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Upon further review of this announcement in the PA Bulletin from several months ago, 2 things struck us. First, more from the bulletin (emphasis is ours):
Bottled Water: This alternative provides for the Department to furnish commercial bottled water to the impacted residences. Bottled water would be delivered regularly to each residence that has a water supply contaminated in excess of the Maximim Contaminant Level (MCL) of 5 ppb for TCE. This would effectively remove the risk posed by ingestion, but would not remove the risk posed by inhalation and dermal contact.
Point-Of-Entry Water Treatment Units: This alternative provides for the Department to install carbon treatment systems on the supply line of private wells that are contaminated. The carbon treatment systems would effectively remove the risk posed by ingestion, inhalation and dermal contact. [TCE Blog note: Not entirely true, see below]
Here’s what struck us:
First, PA DEP acknowledges that the policy of providing bottled water to TCE-exposed residences is not designed to protect people from the risks of direct skin contact with the TCE-contaminated water nor from inhaling toxic TCE vapors. Even if families are being told that non-drinking use of the poisonous water is “harmless” (as told to us by a resident), it appears PA DEP knows better. Why they wouldn’t expressly discourage such use and warn residents of the practical dangers remains a mystery to us.
Second, DEP claims that carbon filters placed on private water supply lines will protect residents from inhaling toxic TCE vapors (”…would effectively remove the risk posed by ingestion, inhalation and dermal contact”.) This is an unfortunate overstatement that ignores the well-established risks of vapor intrusion.
While it may be true that carbon filters will reduce the level of TCE coming into each filtered home from the water supply itself, this does nothing to stop toxic vapors from entering homes as they evaporate directly from the giant TCE plume below. No matter how many carbon filters DEP installs or bottles of water it provides, every family residing above or near the plume remains at risk of breathing toxic TCE vapors today. This risk has quietly persisted for as long as the TCE plume has plagued this community.
We hope the residents have been getting the full story from DEP. Right now, that is far from clear.
Why is Pennsylvania DEP allowing families in TCE-polluted Tomstown, PA to regularly bathe in and wash with TCE polluted water coming out of the tap between 6ppb-24ppb?
This decision was quietly made public in The Pennsylvania Bulletin on February 10, 2007:
Bottled Water, was initiated on January 1, 2007, for residences with
water supply contamination levels greater than 5 ppb of TCE but less
than 25 ppb.
Point-of-Entry Water Treatment Systems will be provided for residences
that have TCE levels greater than 25 ppb TCE in their water supply.
The Department has determined by risk analysis that this level
presents an unacceptable inhalation threat in addition to the
ingestion threat.
So…DEP is providing bottled water to families in Tomstown whose tap water is contaminated above the federal MCL (5ppb), but has no plans to filter the water unless it tests higher than 24ppb.
This means that families who have up to 24ppb coming from their taps are left with a poisoned water supply in their homes, to bathe in, to wash with, to flush, and to inhale. To date, we have found no evidence that these families have been warned of the dangers of such uses.
On the contrary, we’ve been advised by a contact in Tomstown that not only are the DEP-provided bottles of water designated by DEP for drinking and cooking only, but reportedly DEP has called any other use of the contaminated tap water “harmless.” We hope this report is based on a misunderstanding, but we’re still awaiting DEP’s reply to our email requesting clarification of their policy here.
In response to our first email, a DEP spokesperson was kind enough to let us know they are indeed on the case:
The articles that you have posted on your blog are accurate. The state is investigating groundwater contamination and the state is supplying bottled water or installing carbon filtration on wells. A vapor intrusion study will be done when the contamination plume has been identified.
As we suspected, it appears no vapor intrusion investigation has been initiated. We’re also informed by locals that there has been no warning to residents about the dangers of breathing toxic indoor air.
Meantime, we’ve been advised that the federal MCL for TCE (5ppb) applies to drinking water in a strict, literal sense, therefore allowing families to bathe in higher concentrations of TCE may not be illegal.
Still, it seems awfully dangerous for PA DEP to continue to allow these ongoing exposures above the MCL without clearly warning the families of the consequences.
Given that there’s no telling for how many years these families have been bathing, washing, flushing, and inhaling vapors from the contaminated water – not to mention drinking and cooking with it – prior to DEP’s discovery of it in 2006, this is all pretty scary stuff from where we sit.
As we learn more, we’ll keep you posted.
Anybody with an interest in documenting the connection between TCE and disease should know that important lessons may lie with View-Master, where a single contaminant – TCE – poisoned a single, private water supply and exposed an entire company to TCE as a result. So why won’t the federal government prioritize a thorough study of the View-Master workers?
