Aerial spraying in California put public at risk

In the Open Forum at SF Gate, Mike Lynberg writes that “Aerial pesticide spraying put people at risk.”

Lynberg is referring to the spraying that occured in the fall of 2007 when the State of California sprayed pesticides over Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties to control the potentially invasive Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM). Thousands of Californians participated in a grass roots effort called Stop the Spray, and asked Governor Schwarzenegger to investigate the health complaints and end the LBAM Eradication Program. And in June 2008, the State announced a moratorium on aerial spray of urban areas. However, according to the Stop the Spray website, the LBAM Eradication Program still continues with the use of controversial toxic ground treatments and aerial pesticide spray of rural/mountainous areas.

Writes Lynberg:

The state’s long-awaited report on the human health risks of aerial pesticide spraying for the light brown apple moth was released last week. The report says what thousands of outraged people from Monterey to Marin County had feared: the product sprayed put some people at risk.

“We cannot exclude the possibility that one or more ingredients in the LBAM product could cause an allergic response in sensitive individuals,” reads the report, issued by the Department of Pesticide Regulation, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, and the Department of Public Health.

The report acknowledges that some of the ailments suffered by people in the Monterey and Santa Cruz areas - namely asthma and reactive airway disease - “may be associated with exposure to a sensitizer or allergen.”

[...]

Seventy-four doctors filed pesticide illness reports. Several people ended up in emergency rooms.

There is more in the new report to validate the outrage many people felt about aerial spraying. State agencies now say there is a “paucity of data” on long-term exposure to the pesticides. Lab animals were tested for very short periods of time, whereas people in the Monterey and Santa Cruz areas were exposed to chemicals that persisted in the air for 30 to 60 days.

The report also admits that laboratory tests on a small number of animals might not be an adequate predictor of human health effects when large numbers of people - with different levels of sensitivity - are exposed to a pesticide.

Link

Photo from VeganReader.com.

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and truly clean energy

The development of truly clean, green energy is an important issue for people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. While those of us with MCS are forced to eliminate the toxicity of our immediate surroundings and of our basic consumer products as best we can in order to function and be productive, there are people out in the big bad world who are just as dedicated to eliminating toxicity of the larger environment. While the environmental activity of previous decades was more focused on the direct polluting of our air, waterways and soil (and therefore our bodies), the threat of climate change has shifted the focus to a much larger problem. And that larger problem is triggering greener critical mass thinking, finally.

It’s important for those of us with MCS to understand and support the efforts of people like Al Gore, because the environmental trends that are taking root in response to climate change are going to help us in our cause of MCS awareness. As more people become educated and aware of the differences between dirty, polluting energy (the “drill-baby-drill” mind set) vs truly clean, green energy (wind, solar, geothermal), I believe more people will also begin to take a look at the toxicity in their own immediate environment: their homes and places of work, and the food, air, and water they consume. This is all good news for those of us with MCS.

People usually do not change habits without a strong motivation. In the case of those of us with MCS, myself included, we are motivated by health issues to turn toward an organic, nontoxic lifestyle. We have no choice.  Because of our health issue, most of us were way ahead of the greenie curve. We all have adjusted our lifestyle, which has by default lessened our foot print, and we have heralded the call for others to do the same. Of course, those at the front edge of a movement are often seen as the “fringe” element, kooky people not in step with the norm. Well, guess what? The world is catching up with us. Why? Because the toxic paradigm has hit critical mass and is now hitting everyone where it counts: in the pocketbook.

So, what I see happening is the perfect storm, the convergence of several strong micro and macro environmental and social movements, all of which just culminated in the election of a U.S. president who promises Change. Environmentalists, scientists, consumers (especially parents), politicians, and the global marketplace are now pretty much all on the same page, even if for different reasons. And they, along with a growing consensus in the general population, are demanding truly clean, green energy, and along with it, I believe, the elimination of toxic products in the marketplace and thus in our environment and in our bodies.

For those of you who are not already, I’d like to get you in the mood for fully participating in the discussion on alternative energy. To start us off here on The Canary Report, I’d like to share with you a publication from Environment America, a federation of state-based, citizen-funded environmental advocacy organizations. It’s called “Renewing America: A Blueprint for Economic Recovery.” Here’s the Executive Summary below, and here’s where you wonky types can download the full report.

