, the consequences in terms of human health have been largely ignored. Reefs provide a wide array of benefits to humans, contributing most directly to the health of subsistence fishing communities located on adjacent coasts and islands. Interactions between human and marine ecosystem health are complex, bidirectional and nonlinear.
We draw on a broad range of data and experience to identify key links in the ecological chain from the coral polyp to the human society. Our conclusions are that humans are components of coral reef ecosystems, few studies of reef health incorporate human health, few data are available to quantify the health services reefs provide to people, and human health security is essential to the preservation of coral reef ecosystems.
NOAA.gov: Coral bleaching is not well understood by scientists. Many different hypotheses exist as to the cause behind coral bleaching:
REF:coral.noaa.gov/cleo/coral_bleaching.shtml
LL: Consider this: If scientists don't understand how the coral polyps sync, so that coral spawning occurs throughout an entire reef, at the exact same moment in time, at night, without emitting a single sound and with no change in lighting, flawlessly, for millions of years...
... Would it be surprising that global industries dumping millions of tons of deadly chemicals into rivers and Oceans around the world...for decades... might interfere with such a delicate and miraculous ballance.
... How sadly ironic... we do not understand how it works... but we do understand that the Toxins industry dumps... are Toxins... dumped simply to improve their bottom line... and there are legal pathways in place to dump more, if they pay a "fine" to the government.
Levels of a toxic flame retardant are growing so quickly in coastal marine waters they are expected to surpass PCBs as the leading contaminant in endangered southern resident killer whales, a federal scientist warned Tuesday.
Peter Ross of the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney near Victoria said in an interview that research shows levels of PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) are steadily increasing in harbour seals in southern Puget Sound in Washington state, with levels in seals in B.C.'s Strait of Georgia expected to be similar.
At the current rate of increase, PBDE levels are predicted to exceed those of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) in killer whales in our shared waters by 2020… More…
(March 14, 2007. Source: Vancouver Sun. Story by: Larry Pynn. http://www.canada.com/)
REF: http://www.thew2o.net/archive.html?id=43
Tilapia are herbivores and no fishmeal need be added to tilapia feed which could possibly introduce ocean-sourced pollutants such as heavy metals, PCBs or dioxins. Pond stability provides favorable feed conversion rates over cage-raised tilapia.
In children with autism, the auditory cortex responds abnormally to sound.
PCBs significantly influence chemical and electrical signaling between neurons that affects brain development and learning.
Scientists reported in 2003 that human infants who were breast fed for more than three months had 6.6 times higher levels of PCBs in their blood plasma than infants who did not breast feed.
"This is a red flag," says Merzenich. "The impact of this class of chemicals, whose toxicity has been under-appreciated, must be studied in human populations, and fast."
This non-coplanar PCB known as PCB95, prevalent in our environment, and has qualities that could make it among the more hazardous.
The results were dramatic, says Kenet. While the brain region of the pups raised without exposure to the toxicant was developing typically, the brain region in the pups exposed to the toxicant in utero and while nursing was profoundly altered.
"The animals could hear, but their brain's representation of what they heard was grossly disturbed," says Merzenich.
In one pronounced change, the balance of inhibitory and excitatory signaling between nerve cells, which contributes to the appropriately controlled responses of the brain to stimuli, was disrupted. Strong evidence indicates that there is imbalance in signaling throughout the brain of children with some developmental disorders, such as autism, says Merzenich.
In a secondary experiment, the toxicant-exposed pups were raised in a modified sound environment in which they were exposed to continuous tone or noise pulses. It was here that the auditory cortex's decreased capacity to change in response to sound was revealed. "This activity is crucial in the developing brain," says Merzenich. "Interruptions in these early-learning progressions contribute to learning-related challenges."
As the auditory cortex is the first sensory region to develop, its abnormal development in the rat pups could be just a hint of more pervasive effects of exposure, the scientists say.
PCB95 is closely related in its chemical structure to polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE), which is difficult to study and has only begun to receive attention for its environmental effects, says Kenet. It has been used in large quantities in the last 25 years, mostly in fire retardation in home and office furniture and electronics.
"We've done as yet unpublished studies with PDBEs," says Pessah, director of the UC Davis Center for Children's Environmental Health. "The current finding could be just the tip of the iceberg."
Alarming increase in childhood autism is an authentic phenomenon that can NOT be explained by flawed diagnosis, according to a new study that researchers say adds greater urgency to finding causes for the explosion in cases.
The study, released to state legislators Thursday, found that a 273 percent jump in cases could not be explained by loosening of criteria describing the developmental disorder, misdiagnosis or an influx of people from other states. The study was commissioned following the steep rise in cases at 21 state-run treatment centers from 1987 to 1998.
"I am somewhat surprised by the results," said UC Davis pediatric epidemiologist Robert Byrd, the lead investigator. "It's sobering that we have to face these numbers."
