More on the Gilberton coal-to-oil EIS

Yesterday I posted some thoughts about the Department of Energy's recently released environmental impact statement for WMPI's planned waste coal-to-oil refinery in Gilberton, Pa. Despite documenting numerous environmental problems associated with building the plant, the EIS recommends that the project go forward with taxpayer funding. I received a response about my post from Mike Ewall with the Philadelphia-based Energy Justice Network and wanted to share it with my readers:

The Final EIS doesn't mean any sort of environmental approval. An EIS document can say that the plant will kill half of the county within the first year of operation and there would still be no requirements for the Department of Energy to do anything but give WMPI the $100 million for it. That's just the nature of the EIS process. The document being finalized doesn't mean that the plant is safe or wise to build, or that the document is even accurate or credible, for that matter. Don't expect changes to be obvious from the bold italicized wording in the document either. For example, they admit that their Draft EIS was lying when they claimed that the prison is a "sealed facility" (section 4.1.7.7.). This is admitted only by the fact that they took this language OUT after being challenged over it (but you won't find any cross-outs for deleted language in the Final EIS).

The Final EIS being out also doesn't mean that the plant will be able to get built with the $100 million that it enables them to get, since during the four years that we helped delay the EIS through our many comments, the price tag for the plant went up by $182 million -- more than they'd be getting because of the completion of the EIS. While it was $612 million, they had every penny covered by tax dollars in one way or another, but still didn't have the investors. Now that it's an $800 million plant (and probably more than that if they were to update their figures, since prices have continued to rise for many of their basic material needs), they have to go buying off some more politicians for the public handouts that the private sector won't put on the table.

Also, the EIS cover letter fails to mention the fact that citizens have the right to appeal the Final EIS. This can be done with or without a lawyer.

Environmental impact statement gives green light to Gilberton coal-to-oil project

Speaking of the horrors of coal, I recently received in the mail a big package from the U.S. Department of Energy, which I finally tore open the other night. Inside I found two fat spiral-bound documents -- together almost two inches thick -- that contained the final environmental impact statement for WMPI's planned coal-to-oil refinery in Gilberton, Pa.

After hearing numerous concerns about toxic emissions and greenhouse gas pollution that will be dumped from the plant into the local environment, the DOE is still proposing to go ahead and "provide cost-shared funding" for the project. In other words, to force you and me and all our fellow taxpayers to further enrich John W. Rich and further devastate the coal region's already fragile environmental health.

To add further insult to injury, the DOE's decision comes just as the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has confirmed the state's findings that residents of Schuylkill County and neighboring Luzerne County suffer from unusually high rates of polycythemia vera -- a rare blood cancer that's been linked to pollution from burning fossil fuels and petroleum refineries. Even more disturbing, several of the polycythemia vera clusters identified on an ATSDR map displayed at last Wednesday's public meeting appear to be very close to if not right on top of Gilberton (click on the maps below for larger images).

Though I'm still working my way through all the comments submitted about the coal-to-oil plant, I was struck by the remarkable story they tell about about the residents of the anthracite coal region, who in page after page of heartfelt testimony, e-mails and letters bear witness to their love of land and fellow man -- and to anger over the long history of the area's environmental abuse by corporate powers and the politicians they own.

This one is an excerpt from a handwritten letter submitted by Joan Chesonis of Shenandoah Heights, which I thought was particularly eloquent and to-the-point:

Northern Schuylkill County has been a dumping ground for decades with projects no others want in their area, i.e. landfills, prisons, and co-generation plants. Always using the You Need Jobs arguments, big business usually gets its way. The time to stop exploiting this area is long overdue.