The following piece was published in The Oregonian on Thursday, June 14th and authored by Tom Griffith, professor emeritus of physics at Pacific University and secretary of the View-Master Citizens Advisory Group. We’re reprinting this in full with Tom’s permission:
The exposure that needs more exposure
Thursday, June 14, 2007
In 1998, high levels of the organic solvent trichloroethylene — known as TCE — were discovered in the drinking water of the View-Master plant in Beaverton. The levels were 300 times the maximum established as safe at that time by the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s estimated that as many as 25,000 workers were exposed, some of them to high levels of TCE for 30 years or more.
TCE is a probable carcinogen and is known to produce health effects besides cancer with high enough exposures. It was a commonly used degreaser and dry-cleaning fluid from 1950 to 1980, and there are more than 3,000 sites around the country where it is present in groundwater. But very few of these sites have produced levels of exposure anywhere near those at View-Master.
Since discovery of the contamination, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has implemented a remediation plan for cleaning up the groundwater beneath the site. This cleanup is ongoing and will take at least 20 more years to complete.
The Oregon State Public Health Division completed a limited mortality study of the site in 2004, designed to determine whether a more thorough study was called for, and it more than met that goal. It showed death rates for kidney cancer in women workers at the plant were roughly six times higher than the rates for other Oregon residents of similar age. It also found high rates for a few other cancers.
Since then, however, efforts to conduct a more thorough study have been stymied by a lack of money. It’s been almost 10 years since the initial discovery of the TCE contamination, and nothing definitive has been done.
In the meantime, former View-Master workers are left in a fog regarding what health problems they might face and what they should do about it. Some of these workers clearly face an increased risk of cancer and other ill effects. The number potentially harmed is large. Some have already died.
The irony is that the View-Master workers represent an ideal population to gain better knowledge of the effects of exposure to TCE, a national problem. These workers were exposed at high levels to essentially a single contaminant over a long period of time. And their numbers are large enough to provide reliable statistics. In other words, studying them has a high probability of producing definitive results that will be useful in assessing the effects of TCE exposure at other sites.
So why has such a study not been funded? It’s a complicated story, but the problem lies, at least in part, with bureaucratic buck-passing among the federal agencies that could provide the money to pursue it. No one in the vast alphabet soup of federal agencies seems to have a clear mission to fund epidemiology research of this nature.
But the state of Oregon is not blameless either. The Public Health Division has no direct funds allocated for such research. The state scientists in the epidemiology department must find external money through grants to get anything accomplished.
Those charged with protecting our health and safety need to step up and see that the appropriate scientific work is done at View-Master. Otherwise, the funds already spent will have been wasted and the former View-Master workers will be left with no good information. Just as importantly, our nation will have missed an opportunity to learn something definitive about a national concern.
So who will step up as the buck passes along? The View-Master workers aren’t getting any younger.
Next time a politician or federal representative (EPA, ATSDR, NIOSH, etc) tells you that they would like nothing better than to study the link between TCE and disease (but laments that it is oh so hard to find a good study population), make sure to ask them why they refuse to study View-Master.
The following paper was published back in April:
Occupational trichloroethylene exposure as a cause of idiosyncratic
generalized skin disorders and accompanying hepatitis similar to drug
hypersensitivities [View abstract or purchase]
Authors: Kamijima, Michihiro1; Hisanaga, Naomi; Wang, Hailan; Nakajima, Tamie
Source: International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health, Volume 80, Number 5, April 2007 , pp. 357-370(14)
Publisher: Springer
After reading the abstract and the paper, we decided a layman’s summary was warranted. Here’s our attempt:
Researchers reviewed cases of severe generalized skin disorders and
accompanying hepatitis in workers exposed to trichloroethylene (TCE).
They attempted to compare TCE-induced skin disorders to similar
disorders caused by hypersensitivity to medications.
Not only was the frequency of skin disorders in TCE-exposed workers greater than the occurrence of such disorders caused by medicine-hypersensitivity, the TCE-induced skin disorders were accompanied by a higher rate of fever, hepatitis, and lymphadenopathy (swelling of the lymph nodes). [Note: For several reasons, the incidence rate/frequency surveyed does not seem to offer much predictive power.]
Patients suffering from TCE-related generalized skin disorders typically show rash on the extremities, face, neck or trunk with/without fever 2 weeks to 2 months after commencement of occupational TCE exposure. Some experienced recurrences after going back to their worksites. These findings indicate a clear temporal relationship between TCE exposure and the disorder occurrence.