And the numbers continue to spiral upward, with no clear cause, Byrd said. Autism is now the fastest-growing segment of the state's developmental disability system.
Many adults who regularly eat PCB-contaminated fish from Lake Michigan have problems with simple memory and learning tests, according to a study led by Susan Schantz at the University of Illinois. On the basis of these new results, current advice on eating fish from the Great Lakes, which focuses mainly on protecting the pregnant woman and fetus, may need to be revised.
The team found that levels of PCBs and 10 other contaminants were markedly elevated in the blood of those who consumed a large percentage of fish in their diets, and this group was more likely to have problems learning and remembering verbal information.
For example, they had difficulties recalling a story told to them 30 minutes previously and memorizing a 16-item shopping list read out loud to them.
Exposure to low levels of PCBs in the womb has already been linked to learning disabilities in children, but Schantz believes this is the first study to find that adults with high levels of PCBs in their blood may suffer from intellectual impairment.
Environ. Health Perspect. 109 (6) 605–611). —MARIA BURKE
About 4 million tons of sewage sludge were applied last year to land in the United States, according to the... EPA.
How PBDEs from sofas, carpets, and television sets get into people is an open question.
"You have millions of point sources in every home, every bus, every car, and they are slowly making their way into the environment and up the food chain," says McDonald.
After analyzing food in grocery stores, Ryan estimates that the average person there eats 0.044 µg of PBDE per day in meat and dairy.
In the United States, spreading sewage waste on farmland as fertilizer may send PBDEs along to the dinner table. Robert C. Hale of the Department of Environmental Science in Gloucester Point, Va., and his colleagues measured PBDEs in U.S. sewage sludge. They report in the July 12 Nature that each kilogram of sludge, by dry weight, carries 1.1 to 2.3 milligrams of PBDEs with five or fewer bromines. That exceeds 100,000 times the concentration that other researchers found in some European sludge samples. About 4 million tons of sewage sludge were applied last year to land in the United States, according to the... EPA.
Discarded furniture may contribute to the pollution in sludge, suggests Hale. As they degrade, couch and chair cushions release large amounts of penta-PBDE into dirt, sewers, and sediments, he suspects.
Health risks of contaminated soil in food crops (farms)
Health risks of heavy metals in contaminated soils and food crops irrigated with wastewater in
>
Beijing, China.Khan S, Cao Q, Zheng YM, Huang YZ, Zhu YG.
Research Center for Eco-environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 18 Shuangqing Road, Beijing 100085, China; Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Peshawar, 25120 Peshawar, Pakistan.
Consumption of food crops contaminated with heavy metals is a major food chain route for human exposure. We studied the health risks of heavy metals in contaminated food crops irrigated with wastewater. Results indicate that there is a substantial buildup of heavy metals in wastewater-irrigated soils, collected from Beijing, China. Heavy metal concentrations in plants grown in wastewater-irrigated soils were significantly higher (P = 0.001) than in plants grown in the reference soil, and exceeded the permissible limits set by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) in China and the World Health Organization (WHO). Furthermore, this study highlights that both adults and children consuming food crops grown in wastewater-irrigated soils ingest significant amount of the metals studied.
PMID: 17720286 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Possible Autism Link to Industry releasing Toxins
into our Oceans, to save their bottom line.
pub.ucsf.edu
Possible Autism Link to Industry releasing
Toxins into our Oceans, to save their bottom line.
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"We've done as yet unpublished studies with PDBEs,"
says Pessah, director of the UC Davis Center for Children's
Environmental Health and an autism researcher.
"The current finding could be just the tip of the iceberg."
"Strong evidence indicates that there is imbalance in signaling
throughout the brain of children with some developmental disorders,
such as autism, says Merzenich.
High levels of a common flame retardant (PBDE) in Salmon
High levels of a common flame retardant (PBDE) found in plastics, foams and textiles has been detected in Lake Michigan salmon.
All 21 salmon examined in a recent University of Wisconsin study contained chemical compounds called polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, which are widely used for fire safety in computers, television sets, upholstery and cars.
The average level of PBDE contamination in the salmon was six times higher than levels found in a 1999 salmon study in the Baltic Sea, where the most intensive research has been conducted for PBDEs.
The concentrations are reported to be the highest in the world for salmon in open waters.
The EPA ranks PCBs among the most toxic 10 percent of chemicals for human exposure - they do not biodegrade in the envoronment.
While PCB production has been banned, PBDE output has been steady. Studies indicate that, if ingested, PBDEs may increase the risk of cancer, liver damage and immune system dysfunction.
Recent research on young mice showed that the chemical could create an adverse affect on neurodevelopment, learning, memory and reproduction.
Although restrictions exist in Europe, there are no proposals to limit PBDE use in the United States or Canada.