And this is from from Geronimo Rafter, who attended one of the public meetings about the project and later send the DOE the following e-mail, which I have not edited because I thought it was powerful exactly as written:

HELLO I WAS AT THE SHENANDOAH MEETING AND EXPLAINED HOW RIGHT NOW THE WASTE FROM THE PLANTS ARE DUMPING RIGHT IN MY BACKYARD TEN TIMES THE AMOUNT ALLOWED IN THE AIR. SO BAD THAT IT EATS MY CLOTHES LINES UP AND EATS AT THE BRASS ON MY DOORS THE PROOF IS RIGHT IN MY BACK YARD AT THE LAST MEETING THEY SAID THEY WHERE GOING TO HAVE THE DOE GET IN TOUCH WITH ME AND SINCE THEN NO ONE HAS DONE ANYTHING. YOU PUT ONE OF THOSE MONITORS HERE AND YOU WILL GET A CORRECT READING. ALSO I READ THE DOE TOOK THE MONITOR OUT OF MAHANOY CITY WHY DO YOU NOT CHECK WHERE THE DUMPING IS GOING ON LIKE MY BACKYARD AND NOW YOUR GOING TO PUT FIVE MORE STACKS UP. MY WIFE LIVED HERE FOR A COUPLE YEARS AND GOT CANCER FROM THIS STUFF. DOES MILLIONS OF DOLLARS MEAN MORE THEN OUR LIFES AND WHY DO YOU ALWAYS DUMP ON THE POOR.

If you'd like to read the EIS, it will be available at the public libraries in Frackville (56 N. Lehigh Ave.), Mahanoy City (17-19 W. Mahanoy Ave.) and Pottsville (215 W. Market St.). It will also be available on DOE's National Environmental Policy Act Web site and on the National Energy Technology Laboratory's Web site. To get your own copy, you can contact Janice Bell at Janice.Bell@netl.doe.gov or call 412-386-4512.

Coal is scary

I love this Halloween e-card from the good folks at Grist magazine and wanted to share it with my Hometown Hazards readers, who know a thing or two about the horrors of coal. (Click here for more humorous Halloween e-cards from Grist.) Happy Halloween!

What the ATSDR didn't say about its polycythemia vera findings

Dr. Dante Picciano posted the following article to his Web site today (click on the headline to go to the original). Because this is such critical information, I'm re-posting it here in its entirety. Those of us who attended last Wednesday's meeting in Hazleton at which some of the polycythemia vera study findings were selectively presented were subjected to considerable spin -- an apparent effort to downplay the full scope of the PV epidemic in Schuylkill, Luzerne and Carbon counties by emphasizing the counts of those cases of PV confirmed by either the JAK2 genetic mutation test or the expert evaluating panel rather than the total number of reported cases. The crucial point Picciano makes here is that to grasp just how elevated the incidence of the disease is in the tri-county area, we must compare the number of local cases with the number of cases registered statewide and nationally. And of course, the cases reported to cancer registries have not been confirmed by JAK2 mutation testing or evaluated by panels of experts. As Picciano has pointed out to me, we must compare apples to apples -- not apples to oranges.

131 CASES OF POLYCYTHEMIA VERA!
by Dante Picciano

The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) and the Pennsylvania Department of Health (PADOH) released the results of a polycythemia vera (PV) investigation in this area on October 24, 2007. ATSDR reviewed PV cases that had been reported to the state cancer registry from 2001 to 2005. The public was given a one-page news release that stated that the ATSDR confirmed 38 cases of PV in Schuylkill, Luzerne and Carbon counties during that time period using a recently discovered genetic marker known as JAK2.

What the ATSDR and the PADOH omitted from the news release was that there were 97 PV cases from these counties in the registry. The ATSDR scientists told the audience that out of the 97 patients, 38 took part in the study, 30 could not be found, 16 refused to participate and 13 had died. The ATSDR scientists also identified 34 additional cases of PV in the counties that had not been reported to the state cancer registry.

Now, the state cancer registry had 97 PV cases and the ATSDR scientists found 34 additional PV cases not in the state cancer registry for a total of 131 PV cases in the tri-county area for the years 2001-2005. I did not hear the ATSDR or PADOH officials announce this fact at the meeting.

The ATSDR scientists stated that they estimated the expected incidence of PV to be approximately 1 in 100,000 per year and that the tri-county area had an estimated population of approximately 500,000. Using these estimates, the ATSDR scientists said they expected about 5 cases per year for a total of 25 cases for 2001-2005. Instead, they found 131 PV cases, more than five times what was expected. This finding was not mentioned at the meeting. The numbers used in these calculations were from the ATSDR, not from me.