TCE-induced skin disorders found in the review include:
- Exfoliative Dermatitis (widespread scaling of the skin, often with itching (pruritus), skin redness (erythroderma), and hair loss.)
- Erythema Multiforme (multiple skin lesions; can be accompanied by itching, fever, and general ill-feeling)
- Stevens-Johnson syndrome (a much more severe condition than erythema multiforme. SJS typically involves multiple areas of the body and extensive lesion formation. The lesions can extend to the mucous membranes, thus affecting the lungs, eyes, mouth, stomach, intestines and virtually every major organ.)
- Epidermolysis Bullosa (a group of blistering skin conditions. The skin is so fragile in people with EB that even minor rubbing may cause blistering. At times, the person with EB may not be aware of rubbing or injuring the skin even though blisters develop. In severe EB, blisters are not confined to the outer skin. They may develop inside the body, in such places as the linings of the mouth, esophagus, stomach, intestines, upper airway, bladder, and the genitals.)
Also:
The reported patients were engaged mostly in degreasing, i.e. cleaning metal-made products or machines, plastic toys, electronics parts (e.g. printed circuit boards, transistor components, capacitors, or computer displays), socks, ink stains in a printing shop , or unspecied material.
Skin contact with liquid TCE is not essential for the onset of the disorders (i.e. TCE vapors can cause them)
These TCE-related hypersensitivities are totally different from typical solvent toxic effects in terms of unclear dose–response relationship, period of exposure before disease onset, generalized rash, fever, lymphadenopathy, and recurrence just after minimal re-exposure
Occurrences of the disorders have been reported from the USA, Japan, Spain, Singapore, China, Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines. The case reports from industrialized countries were mostly published up to 1990, whereas cases from Asian industrializing countries appeared thereafter.
–
For a copy of the full paper for research purposes, please feel free to contact us.
Back in April, the EPA promulgated new, more stringent emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants. Trichloroethylene (TCE) was one of the pollutants impacted by these new standards*.
At the same time, EPA carved out exemptions in the new standards allowing certain industries to simply opt out of compliance because of “technological challenges and high costs.” The narrow tube industry was one of these industries**. Hence, the narrow tube industry was exempted from reducing its TCE emissions.
This exemption did not sit well with the Board of Supervisors in Lower Providence, Pennsylvania. Lower Providence includes the towns of Collegeville and Trappe, both ranked as having higher TCE levels in their ambient air than most towns in the state…and both happen to be home to narrow tube manufacturers who emit lots of TCE. Today, in a strong rebuke, the Board unanimously passed a resolution opposing the EPA’s exemption.
At this time, it is unclear what impact this will have on the narrow tube manufacturers TCE emissions in Collegeville and Trappe.
–
* We owe readers more detail on this. As with other things we’re backed up on, it’s coming. Swear.
** EPA received significant comments on the proposed standards from four industry sectors: the aerospace manufacture and maintenance industry, the narrow tubing manufacturing industry, industries that use continuous web cleaning machines, and a major military equipment maintenance facility. These industries commented that they would face serious technological challenges and high costs if the proposal were finalized. All four were granted exemptions.
According to the East Valley Tribune (Scottsdale, AZ), a former Scottsdale resident petitioned the ATSDR to determine if cancer rates in the area are elevated:
“Those of us who were developing children in the NIBW [the North Indian Bend Wash Superfund site] would like to know definitively if there is a higher rate of cancer among our population,” Oberlender wrote in a request to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
The petition, submitted in January, is being reviewed to determine if more evidence is needed, said Charles Green, a disease registry spokesman. A response is expected in early April.
The Superfund site is 13-square-mile area in Scottsdale and Tempe. It is bounded roughly by the Salt River on the south, Chaparral Road on the north, Scottsdale Road on the west and Loop 101 on the east.
TCE, or trichloroethylene, was used to clean circuit boards beginning in the 1950s. It was dumped down dry wells, sewers and into leaching beds for three decades until it was discovered in 1981 in five drinking water wells that serve Scottsdale.
The wells, three of which were owned by Phoenix until Scottsdale purchased them in 1987, were closed immediately, but concentrations of TCE were as high as 390 parts per billion near the time they were shut, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The federal standard for drinking water is less than 5 parts per billion.
Four companies — Motorola, GlaxoSmithKline, Salt River Project and SMI Holding, formerly Siemens — have claimed the lion’s share of the more than $100 million in cleanup costs. Between 1981 and June 2006, an estimated 61.3 billion gallons of groundwater from the site were pumped and treated to remove an estimated 56,800 pounds of TCE.