Across the country, Americans are hurting. From the big cities of the coasts to the industrial heartland to our rural communities, the slumping economy is taking its toll in shuttered businesses, disappearing jobs, bankruptcies, foreclosures and an increased sense of anxiety about our collective future.

To revive the American dream, we need to rebuild our economy on a sound foundation—one that puts people back to work, contributes to long-term prosperity, rebuilds our communities, and protects our environment.

There is one path to a renewed economy that achieves all of those goals—one that is increasingly recognized by opinion leaders, politicians, investors and workers as our best chance to work our way out of our current economic troubles, while building a stronger, more self-reliant and environmentally responsible America.

It is the path to a clean energy future.

Clean energy in America is not some distant dream. We have the technology, the tools and the know-how to use energy more wisely and to get more of our energy from clean, renewable sources. What’s more, clean energy can be produced right here at home, creating new jobs in all sectors of the nation’s economy—including many jobs that can never be outsourced.

Americans are already beginning to see the benefits of clean energy in their local economies. Laid-off workers in the nation’s “Rust Belt” are getting back to work building wind turbines and solar cells; farmers in the Midwest are supplementing their incomes with royalties from wind farms; residents of economically distressed inner cities are learning how to install solar panels and weatherize homes for greater energy efficiency. Every part of the country has the opportunity to benefit from a transition to a new energy future.

But to turn this trickle of green jobs into a torrent of new economic opportunities, we need to act boldly—and fast. With a strong policy commitment to clean energy and the investment to match, we can:

• Embrace a future of clean power by making our economy more energy-efficient and getting 100 percent of our electricity from clean, renewable sources.

• Achieve energy independence, by cutting our consumption of oil in half—nearly as much as we currently import from all other nations.

• Speed economic recovery and create millions of new jobs in dozens of different occupations in every part of the country.

This report lays out a blueprint for how we can repower America for the 21st century, cleaning our environment while revitalizing our economy. A new president and a new Congress create a golden opportunity to chart a new future for America. The time to begin is now.

The Prevention Agenda: What say you?

Come join me in the discussion on The Prevention Agenda, a new social network dedicated to helping President Obama focus on preventing pollution, climate change, toxic exposures and other threats to our health and the environment.

I started off my discussion on the site with my Letter to President-Elect Obama.

The host of the discussion is Diane MacEachern. Diane is a heavyweight in environmental activism. Here’s an excerpt of her bio from The World Women Want:

Diane played an integral role in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Change Action Plan, a nationwide program to educate the public about global warming. In addition, Diane was the technical advisor to Earth Quest, a traveling museum exhibit underwritten in part by the Ford Motor Company to educate children about the environment. She also worked with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance to establish the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument during the Clinton Administration.

She has a best-selling book Save Our Planet: 750 Everyday Ways You Can Help Clean Up the Earth that offers hundreds of tips on using energy more efficiently, saving water, avoiding  toxic chemicals, and making smart “environment friendly” shopping decisions.

Come join me in the discussion at The Prevention Agenda! We canaries have a lot to say on the issue.

Organic dairyman uses birds for pest control

Another wonderful and creative way to control pests without the use of toxic pesticides.

A long string of pink bird houses line the Bansen dairy farm. Not merely for decoration, these bird houses provide nesting grounds for the swallows that feed on flies, using nature to control insect pests naturally.

Link

Five green Obama dreams from Zaproot

From Zaproot.

Yes, we can change. Obama wins the presidential election and here are our top 5 green dreams for 2009. Zero Pollutions Motors creates the car of the future, and it runs on air. And, check out the latest in Green Gadgets.

Erin Brockovich investigates brain tumor cluster

Erin Brockovich, the environmental activist portrayed by Julia Roberts in an Oscar-winning movie, met with people in Cameron Monday night. KMBC-News clip:

Report at MyCameronNews.com:

Brockovich speaks to Cameron residents concerned about brain tumors

Approximately 200 Residents of Cameron, Mo. gathered in the gymnasium of the Cameron High School in the hopes that community activist Erin Brockovich would lead them to answers. After feeling unsatisfied with answers from government agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, Missouri Department of Health, the Center for Disease Control and the Department of Natural Resources who stated that the number of brain tumors in the area were below statistical rates, Brockovich was welcomed with open arms in hopes of finding a reason for the community’s recent health scare.

