Pollution and Extinction
Ecology affected (Fish, Frogs, Trees, Deforestation, Rivers, Oceans and Coral reefs),
Industrial waste products released (Mercury, Cyanide, Dioxins, Cadmium, Pesticides, Atrazine (weed killer), antibotics, steroids, hormones, bacteria, sulfur dioxide, arsenic, irradiation [Cobalt 60], DDT, Ammonium perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) or C-8)
The year 2002 through 2004
Vast, deep fishing nets threaten ocean species
Pharmaceutical residue found in nation's rivers, study says
Study: More plants endangered than thought
Study links sexual deformities in frogs to popular weedkiller

Cadmium is found to mimic estrogen compounds in the body
Food irradiator project stirs neighbors' protest
Bay unable to sustain aquatic life
People Pollution
Companies settle over PCBs
EPA criticized by environmentalists for easing air pollution regulations
Flushing old medicine may be causing harm to the enviroment
Study: Salmon deliver pollutants to some Alaskan lakes
Contamination beyond landfill, records show
Report backs easing rules for environmental studies
EPA decides not to limit use of sewage sludge as fertilizer
Senate rejects bill to limit emissions from industrial plants
EPA rules on sewer discharge to conform
EPA study warns of wood treated with arsenic
Sewage into cash - MSD to sell 'biosolid' pellets as fertilizer
EPA plan eases rules on Mercury
Town's leukemia outbreak a mystery

Many state officials say EPA rules spur pollution
With Bush in office, mountaintop miners' hopes rise
British wildlife study raises fear of yet another global extinction
Officials warn of tuna dangers
Strip-mining plan criticized
EPA asked to toughen mercury plan
Half-million PCB-laden fish to be destroyed
Plants missing mercury to be investigated by EPA
Toxic flame-retardant exposure is unavoidable, research finds
Toxic ingredient of rocket fuel found in milk in California
Chemicals in toys, nail polish raise flags
Cows sickened by chromium
Frog population is declining
Fish in one-third of U.S. lakes not safe to eat
Dupont offers to settle W. Va. contamination suit
Researchers discover drugs in fish tissue
Chemicals found in Great Lakes stir fears
West Virginia warns about consuming game fish caught in state



• 2/16/2002 - Vast, deep fishing nets threaten ocean species by The Associated Press.
      Boston -- Fishing vessels that trawl up to 3,000 feet below the water's surface may be wiping out the exotic creatures of the ocean depths even faster than they can be detected.    At those depths it could take decades for harvested fish to be replaced and damaged coral may require centuries.    This destruction is devasting to the future of the seas.
• 3/13/2002 - Pharmaceutical residue found in nation's rivers, study says by Eric Pianin, The Washington Post
      Washington -- The first nationwide study of pharmaceutical pollution of rivers and streams offers an unsettling picture of waterways contaminated with antibotics, steroids, synthetic hormones and other commonly used drugs.
      Of the 139 streams analyzed by the U.S. Geological Survey in 30 states, about 80 percent contained trace amounts of contaminants that are routinely discharged into the water in human and livestock waste and chemical plant refuse.
      The study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, stresses that in many cases the measured concentration of contaminants such as painkillers, insect repellent, caffeine and fire retardants was low and rarely exceeded federal standards for drinking water.
      But many of the chemical compounds detected during the two-year study aren't covered by drinking-water standards or government health advisories, and little is known about how the interaction of those chemicals can affect humans, animals and the environment.
      "Protecting the integrity of our water resources is one of the most essential environmental issues of the 21st century," the report says.    "Little is known about the potential interactive effects ... that may occur from complex mixtures of (waste contaminants) in the environment"
      In many ways, water quality mirrors societal behavior and medical practices: Antibiotics and other prescription and nonprescription drugs and personal care products used widely by Americans inevitably turn up in waste water; manufacturers and chemical plants legally dump thousands of tons of compounds and waste into streams and rivers, and the waste of livestock treated with veterinary pharmaceuticals makes its way into streams.
      The study concluded in 1999 and 2000, surveyed the occurance of 95 pharmaceuticals, hormones and other organic waste in streams across the country.    The study's authors said the compounds were selected because they enter the environment through common waste water pathways in large quantities and may have human or environmental health implications.
      The sampling technique focused on streams most susceptible to contamination, downstream from large urban areas -- including New York, Boston, Chicago and Denver -- or industrial plants or livestock yards.
      "We're not talking about rampant dumping," said a U.S. Geological Survey official.    "We're looking at the effect of normal, existing usage for these different chemicals."
• 11/1/2002 - Study: More plants endangered than thought by The Associated Press.
      Washington -- Human activities are threatening to wipe out from 22 percent to 47 percent of the Earth's plant species, a study suggests by Nigel Pitman of Duke University and Peter Jorgensen of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis.    Since 83 percent of the plant species in Ecuador, are now threatened, they extrapolated this data to the entire world to determine their findings.    The demand for new farmland to feed a growing population in tropical countries is the biggest cause of gloabal plant species extinction.    A gradual global warming may aggravate the species loss to prevent the natural migration of plants response to climate change.