It is expected to take 20 more years to clean up 90 percent of all the TCE in the groundwater, said Dennis Shirley, project coordinator for the companies.
[...]
Oberlender, who lives in Blacksburg, Va., particularly takes issue with a Superfund fact sheet Scottsdale posts online that says “trace” amounts of industrial chemicals, primarily TCE, were found in two of Scottsdale’s drinking water wells. Three wells owned by Phoenix that supplied water to Scottsdale residents for decades were some of the most contaminated. But the city does not reference those in its fact sheet, Oberlender said.
“Some Scottsdale residents are under the false impression that they did not drink the contaminated water because they paid their water bills to the city of Phoenix,” she said.
Read the full story here.
U.S. Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey, D-Hurley: “It is something that needs to be done.”
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.: “The people of Endicott deserve answers. I also believe that IBM should provide free and open access to the records that the researchers need.”
Read the full article in the Press & Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, NY).
More on this from us to come. For now, check out this article from today’s Press & Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, NY) regarding the discussion at Tuesday’s meeting:
Federal health officials are proposing a $3.1 million study delving into IBM personnel records to determine the cancer rate among 28,000 employees who might have been exposed to chemicals at the Endicott plant since the 1960s.
Lynne Pinkterton, an official with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, said the agency could combine information from personnel and industrial hygiene records kept for decades at the plant to determine cancer rates of people working in manufacturing and in various departments.
The information would address a long-standing question about whether IBM workers who faced exposure to chemicals, including trichloroethylene (TCE), were more likely than other people to become ill.
The interest in chemical exposure became more intense in the Southern Tier after the 2003 discovery that a subterranean plume of trichloroethylene and similar chemicals was flowing from the micro electronics plant on North Street and forming gases that pushed into hundreds of basements through a process called vapor intrusion. IBM sold the plant to Huron Real Estate Associates in 2002.
Read more here.
The Press & Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, NY) reports:
When health officials found that a polluted area in the village had a disproportionately high rate of premature births and certain cancers, it raised more questions than answers.
Was pollution making people sick?
Were factors other than pollution — such as smoking or occupational exposure — responsible?
Were women living in the area more prone to miscarriages?
Tuesday night, scientists working on the problem with federal and state agencies are scheduled to release their latest findings regarding these and other questions to a citizens group — called the Western Broome Environmental Stakeholders Coalition — and discuss future plans.
Presenters will include representatives from the federal Agency of Toxic Substances & Disease Registry, the state Department of Health and the federal National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health.
According to info printed along with the article, the preso is scheduled for Tuesday, March 27, 2007 at 6:00 pm at:
The First United Methodist Church
53 McKinley Ave
Endicott, NY 13760
(607) 748-7434
Click here for google map and directions.
The presentation reportedly will be followed by a public information session to be scheduled in April.
The folks near Rocketdyne apparently have way more to be concerned with than just TCE or perchlorate contamination. According to this front-page story from Friday’s Los Angeles Times:
Radioactive emissions from a 1959 nuclear accident at a research lab near Simi Valley appear to have been much greater than previously suspected and could have resulted in hundreds of cancers in surrounding communities, according to a study released Thursday.
Chemical contamination from rocket engine testing at the site continues to threaten soil and groundwater in the area around Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory, the study also found.
The nuclear meltdown, which remained virtually unknown to the public until 1979, could have caused between 260 and 1,800 cases of cancer “over a period of many decades,” the study concluded.
But the advisory panel that oversaw the five-year study, conducted by an independent team of scientists and health experts, said it could not offer more specifics about potential exposure to carcinogens because the Department of Energy and Rocketdyne’s owner, Boeing Co., did not provide key information.
“This lack of candor … makes characterization of the potential health impacts of past accidents and releases extremely difficult,” the panel concluded.
AP Reports also add:
The lab’s former owner, Rocketdyne, has said for years that no significant radiation was released. But the independent advisory panel said the incident released nearly 459 times more radiation than a similar one at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island in 1979.
[...]
The Energy Department, Boeing [the site's current owner] and the state have been involved in efforts to decontaminate the site. The state has estimated that more than 1.73 million gallons of toxic trichloroethylene was dumped on the grounds and that 500,000 gallons have saturated the bedrock beneath the lab.
The panel concluded local soil and groundwater also may have been contaminated. The rocket fuel additive perchlorate has been found in a well, but Boeing has disputed assertions it came from the lab. Long-term exposure to high levels of perchlorate can cause thyroid problems.
