This week the US House and Senate passed a bill that bans lead in children's toys. The bill also bans other harmful toxins that are responsible for making plastic products softer and more flexible (think of a rubber duck). The toxins banned, six types of phthalates, are now thought to act as hormones and cause reproductive problems, especially in boys.

With the overwhelming majority supporting the bill in both houses (4 representatives total voted against it), this vote should send a clear message to the chemical industry that enough is enough. It's time to stop forcing the public to prove that a chemical is unsafe and time for industry to prove to the public that it is safe, before it is put on the market and into our products (children's toys or otherwise).

In similar toxic-related news, Rep. Pricey Harrison was successful in getting a study bill passed in the short session of the NC Legislature this year. This study is with the Child Fatality Task Force (sounds like a worthy cause) and would look at a ban on toxic brominated fire retardants. These chemicals, also known as PBDEs, went into wide-spread use in the 1970's and are now found throughout the home; including in your tvs, computer monitors, foam furniture, baby cribs, etc. Once PBDEs get into your body they stay there and accumulate, and are passed from mothers to their children. Studies show that PBDEs disrupt brain development and hormone systems.

Now, isn't it counter-intuitive that individuals and organizations concerned with public health have to fight to ban harmful chemical after harmful chemical? Shouldn't it be the responsibility of corporations and our government to prove that a chemical is safe before it ever reaches consumers?

Got compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs)?  Until now CFLs had to be taken to specific recycling centers throughout the state--a far drive for many folks! But just days ago, The Home Depot launched a new initiative that allows residents nationwide to safely and properly recycle CFLs. The new, energy efficient light bulbs can be brought in to any Home Depot store and given to the employee at the return desk. You can find more information, and view their press release, here.

If you didn’t know already, the one downside to CFLs is that breaking the bulb releases mercury vapor. You can only bring unbroken bulbs to be recycled, so be sure to handle them with care when transporting. Carefully recycling CFLs prevents the release of mercury into the environment (and your body) and allows for the reuse of glass, metals and other materials that make up fluorescent lights. 

Below is the second installment of a monthly blog series on Food and the Environment, courtesy of our friend Billie with Toxic Free North Carolina (see the first installment here). Stay tuned in future months for more on this series. If you have suggestions for future blog series topics or for blog ideas about Food and the Environment, please contact blog [at] ncconservationnetwork.org.

Headlines about the global crisis of increasing food prices are pretty staggering. Here in the US, food prices up as much as 20 or 25% for some staples have added insult to the injuries of record-breaking prices at the gas pump and the housing slump. Local food banks are reporting unprecedented jumps in their populations served over the past couple months. Meanwhile, in poorer nations overseas, where people spend a much larger portion of their incomes on food, and prices for some staple crops like rice have doubled or even tripled in price over the past several months, there have been riots and other evidence that the situation is becoming increasingly critical.

In the midst of this devastating silent tsunami, I ask you to consider some of the causes, many of which are environmental:

1. Climate change. Droughts, floods, and other unusual weather patterns across the globe have disrupted farming over the past few years and hurt local food supplies in many parts of the world. This has made people more dependent on imported food and driven up the price.
2. Gas prices. Food that is trucked, shipped and flown around the country or the globe is costing more to transport these days, with gas hitting new record prices all the time. This is hurting import-dependent developing countries most.
3. Increased meat consumption. It takes about seven or eight hundred calories of grain to make one hundred calories of meat. Consider the impacts on global grain prices of increasing meat consumption in populous countries like China and India, while American appetites for cheap and plentiful meat remains high as ever.
4. Fuel made from food. There has been a great push in the US and several other countries to put more ethanol in people's gas tanks to reduce tailpipe emissions. 20% of the American corn crop was used for biofuel in 2006, a number that has come up from the single digits in just a few years. This has driven up prices for corn, and prompted farmers to divert land from other food crops to corn (driving up prices on those crops), or from "conservation" (un-farmed land near water ways and other sensitive areas). Increasing corn production in turn is contributing to water pollution problems (think of the growing "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, and the fact that an herbicide commonly used on corn has been shown to cause hermaphrodism in frogs).