The same selection criteria used to arrive at the people in the I in 100,000 estimate were used to arrive at the 131 figure. Few, if any, of the people used in the 1 in 100,000 estimate were tested for the JAK2 mutation.

One PADOH representative was asked if he considered the results of the investigation to be a public health concern. He said that the results were not a public health concern but that the PADOH would continue to monitor the situation. If a five-fold increase in the incidence of a rare cancer is not a public health concern, then I don’t know what is!

Feds confirm polycythemia vera epidemic in eastern Pa.

At a contentious four-hour meeting last evening in Hazleton, Pa., the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) presented to the public select findings of its still-unreleased study into polycythemia vera (PV) in three eastern Pennsylvania counties -- and confirmed the Pennsylvania Department of Health's (PADOH) previous findings that there's an unusually elevated rate of the rare blood malignancy in Schuylkill and Luzerne counties. But to many attendees' frustration, the researchers were reluctant to acknowledge that documented environmental risk factors for PV exist and are present in the area by virtue of its being a center for waste dumping and incineration.

ATSDR researchers looked at the PV cases that had been reported to the state cancer registry from 2005 back to 2001, when PV first became a reported cancer. Out of the 97 registered cases from Schuylkill, Luzerne and Carbon counties, 38 patients took part in the study, with 16 declining to participate, 13 deceased, and 30 not found. The researchers also identified 34 PV cases in the community that had not been captured by the registry, for a total of 72 study participants.

Working collaboratively with Dr. Ronald Hoffman and Dr. Mingjiang Xu, blood cancer experts with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, and with funding from the Myeloproliferative Disorders Foundation, they administered tests to study participants to determine whether they carried the JAK2 genetic mutation that's present in about 95 percent of PV cases.

"We found that there was an elevated number of PV cases in certain geographic areas scattered throughout Schuylkill and Luzerne county," reported Dr. Steve Dearwent, chief of the ATSDR's health investigations branch. Dearwent presented the study's findings at the meeting in lieu of his colleague Dr. Vince Seaman, the lead researcher who earlier this month moved to Africa.

While the average national incidence of PV is about 1 case per 100,000 people, the incidence in Luzerne and Schuylkill counties is about 4 per 100,000. Other Pa. counties with significantly elevated incidence rates are Montour and Somerset at 4.5/100,000 and Potter at 5.5/100,000, according to Dearwent. The only community with elevated rates in the tri-county area that Dearwent mentioned by name was Tamaqua, a borough two miles south of Hometown village. But a map displayed by the researchers showed at least eight clusters in Schuylkill County, five in Carbon, and 11 in Luzerne. The clusters roughly follow the pattern of an upside-down T, with the horizontal line extending from Tremont in western Schuylkill County east through Jim Thorpe in Carbon County, and the vertical from Tamaqua in eastern Schuylkill County north to Wilkes-Barre in Luzerne County.

Oddly enough, the agency said it was unable to confirm a cluster of PV in the Still Creek community north of Hometown due to "insufficient records." The ATSDR's study came about after Carbon County Groundwater Guardians discovered numerous cases of the disease in that community, which lies directly downhill from the notorious McAdoo Associates Superfund site, an enormous waste-coal combustion waste pit known as the "Big Gorilla," and the Northeastern Power Co. waste-fuel-burning power plant.

Of the 72 patients who participated in the study, 38 carried the JAK2 mutation. Another four without the mutation were still determined to have the disease by a panel of experts: Dr. Paul Roda, an oncologist with Geisinger Health System; Dr. Ruben Mesa, a researcher with the Mayo Clinic; and Dr. Joe Prchal, a professor with the University of Utah's hematology division.

The ATSDR researchers also administered a questionnaire to participants to gather information about demographics, exposure to hazardous waste sites, and residential and occupational histories. Dearwent reported that three of the patients in the study had all worked for the same employer, but he refused to release the company's name, citing privacy concerns. (For the same reason, ATSDR will not release its study data for independent analysis.) Based on the participants' self-reported information, ATSDR said it found no link between environmental factors and PV.

