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Dumping Dioxin on Dixie
As environmental health advocates call on Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson to release a long-awaited report on the health impact of dioxins, an analysis by Facing South finds that Southern communities bear a disproportionate burden of industrial dioxin pollution.
A class of toxic chemicals that persist in the environment and build up in the food chain, dioxins have been linked to a host of health problems including immune-system damage, hormone disruption and cancer -- and at very low levels of exposure. Environmental dioxin pollution has been declining since the 1970s, but the EPA says current exposure levels "remain a concern."
That's why the agency has undertaken a reassessment of the chemicals' effects on human health. The EPA has said it would release the non-cancer portion of the reassessment this month, with the cancer portion to follow "as expeditiously as possible." The reassessment has been delayed for decades amid political pressure from industry.
EPA is expected to recommend an intake limit of 0.7 picograms of dioxin per kilogram of body weight per day, The Atlantic reports. (A picogram is one-trillionth of a gram.) The anticipated limit is lower than the 1 to 4 picogram limit set by the European Union for various foods.
Americans get most of their dioxin exposure from eating dairy products, meat, fish, poultry and eggs, which shows why blood dioxin levels are much lower in vegans, who do not eat animal products.
So how does dioxin get into the environment in the first place? Some is produced by natural events such as volcanoes and forest fires. Another source is open trash burning. But most dioxin pollution is a byproduct of industry, with plants producing chemicals, steel, cement and paper topping the list of the heaviest dioxin polluters in the United States. Wood preservation plants are another major dioxin source as some use chemicals similar to dioxins in the preserving process.
The chart below -- click on image for a larger version -- lists the 30 U.S. industrial facilities that released the highest levels of dioxins and dioxin-like compounds to the air and surface water in 2010, using self-reported data from EPA's Toxics Release Inventory.
Some observations:
* The South bears a disproportionate burden of dioxin pollution, with 25 of the 30 worst dioxin polluters located in Southern states. There are six major dioxin-emitting facilities in Alabama, five in Louisiana, four in Texas and three in North Carolina.
* The worst dioxin polluter in 2010 was Westlake Vinyls in Calvert City, Ky., which reported releasing over 14,000 grams -- more than 31 pounds -- of dioxins and dioxin-like compounds to surface waters in 2010 alone. Calvert City, located on a heavily industrialized section of the Tennessee River, has been called a "national sacrifice area" by environmental justice advocates because of its unusually heavy concentration of polluting industry.
* Michigan-based Dow Chemical owns the second and third-biggest dioxin emitters, in Texas and Louisiana respectively. And the Kansas-based conglomerate Koch Industries through its Georgia-Pacific subsidiary owns three of these top dioxin-emitting facilities -- two in Alabama and another in Arkansas.
* Several other major industrial emitters of dioxins are owned by foreign corporations, including companies based in Brazil, Germany, Taiwan and Canada.
(Photo of Westlake's Calvert City plant from Westlake Chemical's website.)
8 Comments so far
Show Allfrom the article:
~ A class of toxic chemicals that persist in the environment and build up in the food chain, dioxins have been linked to a host of health problems including immune-system damage, hormone disruption and cancer -- and at very low levels of exposure. Environmental dioxin pollution has been declining since the 1970s, but the EPA says current exposure levels "remain a concern." ~
interesting that the decline in dioxins began in the 70s, as a direct result of the mass exodus of domestic industry to other global regions, like China...an exodus that resulted from Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, and her focus on environmental chemicals...
one can only guess China began to see increasing dioxins around that time...
again, from the article:
~ But most dioxin pollution is a byproduct of industry, with plants producing chemicals, steel, cement and paper topping the list of the heaviest dioxin polluters in the United States. ~
industry? chemical houses? steel? cement? paper?
dioxins? pollution?
say it ain't so, Joe!
why, that would mean if we were to return to the days of heavy industry, we would restart this poisoning...
what else can we do?
ah...
For a long time, it was common practice among conventional farmers to spray, for instance, massive amounts of [Agent Orange-like] defoliants on cotton crops and herbicides on corn (grown widely in the South - and often crop dusters were used to spray the chemicals). These defoliants/herbicides, which allow the harvesters to "pick" large quantities of cotton at a time or which kill off weeds, also can be contaminated with dioxins. This could be another source of environmental contamination of dioxin (and other substances) in the rural South, unless the formulations for defoliants/herbicides have changed significantly.