• 11/1/2002 - Study links sexual deformities in frogs to popular weedkiller - Pesticide atrazine is widely used by corn farmers - by Emily Green, Los Angeles Times.
      Male leopard frogs across the Midwest are acquiring female sexual atributes as a result of exposure to atrazine, one of the most widely used weedkillers in America.    Syngenta, the largest producer of atrazine, questioned the finding, based on using foreign animals in artifical conditions for testing.    However, even if these effects are real, they have no bearing on human health risks, said Tim Pastoor, a toxicologist in the company's Greensboro, N.C., offices.
      The study from the University of California Berkeley endocrinologist Tyrone Hayes to scrutinize the feminization of frogs by the farm chemical, comes as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency nears the end of an eight-year safety review of atrazine.    The review was undertaken in 1994 after decades of heavy use of atrazine on corn and sorghum crops caused it to be the most commonly detected pesticide in ground and surface water.    It has even been detected in national parks.
      The reason, said William Battaglin, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Lakewood, Colo., is that atrazine is very soluble.    "It moves with rain, with air, on dust.    There are few places in the U.S. where you would see none of it ever."
      Hayes was a hormone specialist approached to study the chemical for the EPA review.    When South African clawed frogs exposed to atrazine in laboratory conditions suffered an array of sexual deformities, he specualted that the weedkiller was throwing a series of hormonal switches in the frogs, which led to the conversion of testosterone to estrogen.
      The finding revives arguments over atrazine in drinking water.    Since 1991 a number of European countries have banned it or suspended its use.    A French ban is expected to take effect next year because it exceeded the one-part-per-billion level in drinking water set for any pesticide.    By contrast, the EPA set a maximum average level for atrazine at three parts per billion in drinking water.
      Scientist remained concerned because frogs are regarded as important markers of water purity.    "If you read records of early settlers in the western U.S., if they got to a water supply and it didn't have frogs in it, they wouldn't drink," siad Battaglin , of the U.S. Geological Survey.
  
  
• 7/14/2003 - Cadmium is found to mimic estrogen compounds in the body by Randolph E. Schmid, The Associated Press.
      Washington - The heavy metal cadmium, widely used in batteries and plating to prevent corrosion in alloys, can affect rats in ways that mimic the female hormones estrogen, a new study has found.    Low doses of cadmium exposure can lead to an increased risk for breast cancer, in this study it affected the mammary glands and sexual development of the animals used.    It even affected the glands of rats in the womb, and the prostrate of male rats.    Cadmium has long raised environmental concerns because chronic exposure can lead to kidney damage and bone disease.    What the effects on humans are yet has not been determined.
  
• 7/31/2003 - Food irradiator project stirs neighbors' protest - Residents fear exposure through plant accidents - by Joann Loviglio, The Associated Press.
      Milford, Philadelphia -- When residents found out about plans for a nuclear irradiator to be built in their suburban community, unknown to them what it was.    It was to be used to sterilize anything from meat to medical supplies.    The neighbors began fearing terrorism, an accident or other risks to people and the environment.    Brisbane, Australia residents are also protesting a planned irradiator as well.    Irradiators have already opened in Mulberry, Fla., in 1991, and in Schaumburg, Ill, amid opposition in 2001, with about 50 already in the United States.
      The Pennsylvania irradiator, if approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commision, would have an 18-foot-deep underground tank with a rack of the radioactive isotope Cobalt 60 at the bottom.    Items are irradiated in it for about 15 minutes, used for killing bacteria in meat (spices, pork, poultry, eggs) and produce (wheat, flour, potatoes) and sterilizing medical supplies and feminine products all approved in 1985-2000.
      The Food and Drug Administration deemed irradiation a safe method, and its products have been in schools lunches.    A consumer group claims there has been many accident at irradiation facilities since 1960, as the one in 1982 in Dover, N.J., where workers poured 600 gallons of radiactive water down a drain that emptied into a public sewer system, and 1988 leak in Decatur, Ga., that was contained but several exposed workers spread radioactivity to their homes.    Residents are disagreeing because Cobalt 60 has to be replenished, thus transported, and still have a fear of cancer.
• 8/8/2003 - Bay unable to sustain aquatic life - Chesapeake crabs, fish can't breathe - by Anita Huslin, The Washington Post.
      Solomons, Md. -- On the Chesapeake Bay, long strands of anthozoan, a plant that looks like seaweed and thrives in polluted waters, has tangled and torn the fishermans nets.    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report states that pollution and sediment has left nearly half of the water in the Chesapeake Bay so depleted of oxygen this summer that it cannot sustain aquatic life.    Scientists claim that winter snowstorms and above average rainfall have washed more suburban wastewater and farmland fertilizers into the bay, producing algae blooms, crippling fisheries and creating a "dead zone" larger than ever recorded at a 250-square mile area.    Crabs are scrambling on top of buoys or to beaches to avoid choking in oxygen-starved waters.    Most of the fish caught are dead in their nets.