"We don't have the environmental smoking gun," ATSDR researcher Lora Werner told the gathering. "But what we do have is confirmation of what many of you have been telling us -- that something unusual is happening."

* * *

Among the things that caused the meeting to become contentious was the ATSDR's press release announcing the findings. Some attendees complained that it understated the extent of the the area's suffering by neglecting to mention the fact that there were 97 registered PV cases in the tri-county area. The release also failed to mention the crux of the findings -- that ATSDR's study confirmed PADOH's findings that Schuylkill and Luzerne counties had significantly elevated rates of the disease.

"I think the agencies that collaborated on this press release should be ashamed of themselves," said Dr. Pete Baddick, an internist who grew up near Still Creek and has been one of the community leaders pushing for government action. "This is an outrage."

Attendees also objected to the fact that the press release emphasized the finding of no environmental link to PV -- especially given that the researchers acknowledged that more research is needed to draw any firm conclusions. Consider the release's first paragraph:

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) confirmed 38 cases of polycythemia vera (PV) in Schuylkill, Luzerne and Carbon counties. ATSDR found no link between environmental factors and PV in this area.

That certainly makes the idea that there's no link sound quite definitive. And indeed, a letter sent by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) to the heads of the ATSDR and PADOH on Oct. 22 following his briefing on the study played up that claim:

I am heartened by the study's findings that there are no environmental or occupational causes for the disease; however, the fact remains that there is a higher than usual number of cases for this community.

Geneticist, attorney and local environmental health advocate Dr. Dante Picciano of Tamaqua blasted those statements by ATSDR and Specter in an e-mail to me after the meeting:

Both statements are bullshit. The cause is either genetic or environmental. There are no other choices. The scientific community acknowledges that polycycthemia vera is not a genetic disorder. Therefore, the disease must be caused by environmental factors.

Picciano further elaborated on his frustration over the meeting in a posting on his Web site titled "Polycythemia Vera: Government Confirms the Obvious."

The researchers' claim that no environmental links to the disease were found seems to be based in part on their repeated statements that there are no known environmental factors for PV. "We don't know the cause of PV," Dearwent said at the pre-meeting press conference. "It could be environmental, genetic or a combination. We don't know, honestly."

While it's true that scientists have not pinpointed any definitive environmental causes of PV, it's not true that they have no idea about what sort of environmental factors put people at higher risk of PV. The following is from the article "Polycythemia Vera: A Comprehensive Review and Clinical Recommendations" [PDF] by Dr. Ayalew Tefferi of the Mayo Clinic, which appeared in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings in 2003 (bold emphasis mine):

No strong evidence supports disease association with environmental exposure, although an excess risk has been suggested in embalmers and funeral directors, as well as in persons exposed to benzene, petroleum refineries, and low doses of radiation.

Embalmers and funeral directors are exposed to embalming chemicals, typically a mix of formaldehyde, methanol, ethanol and other solvents. Formaldehyde is also an intermediate in the oxidation of carbon compounds and is found in smog pollution, which is similar to the pollution produced by the waste-fuel burning power plants that are concentrated in Schuylkill County and also present in Luzerne and Carbon. Benzene is a one-ring aromatic chemically related to the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) produced by burning petroleum products, as is done in waste-fuel burning power plants. Benzene was also among the industrial wastes dumped at the McAdoo Associates Superfund site near the point where Schuylkill, Luzerne and Carbon counties meet, as well as at other hazardous waste sites throughout the region. The region's waste-fuel-burning power plants produce many of the same key pollutants as petroleum refineries, including PAHs. Burning coal and waste coal also produces low levels of ionizing radiation.

When I asked Dearwent about that article during the press conference, he said he was not familiar with it or its claims.

Not everyone was pessimistic about the meeting, though. Dr. Seaman was briefed about it by his colleagues and sent an e-mail sharing his thoughts to some of us who have been raising concerns about the region's environmental health problems, writing:

I think that this outcome is the best that you could have hoped for -- the door has been opened and the support is there. Dr. Hoffman's presentation at the American Hematol. Society (ASH) Annual Meeting (Dec. 9-12, Atlanta) will also go a long way in firing the interest of the research community.