Breastfeeding, Brain Development and Chemical Poisons:
A Conversation with Neuroscientist Michael Merzenich
By Jeff Miller
The consequence of adding the PCB poisoning to simulating what we believed to be the factors that are contributing to the onset of these developmental disorders, autism and related disorders, had devastating additional consequences. So we saw brains that were more degraded in their organization developmentally in these rats than we have ever seen before. The PCBs had a very powerful amplifying effect for these developmental catastrophes that we were producing in these little animal models.
It both degraded the normal development of the brain. It basically frustrated the brain so that processes were very abnormal and the brain remained into adulthood in a very primitive underdeveloped state. So there is no question that in these models that there was some powerful, some amplification of what would be contributed by an inherited weakness and that you would expect this, the agency of this poison to contribute to an increased risk in a genetically at risk individual for the onset of something worse and that could be the conversion of somebody that would otherwise be a child that would develop a milder impairment developing something like an autistic syndrome condition.
It should be pointed out that it's not just, if there is any validity to this scenario, it's not just the fact that PCBs and PBDEs accumulate in the environment.
For most of the twentieth century, Pittsfield Massachusetts was one, big company town. General Electric dominated the local economy, at one time employing over 13,000 workers at its 250-acre facility on the East branch of the Housatonic. Three GE divisions operated from Pittsfield, and the plant was a major producer of electrical transformers. From 1932 until 1977, it also produced tremendous amounts of Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) that, according to the EPA ,"reached the waste and storm water systems associated with the facility and were subsequently conveyed to the East Branch of the Housatonic River and to Silver Lake."
In fact, there were several ways that PCBs from General Electric spread to the surrounding environment. They were dumped directly into the river for years, and the full amount has yet to be tallied. Massive plumes of contamination several feet thick beneath the GE facility transferred PCBs to the river and to the surrounding neighborhood. Tons of contaminated soil were used as fill - given away for residential and commercial construction sites and used to fill in oxbows in the Housatonic for development. Seasonal floods left contaminated sediment in the floodplain far downstream. PCBs have been detected in air samples taken from many basements in Pittsfield.
These vectors are documented by the EPA. Then there is the gray paint. I took a "toxic tour" of Pittsfield recently with Riverkeeper Tim Gray, and we visited a home in the Newell Street neighborhood where the back stairs had been painted medium gray with GE paint. The paint held up very well in that high traffic area, and according to the owner, was made with PCB oil as an additive. Surplus paint found its way home with employees, and nobody knows how many homes may have been contaminated in this way.
Just beyond the backyard of this residence is a chain link fence with a sign warning of PCB contamination on the other side. There is a high tension line and a power company right of way beyond the fence, and a pit lightly covered with blowing sheets of plastic in which hundreds of drums filled with PCB contaminated soil and transformers have recently been uncovered. The homeowner has a video camera pointed out his attic window at the site, which provided evidence that drew the EPA's attention to this previously undocumented dumping ground. Former GE workers suggest that there are other undocumented sites like this throughout Pittsfield saying; "Just follow the wires."
PCB Cleanup in Upper Hudson Is Delayed for Another Year
By KIRK JOHNSON
The dredging of the upper Hudson River to remove the toxic residue of its industrial past — already stalled many times by squabbles over science and culpability — has been delayed again.
Federal environmental officials said yesterday that an additional year would be needed for planning and design beyond the three years already allotted. That means that the first scoop of polluted mud would not be removed until spring 2006 at the earliest and that the projected completion date would be six years later.
The government remains committed to the project, which will be one of the largest environmental restoration efforts in United States history at a cost of nearly $500 million. (who pays?)
Most environmentalists, including Mr. Sullivan, said they feared that the big business, which polluted the river with PCB's from its plants north of Albany, then battled the government for years over how and whether to clean up the mud, was behind the delay.
The company used PCB's, or polychlorinated biphenyls, for about (30 years) three decades in its factories in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls.
By the time Congress got around to banning the toxic PCB's in 1976, as much as one million pounds (or more) of the oily yellow insulating chemical — a probable human carcinogen, according to the government — had leaked or been spilled into the river, where much of it settled to the bottom. (That's just the tip of the iceberg, what about the motherload that already went into the oceans? )
High levels of PCBs remain in soil sampled at the request of lawyers Sheller, Ludwig & Badey, and in drums found previously on the site.
Working for the law firm on behalf of the Upper Ringwood community, toxicologist Bruce Molholt identified high levels of PCBs left over from the paint and waste oil that Ford had dumped there from 1967 to 1974.
Molholt concluded that when the EPA was initially deciding what contaminants should be removed, they zeroed in on metals - lead, mercury, chromium - and not PCBs or other chemicals that'll give you cancer, nerve damage and skin problems. Incredible.
Despite the presence of these major toxic substances, the EPA let Ford off the hook and declared the site clean enough to be dropped from the National Priorities List as a Superfund site in 1994. Yeah, we cleaned it up. Wink, wink.