Brockovich opened her town hall meeting by stating, “I won’t have all of the answers you are looking for tonight. It will take a long time to find out what is causing the problem here. But I can say that I am very uncomfortable with what I am learning.”

Link to full story at MyCameronNews.

Breast cancer survivor battles pesticide overspray

OMG, look at what this poor couple has to put up with! And the husband says his wife is chemically sensitive (I think the plea below is written by the wife). I feel so sorry for these people! If this is happening to you, you need to call the authorities, call the cops, call your local pesticide control authorities. Find out what the law in your state says about overspray and then take action. No one should have to put up with this!

HELP! Our neighbor values a green lawn more than a life! They constantly have their yard, trees and shrubs sprayed with pesticides. Pesticides that are on the EPA’s list of endocrine disruptors.

We have a pesticide free yard and organic garden. Every month, we have to cover my garden and fruit trees to keep the lawn care company from over-spraying onto our garden and fruit trees. This last time, I caught them spraying full blast and it coming through the fence that clearly divides our property lines. I stopped them just short of spraying my honeysuckle vines that cascade over the fence.

They know I am pesticide sensitive and am trying to keep the spray off my yard. The lawn care company boasts they have the right to do this!!! And that they can spray anything that is on the neighbor’s side of the fence and that our concern for over-spray is not substantiated. They are saying I do not have the right to a pesticide-free yard!!!

We must go cry out to our city, county, state and federal governments to get over-spraying to be illegal. Every homeowner in America should have the right to NOT HAVE HARMFUL CHEMICALS SPRAYED ON THEIR LAWNS VIA THEIR NEIGHBOR! Help me start this fight! After all, the tomato you pick from your organic garden may have the pesticides from your neighbor on it. Do you feel safe feeding it to your children?

Contact the Governor of Colorado, Bill Ritter and tell him Bev Veals wants Residential Pesticide Use Guidelines! I am a 9-year, two-time, advanced stage breast cancer survivor. PLEASE HELP ME OUT!!! E-mail: beepesticidefree@mac.com

Link

UPDATE: Drat! Their email beepesticidefree@mac.com is not working, the email I sent them was rejected by the recipient domain.

Why I boycott Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Beware: Breast Cancer Awareness Month turns breast cancer into just another marketing campaign

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and before the month runs out, I’d like to add my two cents to the discussion.

Rather than jumping on the very popular pink bandwagon, I boycott all breast cancer “awareness” and pink ribbon campaigns, subscribing to a CAUSE not CURE approach to the epidemic of breast cancer.

My highly critical view of Breast Cancer Awareness Month is along the lines of  Samantha King’s, who, in her book Pink Ribbons, Inc., “traces how breast cancer has been transformed from a stigmatized disease and individual tragedy to a market-driven industry of survivorship.” King maintains that corporations,  under the guise of philanthropy, “turn their formidable promotion machines on the curing of the disease while dwarfing public health prevention efforts and stifling the calls for investigation into why and how breast cancer affects such a vast number of people.” I couldn’t agree more.

I also fully support Breast Cancer Action, an organization based in San Francisco helping to transform breast cancer from a private medical crisis to a public health emergency. And I love their Think Before You Pink campaign that “calls for more transparency and accountability by companies that take part in breast cancer fundraising, and encourages consumers to ask critical questions about pink ribbon promotions.” Think Before You Pink also highlights “pinkwashers”—companies that “purport to care about breast cancer by promoting a pink ribbon campaign, but manufacture products that are linked to the disease.”

In the spirit of focusing on CAUSE not CURE, Rita Arditti at CommonDreams.org today writes about “Why Cancer’s Gaining on Us,” making the case about the rise in breast cancer coinciding with the flood of synthetic chemicals in our environment since the 1950s, calling for research into any possible links.