Let's hope he's right. But let's also hope he and his fellow scientists don't forget that while their research inches forward, people of the area are suffering and dying because something in the environment is poisoning their bodies and mutating their DNA.

AP story examines local polycythemia vera epidemic but overlooks some likely culprits

The Associated Press has done an in-depth story previewing the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry study on high rates of polycythemia vera in Schuylkill, Carbon and Luzerne counties, which is to be released to the public tomorrow at 7 p.m. at Best Western Genetti Inn and Suites in Hazleton.

The piece by Allentown, Pa.-based AP reporter Michael Rubinkam has been picked up by news outlets across Pennsylvania and the nation, including the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, the Houma (La.) Courier, and the Miami Herald. Using Dr. Pete Baddick, a native of the Hometown area, and Hometown resident Joe Murphy as his primary informants, Rubinkam focuses on the high rate of polycythemia vera in the Hometown area and the possible link to the McAdoo Associates Superfund site, which sits just uphill from Ben Titus Road, where there are numerous cases of polycthemia vera, and from the local public drinking water reservoir. It also mentions that other possible factors behind the local area's high rate of illnesses (which it acknowledges include other cancers, multiple sclerosis and lupus) are coal mining, other Superfund sites, and abandoned strip mines being filled with coal combustion waste.

But I was disappointed by the story's tight focus on polycythemia vera in the Hometown area -- especially since at a meeting in Pottsville attended by the ATSDR researchers last October, Dr. Gene Weinberg of the Pennsylvania Department of Health presented data showing that there are other Schuylkill County communities besides Hometown with dramatically elevated rates of the malignancy, including Frackville, Mahanoy City and Tremont. Those communities are more than 10 miles west of Hometown, which would appear to rule out a connection to the McAdoo site. In fact, I questioned Baddick's and Murphy's single-minded focus on the McAdoo site at that meeting. As I wrote:

While acknowledging the severe contamination at McAdoo Associates, I noted that given the elevated rates of p. vera throughout the entire region, it doesn't seem likely that the Still Creek Reservoir is the primary source of the p. vera problem. After all, people from Frackville, Mahanoy City and Tremont are not drinking from that reservoir. I did note, however, that one of the characteristics shared by those towns along with the Ben Titus Road area and other communities with elevated p. vera rates is the presence nearby of waste coal-fired power plants. I asked the ATSDR officials to keep an open mind about all possible toxic culprits, which they said they were planning to do.

I was disappointed that Rubinkam's story failed to even mention the waste coal-burning plants as a possible factor behind the region's high rate of polycythemia vera -- and that there is such a plant located right next to the McAdoo site. After all, these facilities release an enormous amount of toxic pollution as well as radiation, which studies have associated with polycythemia vera. In addition, the plants are located throughout the anthracite coal region covered by the ATSDR study and are concentrated in Schuylkill County, which has more than any other county in the nation. And finally, a statistical analysis I conducted with the help of Dr. Samuel Lesko at the Northeast Regional Cancer Institute found an association between unusually high rates of polycythemia vera in populous Pa. counties and the presence nearby of waste-coal burners. Clearly, these facilities should not be altogether ignored as we try to figure out what's hurting the people of the coal region.

Something else Rubinkam did not mention in his story is that Baddick and Murphy have a motive to focus on the McAdoo Associates site: They were deeply involved in an effort by the Locks Law firm of Philadelphia to bring suit for civil damages against the site's responsible parties. However, the firm concluded last year following a year and a half of work that it did not have a legal basis for proceeding with a civil action due to a lack of evidence that poisons dumped at the site have migrated to nearby wells or the reservoir. Murphy has told me that he regards the ATSDR's study as a piece of discovery that could lead to the suit's reopening.

And if what the ATSDR unveils tomorrow shows a clear link between the site and the area's high rate of polycythemia vera, more power to him. But I would hope that the effort to link the site and the epidemic does not blind us to other possible culprits behind the area's high rate of environmental illness.