Large stretches of the roughly 500-acre dump site have remained untouched in spite of that major cleanup 10 years ago, and three smaller ones subsequently conducted when EPA found what was thought to be minor contaminants left behind.
What in the world does "cleanup" really mean in EPA-speak?
Benzene, lead, arsenic, traces of PCB and other toxic compounds were identified in recent days by the private environmental group Edison Wetlands Association, which conducted a hike on land easily accessed by residents and the public.
So contaminated are areas of the site that state environmental officials have closed part of a trail through nearby Ringwood State Park to protect hikers.
Imagine that. The DEP wants to protect hikers. Yet all this time, the members of the Ramapough Mountain Indian community have been living in the midst of a chemical wasteland without so much as a "keep out" sign to warn them away from toxic exposure. No steps have been taken to protect them.
Residents continued for decades to be exposed to contaminants - lead, arsenic, benzene and PCBs - through ingestion of water, plants and game. Molholt found PCBs above allowable EPA levels present in all soil samples tested. Some samples from the site are more than 30 percent lead.
An environmental risk specialist formerly working for the EPA's Superfund program, Molholt was a key investigator for hundreds of cleanup sites. Comparing the Upper Ringwood site to Love Canal, he calls it one of the worst cases he's ever seen.
What makes Ringwood different, however, is the in-your-face dumping of toxic materials practically on the doorsteps of people nobody cared about.
The ongoing contamination danger has been documented with the revelation of the presence of lead, benzene and PCBs.
When sockeye salmon return to their natal lakes to spawn and die, they bring with them PCBs accumulated during a lifetime in the northern Pacific Ocean, according to a study published by Canadian and U.S. researchers in the September 18 issue of Nature. Their decomposing bodies release these persistent industrial pollutants, increasing the PCB content in some Alaskan lake sediments by more than sevenfold.
"In the lakes that receive the highest salmon densities, we’re looking at 7 to 10 times the amount [of PCBs] traditionally assigned from atmospheric pathways," says Jules Blais, a biologist at the University of Ottawa and one of the study’s coauthors. In some cases, he says, "We’re getting levels comparable to what you find in places like Lake Superior, which is surprising when you consider that these are remote Alaskan lakes."
Blais and his colleagues extracted sediment cores from eight lakes during 1995, 1997, 1998, and 2002 for the PCB analysis. They also measured the types and concentrations of PCBs in the muscle tissue of returning sockeye salmon. PCB patterns and concentrations in lake sediments correlated with the density of returning salmon. In particular, PCB sediment concentrations in a lake that receives no salmon spawners were 10 times lower and included a greater proportion of lighter congeners, which are effectively transported by air.
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The Pollution Within
20/09/2006
http://www.nationalgeographic.com
Modern chemistry keeps insects from ravaging crops, lifts stains from carpets, and saves lives. But the ubiquity of chemicals is taking a toll. Many of the compounds absorbed by the body stay there for years--and fears about their health effects are growing.
My journalist-as-guinea-pig experiment is taking a disturbing turn. A Swedish chemist is on the phone, talking about flame retardants, chemicals added for safety to just about any product that can burn. Found in mattresses, carpets, the plastic casing of televisions, electronic circuit boards, and automobiles, flame retardants save hundreds of lives a year in the United States alone. These, however, are where they should not be: inside my body.
Åke Bergman of Stockholm University tells me he has received the results of a chemical analysis of my blood, which measured levels of flame-retarding compounds called polybrominated diphenyl ethers. In mice and rats, high doses of PBDEs interfere with thyroid function, cause reproductive and neurological problems, and hamper neurological development. Little is known about their impact on human health.
"I hope you are not nervous, but this concentration is very high," Bergman says with a light Swedish accent. My blood level of one particularly toxic PBDE, found primarily in U.S. made products, is 10 times the average found in a small study of U.S. residents and more than 200 times the average in Sweden. The news about another PBDE variant--also toxic to animals--is nearly as bad. My levels would be high even if I were a worker in a factory making the stuff, Bergman says.
In fact I'm a writer engaged in a journey of chemical self-discovery. Last fall I had myself tested for 320 chemicals I might have picked up from food, drink, the air I breathe, and the products that touch my skin--my own secret stash of compounds acquired by merely living. It includes older chemicals that I might have been exposed to decades ago, such as DDT and PCBs; pollutants like lead, mercury, and dioxins; newer pesticides and plastic ingredients; and the near-miraculous compounds that lurk just beneath the surface of modern life, making shampoos fragrant, pans nonstick, and fabrics water-resistant and fire-safe.
The tests are too expensive for most individuals--National Geographic paid for mine, which would normally cost around $15,000--and only a few labs have the technical expertise to detect the trace amounts involved. I ran the tests to learn what substances build up in a typical American over a lifetime, and where they might come from. I was also searching for a way to think about risks, benefits, and uncertainty--the complex trade-offs embodied in the chemical "body burden" that swirls around inside all of us.