“Is there definitive evidence that these substances cause breast cancer?” she asks. “Have they been sufficiently studied? Well, no. We need to know more about the timing, duration, and patterns of exposure, which may be as important as dosage.”

Don’t miss that the chemicals she lists as examples are some of the very same chemicals to which those of us with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity react negatively.

Since World War II, the proliferation of synthetic chemicals has gone hand-in-hand with the increased incidence of breast cancer. About 80,000 synthetic chemicals are used today in the United States, and their number increases by about 1,000 each year. Only about 7 percent of them have been screened for their health effects. These chemicals can persist in the environment and accumulate in our bodies. According to a recent review by the Silent Spring Institute in Newton, 216 chemicals and radiation sources cause breast cancer in animals.

Nearly all of the chemicals cause mutations, and most cause tumors in multiple organs and animal species, findings that are generally believed to indicate they likely cause cancer in humans. Yet few have been closely studied by regulatory bodies. There is concern about benzene, which is in gasoline; polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are in air pollution from vehicle exhaust, tobacco smoke, and charred foods; ethylene oxide, which is widely used in medical settings; and methylene chloride, a common solvent in paint strippers and glues.

That’s where we should be focusing, not on the pretty ribbon in a feel-good color that pops up on the calendar once a year.

Link to photo of metastatic cancer cells by euthman on flickr

UPDATE: I forgot to include that I am a breast cancer survivor.

Earthjustice seeks tougher regulations for vinyl manufacturers

Many cancer-causing toxins from vinyl manufacturers remain unregulated.

Dig this: The Clean Air Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to set emission standards for each hazardous air pollutant PVC plants emit. But the EPA in 2002 set standards for just one: vinyl chloride. This means emissions of dioxins, chromium, lead, chlorine, and hydrogen chloride – substances associated with a wide variety of serious adverse health effects including cancer – are entirely unregulated.

Worse, monitoring conducted by the EPA shows PVC plants have emitted concentrations of vinyl chloride at more than 120 times higher than the ambient air standard. And still, the EPA does nothing to protect the public. Says Marti Sinclair, Chair of Sierra Club’s National Air Committee, “We’re left with little choice but to bring this matter before a judge.”

Washington, DC — Citizens in communities affected by cancer-causing air pollution from vinyl manufacturers went to court today to ask the federal government to regulate the host of toxins released from these plants.The nonprofit public interest law firm Earthjustice filed the lawsuit today in federal district court in Washington, DC, on behalf of the Sierra Club and two community groups in Louisiana – Mossville Environmental Action Now (MEAN) and Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN).

Each year, PVC plants pump some 500,000 pounds of vinyl chloride – a known human carcinogen – and many other toxins into the atmosphere. In spite of the documented effects of these cancer-causing chemicals, the federal government has bowed to pressure to keep the PVC industry’s air emissions largely unregulated.

Mossville, Louisiana, with its four vinyl production facilities, including two major vinyl chloride manufacturers, is considered the unofficial PVC capitol of America. Mossville residents Edgar Mouton and Dorothy Felix have spent much of the past decade fighting to protect their families from the cancer-causing chemicals raining down upon their community.

“We’re being hit from the north, south, east, and west. Every time the wind changes, we get a lungful of pollution from some other plant.” said Edgar Mouton, a Mossville resident and retired chemical plant employee. “These chemicals end up in our water, our gardens, our children’s bodies. Each day we hear about someone in our community being diagnosed with cancer or another illness. We’re taking legal action so that we might live to see some improvements for ourselves and our community.”

Louisiana is home to six of the nation’s 21 plants manufacturing polyvinyl chloride, commonly known as PVC or vinyl. Six more plants are located in Texas. The remaining plants are found in New Jersey, Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Oklahoma.

“Air pollution from PVC plants is a serious problem in Louisiana. In Baton Rouge alone, we have four of these plants and they’re talking about building a fifth,” said Gary Miller an engineer with Louisiana Environmental Action Network. “This is one of our region’s most toxic industries. It only makes sense that it be subject to correspondingly strong rules.”

Link to full story at Earth Justice

Bottled water is bad news

Bottled water is a big, nasty corporate business and may contain disinfection byproducts, fertilizer residue, and pain medication.