• 8/12/2003 - People Pollution - It's nearly impossible to avoid exposure to the 80,000 chemicals in industrial use - by Bob Downing, Knight Ridder News Service.
      Akron, Ohio -- California resident Davis Baltz has learned that he has low levels of 106 toxic chemicals in his body, without his consent or knowledge.
      Ken Taggart, who lives in Ohio's Washington County, is worried about one toxic chemical in his body.    Ammonium perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) or C-8, has been found in drinking water supplies in his area, and he also was exposed to it during his 32 years working at the DuPont plant across the Ohio River near Parkersburg, W.Va.    His body was once so contaminated with C-8 that his company told him not to donate at a blood bank.
      It is almost impossible to avoid exposure to an estimated 80,000 industrial toxic chemicals that are in use today, most which have never been studied or analyzed for their impact on people or the environment.    No one knows which combination of chemicals could pose a threat.
      This year on two national studies provide evidence on how many toxic chemicals Americans are being exposed to.    The study analyzed the blood and urine of nine volunteers for 210 environmental chemicals.    A total of 167 industrial chemicals - most in low levels - were confirmed in the nine volunteers.    The average number of chemicals in the volunteers was 91.    Of the chemicals found in Baltz's body: 61 can cause cancer, 65 can cause birth defects and developmental problems, 68 can affect hormones, 73 can affect the brain and nervous system, 64 can affect the respiratory system, 68 can affect the digestive system, 64 can affect the kidneys, 51 can affect the liver, 66 can affect the skin, 62 can affect the immune system, and 56 can affect the male reproductive system.
      This is a glimpse of the complicated mixture of environmental contamination within us all, with no where to hide.    These chemicals are coming from pesticides, herbicides, pest repellents and disinfectants most have been tested for toxicity only in animals.    It was also found that children have a higher level of many industrial chemicals than adults do.    Mexican-Americans had more than three times the levels of the pesticide DDT (banned since 1972 in the United States) than non-Hispanic whites and blacks.
      "Just because a chemical can be measured ... doesn't mean it causes disease, said Dr. Richard Jackson, director of the CDC's National Center for Environmental Health.
      Take C-8, which is used to produce coatings for furniture, carpets and nonstick cookware.    The chemical was used for 50 years at DuPont's Washington WOrks outside Parkersburg.    It was dumped into the Ohio River, discharged into the air and put into landfills.    It has been found in drinking water wells in West Virginia and Ohio, as well as DuPont's workers, who on their website claim that low-level exposure to C-8 is safe.
      Tests by 3M, the first producer of C-8, show high levels of exposure may cause liver damage and reproductive problems in rats.    Other studies suggest it may lead to birth defects in children of employees at plants where the product is made.
• 8/21/2003 - Companies settle over PCBs by Tennessean News Services.
      Birmingham, Ala. - Solutia Inc. and Monsanto Co. (major biotech firm) have agreed to pay $700 million to settle claims by more than 20,000 Anniston residents over PCB contamination, plaintiffs' attorneys said.    This ends a trial over decades-old pollution from a chemical plant in the east Alabama city, includes payments to homeowners and cash to fund a PCB research laboratory, lawyers for the residents said.
• 8/28/2003 - EPA criticized by environmentalists for easing air pollution regulations by John Heilprin, The Associated Press.
      Washington - The Bush administration made it easier for older power plants, refineries and factories to avoid having to install costly clean air controls when they replace aging equipment.    The electric utilities and oil companies have been urging the White House to revise the program (Clean Air Act), saying the costs prohibit them from making energy-efficiency improvements.
      Environmentalists say the exemption will allow power plants to continue emitting millions of tons of pollutants that cause health problems for people living downwind.
• 9/9/2003 - Flushing old medicine may be causing harm to the enviroment by Lauran Neergaard, The Associated Press.
      Washington - Scientists are warning not to flush drugs, since antibotics, hormones and other medicines are being found in waterways, raising worrisome questions about potential health and environmental effects.    Nursing homes discard a lot of drugs each year.    Some are incinerated, but many are flushed.
      The U.S. Geological Survey has found traces of dozens - painkillers, estrogen, antidepressants, blood-pressure medicines -- in water samples from 30 states.    The long-term effects are not known, but that exposure could cause harm to are ecology.    Studies have linked hormone exposure to reproductive side effects in fish, and environmental exposure to antibiotics may encourage developemnt of drug-resistant germs.
• 9/17/2003 - Study: Salmon deliver pollutants to some Alaskan lakes by The Associated Press.
      A new study says some of Alaska's pristine and remote lakes are getting polluted with industrial PCBs through an unlikely source: sockeye salmon.    The fish pick up the chemicals in the northern Pacific Ocean and then return to the lakes to spawn.    Then they die, their bodies releasing the pollutant and raising PCB concentration in the lake sediment more than sevenfold in some cases.    "When we release these chemicals into the environment, a lot of unexpected things can happen," claimed Jules Blais of the University of Ottawa in Ontario, Canada.    PCBs - polychlorinated biphenyls - concentrate in food chains, and killer whales near British Columbia have accumulated worrisome levels apparently by eating contaminated salmon and seals, he said.