Now I'm learning more than I really want to know.
Bergman wants to get to the bottom of my flame-retardant mystery. Have I recently bought new furniture or rugs? No. Do I spend a lot of time around computer monitors? No, I use a titanium laptop. Do I live near a factory making flame retardants? Nope, the closest one is over a thousand miles (1,600 kilometers) away. Then I come up with an idea.
"What about airplanes?" I ask.
"Yah," he says, "do you fly a lot?"
"I flew almost 200,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) last year," I say. In fact, as I spoke to Bergman, I was sitting in an airport waiting for a flight from my hometown of San Francisco to London.
"Interesting," Bergman says, telling me that he has long been curious about PBDE exposure inside airplanes, whose plastic and fabric interiors are drenched in flame retardants to meet safety standards set by the Federal Aviation Administration and its counterparts overseas. "I have been wanting to apply for a grant to test pilots and flight attendants for PBDEs," Bergman says as I hear my flight announced overhead. But for now the airplane connection is only a hypothesis. Where I picked up this chemical that I had not even heard of until a few weeks ago remains a mystery. And there's the bigger question: How worried should I be?
The same can be asked of other chemicals I've absorbed from air, water, the nonstick pan I used to scramble my eggs this morning, my faintly scented shampoo, the sleek curve of my cell phone. I'm healthy, and as far as I know have no symptoms associated with chemical exposure. In large doses, some of these substances, from mercury to PCBs and dioxins, the notorious contaminants in Agent Orange, have horrific effects. But many toxicologists--and not just those who have ties to the chemical industry--insist that the minuscule smidgens of chemicals inside us are mostly nothing to worry about.
"In toxicology, dose is everything," says Karl Rozman, a toxicologist at the University of Kansas Medical Center, "and these doses are too low to be dangerous. " One part per billion (ppb), a standard unit for measuring most chemicals inside us, is like putting half a teaspoon (two milliliters) of red dye into an Olympic-size swimming pool. What's more, some of the most feared substances, such as mercury, dissipate within days or weeks--or would if we weren't constantly re-exposed.
Yet even though many health statistics have been improving over the past few decades, a few illnesses are rising mysteriously. From the early 1980s through the late 1990s, autism increased tenfold; from the early 1970s through the mid-1990s, one type of leukemia was up 62 percent, male birth defects doubled, and childhood brain cancer was up 40 percent. Some experts suspect a link to the man-made chemicals that pervade our food, water, and air. There's little firm evidence. But over the years, one chemical after another that was thought to be harmless turned out otherwise once the facts were in.
The classic example is lead. In 1971 the U. S. Surgeon General declared that lead levels of 40 micrograms per deciliter of blood were safe. It's now known that any detectable lead can cause neurological damage in children, shaving off IQ points. From DDT to PCBs, the chemical industry has released compounds first and discovered damaging health effects later. Regulators have often allowed a standard of innocent until proven guilty in what Leo Trasande, a pediatrician and environmental health specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, calls "an uncontrolled experiment on America's children. "
Each year the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reviews an average of 1,700 new compounds that industry is seeking to introduce. Yet the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act requires that they be tested for any ill effects before approval only if evidence of potential harm exists--which is seldom the case for new chemicals. The agency approves about 90 percent of the new compounds without restrictions. Only a quarter of the 82,000 chemicals in use in the U. S. have ever been tested for toxicity.
Until recently, no one had even measured average levels of exposure among large numbers of Americans. No regulations required it, the tests are expensive, and technology sensitive enough to measure the tiniest levels didn't exist.
Last year the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) took a step toward closing that gap when it released data on 148 substances, from DDT and other pesticides to metals, PCBs, and plastic ingredients, measured in the blood and urine of several thousand people. The study said little about health impacts on the people tested or how they might have encountered the chemicals. "The good news is that we are getting real data about exposure levels," says James Pirkle, the study's lead author. "This gives us a place to start. "
I began my own chemical journey on an October morning at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, where I gave urine and had blood drawn under the supervision of Leo Trasande. Trasande specializes in childhood exposures to mercury and other brain toxins. He had agreed to be one of several expert advisers on this project, which began as a Sinai phlebotomist extracted 14 vials of blood--so much that at vial 12 I felt woozy and went into a cold sweat. At vial 13 Trasande grabbed smelling salts, which hit my nostrils like a whiff of fire and allowed me to finish.
From New York my samples were shipped to Axys Analytical Services on Vancouver Island in Canada, one of a handful of state-of-the-art labs specializing in subtle chemical detection, analyzing everything from eagle eggs to human tissue for researchers and government agencies. A few weeks later, I followed my samples to Canada to see how Axys teased out the tiny loads of compounds inside me.