Polycythemia vera study to be released 10/24

The Pottsville Republican Herald newspaper reports that the Pa. Department of Health plans to release the results of the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's investigation into the Hometown area's unusually high rates of polycythemia vera, a rare blood malignancy, on Wednesday, Oct. 24. The meeting is supposed to take place from 7 to 9 p.m. at Best Western Genetti Inn & Suites in Hazleton. The meeting was originally set for Sept. 29 but postponed because officials said they needed more time to review the data. In the interim, however, Dr. Vince Seaman -- the ATSDR's lead researcher on the study -- has moved to Mozambique.

Coal ash watchdog responds to DEP charges of 'misinterpretation'

The following is from the Web site of Dante Picciano:

* * *

RESPONSE TO LETTER OF DEP SECRETARY
Posted - October 16, 2007

On September 18, 2007, the Clean Air Task Force and EarthJustice held a press conference and released a 2,009-page report showing that the dumping of coal ash into mines in Pennsylvania is contaminating groundwaters and surface waters in ten of fifteen mines studied.

On October 5, 2007, Kathleen A. McGinty, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, published her response to the coal ash report in the Pottsville Republican & Herald newspaper.

That same day, Jeff Stant, one of the co-authors of the coal ash report, submitted a letter to the editor in response to Secretary McGinty's letter. To date, the Pottsville Republican & Herald has failed to publish Jeff Stant's letter. It appears that the newspaper has a pro-dumping agenda and being fair and balanced is not part of that agenda.

Here is the letter of Jeff Stant that the Pottsville Republican & Herald refuses to publish:

CONTAMINATION DATA IS NOT MISINTERPRETED

To the Editor:

As a contributing author to the report about the minefilling of coal ash in Pennsylvania, I would like to respond to PADEP Secretary McGinty's October 5 letter to the Republican & Herald.

Contrary to McGinty's statement that this report was prepared by outsiders, one of its authors is Robert Gadinski, a retired PADEP hydrogeologist. Mr. Gadinski monitored minepools for 20 years and has never seen such high levels of lead as are now found in the minepools underneath the ash dump sites in the Ellengowan and BD Mines. Further, PADEP input was solicited on drafts of the report, and the report was written under the guidance of a distinguished Advisory Panel that included representatives from the Western Pennsylvania Watershed Program, Mountain Watershed Association, PennFuture, academic experts from Penn State, Washington and Jefferson College and West Virginia Water Research Institute, the Vice President of the Tamaqua Borough Council and a former Carbon County Commissioner.

Secretary McGinty's assertion of "numerous cases where the group incorrectly used a single anomalous reading to declare a reclaimed mine site polluted" is untrue. She cannot point to a single incidence of this claim in the report. Furthermore all of the data is from PADEP monitoring reports.

The report undertook an exhaustive, four year examination of PADEP's claim that coal ash does not pollute water in coal mines and found substantive evidence to the contrary. At ten of fifteen sites, monitoring data shows many more higher concentrations of lead, cadmium, arsenic, selenium, nickel, sulfate, manganese and other pollutants than occurred at these sites from mine drainage. While the evidence is strong, the report avoided stating that these data proved conclusively that ash is contaminating the water because the sites are not "carefully monitored" as McGinty claims. Large sites often have no upgradient monitoring. Some sites collect only a few baseline (before ash) water samples. Monitoring is too short, expiring long before the worst leaching of contaminants would be expected. When high ash contaminant levels are measured, increased monitoring does not occur, what landfills do to find sources of contamination.

The federal government is developing regulations for minefilling because the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science determined such regulations are needed. The state program studied in greatest detail to make this recommendation was that of the PADEP. Similar to the NRC's study, our report finds that without adequate mandatory safeguards in regulations, PADEP's ash minefilling is replacing a problem from the past with a larger problem in the future. The report is at: www.catf.us.