As an aside, this article just brought something to mind: the large concentration of military bases in the South (and West and Alaska - Alaska is where some white phosphorus munitions testing was conducted) could also be another factor that contributes to environmental contamination, in general, in that area (not dioxins, necessarily, but a lot of other toxic substances). For instance, weapons testing at military bases/arsenals could be contaminating the environment in those areas. Contaminated groundwater is of particular concern in those areas, as a lot of rural folk in the South appear to still drink from wells.
I remember reading about Love Canal in Time magazine in 1979 where I learned that 1 ounce of dioxin could kill 1 million people. Now that's some ba-a-a-d shit. Is it any wonder it took decades to assess. And to think, the EPA will soon "expeditiously" release the bad part of the report. Gee, I hope I don't die prematurely from old age while waiting. Did I mention I'm only 16 years old?
Thank you sir. May I have another?
Considering the South has always had a socio-economic structure derived from the plantation model (which the Romans called 'Latifundia') since whites began to steal the land from the native Americans, is it really a surprise their historically sociopath aristocracy (in combination with corporate partners) is now poisoning the land and people now that agriculture is not as profitable as it was during the Antebellum period?
==But most dioxin pollution is a byproduct of industry, with plants producing chemicals, steel, cement and paper topping the list of the heaviest dioxin polluters in the United States==
Sorry, most dioxin pollution is a byproduct of producing DIOXIN. This truth is quite well known in central Michigan and, curiously, in parts of New Zealand.
Here in Michigan, Dow has done everything but create Six Flags Theme Parks with free admission to all rides - in order to divert attention from their legal responsibility to clean up the water & land environment. They take turns masturbating the governments and pols of Midland, Saginaw, and Bay City until you have to put chains on your tires for skid control.
Trylon
Items like "the worst dioxin polluter" and "31 pounds of dioxin" convey almost no useful information. This is because there are many, many such items cast onto our table for consideration, and there is almost no reference by which to measure them. There is almost no absolute criterion by which to judge the magnitude of the environmental problems created by kapitalism run amok. This keeps the environmental movement weak and subdued. The internet offers us a place to centralize the data, and build something significant, in terms of usefulness. You can imagine a categorization of things that adversely affect human health. So say four broad categories, stress, lack of exercise, poor nutrition, and environmental pollution. Now you can imagine a large number of staff working on defining the relative influence of those things, and also that for the various subgroups, and ways for people to find their category. Now given a much larger staff, we can create many subcategories. I think you can see this process scales up fine. Then we have a way to easily find an accurate assessment of the relative risks in each category.
The number of people that we should put onto this project I'd say is a couple hundred thousand. Because it's so significant. Notice that we aren't getting much accomplished in this way today. What we want to see is the initiative taken by top official in the federal government, and we want to see the press covering the progress. This is because the most important projects need to be uppermost in the public eye. When the results we need are found, and reported, we can then make the best decisions. We'll know what we want. We won't have to guess. The thugs who destroy the environment will have no cover. How many people were unable to fish/swim in the rivers while growing up? Because of the pollution. Ready to swing the sledgehammer back at those thugs? Now industrialization is not the problem, per se. Industrialization can be done in a good way. The problem is supply-side, laissez-faire kapitalism, the general idea of putting business interest ahead of human interests. We can pummel that idea to pieces. The idea of putting some knowledge to work for us we can keep.
Fracking, increased off shore drilling, dioxins, mercury and radiation...the list goes on.
We're really doing a great job ruining this planet, and in turn, poisoning ourselves, aren't we?
I lost my faith in the EPA when it sent people back into Ground Zero after 9/11, saying the air quality was fine. People became sick and many have died because the EPA put politics before people.
Now, we have an EPA director that is luke warm...even hesitant about admitting that fracking is causing water, soil and air contamination.
Why does it take YEARS and many ruined lives before they admit and/or do something about pollution???
Take the politics OUT of the EPA and the DECs...they're supposed to be there to protect the people, not the politicians and their masters!