I watched the specimens go through multiple stages of processing, which slowly separated sets of target chemicals from the thousands of other compounds, natural and unnatural, in my blood and urine. The extracts then went into a high-tech clean room containing mass spectrometers, sleek, freezer-size devices that work by flinging the components of a sample through a vacuum, down a long tube. Along the way, a magnetic field deflects the molecules, with lighter molecules swerving the most. The exact amount of deflection indicates each molecule's size and identity.
A few weeks later, Axys sent me my results--a grid of numbers in parts per billion or trillion--and I set out to learn, as best I could, where those toxic traces came from.
Some of them date back to my time in the womb, when my mother downloaded part of her own chemical burden through the placenta and the umbilical cord. More came after I was born, in her breast milk.
Once weaned, I began collecting my own chemicals as I grew up in northeastern Kansas, a few miles outside Kansas City. There I spent countless hot, muggy summer days playing in a dump near the Kansas River. Situated on a high limestone bluff above the fast brown water lined by cottonwoods and railroad tracks, the dump was a mother lode of old bottles, broken machines, steering wheels, and other items only boys can fully appreciate.
This was the late 1960s, and my friends and I had no way of knowing that this dump would later be declared an EPA superfund site, on the National Priority List for hazardous places. It turned out that for years, companies and individuals in this corner of Johnson County had dumped thousands of pounds of material contaminated with toxic chemicals here. "It was started as a landfill before there were any rules and regulations on how landfills were done," says Denise Jordan-Izaguirre, the regional representative for the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. "There were metal tailings and heavy metals dumped in there. It was unfenced, unrestricted, so kids had access to it. "
Kids like me.
Now capped, sealed, and closely monitored, the dump, called the Doepke-Holliday Site, also happens to be half a mile upriver from a county water intake that supplied drinking water for my family and 45,000 other households. "From what we can gather, there were contaminants going into the river," says Shelley Brodie, the EPA Remedial Project Manager for Doepke. In the 1960s, the county treated water drawn from the river, but not for all contaminants. Drinking water also came from 21 wells that tapped the aquifer near Doepke.
When I was a boy, my corner of Kansas was filthy, and the dump wasn't the only source of toxins. Industry lined the river a few miles away--factories making cars, soap, and fertilizers and other agricultural chemicals--and a power plant belched fumes. When we drove past the plants toward downtown Kansas City, we plunged into a noxious cloud that engulfed the car with smoke and an awful chemical stench. Flames rose from fertilizer plant stacks, burning off mustard-yellow plumes of sodium, and animal waste poured into the river. In the nearby farmland, trucks and crop dusters sprayed DDT and other pesticides in great, puffy clouds that we kids sometimes rode our bikes through, holding our breath and feeling very brave.
Today the air is clear, and the river free of effluents--a visible testament to the success of the U. S. environmental cleanup, spurred by the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts of the 1970s. But my Axys test results read like a chemical diary from 40 years ago. My blood contains traces of several chemicals now banned or restricted, including DDT (in the form of DDE, one of its breakdown products) and other pesticides such as the termite-killers chlordane and heptachlor. The levels are about what you would expect decades after exposure, says Rozman, the toxicologist at the University of Kansas Medical Center. My childhood playing in the dump, drinking the water, and breathing the polluted air could also explain some of the lead and dioxins in my blood, he says.
I went to college at a place and time that put me at the height of exposure for another set of substances found inside me--PCBs, once used as electrical insulators and heat-exchange fluids in transformers and other products. PCBs can lurk in the soil anywhere there's a dump or an old factory. But some of the largest releases took place along New York's Hudson River from the 1940s to the 1970s, when General Electric used PCBs at factories in the towns of Hudson Falls and Fort Edward. About 140 miles (225 kilometers) downstream is the city of Poughkeepsie, where I attended Vassar College in the late 1970s.
PCBs, oily liquids or solids, can persist in the environment for decades. In animals, they impair liver function, raise blood lipids, and cause cancers. Some of the 209 different PCBs chemically resemble dioxins and cause other mischief in lab animals: reproductive and nervous system damage, as well as developmental problems. By 1976, the toxicity of PCBs was unmistakable; the United States banned them, and GE stopped using them. But until then, GE legally dumped excess PCBs into the Hudson, which swept them all the way downriver to Poughkeepsie, one of eight cities that draw their drinking water from the Hudson.
In 1984, a 200-mile (300 kilometers) stretch of the Hudson, from Hudson Falls to New York City, was declared a superfund site, and plans to rid the river of PCBs were set in motion. GE has spent 300 million dollars on the cleanup so far, dredging up and disposing of PCBs in the river sediment under the supervision of the EPA. It is also working to stop the seepage of PCBs into the river from the factories.
Birds and other wildlife along the Hudson are thought to have suffered from the pollution, but its impact on humans is less definitive. One study in Hudson River communities found a 20 percent increase in the rate of hospitalization for respiratory diseases, while another, more reassuringly, found no increase in cancer deaths in the contaminated region. But among many of the locals, the fear is palpable.