Read the full LA Times article, Study Says Lab Meltdown Caused Cancer. Or check out AP’s report here.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) has released a video about the brain cancer investigation/study of Pratt & Whitney workers in CT.
Though the video suggests various chemicals may have been at play, the investigation has focused on exposure to TCE.
See the video here. Also be sure to visit Worked to Death for more on the P & W investigation and study.
The Canton Repository (OH) reports:
Firefighters were going door-to-door in a northeast neighborhood late Thursday asking residents if they were experiencing any ill effects from a nearby chemical fire.
A furnace overheated at Canton Plating at 930 Ninth St. NE just before 7 p.m., said acting Chief Gary Kimble. He said 17 firefighters were taken to area hospitals after five or six reported symptoms while responding to the call.
“Some of our people started experiencing sore throats, metallic tastes in their mouths,” he said.
All of the firefighters who reported problems were outside the building and were not wearing oxygen masks.
Battalion Chief Gary Boone, who did not complain of symptoms, was among the firefighters taken to the hospital as a precaution. Aultman Hospital was examining eight firefighters while nine others were taken to Mercy Medical Center.
Kimble said four firefighters were being observed for up to six hours by poison control specialists for any additional symptoms. He said firefighters who were sent to a hospital went through a series of decontamination showers because their clothing was contaminated. Those treated also had their blood tested for the presence of chemicals.
Kimble said one chemical that was suspected of being present was trichloroethylene — a toxic solvent used in dry cleaning. But it was not known late Thursday all of the chemicals that may have been in the fumes.
Read the full story here.
The following meeting announcement was recently posted to the Worked to Death website, a resource for information about the investigation/legal efforts and scientific study surrounding an outrageously high incidence of brain cancer (particularly glioblastoma multiforme) across Connecticut’s Pratt and Whitney Aircraft plants where trichloroethylene is one of the main toxins of concern.
WORKED TO DEATH ANNUAL MEETING NOTICE
BRAIN TUMOR CLUSTER STUDY
WHEN: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2006, 7:00 PM TO 10:00 PM
WHERE: THE CROWNE PLAZA HOTEL, 100 BERLIN ROAD,
CROMWELL CT (860-635-2000)
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC PLEASE ATTEND
By way of background, the following introduction can be found on the recently updated Worked to Death website:
Hi, let us introduce ourselves, we are Carol Shea and Kate Greco, wives of John Shea and John Greco. Our husbands were friends and co-workers for over 30 years at Prattt and Whitney Aircraft. They both lost their lives within one month of each other to a VERY RARE form of brain cancer, GLIOBLASTOMA MULTIFORME.
The Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) primary brain tumor is one of the most malignant and difficult brain tumors to treat. It is also a very rare type of tumor. According to the Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States, www.cbtrus.org, GBM’s strike an average of 2.96 people per 100,000 – less than .003 percent – every year. The State Health Department, in consultation with federal health and safety experts, is investigating the possibility of a brain tumor cluster at Pratt & Whitney’s Connecticut plants. We have, with the help of local newspapers and TV stations running our story, compiled a list of over 87 confirmed Glioblastoma cases, we have an additional 41 confirmed cases with other forms of brain tumors at Pratt & Whitney. THIS IS WELL BEYOND THE PERCENTAGES!!!!!!!
We hope to inform you and engage your support for our efforts to help clean up this toxicity which we feel caused our husbands and many other deaths. We hope you will read on to see what our efforts have uncovered. We are involved in the largest study of its type in history which is being undertaken by the Universities of Pittsburgh and Chicago, under the direction of Dr. Gary Marsh, Dr. Frank S. Lieberman, both of the University of Pittsburgh and Dr. N.A. Esmen of the University of Illinois at Chicago with the cooperation of the State of Connecticut Department of Public Health through William Gerrish its Director of Public Health Communications.
For more information and background on the Pratt and Whitney situation, please also see this series of articles by the New Haven Advocate, including the initial piece from which the families’ website takes it’s name: Worked to Death: Pratt and Whitney Leaves Behind a Trail of Cancer
We’ve learned that the solvents at issue in both the Williams and Hensley cases against CSX Railroad were trichloroethylene (TCE),
trichloroethane (TCA), perchloroethylene a.k.a. tetrachloroethylene (PCE), mineral spirits, and carbon tetrachloride.
Thanks to Ken Sales of the Sales and Slattery Group (attorneys for the plaintiffs in both cases) for this confirmation.