Bottled water is bad news for many different reasons. Many brands are contaminated with things you really do not want to be putting in your body, the discarded plastic bottles are polluting the environment, and too many companies who are bottling the water are greedy corporations without a thought to their impact on the environment or the rural communities surrounding their plants.

Take a look at some of the problems with bottled water.

A new EWG study shows that bottled water is polluted with a range of contaminants, including many of the same chemical pollutants typical in municipal tap water supplies. Laboratory tests – conducted for EWG at one of the country’s leading water quality laboratories – found that ten popular brands of bottled water, purchased from grocery stores and other retailers in nine states and the District of Columbia, contained 38 chemical pollutants altogether, with an average of 8 contaminants in each brand.

Two of ten brands tested, Walmart’s and Giant’s store brands, bore the chemical signature of standard municipal water treatment — a cocktail of chlorine disinfection byproducts at concentrations that exceeded legal limits and industry-sponsored voluntary safety standards. Four brands were also contaminated with bacteria. These results show that consumers should have no confidence in the purity of the bottled water they buy. If the water at the source is contaminated, so will be the water in the bottle. And bottled water production itself can contribute additional chemical pollutants.

Read full EWG blog post at Enviroblog

Read full EWG press release on the bottled water study

Read full report on EWG Bottled Water Quality Investigation

And take a look at comments to Enviroblog’s post:

[Comment] Your study on Bottle Water is coming under fire for bad research methodologies. I hope you will be able to clear all this up or it could seriously damage your organizations credibility. Link to the news story.

[Answer] To see EWG response to the statements from the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA), “IBWA Claims Tests Show No Contaminants, But Test Results Nowhere to Be Found,” go to link.

Note that the “expert” at Yale, Stephen Edberg, who refuted the EWG study for “bad research methodologies,” works as a consultant to the International Bottled Water Association and Nestle Waters North America. Nestle is accused by environmental and community groups for damaging water tables and ripping apart rural communities in the areas where they have their plants. Stop Nestle Waters says:

Why are we targeting Nestle Waters?

• Because Nestle’s predatory tactics in rural communities divide small towns and pit residents against each other.
• Because Nestle reaps huge profits from the water they extract from rural communities - which are left to deal with the damage to watersheds, increases in pollution and the loss of their quiet rural lifestyle
• Because Nestle has a pattern of bludgeoning small communities and opponents with lawsuits and interfering in local elections to gain control of local water supplies.
• Because the environmental consequences of bottled water on our atmosphere, watersheds and landfills are simply too big to ignore.
• Because no international corporation should have the right to pilfer the public’s water for profit.

And if you want to blow your mind about the problems of discarded plastic on the environment, go visit Fake Plastic Fish.

Best solution in regards to your drinking water? Drink filtered tap water and use a glass or stainless steel container when you are on the go.

Photo and graphic design by CowGummy at flickr

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, still relevant in 2008

It was the ruthless destruction of that idyll of rural America that formed the basis of a work that has been rightly hailed as giving birth to the modern environmental movement.

It’s nice to see Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring (1962) still being reviewed and heralded as an important work, “a work that has been rightly hailed as giving birth to the modern environmental movement.”

It’s bittersweet reading a review given in the context of 2008, and the reviewer’s assertion, “If Rachel Carson’s book has a central message today, it is that every action has its consequences, for in poisoning the world, we poisoned ourselves.”

Rachel Carson was a marine biologist who was only reluctantly drawn into researching [the impact of pesticides being aerially sprayed across North America], and at the time she penned her epic work, she was already suffering from the cancer that would, just two years later, take her life.

She begins Silent Spring with these words: “There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings.”

It was the ruthless destruction of that idyll of rural America that formed the basis of a work that has been rightly hailed as giving birth to the modern environmental movement.

Carson’s ability to make science understandable was formidable.

I have never read as simple or elegant an explanation of chemical composition as she provides for the organochlorides, the group to which the 200-odd chemicals that were then destroying her country belonged.

It was not just nature that was suffering.

