Superfund365 — Week 8

A Scientific Study Brings out the Skeptics and, Please, Do Overwhelm Us with the Data!

A few weeks ago I wrote about a cluster of Superfund sites and waste coal power plants in and around Schuylkill County, PA, where there are also unusually high rates of cancer. Coincidence or cause and effect? The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) had just wrapped up a year-long study to determine if a connection exists between the cancer, focusing only on the disease polycythemia vera (PV), and the environment. A public meeting had been planned to announce the results and then it was abruptly called off.

But, on October 17 the ATSDR offered a new date for the meeting and this time it took place as scheduled on Wednesday, October 24. The ATSDR’s lead investigator is still relocated in Mozambique, however other agency representatives were in attendance to present and explain the results, although no hard copy of the report was available… (read on)

Add comment Datestamp: October 31st, 2007

White House Feels Waxman’s Oversight Gaze

A Democrat in the majority with subpoena power and the inclination to overturn rocks

These days, the 16-term congressman is always ready with a hearing, a fresh crop of internal administration e-mails or a new explosive report. And he has more than two dozen investigations underway, on such issues as the politicization of the entire federal government, formaldehyde in Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers, global warming, and safety concerns about the diabetes drug Avandia.

Add comment Datestamp: October 25th, 2007

Sue Sturgis Blogs about the Superfund Senate Hearings

Facing South: Senate holds hearing on Superfund cleanup crisis

The Senate Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health is holding an oversight hearing this morning about efforts to protect public health under Superfund, a federal program that manages the nation’s most toxic waste sites.

As Sen. Barbara Boxer noted in her opening remarks, one in four U.S. residents lives within four miles of a Superfund site, including 10 million children. Yet cleanup efforts have slowed to a virtual crawl.

Add comment Datestamp: October 17th, 2007

Superfund365 — Email Recap

Week Six in Stratford, CT

A Town Built on “Clean Fill,” The Winning Raybestos Brakettes and Their Losing Field and Why Still No Ban on Asbestos?

Day 40 of Week Six I spent with several, young families in Stratford, CT. Stratford — a town with a population of roughly 50,000 — is desirable due to its location in southwestern Connecticut sandwiched between the Long Island Sound and the mouth of the Housatonic River. The prices of homes are reasonable, or at least for Fairfield County. The families I met thought they were moving into their dream neighborhood. The town center along Main Street is thriving, the local public schools are good, there are parks, playing fields, a pond and, of course, the beach. At the town’s harbor, a marker proudly proclaims the area to be “the traditional landing place of Stratford’s First Settlers in the spring of 1639.” This was under the leadership of the Puritan Reverend Adam Blakeman.

The sign does not, however, commemorate another part of Stratford’s more recent past. Such a sign would read: Stratford is home to the Raymark Industries Superfund Site, discovered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1981. Raymark Corporation (formerly called Raybestos-Manhattan and currently Raytech Corporation) disposed of its manufacturing waste at the main plant (75 East Main Street) but there was so much that they had to spread it around to numerous residential, commercial and municipal properties throughout town. Modern-day Stratford is, in fact, built upon Raymark waste sludge, whose signature contaminants include lead, asbestos and PCBs. In the 1950s, the company was giving it away for free, calling it “clean fill!” It was fill created from years of manufacturing gaskets, clutches, and heavy brake friction components for the car industry mixed with topsoil.

Read on…

Add comment Datestamp: October 17th, 2007

Superfund Hearings: Will Be Webcast

.: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works :: Hearings :.
Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health hearing entitled, “Oversight Hearing on the Federal Superfund Program’s Activities to Protect Public Health.”
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
09:30 AM
EPW Hearing Room - 406 Dirksen

Add comment Datestamp: October 17th, 2007

Jimmy Hoffa’s Grave, Sledding on E-waste and a Lamb Named Snowball

week 5 at Superfund365

Week Five began like the past several weeks — in New Jersey — but by the end we found ourselves in the middle of a cluster of Superfund sites and heavy industry near the intersection of Routes 80 and 81 in eastern Pennsylvania. I was eager, as you know, to get out of New Jersey, but what I found when I crossed the state line was quite a jolt, to say the least. The landscape and its residents in this anthracite coal region have taken a huge toxic hit. People are eager to share the history of this place as well as see change in their lifetime.

Many persons contributed to the writing of this email recap and I would like to thank them: Sue Sturgis, Joe Murphy, Dr. Dante Picciano, Dr. Peter Baddick and Louise Calvin. Because I received so much input and there is such a long history to tell, this week’s recap is lengthy and it still reads to me more like a film trailer (you pick the genre) than the full feature. But, PLEASE, read through till the end — this tale is fascinating and worth the extra few minutes.

Add comment Datestamp: October 9th, 2007

Structural Patterns: Building a Rickshaw in DF

Carreta Nagua
My husband, Ricardo Miranda, is building a new project for an art festival in Mexico City. He is documenting along the way (so I don’t feel so far away!). Here is the latest:

“By the late afternoon the cart began to take shape. We completed the basic structure, installed the bus chair and resolved a few questions. In the early evening it began to poor so we stopped to continue on Sunday … “

Add comment Datestamp: October 8th, 2007

A Heavy Toll From Disease Fuels Suspicion and Anger

Middleborough Plating Company and Rockland Industries Superfund Sites

The big news in this struggling southeastern Massachusetts community is a proposed $1 billion casino complex that many hope will bring financial salvation.

But for a small group of residents, the hope for economic revival is overshadowed by health concerns. They are awaiting a report later this year that could reveal whether the dozens of cases of Lou Gehrig’s disease centered around a downtown industrial area were caused by pollution.

The cases, which both state and federal officials call a disease cluster, are located within a mile of Everett Square — a densely settled neighborhood adjacent to the town’s onetime factory row. It is now home to two Superfund sites.

Add comment Datestamp: October 7th, 2007

US Oil Fix at LA Contemporary Art (LACE)

Lize Mogel sent this to me from the “An Atlas” exhibition that she co-curated with Lex Bhagat. Image of my map and portrait of a sleepy pup.

An Atlas at LACE

Add comment Datestamp: October 7th, 2007

Canada’s privacy commissioner to geeks: design for privacy!

From Cory Doctorow via Boing Boing

Here’s a one-hour video of a magnificent lecture from Canada’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, Dr Ann Cavoukian, to the University of Waterloo’s Computer Science Club. The talk is called “Privacy by Design,” and it charges technologists to build tools that minimize the collection and retention of personally identifying information, and to consider a complete, end-to-end, comprehensive framework for protecting user privacy. As Mitch Kapor said when he founded EFF, “architecture is politics” — when you design tools that have wiretappable elements, you invite wiretapping. When you design tools that retain user data, you invite identity thieves and overreaching subpoenas.

There’s something incredibly refreshing about hearing a high-ranking government official say things like, “Privacy is integral to freedom. You cannot have a free and democratic society without privacy. When a state morphs from a democracy into a totalitarian regime, the first thread to unravel is privacy.”

Add comment Datestamp: October 7th, 2007