So, what can we do? A few ideas —

• Eat local. May and June are some of the lushest, most productive months on farms and NC. Take advantage by hitting your local farmers market or local foods grocer—you'll find prices on locally produced foods relatively stable, and you'll be helping to ease the pressure on the global commodity market and stabilize food prices for people who don't have other options. Better yet: grow your own. Can't beat free! Also, please keep an eye out for opportunities to get local foods in more places in your community: Local food purchasing policies for cafeterias in your favorite school, childcare center, or workplace? Farm-to-school, office, or church programs? We're here to help!

• Eat less meat. Consider a quality-over-quantity approach to eating meat and other animal products like eggs and dairy. Try eating less of them, and when you do eat them, focus on local and sustainable options, which are often more nutritious and tastier! It'll be better for you, better for our environment, and better for our global food economy.

• Share. There are lots of organizations working to fight hunger, both domestically and overseas, which you might consider supporting this year. One tip - the national "Stamp Out Hunger" food drive is coming up this Saturday, May 10th. The National Association of Letter Carriers has teamed up with food banks across the country to pick up your food donations from your mailbox this coming Saturday. Please consider making a gift - in our area, your gifts will be handled by the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina, which distributes food to many smaller providers across our region.

In the long term, more of us need to recognize that our economic decisions, as individuals and as nations, are having a serious impact on the global environment and on the welfare of our neighbors on this planet. Our global food economy is seriously broken, and we need to fix it. We as a society, and the governments who are working for us, must heed the lesson of this crisis by making long-term investments in *real* energy efficiency, and agricultural practices that are truly sustainable in the environmental, social and economic senses of the word.

So, my dear readers, please keep on eating local, voting your heart, and speaking your mind!

Looks like Nalgene finally got the hint--consumers don't want to purchase products made with the toxicant bisphenol A. (Click here for more on this issue). Thus, they're going to stop making their bottles with the controversial polycarbonate plastic. It's an amazing true story of consumers letting the producers know that environmental health hazards are real and a priority for many people. It reminds me of the days when CFC's were phased out from aerosol cans. Ah. Memories.

Thought I'd share an editorial in today's News & Observer, reflecting on the most recent developments in the Ag-Mart case (see The Tip of the Injustice Iceberg, Ag-Mart Part II, and It's Not Over Till It's Over).

Yesterday I actually went to meeting of the Governor's Task Force on Pesticides, in support of pesticide safety for farmworkers. Activists in the community are urging this Task Force to require employers to keep accurate pesticide records, ensure the anonymity of workers who wish to file a complaint against their employers, require employers to provide phones and adequate showers for workers' safety, and increase the fine of pesticide violations, as triggered by the Ag-Mart case.

We'll keep you posted as the saga continues...

Below is the first installment of a monthly blog series on Food and the Environment, courtesy of our friend Billie with Toxic Free North Carolina. Stay tuned in future months for more on this series. If you have suggestions for future blog series topics or for blog ideas about Food and the Environment, please contact blog [at] ncconservationnetwork.org.

There's an exciting (and delicious) trend afoot: college campuses in North Carolina are turning to locally-produced, organic foods for their dining services and on-campus restaurants! To get up to speed on what Triangle campuses are doing, check out this great article in the IndyWeek about the "FLO Food" movement at UNC, and similar efforts at Duke and NCSU.

Across the state, students and staff at colleges and universities are working on getting their own dining halls to go local and organic, and it's not just the crunchy colleges you might think of first, either! This is really exciting to me for a lot of reasons, but to sum up the highlights -

If a college campus can do it, just about anyone can. At the top of the list of reasons why people don't eat local and organic food, you'll probably find things like "it costs too much," or "it's hard to find," or, for large-scale kitchens, "there's not a large and consistent enough supply for what my restaurant/school/etc needs." But, goshdarnit, if a university dining service that makes thousands of meals a day can do it, than so can just about anyone! I think our NC university dining services are dispelling some important myths about buying local and organic food:

• It doesn't necessarily cost more, and when it does, it's often worth it. I like the example of the hamburger made of local grass-fed beef that costs $1 more, but students buy more of them anyway because they taste better and it's the right thing to do. If you're truly strapped for cash, that $1 really might not be worth it, but I think a lot more people could, and would, make that choice if they had the option.
• You don't have to buy everything local and organic for it to count - start somewhere! According to this article, dining services at Duke are serving between 16% and 35% local foods, depending on the place. That's fantastic, so long as they're not misleading anyone to think that it's more than what it is. As consumers, we have to be like the Duke dining hall - we have to buy as much local and organic stuff as we feasibly can, and trust that with time, it'll get easier. Any business we can consistently send to local and organic farms helps our local economy, environment, and our own health. With a little time, the supply side of the equation will catch up to us, and we'll be able to find more affordable local and organic foods.....but we've got to start buying what we can now!
• It's not just fancy stuff, and it's not just veggies. Nope, "organic food" does not just mean shitake mushrooms, sprouts and broccoli rabe (say what?), and it doesn't just mean something you eat at a fancy restaurant for special occasions. It also comes in normal everyday varieties....your green beans and your mashed potatoes, your carrot sticks and apple juice. And, it's not just your fruits and veggies that come locally produced and organic - it's also meats (pork, beef and poultry), eggs, milk and cheese, honey and more. Heck, it's even your Christmas tree! All these products are available organic and North Carolina-grown, so please don't forget to look for them!

Most of all, this article makes me happy because it's about democratizing good food. By that, I mean that everyone deserves the choice to eat healthy, locally-grown organic food, not just people who live near natural foods stores, and not just wealthy people. When large institutions that serve a broad cross-section of the community commit to providing these options, that's a huge step in improving our food democracy! Where else do we need to see more local and organic food options?

K-12 schools!

Childcare centers!

Office & hospital cafeterias!

Your regular grocery store!

Where would you like to see more local or organic foods? Need help making a plan to get them? Let us know!

It used to be easy for me to stand waist-deep in the ocean, feel the salt water mist on my face, the sand between my toes, and the wind through my hair, and think about the vastness and powerfulness of our oceans. To me it used to seem almost surreal, that there could exist this seemingly indestructible giant mass of water that literally stretched to the ends of the earth.

But as I've gotten older, and learned more about the constant abuse that our oceans take, my view of them has changed. Now, they seem much more vulnerable to me, and these days when I stand waist-deep in the water, I wonder what will be left for my children, and my children's children.

A recent article from the Charlotte Observer highlights a study that was done in part by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill regarding the harmful effects that human activities have on our oceans.

"A widely held view for much of the 20th century was that the Earth's oceans are so deep and vast that they can absorb humankind's pollution-bearing abuse without adverse consequences.

Now a new report shows the effects of that benighted view: Every square kilometer of the Earth's oceans is affected by human activities -- and more than 40 percent of the oceans show medium to very-high-impact threats."

The study took into consideration many different types of human-abuse factors such as runoff from fertilizer, global climate change, shipping, and overfishing. To see which parts of the oceans are most affected, view the entire study [pdf] as it was published in Science magazine. Be sure to check out page 2 of the report which features a global map, highlighting the parts of the ocean most affected by human impacts.

I finally threw away my Nalgene bottles last week after clinging to them for years, despite the warnings from environmental scientists that the polycarbonate plastic bottles contained nasty chemicals called endocrine disruptors. I love my Nalgene bottles. They’re indestructible, convenient, and have probably saved me thousands of purchases of bottled water. So despite the gnawing doubts, I’ve kept on using them. But last week I read a new study that put the final nail in the coffin, at least as far as I’m concerned.

We’ve known for a long time that polycarbonate plastic contains a chemical called Bisphenol-A (BPA). BPA is the quintessential endocrine disruptor. (An endocrine disruptor is a pollutant that can mimic hormones in the human body. The pollutant can plug into the body’s hormone receptors and scramble the critical growth & development signals that hormones carry, increasing risks for all kinds of health problems, from cancer to fertility to obesity.

The argument has been over whether or not the polycarbonate plastic bottles leach BPA into drinking water under normal conditions. The evidence is pretty strong that super-heating bottles or exposing them to harsh detergents releases BPA. But what happens to drinking water under normal use conditions?