Carson carefully details many instances of fatal human poisonings. A farmer’s wife was poisoned after her husband sprayed. A baby and a small dog died after returning to a house where endrin had been used to kill cockroaches.

In some programs, half the men who sprayed DDT for the World Health Organization suffered convulsions and death.

Link to full book review

Call of the honey bees

A mysterious and frightening occurrence called colony collapse disorder is zapping bee hives. One week the beekeeper will visit his or her hives and find the bees healthy and robust, and the next week return and discover that every single bee has disappeared. What is happening to the bees?

Ever since Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring” first warned us against the dangers of chemicals in our natural world—we seem to be entering a new, more dangerous period, where the accumulated human effects upon the environment are producing an obvious toll. In this story, another human soul speaks out, this time, about the plight of the honeybees.

Link

What can [you] as a member of the public do to help honey bees?

The best action you can take to benefit honey bees is to not use pesticides indiscriminately, especially not to use pesticides at mid-day when honey bees are most likely to be out foraging for nectar.

In addition, you can plant and encourage the planting of good nectar sources such as red clover, foxglove, bee balm, and joe-pye weed. For more information, see www.nappc.org.]

Link

The Pesticide Trap

Unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable.

The story of Anan, a peasant farmer in southern India caught up in the vicious cycle of pesticide-dependent cotton growing.

Link

Italian footballers’ deaths linked to chemicals

Medical investigators in Italy think they’ve found a link between chemicals used on football fields and the high incidence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, more commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease, among football players.

THE deaths of a growing number of Italian footballers from a rare and debilitating disease may be due to pesticides and fertilisers used on pitches in the 1980s and ’90s, an Italian magistrate has claimed.

Fifty-one professional and amateur players have now died from it, six times the average in the general population, said the Turin magistrate Raffaele Guariniello, who has run checks on every man who played in the top three divisions from the 1960s to 2006.

On Wednesday night, Roberto Baggio, Ruud Gullit and Franco Baresi played a charity game in Florence organised by the latest sufferer, former Milan, Fiorentina and Italy striker Stefano Borgonovo, 44.

Now paralysed and speaking with a computer-generated voice, Borgonovo is raising funds for research into the nerve-wasting condition known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or more commonly Lou Gehrig’s disease after the US baseball player who died of it in 1941. “I want to find the penicillin of 2008,” said Borgonovo, who scored the goal that put Milan into the 1990 European Cup final.

In Turin, investigators have identified heading the ball as well as doping, including the use of legal anti-inflammatory drugs, as possible triggers for the disease among the footballers, typically those who played for more than five seasons in Italy during the 1980s and ’90s.

Guariniello said the fertilisers used to treat pitches were also in the spotlight. “We are interviewing retired groundsmen and analysing chemicals they used, including those containing formaldehyde,” he said. “There could be a connection with the incidence of this disease among agricultural workers.”

Link to full story at The Sydney Morning Herald

Link to photo by Marcio at Flickr

Plastic sucks

I was raising a stink about plastics way before any of us knew about the dangers of BPA. I’ve carried my portable water with me in glass bottles for over 15 years because I cannot tolerate the taste of water that’s been stored in a plastic bottle, pleh!

But that’s not the only problem with plastic. Beth over at Fake Plastic Fish is dedicating her blogging life to the elimination of plastic because it’s not only bad for people, it’s bad for the planet: every scrap, every single molecule of plastic ever made still exists somewhere on the planet, a huge amount of which is floating around in the ocean as a big huge gross Plastic Island. Beth says:

What’s wrong with plastic anyway?

Good question. Here are some answers:

• Plastic is made from oil… This post lists the main problems with plastic from creation to disposal and beyond.
• Is your water cooler messing with your hormones? A post about the problems of #7 polycarbonate plastic.
• Woman Drinks Wine… Why plastic wine corks and screw caps are problems for the environment.
• …The Perils of PVC. What’s PVC and why should we avoid it?
• And here’s a link to a PDF version of the IATP Smart Plastics Guide, which lists the different types of plastics and explains which ones are the most harmful and why.