Jeff Stant, Director
PA Minefill Research Project
Clean Air Task Force

* * *

Here's what Stant et al.'s report has to say (and that DEP's McGinty disputes) about the Big Gorilla coal combustion waste dump next to the Northeastern Power Co. waste coal power plant. The dump is adjacent to the Ben Titus Road community where high rates of polycythemia vera were first observed by local residents. Those rates are now the subject of a federal study, the findings of which are expected to be announced publicly next week.

Information in the permit files for the Silverbrook Refuse Site and the Big Gorilla Demonstration Project is very scattered and disorganized and essential data and information are absent. Details describing when, where, and how much ash was disposed on the site are either missing or inadequate. Descriptions of monitoring wells are also missing and their locations (latitude/longitude) are in some instances incorrectly depicted or not even shown on the permit maps.

For such a large and important project, the paucity of data and absence of essential information is disconcerting. The predominant pathways for groundwater movement from the Big Gorilla Pit have yet to be delineated. Other than at the Silverbrook Outfall, the permit files give little indication that there is any surface water monitoring either on the premises of the permit area beyond the Silverbrook Outfall or in the surrounding lotic environments such as Quakake Creek, Still Cree, or the Little Schuylkill River. There are no loading data being collected at the Silverbrook Outfall.

Nonetheless the data show that concentrations of several constituents (calcium, chloride, magnesium, sodium, aluminum, manganese, iron, total dissolved solids, sulfates, chromium, arsenic, selenium, and zinc) became substantively higher in pit water and/or at downgradient monitoring points after ash placement started in the Big Gorilla project. The increases of these constituents are above background concentration fluctuations that might have been caused by the culm disturbances, remining, and ash placement that began in the 1989. Increases in these constituents after 1997 at the lowest downgradient monitoring point for the entire area, the Silverbrook Outfall, include rises in pH and ash-specific constituents such as calcium, chloride, magnesium, potassium, and sodium. Rises in these constituents implicate ash as a source of rises in more troublesome trace elements such as selenium, arsenic, lead and chromium at this outfall or at other downgradient points.

Genetically engineered trees can clean groundwater contamination...

...including the solvent trichloroethylene, a plume of which runs beneath the Eastern Diversified Metals Superfund site in Hometown and drains into the Little Schuylkill River. The discovery was made by researchers at the University of Washington. For more details, click here.

Superfund365 profiles Hometown-area toxic waste sites

Read all about it here.

Lead researcher on local polycythemia vera study gone to Mozambique

Earlier this week, local environmental health advocate Dr. Pete Baddick tried to call Dr. Vince Seaman, the lead researcher on the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's study of the area's elevated polycythemia vera rates. Baddick wanted to get an update on what was happening with the study, which was supposed to be released last month but which is now being held up for for unknown reasons by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Baddick wasn't able to reach Seaman, however.

Why? Because the researcher is gone.

To Mozambique.

Until late December.

Hometown resident Joe Murphy, who has worked closely with Seaman on the study, knew the researcher was eventually going to Mozambique. Seaman was originally supposed to go in the spring, but those plans fell through. Murphy was under the impression that Seaman would remain stateside until later this month, but apparently the trip came up rather suddenly. Seaman called Murphy on Sunday to tell him he was leaving and to assure him that his colleagues with the ATSDR were prepared to discuss the study's findings.

Before leaving the country, Seaman reportedly met with Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) last week to discuss Specter's determination to make the results public as soon as possible, and to consider next steps and funding. Seaman did not give Murphy the impression that there was anything nefarious behind his trip coming at this time and sounded optimistic about the work moving ahead.

But given the still-unexplained delays surrounding the study's release, other local residents are taking a decidedly less optimistic view of Seaman's sudden relocation. In an article posted to his Web site yesterday, Dr. Dante Picciano called the researcher's transfer the "latest step in the cover-up" of the study's results.

"The head researcher will not be available for questions or recommendations when the filtered and sanitized results are reported to the public," he wrote.

Whether or not Seaman's sudden departure is part of any cover-up remains to be seen. But the agencies' delays and secretive behavior surrounding the release of the findings certainly do little to boost the public's confidence.