• 9/21/2003 - Contamination beyond landfill, records show - Dickson residents drank tainted well water near auto plant - by Holly Edwards.
      Toxic groundwater contamination from an automobile manufacturing plant (former Scovill-Shrader 1964-1985, now occupied by Tennsco) extends beyond barrels buried (tricholorethylene, or TCE used as a metal degreaser until 1973) in the Dickson County landfill to residential areas near the plant and to four sites where the company dumped its waste illegally.    Lawsuits have been filed by residents who claim some have died of nasopharynegeal cancer and suffered neurological damage as a result of long-term exposure to the chemicals.    George Norman a local well-driller, was diagnosed in 1995 and died of nasopharynegeal cancer in 1999.    His family had been planning to bottle and market their well water when they found out it contained toxic chemicals.    Scovill-Shrader and its parent companies - Saltire Industrial Inc. and Alper Holdings U.S.A. agreed to the clean up of the four illegal dump sites, but denied dumping waste on the open ground.    They also claim as not reponsible for the plaintiff's health problems and had conducted its operations "in accordance with industry standards and government requirements."
• 9/25/2003 - Report backs easing rules for environmental studies by Tennessean News Services.
      Washington - A White House task force recommended that federal agencies make it easier for developers and the government to avoid lengthy project-specific environmental studies often blamed for holding up projects.
      The Bush administration has blamed NEPA for bureaucratic gridlock, signed into law by President Nixon in 1970, which limits development on public land and force protections for endangered species.    Environmentalists have used the law as a legal lever to expose and halt damaging development proposals.    Electric power companies were hindered to locate new transmission lines, and mining companies blame this for the decline in mineral exploration and production.
      The report calls to create categories of projects, using broad criteria, that would be deemed to have no environmental impact.    If a project fits into one of those broad categories, no further environmental assessments would be required.
• 10/18/2003 - EPA decides not to limit use of sewage sludge as fertilizer - Agency believes there is minimal danger from dioxins - by John Heilprin, The Associated Press.
      Washington - Farmers and others who use sewage sludge as fertilizer will not face government restrictions over the possible cancer-causing dioxins it may contain.    The EPA will not regulate dioxins in land-applied sludge, used as fertilizer on farms, forests, parks, golf course, lawns and home gardens.    The environmental groups claim that dioxins are among the most toxic substances on earth, and can be released when burned.    They build up in fatty tissues of animals, and humans are exposed when they eat animal fats.    The contaminant used in Agent Orange, a defoliant sprayed during the Vietnam War, included the most toxic form of dioxins.
• 10/31/2003 - Senate rejects bill to limit emissions from industrial plants by John Heilprin, The Associated Press.
      Washington - The Senate rejected a plan to curb global warming, which would reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from industrial smokestacks.    This is against the international climate treaty negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, and reflects the way that America conducts its business.    Fear of eliminating jobs and driving up electricity prices was the short term issue.    President Bush has reversed the regulation of industrial carbon dioxide emissions and withdrew the U.S. from the Kyoto treaty of 1997.
• 11/4/2003 - EPA rules on sewer discharge to conform - Some plants faced heavier burdens following a storm - by John Heilprin, The Associated Press.
      Washington - The EPA said it will formalize a policy allowing sewage-treatment plants to skip a process (oxidation of pollutants) for killing some pathogens after heavy rains or snow melts.    The bottom line is to avoid $90 billion or more in facility upgrades.    Hopefully this will not increase the chance of waterborne disease outbreaks (viruses and parasites into drinking and swimming water).
• 11/14/2003 - EPA study warns of wood treated with arsenic by The Washington Post.
      Washington - A new EPA study concludes that children coming into contact with common playground equipment and decks made of arsenic-treated wood face increased risk of developing cancer.    The products are being taken off the shelves, but is still in many public playgrounds and back yards.    Arsenic is a known carcinogen, and coming into contact with the preservative, chromated copper arsenate, could develop a risk of cancer of the lungs, bladder or skin.
• 12/3/2003 - Sewage into cash - MSD to sell 'biosolid' pellets as fertilizer - Some groups fear effects on health - by Joe Follick, The Courier-Journal.
      Metropolitan Sewer District has received state approval to begin peddling their "pelletized biosolids" product, even though it contains heavy metals such as arsenic, cadium and copper.    They produce 80 tons of dried pellets/fertilizer daily from treated sewage, which was going to landfills.    It is being proposed as used to fuel coal burning plants.
      Opponents say that hundreds of chemicals are going into the sewer and are not monitored by the EPA or the states, and presented a case in Georgia, where cows had died after eating hay grown on land treated with processed sewage, but noted as the wet sludge, not pellets.    Most likely we are already putting (sewage) treatment byproducts on our soil at home without knowing it, referring to Milwaukee's Milorganite.
