"Coal makes us sick"

This isn't news for those of us from mining communities, but it's still nice to hear a politician say it:

League of Conservation Voters grades federal lawmakers on environmental issues

Casey earns perfect score; Specter's and Holden's are mediocre

The League of Conservation Voters has released its annual scorecard for 2007, evaluating federal lawmakers' voting records on environmental issues.

On the Senate side, the environmental advocacy group looked at votes on 15 matters ranging from oil subsidies to energy efficiency standards to liquid fuel derived from coal. The latter issue is of special interest to residents of Schuylkill County, where Waste Management and Processors -- a subsidiary of the Rich Family Companies -- is pushing for millions in taxpayer subsidies to build a waste coal-to-oil plant near Gilberton. Producing oil from coal or waste coal emits large amounts of toxic pollution as well as greenhouse gases.

Sen. Robert Casey (D) got a grade of 100 percent, voting the more environmentally sustainable position on every issue. His colleague, Sen. Arlen Specter (R), didn't do as well, earning only a 60 percent -- though that represents an improvement from previous scorecards where he earned grades ranging from a low of 28 percent in the 2003-2004 session to a previous high of 52 percent in 2001-2002. The issues where Specter differed with environmentalists in the latest evaluation were oil subsidies, clean energy standards, offshore drilling, oil refinery security, and the establishment of a commission to prioritize water resources projects.

On the House side, Rep. Tim Holden (D-17) did slightly better than Specter at 70 percent. Of the 20 issues considered, the ones where he parted ways with environmentalists were grasslands protection, farm subsidy reform, clean air, offshore drilling and family planning. The average score for Congress overall was 53 percent.

Holden and Specter also voted against the environment on the issue of liquid coal. It's not altogether surprising that they would do the bidding of liquid coal interests when you consider how much the Rich family alone has invested in their political campaigns. John W. Rich Jr. -- the man behind the local waste coal-to-oil plant -- and others connected with the Rich Family Companies have donated at least $20,800 to Specter, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics' OpenSecrets.org database. At the same time, they've donated a whopping $45,681 to Holden -- but nothing at all to Casey.

New evidence of corruption at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Last year the people of the Hometown area bore witness as representatives of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a division of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, lied to us in an effort to hide inconvenient truths about pollution's impact on our health.

During an October meeting in Hazleton, we heard representatives of the ATSDR tell us that a study into the area's unusually high rate of polycythemia vera conducted by the agency and independent researchers found no environmental factors contributing to the rare blood malignancy's prevalence. Soon after that, however, we discovered an abstract of that very study posted online that said the researchers found an unusual cluster of the disease centered around the McAdoo Associates Superfund site just north of Hometown. Even after ATSDR officials disavowed that finding, saying the study contained "erroneous information" and needed to be revised, the researchers continued to insist that their data points to an environmental factor behind the elevated incidence rates. One of the researchers confided to me that they were feeling pressure from higher-ups at the CDC to back off from those claims.

Now more evidence has emerged of the CDC's eagerness to cover up inconvenient scientific truths -- and to punish the researchers who unearth them.

The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative journalism organization, last week published a story that describes how the CDC blocked publication of an ATSDR study into environmental hazards in the eight Great Lakes states reportedly because of its alarming findings about health effects. The study -- which was conducted at the request of the International Joint Commission, an independent organization that advises the U.S. and Canadian governments on the quality of boundary waters between the two countries -- found that more than nine million people who live in some two dozen communities including Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee may face elevated health risks from toxic exposures. It also found low birth weights, elevated rates of infant mortality and premature births, and elevated death rates from various cancers with environmental links.

The CDC's response? Bury the study.

Reports CPI:

Last July, several days before the study was to be released, ATSDR suddenly withdrew it, saying that it needed further review. In a letter to Christopher De Rosa, then the director of the agency's division of toxicology and environmental medicine, Dr. Howard Frumkin, ATSDR's chief, wrote that the quality of the study was "well below expectations." When the Center contacted Frumkin's office, a spokesman said that he was not available for comment and that the study was "still under review."