The Chattanoogan (TN), which was launched Sept. 1, 1999 and bills sitself as “as one of the first full-service web-only daily newspapers in the country”, provides this breaking news report:
A Hamilton County Circuit Court jury has returned a $5 million verdict for a former CSX Railroad employee.
The jury in the courtroom of Judge Jackie Schulten deliberated two and a half hours before bringing in the verdict in favor of Thurston Hensley, 67.
The jury found that Mr. Hensley had contracted both asbestosis and toxic encephalopathy through his work for 33 years as an electrician at the railroad yards at Corbin, Ky.
It was claimed that he had to handle both asbestos and was around dangerous solvents during his time with the railroad.
The plaintiff said he suffered lung damage from the asbestos and brain damage from the solvents.
He was represented by attorney Doug Nichol of Knoxville and attorney Joe Satterley of Louisville, Ky. The case was originally filed by attorneys from St. Louis, Mo.
The case was filed in January 2002.
Attorney Nichol said it was brought under the Federal Employees Liability Act, which allows for compensatory damages but not punitive damages.
He said that type suit can be brought either in federal or state court and in any place where the defendant railroad has a railyard.
Trial of the case lasted three weeks.
See the original article here. Thanks to Ken Sales of the Sales and Slattery Group for the tip.
Earlier this month, The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky) reported:
Researchers studying railroad workers have documented that cleaning solvents used in their jobs caused brain damage, shrinking the vital bridge that helps one side of the brain communicate with the other.
The results of the study by researchers from West Virginia University, the University of Pittsburgh and Johns Hopkins University, which was funded by the federal government, bolster evidence that powerful degreasers can damage the brain.
[...]
“We were able to identify a change to the structure of the brain,” said lead author Marc Haut, a professor in the departments of behavioral medicine and psychiatry, neurology and radiology at the West Virginia University School of Medicine in Morgantown.
He said they found a correlation between brain loss and workers’ performance on tests that evaluate such mental performance as processing speed, attention and concentration.
The new report is the first connected with the nation’s first large, independently funded study that seeks to explain how railroad workers may have been affected by solvents like 1,1,1-trichloroethane, trichloroethylene and perchlorethylene. Workers who participated in the study came from railroad shops in Cumberland, Md., and Huntington, W.Va.
“It is no surprise to me,” Deanna Bowerman said of the study’s findings.
Her late husband, Dale, was a CSX railroad machinist in Louisville and Corbin, Ky., and was diagnosed with toxic encephalopathy — characterized by chronic depression, loss of short-term memory and hair-trigger temper.
[...]
In a 10-month investigation in 2000 and 2001, The Courier-Journal learned that Bowerman and more than 600 other U.S. railroad employees had been diagnosed with toxic encephalopathy after spending years in workplaces where solvents were widely used with little or no protection.
The newspaper found that the debate within the medical community about whether exposure to solvents in the workplace caused brain damage had diminished in the 1990s.
But studies of railroad workers were less common, and some that were funded by CSX Transportation had found no link between solvent exposure and the illness. The newspaper found that CSX, the railroad company with the largest number of claims, had paid out nearly $35 million to more than 460 current or former workers diagnosed with the illness.
Railroads began phasing the chemicals out of their shops in the early 1990s.
CSX has both won and lost jury verdicts in chemical exposure cases that have gone to trial. It has argued that its workers’ problems could be explained by other factors, such as drinking alcohol, side effects from prescribed medication, or illnesses such as depression or diabetes.
Gary Sease, a spokesman for CSX, said the company continues to believe there is no credible and conclusive scientific basis to support claims that solvent exposure harmed company workers.
Joe Satterley, a Louisville attorney who represents railroad workers, said he’s aware of at least 100 pending lawsuits in Kentucky and elsewhere that were filed in the last few years.
The study, he said, “substantiates everything we’ve been saying all along.”
The findings of eight researchers were published in June in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. They are based on comparing images of the brains of 31 railroad workers who were exposed to solvents over a period of at least 10 years to 31 people who were not.
Any workers involved in pending litigation with the railroad were excluded, as were those with current substance abuse, a history of serious medical illness, or a diagnosis of mental illness before solvent exposure, Haut said. The researchers also factored out potential effects from high blood pressure and diabetes, which can cause the brain to shrink.
With funding from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the researchers found that the size of the corpus callosum — a bridge between the left and right hemispheres of the brain that allows communication between the sides — was significantly smaller in the railroad workers.
And the part most affected, they found, was the genu, a section of the corpus callosum that connects the frontal lobes, which are associated with decision making, problem solving and emotions.