• 12/4/2003 - EPA plan eases rules on Mercury - Power plants could forgo latest controls.
      Washington - The Bush administration defended a proposal to reduce mercury emissions that doesn't require all power plants to install the latest pollution controls.    The EPA plan would allow utilities to buy and sell emission credits, which could create mercury "hot spots" still harmful to the public health.
      Kentucky and Indiana both rely on coal production and produce the nation's largest quantities of mercury emissions.    EPA's Toxics Release Inventory puts Indiana as 4th (5,728 pounds in 2001), Kentucky as 8th (3,796 pounds), and of course Bush's state of Texas number 1 (8,992pounds).    The proposal would cap mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants nationwide at 34 tons a year by 2010, a reduction of 30 percent from current levels, and would be cut to 15 tons by 2018 (a 70% cut).
      Mercury contamination nationally has been a growing problem for fishing in contaminated waters.    The CDC warned that one in 12 women of childbearing age carry levels of mercury in their bodies that are unsafe for a developing fetus.    Mercury is a persistent substance that affects the nervous system and is dangerous for pregnant women and children.    Although 40 percent of mercury emissions come from the smoke stacks of coal-burning power plants, those emissions have never been regulated as a pollutant.
      Mercury is a naturally occurring element found throughout the environment.    Metallic mercury and its related compounds are toxic, and exposure to excessive levels can permanently damage or fatally injure the brain and kidneys.    Organic forms of mercury, such as methyl mecury, are considered the most toxic.
      Burning coal and using mercury in manufacturing have increased the amount of mercury in the atmosphere, soil and waterways.    Mercury from burning coal finds its way into water, where bacteria convert it to methyl mercury, which accumulates and concentrates within the food chain.
      Merry mercury Christmas from the Bush administration, you will be receiving unhealthy levels of mercury contamination this year in the "hot spots."    By the way the energy industry gave more than $48 million to Republicans in the 2000 campaign.    Besides this broke or revised a Clinton era proposal.
• 12/14/2003 - Town's leukemia outbreak a mystery by Daniel Q. Haney, The Associated Press.
      Fallon, Nev. - A nurse who gives chemotherapy at the community hospital realized something terrible was happening to children of Fallon.    Barbara de Braga proposed to several doctors that they may have a cancer cluster going on.    Leukemia cases were popping up at accelerated rates, and little is known about what causes the disease.    Some think exposure to radiation in the womb or early childhood can contribute.    But for most cases, there is no clear answer.
      During the 1960s and 70s, the CDC investigated 108 cancer clusters around the United States, most of them childhood leukemia, in hope of proving that a virus, a chemical or some other contaminant caused the disease.    In the end, they found nothing.    Since then it remains a mystery.    The Fallon outbreak was especially sudden and large, resulting in an inquiry and an intensive investigation ever into a cancer cluster.    Hundreds of experts from seven states and federal agencies were involved to solve this.
      After all the information had been analyzed and reviewed, only three things seemed to make Fallon unique:
  • Its municipal water has among the country's highest levels of naturally occurring arsenic, 10 times federal standards.
    • Even though testing of some of the victims wells found off-the-charts amounts, eight times higher that the town water, they found nothing that suggested a sudden surge in cancer.
  • A pipeline carries jet fuel across the desert to Fallon's Navy air base.
    • No trace of jet fuel was found in the water.
  • And 40 years earlier, an underground nuclear test was done just 30 miles away.
    • The only radioative material was slight amounts of the natural kind, not bomb remnants.
      After this they took blood and urine samples, dug soil from yards, vacuumed dust and took air samples.    They first looked for biological causes, such as benzene and similar solvents.    Then checked for volatile organic compounds, pesticides, metals, PCBs, radioactive material and viruses.
      Eventually, all the testing revealed a surprise.    Screening volunteers' urine for 16 metals, they found incredibly high levels of tungsten (used to increase the hardness of steel for cutting tools and for electric-lamp filaments).    No one knew what to make of it.    But eventually it, too, was ruled out.
      The bottom line is after all these test, the cancer families had virtually the same exposure to these things as did healthy neighbors.    Nobody knows why the cancer occurred.
      Because cancer has many possible origins, including random genetic mutations, there is no way to say what caused an individual's disease or their one-in-a-trillion tests could not detect it.
  
      Comment: It is possible that it has affected our society in that people in this world now are experiencing extreme sexual and psychological perversion in their heads, that may have been caused by our bodies being polluted by all of the above mentioned.    Remember to the Romans it was lead poisoning.
  
  
• 1/27/2004 - MSD proposal for selling sludge as fertilizer gets agency support by James Bruggers, The Courier-Journal.