And guess what happened to De Rosa? After complaining to his bosses that the withholding of the study smacked of scientific censorship, he was demoted. He's currently trying to get his old job back, claiming that the demotion represented illegal retaliation by Frumkin.

Why would the CDC squelch such an important study and punish the renowned researcher behind it? CPI asked Canadian biologist and IJC member Michael Gilbertson, who was also one of the study's peer reviewers, for his thoughts:

"It's not good because it's inconvenient," Gilbertson said. "The whole problem with all this kind of work is wrapped up in that word 'injury.' If you have injury, that implies liability. Liability, of course, implies damages, legal processes, and costs of remedial action. The governments, frankly, in both countries are so heavily aligned with, particularly, the chemical industry, that the word amongst the bureaucracies is that they really do not want any evidence of effect or injury to be allowed out there."

Is the environment really a partisan issue?

That's the question raised by Michael Cadau's comments to the Pottsville Republican & Herald following his resignation from the Schuylkill County Republican Executive Committee. Cadau, who ran unsuccessfully against state Rep. Neal Goodman (D-123) in 2006, resigned recently along with fellow members Mary Lou Hannon and Peter Zuber:

Cadau made county environmental issues a top priority during his campaign, something he says party leaders frowned upon.

"I had people in the party telling me to stop the environmental stuff," Cadau said. "They basically said 'go away, Mike. We don't want you talking about this.' We (Cadau, Hannon and Zuber) don't want to play by their rules."

[Clyde C. "Champ" Holman, a legislative aide for State Sen. James J. Rhoades (R-29) and a member of the executive committee,] said he tried to help Cadau during his campaign and told him if he wanted to talk about environmental issues, he should give details on proposals rather than blanket statements.

"The status quo has failed miserably," Cadau said. "The 'I was born a Republican so I am a Republican' -- that philosophy has got to go."

The polycythemia vera deception

I've hesitated to share my reaction to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's and the Pennsylvania Department of Health's recent disavowal of the study that suggested a link between environmental factors and the area's high rate of polycythemia vera. I try not to write when angry, and recent events have me riled.

It seems clear what happened: A team of scientists found an apparent link between environmental factors and the area's high rate of polycythemia vera and released the findings without first getting the approval of the bureaucracies' bosses. Since it's politically unacceptable to draw any connection between the anthracite region's environmental degradation and the local health crisis, the bosses did the bidding of their political paymasters (and their financial benefactors) and declared the findings invalid.

But study author Dr. Ronald Hoffman, a professor at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and a noted blood cancer expert, maintains that the data point to an environmental problem. Another study author told me the same thing -- but as an employee of one of the public agencies asked to remain unnamed out of fear of further upsetting the higher ups, who reportedly are already quite upset that the findings were made public.

We're witnessing what happens when politicians attempt to control science, as Dante Picciano elucidates in the latest posting from his Web site.

THE CONTINUING SAGA OF THE POLYCYTHEMIA VERA COVER UP
By Dante Picciano
www.dante7.com
December 26, 2007

Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!

Sir Walter Scott

I have waited for the dust to settle before commenting on the latest episode in the cover up of our polycythemia vera cancer epidemic by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) and the Pennsylvania Department of Health (PA DOH).

On October 24, 2007 in Hazleton, PA, the ATSDR and the PA DOH reported the results of a study showing 38 cases of the rare polycythemia vera cancer in Carbon, Luzerne and Schuylkill counties. The agencies noted that the 38 cases were 52% higher than the 25 expected over the last five years.

The ATSDR circulated a news release that stated, "ATSDR found no link between environmental factors and PV in this area." Also, Senator Arlen Specter stated in a letter to the Director of the ATSDR and to the Secretary of the PADOH, "I am heartened by the study's findings that there are no environmental or occupational causes for the disease..."

At the meeting, Dr. Steve Dearwent of the ATSDR stated, "There's no conspiracy to hide any information." With reference to determining how elevated the 38 cases of polycythemia was, Dearwent said, "Quite honestly, the benchmark is fuzzy."