The researchers also concluded that psychiatric conditions, such as depression, could not have caused the physical changes in workers’ brains.
We believe this is an important finding (and an important article) for a number of reasons:
- Countless railroad workers across the country have been severely injured by exposure to toxins on the job. Hundreds, if not thousands, of these injured workers have filed personal injury lawsuits alleging that on-the-job solvent-exposure caused their injuries. This study helps support many of these claims.
- Though CSX spokesperson Gary Sease seems to have a copy of the polluter handbook for denying responsibility and manufacturing uncertainty, CSX has been the subject of at least one previously-published paper about TCE-exposed railroad workers entitled Building Toys and Working on the Railroad. In that paper, the author, Elle McKay, refers to the finding that “Over 600 railroaders across the southeastern United States have been diagnosed with toxic encephalopathy- a form of permanent brain damage caused by long-term exposure to toxic degreasing solvents such as TCE.” She tells us:
Many railroad lines in the [southeastern U.S.], including those under CSX, used TCE as a locomotive cleanser from the 1960’s through the mid-1980’s. Diesel locomotive repairmen were the primary users of the solvent. Other workers, such as electricians, pipefitters, machinists and general laborers used TCE by the 55-gallon drum to remove oil and grease from engines and other locomotive parts. Some soaked rags directly in the drums, while others used pressurized tanks to spray the chemical. In order to clean large parts, they would be lowered into vats of heated solvent vapors. When workers got filthy maintaining and rebuilding the diesel locomotives, it wasn’t unheard of for them to wash their hands, arms, and clothing in the same solvent they used to clean the parts.
[...]
Dr. Douglas Linz, medical director for TriHealth Corporate Health Services in Cincinnati, Ohio, who has twenty years of experience treating workers exposed to industrial solvents, stated, ‘The [railroad] workers clearly show the fingerprint of solvent toxicity. These individuals have…emotional or physical issues…irritability, short-term memory loss, depression. And they have neuropsychological problems: difficulties with ordered reasoning, with higher-level cognitive functioning, with memory, with following directions
- Other TCE exposed populations, like the citizens in Cheshire, CT and the workers at UTC/Pratt and Whitney in CT (to name just two), have suffered from elevated rates of brain cancer. We believe the damage to the brain described above must bear some relationship to cancers suffered by these and other TCE- and solvent-exposed populations.
- Since there are literally thousands of TCE-contaminated sites across the country and, according to EPA’s Walter Mugdan, “human exposures at potentially dangerous levels may have occurred for years or decades, even after a [TCE contaminated] site was recognized and (as we thought), satisfactorily addressed,” we can assume that exposure to TCE may have caused and may still be causing significant brain damage to exposed children, residents, and workers across the country. Something more needs to be done to stop this.
Get the full story here in The Courier-Journal.
From Stories that Matter regarding the National Academies’ TCE report:
EPA Vindicated on Deadly Widespread Contaminant
Written by Mike Magner
Thursday, 27 July 2006
The National Research Council has vindicated victims of one of the
Defense Department’s worst environmental problems. An expert panel of
NRC scientists reported that trichloroethylene, the most common water
contaminant in America, is more dangerous than earlier thought.
Today’s report warned that the powerful solvent is a serious public
health threat that needs stronger regulation from the Environmental
Protection Agency.
“We need a new drinking water standard now, with no more delays,” said
Jerry Ensminger, a retired Marine drill instructor whose 9-year-old
daughter Janey [pictured in original article] died of leukemia in 1985 after
exposure to TCE in the water at Camp Lejeune.
[...]
The question now is whether the EPA will adopt the NRC recommendations
and issue a final risk assessment for TCE, the first step toward
tightening the drinking water limit for the chemical.
“I am skeptical about what this administration will do with these
recommendations,” said retired Marine Ensminger.
He told the NRC panel last year that it made no sense that the DOD,
with more than 1,400 sites tainted by TCE, was allowed by the White
House to challenge EPA’s risk assessment.
“Here we have the EPA that was created by the government to protect
our environment and our citizens from pollution being second-guessed
by the world’s largest polluter, the U.S. Department of Defense!” he
told the panel.
Read the full story here.
The Washington Post and Associated Press have picked up the story on the NAS TCE report:
Study: Water Contaminant Can Cause Cancer
By JOHN HEILPRIN
The Associated Press
Thursday, July 27, 2006; 8:42 PM
WASHINGTON — Growing scientific evidence suggests the most widespread industrial contaminant in drinking water – a solvent used in adhesives, paint and spot removers – can cause cancer in people.