      The Metropolitan Sewer District's plan to sell treated sludge in pellet form called "Louisville Green" for use as a fertilizer has received a big boost from the Kentucky Division of Waste Management, which has found that it does "not pose an unacceptable risk" to people or the environment.    There were concerns that concentrations of certain hydrocarbon chemicals in the material exceed certain EPA long-term health screening levels, but the claim is they will break down when exposed to sunlight and air, if only used on lawns and gardens at appropriate rates.    It still needs an approval by the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture's Division of Regulatory Services to be sold as a fertilizer and how it is labeled.    MSD produces 80 tons a day of sludge called biosolids, which were sent to a landfill at a cost of $600,000 a year.    The biosolids may contain trace amounts of heavy metals and organic chemicals, and was also considered as potential use as a power-plant fuel, which burned could send potentially unhealthy pollutants into the atmosphere or damage a plant's pollution controls.
• 2/7/2004 - Many state officials say EPA rules spur pollution by Associated Press.
      Washington - Most state environmental officials believe the Bush administration's proposed changes to clean air rules will result in more air pollution, according to a survey by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress.    The results were 27 of 44 state offices responding to its survey believe the Environmental Protection Agency's new regulations regarding when old coal-burning power plants do or don't have to install new pollution controls will result in more pollution.    That belief contradicts the EPA's determination that the rule will decrease emissions.
• 3/7/2004 - With Bush in office, mountaintop miners' hopes rise by Jeff Donn, Associated Press.
      Bob White, W.Va. - With a boost from President Bush, central Appalachia's mountaintop coal miners are embracing the future again, flagging more of the region's ancient summits for blasting and more of its hollows for fill-in than in many years.    Many residents only see a 300-foot-high pile of waste earth plugging the valley like a giant cork with green water collecting in two settling ponds.    The mountain is gone, where quail use to live in the forest and herbs were plentiful for homemade medicines.    The administration has eviscerated environmental protections in lieu of coal output.
• 3/19/2004 - British wildlife study raises fear of yet another global extinction by Paul Recer, Associated Press.
      Washington - A steep decline in birds, butterflies and native plants in Britain supports the theory that humans are pushing the world into the Earth's sixth big extinction event.    More than 20,000 researchers in England, Scotland and Wales surveyed wildlife and plants and found that many native populations are in big trouble and some have disappeared.    Butterflies have experience a 71 percent decline since 1970, and birds at about 54 percent.    After 40 years native plant species have decreased by 28 percent.    Past extinctions have killed off more than 90 percent of all life forms, and such as the Crtaceous-Tertiary event some 63 million years ago killed the dinosaurs and allowed the rise of mammals.    So the idea that the rise of humans over tens of thousands of years - along with climate changes - is reshaping the natural world in ways that are not understood.    We are in the middle of the sixth extinction event that began about 50,000 years ago.
• 3/20/2004 - Officials warn of tuna dangers - FDA, EPA note mercury hazards for kids, others - by Marc Kaufman, The Washington Post.
      Washington - For the first time, the federal government has warned pregnant and nursing women and young children away from eating more than a limited amount of canned albacore "white" tuna because of potential hazards from mercury in the fish.    Concentrations of mercury are significantly higher in the larger albacore species than in the smaller skipjack, or "chunk light" tuna by consuming less than six ounces per week (one serving).    The high risk group was also advised to avoid shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish because of high mercury levels.
• 3/31/2004 - Strip-mining plan criticized - Activists say method would cause pollution - by James R. Carroll and Alan Maimon, The Courier-Journal.
      Environmentalists and community activists urged federal officials to abandon a proposal allowing mountaintop coal mining to pollute streams with rocks and debris.    They claim that in Clay County, Hazard, Ky., the mountain is gone, the trees are gone, and the creek oozes yellow, a product of tapping needed coal reserves faster.    Kentucky has issued 395 mountaintop mining permits between 1982 and 2000.    Although new laws in effect are suppose to prevent this from happening and make mountaintop mining economically feasible.    Critics calim the new laws just make it easier for coal companies to clear-cut forests, blow up mountains and bury hundreds of miles of streams under enormous piles of mining waste.
• 4/2/2004 - EPA asked to toughen mercury plan by H. Josef Herbert, Associated Press.
      Washington - The Bush administration's plan for reducing mercury emissions by 70 percent by 2018 from coal-burning power plants came under criticism on two fronts as nearly half of the Senate and 10 states urged the EPA to propose stronger requirements.    EPA could let some companies buy pollution credits from utilities rather than substantially cutting contaminants.    Mercury, a toxic substance, can cause neurological and developmental problems, especially in children.    Once in the environment mercury can remain an active toxin for thousands of years.    Power plants account for 48 tons of mercury a year, and these emissions are unregulate.
• 4/7/2004 - The Mercury Scandal by Paul Krugman, The New York Times.