Link

Video snitched from Fake Plastic Fish

Our lichen kin are in trouble

Lichens may be canary in the coal mine

SEVEN-MILE HILL, Ore. — On a bluff overlooking The Dalles, Ore., and the east end of the Columbia River Gorge, Forest Service scientist Linda Geiser [at left] and two assistants climb out of their rig and set to work.

Geiser and graduate student Peter Nelson begin dismantling black plastic tubes called passive samplers that have gathered data on the nitrogen content of rain and fog at the site for the past three years.

Grad student Larissa Lasselle grabs two sample bags and heads downhill into a thicket of ponderosa pine and oak. Her job: to collect lichens from tree branches for laboratory analysis.

It was at this site that Geiser, a Forest Service ecologist, collected some of the first evidence that air pollution was damaging the gorge environment. The messenger — like a canary in a coal mine — was the community of lichens that grows here, both those that flourish and those that fail to thrive.

Lichens are neither plants nor animals. They belong to the fungi family, but are actually part fungus, part alga. They come in many shapes and colors, and reproduce both sexually and asexually. They can dissolve rock, survive severe cold, and remain dormant for long periods.

But for Geiser, their most useful characteristic is their sensitivity to nitrogen and acid rain, major forms of pollution in the gorge.

The Seven-Mile Hill site is 62 miles west of Portland General Electric’s Boardman, Ore., coal-fired plant, the largest source of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide in the eastern gorge. Near the coal plant is a sprawling dairy feed lot, a major source of ammonia that contributes to acid rain and fog.

Together, those sources are responsible for most of the air pollution that blows west into the gorge during winter months.

Link to full story at columbian.com

Erin Brockovich to hold forum in Cameron

Missouri Town Sees High Number Of Brain Tumor Cases

Let’s follow this story as it unfolds. Erin Brockovich is a hero in my eyes (I hope everybody has seen the movie!!); let’s see what’s happening with this tumor cluster in Missouri. I’ll follow up on Oct 14 and see what’s released about her visit to Cameron.

CAMERON, Mo. — The high number of brain tumors reported in Cameron is in the national news again.

KMBC has learned that Erin Brockovich, the woman portrayed in the award-winning movie starring Julia Roberts, will fly into Cameron next month to hold a public forum with concerned residents.

Brockovich, who grew up in Lawrence, Kan., is famous for her crusade to help a small town in California find out what was causing so many residents to get sick.

Her investigation led to an historic $333 million settlement from a utility company that was blamed for toxic chemicals leaking into the residents’ groundwater.

Brockovich now crusades for other communities and has been following the reports of brain tumors in Cameron.

Brockovich will be in Cameron on Oct. 13 at Goodrich Auditorium for a public forum.

Link

Thanks, Marti! (Link to Marti’s website.)

Chicago’s toxic air

TRIBUNE WATCHDOG REPORT: Chicago-area residents face some of the highest risk of getting sick from pollution, but the EPA isn’t making it widely known.

What I admire most about this story on the toxic air in Chicago can be found in the video (at bottom of post): Leila Mendez, who had the chance to move away from the problem, chose to stay and fight for clean air for the sake of the area’s kids. Brava!

People living in Chicago and nearby suburbs face some of the highest risks in the nation for cancer, lung disease and other health problems linked to toxic chemicals pouring from industry smokestacks, according to a Tribune analysis of federal data.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spent millions of dollars to assess the dangers that air pollution poses but has failed to fulfill promises to make the research more accessible to the public. So the Tribune is posting the information on its Web site, where users can easily find nearby polluters and the chemicals going into their air.

Those who look up Cook County will see it ranked worst in the nation for dangerous air pollution, based on 2005 data. The Tribune also found Chicago was among the 10 worst cities in the U.S.

The factory with the highest risk score in Chicago is a steel mill on the edge of upscale Lincoln Park, a neighborhood where it isn’t uncommon to find people buying organic dog food.

In Will and DuPage Counties, six factories rank in the region’s worst 50, though residents of the collar counties generally face much lower risks than people who live in Cook. Nearby Lake County, Ind., has nine of the worst polluters in the region.

So how much danger does a person living near these factories face? The EPA didn’t try to answer that difficult question. Air pollution is just one factor that can affect the chances of developing health problems.

Link to full story.