The National Academy of Sciences reported Thursday that a lot more is known about the cancer risks and other health hazards from exposure to trichloroethylene than there was five years ago when the Environmental Protection Agency took steps to regulate it more strictly.
“Armed with the results from the NAS review, EPA will aggressively move forward” on a new risk assessment of TCE, spokeswoman Jennifer Wood said Thursday. “EPA will determine whether or not to address the drinking water standard once the risk assessment is complete.”
Read the full story here.
The National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council has released its findings from its 18-month project, Assessing the Human Health Risks of Trichloroethylene: Key Scientific Issues. The full report is expected to be available here at the National Academies’
TCE project page. Update: You can download the full report here [PDF, 2.95MB]
In addition you can currently download the following from the National Academies Press website:
- Full report [this link takes you to NAP webpage for full download]
- Executive Summary, 28 pages [PDF, 660K]
- Report in Brief, 4 pages [PDF, 1.4MB]
We have not had a chance to review these documents, but look forward to doing so. Once we’ve poured through them, we’ll be back…
In the meantime, if you have any thoughts you’d be willing to share on the recent report (including press coverage by the LA Times), please use the comments feature above or email us directly.
The Los Angeles Times’ Ralph Vartabedian, author of an important series of articles on the politics and health impact of trichloroethylene (TCE), got his hands on an advanced copy of the National Academies’ TCE health risks report (slated for official release later today). He writes:
After a detailed study of the most widespread industrial contaminant in U.S. drinking water, the National Research Council will report today that evidence is growing stronger that the chemical causes cancer and other human health problems.
The 379-page report clears a path for federal regulators to formally raise the risk assessment of trichloroethylene, known as TCE, a step that has been tied up by infighting between scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Defense Department.
If you recall, in 2001, EPA’s Draft Health Risk Assessment for Trichloroethylene found TCE to be more toxic than previously thought and characterized TCE as “highly likely to produce cancer in humans”. According to the Department of Defense, these findings were to be the basis for more stringent clean-up standards at thousands of TCE-contaminated sites across the country and were likely to cost billions of dollars for DOD, the world’s largest and most powerful TCE polluter.
The EPA attempted to issue a risk assessment in 2001 that found TCE to be two to 40 times more carcinogenic than previously thought, but that action was opposed by the Defense Department, the Energy Department and NASA. The Pentagon has 1,400 properties contaminated with TCE.
The Bush administration sent the matter to the National Research Council for study, based on military assertions that the EPA had overblown the risks. But the new report does not support that criticism.
“The committee found that the evidence on carcinogenic risk and other health hazards from exposure to trichloroethylene has strengthened since 2001,” the report said.
The report urged federal agencies to complete their assessment of TCE risks as soon as possible “with currently available data,” meaning they should not wait for additional basic research, as suggested by the Defense Department.
Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) was part of the congressional briefing on Wednesday where the NAS presented their findings. In Hinchey’s district, where widespread TCE contamination has impacted the air inside people’s homes, a health study found that rates of kidney cancer, testicular cancer, and birth defects were elevated with statistical significance. On the Academies’ report, Hinchey says:
“It is the strongest report on TCE that we have had,” said Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-N.Y.), whose district includes hundreds of homes that have air filtration systems to eliminate TCE vapors from the ground. “The fact that we have this TCE-laden drinking water used by millions of people is abominable.”
Reached for comment by the Times, the National Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) Gina Solomon offers:
“That is a very strong statement, a ringing endorsement of the EPA’s 2001 draft risk assessment,” said Solomon, an associate clinical professor of medicine at UC San Francisco and a staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Solomon said the report also rejected a key position of the chemical industry and Pentagon environmental experts that TCE was not dangerous at low levels of exposure.
Jerry Ensminger has been engaged in a 9-year battle with the federal government over a community’s exposure to TCE at Camp Lejeune, NC. He was reached for comment by the Times:
“We can’t afford any more delays,” said Jerry Ensminger, a former Marine drill sergeant who served at Camp Lejuene, where drinking water supplies were tainted. His daughter died at age 9 in 1976 from leukemia, which Ensminger blamed on TCE exposure.
Ensminger said he was heartened by the report’s conclusions, but remained concerned about whether the government would move quickly to deal with the chemical contamination.
“I want to know why the Bush administration does not err on the side of life when it comes to the environment,” he said.
The report becomes available to the public at 4 pm EDT today. It will be posted to the National Academies website and linked here as soon as we can get to it. For the full LA Times story, see here.
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