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!

It was fuzzy all right. The ATSDR actually found 131 suspected cases of polycythemia vera in the study, more than five times what was expected (Polycythemia vera cancer epidemic, www.dante7.com, November 9, 2007).

In the November 16, 2007 issue of Blood, researchers from the ATSDR and Mount Sinai School of Medicine reported in an abstract that there were actually 131 possible cases of polycythemia vera found in the study, that residents living within 13 miles of the McAdoo Superfund site had a 4.5 times greater risk of developing polycythemia vera and that the data strongly suggested that an environmental influence led to the development of the polycythemia vera.

This latest report was not in agreement with the results presented at the October 24, 2007 meeting in Hazleton. The abstract indicated a much larger problem and it pointed to an environmental cause. What could the agencies do? They had to save face, they had to make Arlen Specter look good and they had to get the polluting industries off the hook.

"We essentially jumped the gun in releasing something we ultimately don't think is true," said Steve Dearwent. The research is a "stew" of expertise, he said, and "the ingredient we added was not good."

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!

Dr. Dearwent explained that the findings were biased by failure to consider that many of the cases of polycythemia vera were diagnosed in people who had lived in multiple places during the "clean up" of the Superfund site.

In other words, there was a polycythemia vera cluster but only because people with this rare cancer moved to the same place, which just happened to be near the Superfund site http://blog.wired.com. Dr. Dearwent wants us to believe that people who suffer from polycythemia vera tend to flock together and roam the country side looking for a place near a toxic waste site to settle.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!

However, there was another major problem for Dr. Dearwent, the ATSDR and the PA DOH. Dr. Ronald Hoffman, the lead investigator of the study, is not a federal or state employee. He is a professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and not subject to influence by the government agencies. Dr. Hoffman refused to go along with the ATSDR's back pedaling and insisted that the data does in fact point to something in the environment as the cause of the polycythemia vera in this area.

Dr. Hoffman stated, "Based upon the data, there's significant concern that there is something in the environment leading to the development of polycythemia vera in that area."

Oh my, what was Senator Specter to do? The lead investigator refused to back pedal and play along with the senator's absurdity that he was "heartened by the study's findings that there are no environmental or occupational causes for the disease."

Senator Specter then announced that he, U.S. Senator Bob Casey and U.S. Representative Tim Holden had sent a letter expressing concern over the release of the abstract and urging officials to make clarifications.

Then in a bit of understatement, Rep. Holden admitted some confusion over contradictory results between the October meeting and the latest report.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!

Holden then stated, "Don't ask me to answer any questions because I don't know any more than you." Oh really! I thought that it was our representative's job to know what was going on in his district.

There is no doubt in my mind that our elected officials are working frantically to protect the polluting industries that are causing the polycythemia vera in this area. There is no other rational explanation for the deceptive practices detailed above.

I have also noticed an almost complete absence of State Senator Jim Rhoades and State Representative Dave Argall from any involvement with this study in their respective districts. They seem too busy having their pictures taken giving away our money with cardboard checks.

I hope that you remember the actions of Specter, Holden, Rhoades and Argall the next time that they are up for re-election.

How about Cancer Victims' Day, Rep. Argall?

'BENEFICIAL USE' DAY
By Dante Picciano
www.dante7.com

Did you know that August 29, 2007 in Pennsylvania was "Environmentally Beneficial Use of Waste Coal as an Alternative Energy Source Day?" This date was designated as such on July 7, 2007 by Resolution No. 363 of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. July 7th was also the second anniversary of the notorious illegal pay raise that our representatives gave themselves in the early morning hours of July 7, 2005.

The Resolution informs us that the waste coal energy industry has beneficially utilized more than 73 million tons of by-products for abandoned mine land reclamation. Translation: This industry has burned millions of tons of waste coal mixed with waste solvents, has generated millions of tons of fly ash and has dumped the fly ash waste into unlined abandoned mines.