      About 8 percent of American women have more mercury in their bloodstream than the EPA considers safe.    In 2000 the EPA determined that mercury is a hazardous substance as defined by the Clean Air Act, which requires that such substances be strictly controlled, and enforced a 90 percent reduction in power-plant mercury emissions by 2008.    A few months ago, however, the Bush administration reversed this determination and proposed a "cap-and-trade" system for mercury that it claimed would lead to a 70 percent reduction by 2018.    This also includes sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain, a light substance that travels long distances.    Mercury is heavy and travels to the ground near the source creating "hot spots" or chemical Chernobyls, where it does the most harm.    So the foxes are in charge of the henhouse, who are donors to the Republican administration and write the regulations.
• 5/15/2004 - Half-million PCB-laden fish to be destroyed by AP.
      Helena, Mont. - State wildlife officials plan to destroy nearly a half-million farm-raised trout and salmon that became contaminated with PCBs, apparently from paint used at Montana's largest hatchery.    The PCB-laden paint was applied more than 25 years ago to the walls of the fish tanks at the Big Springs Trout Hatchery in Lewistown, where the trout and salmon are raised to help stock lakes along the Missouri River.    PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls were put to a variety of industrial uses up until the 1970s, before studies suggested they can cause cancer.
• 6/1/2004 - Plants missing mercury to be investigated by EPA by The Washington Post.
      Washington - The EPA is looking at a handful of U.S. chemical plants that cannot account for as much as 65 tons of mercury they might be releasing into the environment each year.    The nine chlorine manufacturers that utilize techniques dating to the 1950s have denied that they release enough of the toxic substance to endanger public health.    The claim is that they are posing a more serious health threat than the nation's 11,000 coal-fired power plants that emit 48 tons of mercury every year.    The process of using mercury to turn salt into chlorine gas and caustic soda became popular after World War II in Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
• 6/21/2004 - Toxic flame-retardant exposure is unavoidable, research finds by Marla Cone, Los Angeles Times.
      Toxic flame retardants, which are building up at a rapid pace in people's bodies throughout the United States and Canada, are being spread by an array of store-bought foods (fish, meat and fowl) as well as dust inside homes and offices, scientists have discovered.    This is a continous exposure with no way to control it, except for being outside.    It was created by chemical companies to make hard plastic and polyurethane foam less flammable, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, are added to computers, TVs, furniture cushions, upholstery textiles, carpet backings, mattresses, cars, buses, aircraft and construction materials.    PBDEs build up in fatty tissues and may in time affect brain growth, alter estrogen hormones, affecting male fertility and ovary development.
• 6/23/2004 - 2 groups question pollution reporting -study cites lack of true monitoring - by James Bruggers, Courier-Journal.
      Industrial plants across the country might be under-reporting their toxic emissions by as much as 16 percent (330 million pounds from 10 chemicals) according to two environmental groups.    The companies base their reports on computer calculations and modeling, using estimations by the polluters who have incentive to keep the numbers as low as possible.
• 6/23/2004 - Toxic ingredient of rocket fuel found in milk in California by Marla Cone, Los Angeles Times.
      Out of 33 samples of well-known brands of milk purchased in Los Angeles and Orange counties, the Environmental Working Group found the chemical perchlorate in all but one.    Perchlorate, the explosive component of rocket fuel, has leaked from aerospace companies and military bases and contaminated water supplies in 29 states, including the lower Colorado River, which supplies much of southern California's drinking water and irrigates the farmland in California and Arizona.    In children perchlorate can disrupt thyroid hormones that regulate brain development, and it has never been regulated by federal or state agencies.
• 6/24/2004 - Chemicals in toys, nail polish raise flags by Shari Roan, Los Angeles Times.
      Chemicals called phthalates are in everything from toys and vinyl flooring to food packaging and pharmaceutical products.    They make plastics more flexible, nail polish more spreadable and creams and lotions smoother.    Environmental activists have been trying for years to get the chemical banned or labels warning consumers of their presence.    Studies in animals have shown that phthalates increase the risk of reproductive system birth defects in males, such as testicular atrophy, and may cause some types of cancer.    The substance mimics estrogen in the body.    The industries claim that the minimum amount that humans are exposed to is not harmful.
• 6/25/2004 - Cows sickened by chromium - FDA uncertain how contact occurred - by Melanthia Mitchell, Associated Press.
      Seattle - FDA has identified a chromium 6 compound, a tacky, reddish-brown substance, that killed three diary cows, same cancer-causing compound that was investigated by activist Erin Brockovich.    Chromium 6 is used by pharmaceutical and chemical companies to make new materials and by heavy industrial operations to clean aluminum and glass, and used in nutritional supplements to glass cleaners.    The FDA is uncertain how the the compound which is not used in the dairy industry got to them.    Ten cows became sick and three died, their backs had blistered from exposure to it.
• 7/11/2004 - Whale incident highlights battle over sonar - Enviromentalists say Navy harming marine mammals - by Mark Kaufman, The Washington Post.
      Washington - As many as 200 melon-headed whales were swimming in a tight circle 100 feet from the beach of Hanalei Bay on the Hawaiian island of Kauai showing clear signs of stress.    The locals did everything they could to keep the whales from beaching and helped herd the animals back out to sea.    They blamed the Navy and its use of active sonar - a wall of sound sent out to find underwater objects that can reach the decibel levels of a jet engine.    Just before this occurred six Navy ships 20 miles at sea had begun a sonar exercize.    Sonar has been implicated in several recent mass whale strandings around the world.