"I grew up a block from the Fort Edward plant," says Dennis Prevost, a retired Army officer and public health advocate, who blames PCBs for the brain cancers that killed his brother at age 46 and a neighbor in her 20s. "The PCBs have migrated under the parking lot and into the community aquifer," which Prevost says was the source of Fort Edward's drinking water until municipal water replaced wells in 1984.
Ed Fitzgerald of the State University of New York at Albany, a former staff scientist at the state department of health, is conducting the most thorough study yet of the health effects of PCBs in the area. He says he has explained to Prevost and other residents that the risk from the wells was probably small because PCBs tend to settle to the bottom of an aquifer. Eating contaminated fish caught in the Hudson is a more likely exposure route, he says.
I didn't eat much Hudson River fish during my college days in the 1970s, but the drinking water in my dorm could have contained traces of the PCBs pouring into the river far upstream. That may be how I picked up my PCB body burden, which was about average for an American. Or maybe not. "PCBs are everywhere," says Leo Rosales, a local EPA official, "so who knows where you got it. "
Back home in San Francisco, I encounter a newer generation of industrial chemicals--compounds that are not banned, and, like flame retardants, are increasing year by year in the environment and in my body. Sipping water after a workout, I could be exposing myself to bisphenol A, an ingredient in rigid plastics from water bottles to safety goggles. Bisphenol A causes reproductive system abnormalities in animals. My levels were so low they were undetectable--a rare moment of relief in my toxic odyssey.
And that faint lavender scent as I shampoo my hair? Credit it to phthalates, molecules that dissolve fragrances, thicken lotions, and add flexibility to PVC, vinyl, and some intravenous tubes in hospitals. The dashboards of most cars are loaded with phthalates, and so is some plastic food wrap. Heat and wear can release phthalate molecules, and humans swallow them or absorb them through the skin. Because they dissipate after a few minutes to a few hours in the body, most people's levels fluctuate during the day.
Like bisphenol A, phthalates disrupt reproductive development in mice. An expert panel convened by the National Toxicology Program recently concluded that although the evidence so far doesn't prove that phthalates pose any risk to people, it does raise "concern," especially about potential effects on infants. "We don't have the data in humans to know if the current levels are safe," says Antonia Calafat, a CDC phthalates expert. I scored higher than the mean in five out of seven phthalates tested. One of them, monomethyl phthalate, came in at 34. 8 ppb, in the top 5 percent for Americans. Leo Trasande speculates that some of my phthalate levels were high because I gave my urine sample in the morning, just after I had showered and washed my hair.
My inventory of household chemicals also includes perfluorinated acids (PFAs)--tough, chemically resistant compounds that go into making nonstick and stain-resistant coatings. 3M also used them in its Scotchgard protector products until it found that the specific PFA compounds in Scotchgard were escaping into the environment and phased them out. In animals these chemicals damage the liver, affect thyroid hormones, and cause birth defects and perhaps cancer, but not much is known about their toxicity in humans.
Long-range pollution left its mark on my results as well: My blood contained low, probably harmless, levels of dioxins, which escape from paper mills, certain chemical plants, and incinerators. In the environment, dioxins settle on soil and in the water, then pass into the food chain. They build up in animal fat, and most people pick them up from meat and dairy products.
And then there is mercury, a neurotoxin that can permanently impair memory, learning centers, and behavior. Coal-burning power plants are a major source of mercury, sending it out their stacks into the atmosphere, where it disperses in the wind, falls in rain, and eventually washes into lakes, streams, or oceans. There bacteria transform it into a compound called methylmercury, which moves up the food chain after plankton absorb it from the water and are eaten by small fish. Large predatory fish at the top of the marine food chain, like tuna and swordfish, accumulate the highest concentrations of methylmercury--and pass it on to seafood lovers.
For people in northern California, mercury exposure is also a legacy of the gold rush 150 years ago, when miners used quicksilver, or liquid mercury, to separate the gold from other ores in the hodgepodge of mines in the Sierra Nevada. Over the decades, streams and groundwater washed mercury-laden sediment out of the old mine tailings and swept it into San Francisco Bay.
I don't eat much fish, and the levels of mercury in my blood were modest. But I wondered what would happen if I gorged on large fish for a meal or two. So one afternoon I bought some halibut and swordfish at a fish market in the old Ferry Building on San Francisco Bay. Both were caught in the ocean just outside the Golden Gate, where they might have picked up mercury from the old mines. That night I ate the halibut with basil and a dash of soy sauce; I downed the swordfish for breakfast with eggs (cooked in my nonstick pan).
Twenty-four hours later I had my blood drawn and retested. My level of mercury had more than doubled, from 5 micrograms per liter to a higher-than-recommended 12. Mercury at 70 or 80 micrograms per liter is dangerous for adults, says Leo Trasande, and much lower levels can affect children. "Children have suffered losses in IQ at 5. 8 micrograms. " He advises me to avoid repeating the gorge experiment.