Pa. OKs toxic fly ash with a twist -- from burning tires

I'd like to draw your attention to a report from Tamaqua-based environmental watchdog Dante Picciano about a new environmental hazard facing the people of Pennsylvania. Owned by Charlotte, N.C.-based Cogentrix, the Northampton Generating plant is a 110-megawatt cogeneration facility that burns anthracite waste coal ("culm") to produce electricity that it then sells to Reading-based Metropolitan Edison Co., which in turn is owned by Akron, Ohio-based First Energy Corp.

NEW INDUSTRIAL-STRENGTH FLY ASH
by Dante Picciano
www.dante7.com

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has done it again. This time they have approved the generation of a new industrial-strength fly ash that is guaranteed to contaminate your water and to give you cancer in less time than conventional fly ash.

The DEP has issued a permit to pollute to Northampton Generating Company, located in the Borough of Northampton, Pennsylvania, which allows the burning of up to 23 tons of used tires per hour at this facility. That is right -- the burning of up to 23 tons of used tires per hour! This facility is a plant that burns waste coal (culm) that is transported from the Wilkes-Barre area. The coal combustion waste or fly ash generated at the facility is subsequently transported back to the anthracite coal region for disposal of this toxic waste in abandoned coal mines under the guise of mine reclamation.

It must be emphasized that burning tires release pyrolitic oils. These oils contain a variety of organic compounds and heavy metals. These typically include volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes, and styrene; polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) like anthracene, naphthalene, and benzo(a) pyrene; and heavy metals including manganese, lead, and zinc. These toxic and carcinogenic chemicals, especially VOCs and PAHs, have been detected at high levels in the surface water at many tire fire sites across the nation. These chemicals have also been detected at lower levels in creek sediments after the oils entered into streams. Groundwater has also been adversely impacted at many tire fire sites.

We are willing to bet that the DEP will not find it necessary to monitor emissions from the plant or the resulting fly ash for any of the toxic and carcinogenic compounds released or created by the high-temperature combustion of used tires with waste coal. The DEP will say that they haven't seen any problems with the process. Of course, if you don't look, you won't find anything.

Millions of tons of the new industrial-strength fly ash will eventually be disposed of in unlined, unmonitored surface mining operations in the anthracite coal region and be referred to as mine reclamation where in reality it is disguised unregulated hazardous waste disposal. This practice, without the inclusion of burned tires, has already been shown to cause significant damage to the public health and the environment.

DEP officials said burning up to 23 tons of tires per hour will not cause unsafe pollution. We guess DEP is saying that burning 23 tons of tires per hour will only cause safe pollution, whatever that is.

This creation of a new industrial-strength fly ash is strong evidence that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection doesn't give a damn about the health and safety of the residents of Pennsylvania and is only concerned about protecting polluting industries that contribute heavily to the campaigns coffers of our elected representatives.

Specter writes to ATSDR of 'concern' about polycythemia study

On Sept. 27, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) wrote a letter to Dr. Howard Frumkin, director of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, about the study of unusually high polycythemia vera rates in the Hometown area. I obtained a copy of that letter, which appears on Senate Appropriations Committee letterhead. It states:

Dear Dr. Frumkin:

I am writing regarding my concern over a pending report by your agency in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Department of Health (PADoH) on whether there is a link between a higher than usual incidence of a rare blood disorder, polycythemia vera (PV), in Carbon, Schuylkill and Luzerne Counties and the nearby McAdoo Associates Superfund Site.

Last October, when I visited the site, I announced that the Centers for Disease Control and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry had agreed to work with the PADoH in data analysis on the rare blood cancer.

I understand that you are nearing the conclusion of the data analysis. The community is anxiously awaiting the findings and recommendations of the study. If there is a link between the higher incidence of the disease and the superfund site, we look forward to your recommendations on what can be done to prevent additional cases and treat those who have the disease. When the study is released, I strongly urge you to hold briefings for the local community, as soon as possible, to convey the findings and alleviate any unnecessary alarm.

I appreciate your prompt attention to this matter.

The letter is signed by Specter, who is identified as the ranking minority member of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education. In other words, as one of the officials who controls ATSDR's budget.