• 7/19/2004 - Frog population is declining - Deadly fungus among threats - by Jane E. Brody, The New York Times.
      For 180 million years frogs have been playing an important role in life, such as eating mosquitos, and supply food to fish and water birds.    Frogs worldwide are in an accelerating decline possibly due to habitat destruction, toxic chemicals, invasive species, climate change and depletion of the ozone layer, as well as food for humans.    A new source of threat from emerging pathogens, a fungus known as Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis is linked to their possible extinction in North and Central America and Australia.
• 8/25/2004 - Fish in one-third of U.S. lakes not safe to eat - EPA says advisories issued in 48 states - by John Heilprin, Associated Press.
      Washington - One of every three lakes in the United States and nearly one-quarter of the nation's rivers contain so much pollution that people should limit or avoid eating fish caught there.    Every state but Alaska and Wyoming issued fish advisories due to more monitoring according to the EPA.    The advisories involved contaminants such as mercury, dioxins, PCBs, pesticides and heavy metals, including arsenic, copper and lead.    This does not cover deep-sea commercial fishing or fish farming operations.    The critics of the Bush administration include environmentalists groups such as the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Federation and Natural Resources Defense Council, who want stricter limits imposed on mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants.
• 9/10/2004 - Dupont offers to settle W. Va. contamination suit by AP.
      Dupont agreed to pay as much as $343 million to settle a class-action suit from 60,000 residents alleging a chemical plant contaminated drinking water in West Virginia and Ohio with a key ingredient of Teflon.    The residents around its Washington Works plant on the Ohio River near Parkersburg sued over exposure to C8, a chemical also known as ammonium perfluorooctanoate or PFOA.
• 9/13/2004 - Researchers discover drugs in fish tissue by AP.
      Antidepressants, birth control drugs and other medications are surfacing in fish tissue and are in some cases causing neurological, biochemical and physiological changes, according to Baylor University researchers.    The study is the first of its kind of organisms that recieve large amounts of wastewater from municipal sources done by Bryan Brooks, assistant professor of environmental studies at Baylor University's Center for Resovoir and Aquatic Systems Research performed in Waco, Texas in forensic tests on fish and invertebrates.
• 9/21/2004 - Airline water fails EPA standards by AP.
      Nearly one of every eight passenger airliners tested by the EPA carried drinking water that fails its standard because it contains coliform bacteria.
• 11/21/2004 - Scientists say more study is needed on fish toxins by Mort Rosenblum, Associated Press.
      Sete, France - Industrial waste is everywhere, from ancient Mediterranean towns to city docks in Asia, from America's Gulf ports to harbors in Nordic waters.    Fish are rich in omega-3 fatty acids vital to the heart and brain, but the uncontrolled buildup of toxins in fish is now getting in the human body.    Authorities are caught between wanting to inform the public while not damaging consumer confidence in a healthy food source.    We are just starting to realizing the chemical soup that we live in, as pollution is now worldwide.    One study claims that 5 percent of methyl mercury permeated the world's oceans and ended up in fish.
• 11/21/2004 - Study links Swedish cancer cases to Chernobyl nuclear accident by Mattias Karen, Associated Press.
      Stockholm, Sweden - More than 800 people in northern Sweden might have cancer as a result of the fallout that spewed over the region after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986, according to a study of 1.1 million people by Swedish scientists.    Of the 22,400 cancer cases 849 can be statistically attributed to the event.    Critics say that the radiation dosage was too low to produce this many cancer cases requiring 20 to 50 years.
• 11/25/2004 - Chemicals found in Great Lakes stir fears - Flame retardant could be harmful - by John Heilprin, Associated Press.
      Washington - Concentrations of a flame retardant banned by many European countries have been found in Lake Michigan and are increasing, adding to concerns that the chemicals were showing up in foods and women's breast milk.    In the latest study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, University of Wisconsin scientists found polybromidnated diphenyl ethers in sediment hundreds of feet down in Lake Michigan.    Fish and other animals absorb chemicals and pollutants through the environment, storing them in fat that people eat.    This chemical can cause liver and thyroid damage, and is showing up all over the world.    It is suspected to have gotten into the lake through the air.    It is used in plastics used in computers, TVs, furniture and carpets.
• 12/14/2004 - West Virginia warns about consuming game fish caught in state - Mercury, dioxins and PCBs found - by Brian Farkas, Associated Press.
      Charleston, W.Va. - West Virginians were warned to limit their consumption of game fish caught in state waterways to avoid possible mercury, dioxin and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) contamination.    West Virginia is the nation's second-largest coal producer, and more than a dozen coal-fired power plants, which mercury comes from atmospheric deposition.
  

Last updated January 27, 2004 and January 31, 2006.