A recent report by the Clean Air Task Force and EarthJustice showed that disposing fly ash in mines is contaminating water supplies throughout Pennsylvania. In 10 of 15 mines examined across the state, groundwater and streams near areas where fly ash, or coal combustion waste, was placed had levels of arsenic, lead, cadmium and selenium and other pollutants above safe levels.

The Resolution passed the House by a vote of 190 to 7 and our own representative, David Argall, voted for it. You should note that Mr. Argall received at least $12,500 in campaign contributions from corporate polluters and $35,770 from law firms and lobbyists in 2006 (Source: www.followthemoney.org).

Mr. Argall should introduce a resolution in the House of Representatives designating a day in 2008 as "Polycythemia Vera Victims' Day" for the people afflicted with the cancer in this area. In fact, Mr. Argall should introduce a resolution designating the entire year of 2008 as "Victims' Year" in honor of the thousands of people afflicted with cancer, asthma and other diseases caused by the polluting industries in Pennsylvania. However, I doubt that this will happen because not enough victims have contributed to Mr. Argall's re-election campaign.

I also find it interesting that our representatives have time to pass resolutions honoring corporate polluters but don't have time for property tax reform or bridge and highway repair.

An oxymoron is sponsoring tonight's Democratic debate on CNN:

The "clean coal" industry. This is "clean" as in the "ultra clean" waste coal-to-oil plant planned for Gilberton, which the state has permitted to dump to the air annually 99.9 tons each of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter; 49.9 tons of volatile organic compounds; 100 tons of ammonia; 38 pounds of mercury; and unlimited amounts of carbon dioxide. For more about the sponsorship and a Web form to weigh in with moderator Wolf Blitzer, visit ThinkProgress.org.

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.

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.

State's foot-dragging on polycythemia vera study release sparks FOIA request

Last week I reported that the public meeting to discuss the results of the federal study of polycythemia vera rates in the Hometown area had been delayed. The move has sparked worry and suspicion among local environmental health advocates. In fact, one of them has publicly accused state health officials of attempting to cover up the results -- and he has also taken action to shake them loose.

Responding to a news report on the delay that appeared in the Pottsville Republican (I'd link to the story, titled "Release of polycythemia vera findings on hold," but the link seems to be broken), Dante Picciano -- a Tamaqua-area attorney and geneticist who has been a leader in efforts to get public health officials to address local environmental health problems -- disclosed on his Web site his concern that state health officials don't want the study's results made public. He suspects they especially don't want to disclose the results right on the heels of a just-released report documenting extensive groundwater contamination as a result of the state's so-called "beneficial use" program for coal ash, as well as sloppy record-keeping for the program by state regulators. Picciano wrote:

We are hearing that the heads of the Pennsylvania Department of Heath and the Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP) are meeting in State College to discuss ways to dismiss the results of the polycythemia vera study. Our sources tell us that the PA DOH and the PA DEP will try to blame exposure to radon gas in this area as the cause for the increase in the number of cases of polycythemia vera. Since radon is a naturally occurring gas, industry cannot be blamed for the problem.

However, radon exposure will not fly as an out for the PA DOH or the PA DEP. We have enough data that strongly indicate that radon gas is not a significant factor for the cause of the increase in polycythemia vera. We will wait until the PA DOH and the PA DEP come out with their ridiculous radon theory before we release our information.

Stay tuned for more information on the PA DOH cover-up of the polycythemia vera study.

Also raising eyebrows among local environmental advocates were comments by U.S. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) during his visit Friday to the Broad Mountain Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in the Schuylkill County community of Frackville, not far from where the coal ash study was released. The event was originally characterized as a campaign rally by the Schuylkill County Republican Party, but a press release that Specter's office put out that day said he would discuss the health study, the Hazleton Standard-Speaker reported. But Specter didn't mention the study until asked about it by a reporter, according to the paper:

"They say they're not prepared to release the findings yet. I'm pressing them on it, to do it and do it right," Specter said ... .