Video: Click on pic of video below and you’ll be taken to page, scroll down for vid.

Vog is coming my way on Sunday

Trade winds to ebb by Sunday evening; weekend may end amid vog

Great. The wind is going to bring the vog to Hamakua tomorrow. Well, it was a good break while it lasted.

For those of you who haven’t been following the local air drama, our vog situation here on The Big Island got very bad earlier this year when the volcano started spewing especially nasty, toxic chemicals, the worst in historical memory. This did not bode well for my health. Although I cannot prove a causal trigger, at the height of the toxic levels this past spring, my breathing became difficult in general and my multiple chemical sensitivity heightened to an absolutely exquisite level. It got so I couldn’t even go into Hilo for shopping and chores, and I started going north to Waimea.

So this next week may be difficult for me. I can hardly wait!

For those wondering when vog will return to East Hawaii, the smart money is on Sunday.

That’s because the National Weather Service is predicting that the normal northeasterly, or trade wind patterns, will dissipate sometime Sunday afternoon. That would give the vog from Kilauea volcano a path toward the Hilo area with little or no wind resistance.

“It’s not going to be a statewide Kona winds event,” said Derek Wroe, a NWS forecaster in Honolulu. “The winds are going to get light and variable, and when that happens … the vog is not going to just sit around the source around the Volcano area. And it is possible that possibly late Sunday afternoon and Sunday night into early Monday morning, that some of this vog may come down the mountain to Hilo.”

Areas likely to be affected, according to a statement from the state Department of Health, are Volcano village, middle and upper Puna, Hilo, Hamakua and South Kohala. The DOH advises residents and visitors to be prepared and aware of the surrounding air conditions, and how they may react to vog in the air.

“People who have been exposed to vog in the past, we’re asking to take precautions on their own,” said Bill Hanson, a county Civil Defense administrative officer. “If they feel they are being affected by vog or sulfur dioxide, they should limit their exposure by getting indoors, closing their doors, closing their windows. … However, if it gets to a point to where they need to seek medical attention or just get out of the area, that is also advisable.”

Advice includes not smoking and avoiding second-hand smoke, drinking plenty of fluids to avoid dehydration, and being prepared to evacuate, if necessary, including securing homes, businesses and property, preparing an evacuation kit, planning for the care of family pets and livestock, and familiarizing all family members of emergency plans.

[...]

On the Internet:

Hawaii County Civil Defense, http://co.hawaii.hi.us/cd/index.htm;

Hawaii Department of Health, http://hawaii.gov/health; governor’s Web site on vog, http://hawaii.gov/gov/vog;

USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/

Link

Link to photo: The Volcanic haze settled in over East Hawaii on May 15, 2008, by Perceptions Unlimited on Flickr

Related posts on The Canary Report:

Volcanic gas invading island

Vog and health problems

Living in a haze

New brochure on climate change and chemical safety

The Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety has published a new brochure entitled: “Managing chemicals in a changing climate to protect health.”

The changing climate is likely to bring along some changes in the ways chemicals are developed, used, distributed and broken down. The brochure wants to draw attention to the implications these changes might have for human exposure to chemicals.

One way in which climate change can affect exposure to chemicals is through its effect on how chemicals move and transform in the environment. For example, increased temperatures may cause volatile chemicals to disperse more quickly in the air, thus possibly leading to higher exposures. Higher exposures can also arise because of a more frequent use of certain chemicals in an effort to combat the consequences of climate change (eg. increased use of pesticides because of falling crop yields).

Aside from higher and different exposures, climate change may also make exposure more dangerous, as there are indications that chemicals are more harmful in warmer temperatures.

Some groups of people are more vulnerable to these changes in chemical exposure. Inherent characteristics, like age, or circumstances, like poverty or malnutrition, can result in an impaired ability to withstand harm.

In the brochure it is emphasised that in developing climate adaptive strategies, attention should be paid to the management of chemicals and the need to improve systems to ensure chemical safety. Countries that do not yet have adequate capacities and capabilities to soundly manage chemicals are encouraged to develop these, as climate change will probably create new and expanded problems.

The brochure can be downloaded here. Available in English, French and Spanish.

Link

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