It's a lot harder to dodge the PBDE flame retardants responsible for the most worrisome of my test results. My world--and yours--has become saturated with them since they were introduced about 30 years ago.
Scientists have found the compounds planetwide, in polar bears in the Arctic, cormorants in England, and killer whales in the Pacific. Bergman, the Swedish chemist, and his colleagues first called attention to potential health risks in 1998 when they reported an alarming increase in PBDEs in human breast milk, from none in milk preserved in 1972 to an average of four ppb in 1997.
The compounds escape from treated plastic and fabrics in dust particles or as gases that cling to dust. People inhale the dust; infants crawling on the floor get an especially high dose. Bergman describes a family, tested in Oakland, California, by the Oakland Tribune, whose two small children had blood levels even higher than mine. When he and his colleagues summed up the test results for six different PBDEs, they found total levels of 390 ppb in the five-year-old girl and 650 ppb--twice my total--in the 18-month-old boy.
In 2001, researchers in Sweden fed young mice a PBDE mixture similar to one used in furniture and found that they did poorly on tests of learning, memory, and behavior. Last year, scientists at Berlin's Charité University Medical School reported that pregnant female rats with PBDE levels no higher than mine gave birth to male pups with impaired reproductive health.
Linda Birnbaum, an EPA expert on these flame retardants, says that researchers will have to identify many more people with high PBDE exposures, like the Oakland family and me, before they will be able to detect any human effects. Bergman says that in a pregnant woman my levels would be of concern. "Any level above a hundred parts per billion is a risk to newborns," he guesses. No one knows for sure.
Any margin of safety may be narrowing. In a review of several studies, Ronald Hites of Indiana University found an exponential rise in people and animals, with the levels doubling every three to five years. Now the CDC is putting a comprehensive study of PBDE levels in the U. S. on a fast track, with results due out late this year. Pirkle, who is running the study, says my seemingly extreme levels may no longer be out of the ordinary. "We'll let you know," he says.
Given the stakes, why take a chance on these chemicals? Why not immediately ban them? In 2004, Europe did just that for the penta- and octa-BDEs, which animal tests suggest are the most toxic of the compounds. California will also ban these forms by 2008, and in 2004 Chemtura, an Indiana company that is the only U. S. maker of pentas and octas, agreed to phase them out. Currently, there are no plans to ban the much more prevalent deca-BDEs. They reportedly break down more quickly in the environment and in people, although their breakdown products may include the same old pentas and octas.
Nor is it clear that banning a suspect chemical is always the best option. Flaming beds and airplane seats are not an inviting prospect either. The University of Surrey in England recently assessed the risks and benefits of flame retardants in consumer products. The report concluded: "The benefits of many flame retardants in reducing the risk from fire outweigh the risks to human health. "
Except for some pollutants, after all, every industrial chemical was created for a purpose. Even DDT, the archvillain of Rachel Carson's 1962 classic book Silent Spring, which launched the modern environmental movement, was once hailed as a miracle substance because it killed the mosquitoes that carry malaria, yellow fever, and other scourges. It saved countless lives before it was banned in much of the world because of its toxicity to wildlife. "Chemicals are not all bad," says Scott Phillips, a medical toxicologist in Denver. "While we have seen some cancer rates rise," he says, "we also have seen a doubling of the human life span in the past century. "
The key is knowing more about these substances, so we are not blindsided by unexpected hazards, says California State Senator Deborah Ortiz, chair of the Senate Health Committee and the author of a bill to monitor chemical exposure. "We benefit from these chemicals, but there are consequences, and we need to understand these consequences much better than we do now. " Sarah Brozena of the industry-supported American Chemistry Council thinks safeguards are adequate now, but she concedes: "That's not to say this process was done right in the past. "
The European Union last year gave initial approval to a measure called REACH--Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals--which would require companies to prove the substances they market or use are safe, or that the benefits outweigh any risks. The bill, which the chemical industry and the U. S. government oppose, would also encourage companies to find safer alternatives to suspect flame retardants, pesticides, solvents, and other chemicals. That would give a boost to the so-called green chemistry movement, a search for alternatives that is already under way in laboratories on both sides of the Atlantic.
As unsettling as my journey down chemical lane was, it left out thousands of compounds, among them pesticides, plastics, solvents, and a rocket-fuel ingredient called perchlorate that is polluting groundwater in many regions of the country. Nor was I tested for chemical cocktails--mixtures of chemicals that may do little harm on their own but act together to damage human cells. Mixed together, pesticides, PCBs, phthalates, and others "might have additive effects, or they might be antagonistic," says James Pirkle of the CDC, "or they may do nothing. We don't know. "
Soon after I receive my results, I show them to my internist, who admits that he too knows little about these chemicals, other than lead and mercury. But he confirms that I am healthy, a
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