Adding to the concerns surrounding the report and its release, Specter then told the gathering that he expected the public meeting about the study to take place on Oct. 15. But when the paper contacted the Department of Health to confirm that date, officials there said that date was not definite.

The news that Specter -- at whose behest the study was originally launched -- was "pressing" the state to release the results and had been left in the dark about when the meeting would be held hardly instilled confidence in those already suspicious about the delay. Here's what Picciano had to say about it in response to my request for comment:

This study has been done for weeks, if not for months. Now, the Pennsylvania Department of Health is doing everything possible to delay its release. The Department of Health is unhappy with the results and is buying time trying to come up with an explanation that will get Pennsylvania's dumping industries off the hook. The Department of Health is saying to hell with the people dying of cancer. We must protect our dumping industries.

I filed a request with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry under the Freedom of Information Act for a copy of the study. It will be interesting to see if the Pennsylvania Department of Health's request for additional time supersedes the requirements of federal law.

The Freedom of Information Act provides for the disclosure of documents controlled by the U.S. government. For more information about the Act and its use, click here.

A plan of action for Hometown...

...and all the other communities suffering from toxic dumping, by local environmental watchdog Dante Picciano: Vote out the incumbents and bring in the lawyers.

Obscure agency blocks Pa. mercury pollution rule

Who the hell is the Legislative Reference Bureau? And why is it doing the bidding of Pennsylvania's coal-burning power plant industry?

The agency, which is responsible for publishing a record of administrative actions, has sided with Senate opponents of Gov. Ed Rendell's proposed rule cracking down on mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants and refused to publish the rule's text in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, according to the Centre Daily Times. An administrative rule must be published there in order to take effect.

Senators, who voted 40-10 last June to adopt the federal government's less-strict mercury rule, have insisted that the chamber's official period to review the proposed mercury rule, and possibly object to it, is continuing.

However, the Rendell administration has maintained that the legislative review period expired Nov. 30, the constitutional end of the prior two-year General Assembly term, and that the Legislative Reference Bureau has no business objecting to the rule.

"We believe the regulations should be posted and that the Legislative Reference Bureau has overstepped ... the scope of its authority by not posting them," Rendell press secretary Kate Philips said Monday.

John Hanger, president of public-interest law firm PennFuture, issued a press release calling on the General Assembly's leadership to direct LRB to publish the regulation:

"This action is simply pathetic," said Hanger. "The mercury regulation is vitally necessary to protect women and developing fetuses from exposure to high levels of toxic mercury contamination, a powerful neurotoxin which can interfere with the proper development of babies' brains. This rule has undergone a two-year public participation process with an unprecedented outpouring of support from nearly 11,000 citizens from across the Commonwealth, and has been approved by the Environmental Quality Board, the Independent Regulatory Review Commission and the Pennsylvania Attorney General. Yet now, an unelected bureaucrat, with no legal authority to do so, has decided to usurp the legal process and prevent this regulation from becoming law.

"It is ironic, to say the least, that while the LRB calls itself 'a strictly nonpartisan agency of the Pennsylvania General Assembly,' it is apparently carrying the water for a distinct minority of elected officials who have tried and failed repeatedly to stop this regulation," continued Hanger. "The rule was passed legally and finally despite the protestations of some very powerful elected officials. The LRB has no legal authority to stop this regulation, and must be ordered to do its job and publish the rule.

"This last minute backroom ploy is just the kind of behavior the voters clearly abhor," continued Hanger. "We call on the new leadership in both houses to put a stop to this high-handed action, and protect Pennsylvania's children by ordering the LRB to cease and desist in its attempt to thwart the democratic process."

Rendell's rule would require the state's coal-fired plants to cut mercury pollution by 90 percent by 2015. If the rule takes effect, Pennsylvania would become the nation's largest coal-mining and coal-burning state to approve a regulation tougher than federal requirements.

The Hometown area suffers from high levels of mercury pollution emitted from the anthracite region's many dirty waste-coal-fired power plants. In fact, Schuylkill County has more such plants than any other county in the nation, according to the Philadelphia-based Energy Justice Network.