A team of researchers at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine recently put that question to the test in a new study. They bought brand new Nalgene bottles at a camping store, and got a bunch of rock climbers at the local climbing gym to donate some used ones. They found that at room temperature, the bottles steadily leached measurable amounts of BPA into the drinking water (measurable in ng/hour). The longer the water sat in the bottles, the more BPA they could measure in the water. They even used a standard test to confirm that the levels of BPA they were measuring mimicked the toxic action of estrogen to developing cerebellar neurons. Filling the bottles with just-boiled water (as many of us are wont to do while camping) dramatically increased the migration of BPA into the water by as much as 55-fold.

Several previous studies have also looked at BPA migration from polycarbonate infant formula bottles, food and beverage containers. The upshot is that we are exposed to endocrine disruptors, including BPA, from a wide variety of sources, and each of them contributes to our total burden of exposure throughout our lives. While this particular study doesn’t say that you can pin your health problems on your water bottle, the authors strongly state that they are one component of our total exposure to endocrine disruptors. Some of these exposures you can’t really change – at least not without changing environmental regulations. But many of them can be changed – starting with pitching the polycarbonate water bottle.

PS: Need suggestions for a replacement bottle? I carry around an old Gatorade bottle that I refill with water (just avoid bottles with a #3 or #7 on the bottom). You can also find lightweight stainless steel or enameled aluminum bottles at some health food and sporting goods stores.

Back in August, Mindy posted on her unhappy discovery that her water bottle might be exposing her to levels of bisphenol A.  She included links to an LA Times article and a release by the Natural Resources Defense Council.  

The weekend brought two more newspaper articles on bisphenol A.  The first is an in-depth report by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

"In the first analysis of its kind by a newspaper, the Journal Sentinel reviewed 258 scientific studies of the chemical bisphenol A, a compound detected in the urine of 93% of Americans recently tested. An overwhelming majority of these studies show that the chemical is harmful - causing breast cancer, testicular cancer, diabetes, hyperactivity, obesity, low sperm counts, miscarriage and a host of other reproductive failures in laboratory animals….Studies paid for by the chemical industry are much less likely to find damaging effects or disease."

An article in the Arizona Daily Star shows the issue through the more conventional ‘A says, B says’ lens, and notes that lens has trapped several other chemicals as well:

"Dozens of studies — almost all of them in animals, not humans — have linked these chemicals to smaller-than-normal heads and shrunken penises in infants, obesity, diabetes, asthma, decreasing male-to-female birth ratios, undescended testicles, hyperthyroidism and decreased sperm counts….In each case, companies that manufacture these products counter that they are safe and that studies showing ill effects are too limited, scientifically unsound or improperly designed."  

To its credit, the Star article doesn’t ultimately throw up its hands and call the question unsolvable – though some of the ‘ordinary people’ quoted in it do.  In the meantime, the evidence keeps piling up against bisphenol A, and it seems to us past time for the regulators to act.

The November 26, 2007 issue of the Economist includes an article offering a good overview of nanotech as an environmental issue.   The article notes that very few nanotech materials have been tested for human health or environmental impacts, and that what we know about much larger units of various materials provides no guidance for predicting the impacts of small particles of those materials.  Indeed, the unusual properties of nano-materials are partly why they are so potentially useful.  

Also this week, a study published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology (look under the heading, Public Perceptions) indicate that the general public is much less aware of the risks of nanotechnology than the scientists who are experts in the field.   The study is available only to subscribers, but Science Daily and Agence France-Presse have helpful coverage. 

Take it from someone with 7 nieces and only 1 nephew, I've often wondered if there really do seem to be more female births recently, or if it's just my own skewed perception. Today I happened to read one of Treehugger's "Quote of the Days," this one by author Devra Davis (The Secret History of the War on Cancer) on declining male births...

"In the United States and Japan, there has been a significant decline in the birth of baby boys. [...] Well, there's a theory of testicular dysgenesis, which means that there is something on the Y chromosome that is transmitted to boys that is affecting their overall health, and it may affect whether or not a boy sperm works to fertilize an egg.

Something is affecting fathers' ability to make baby boys, which may also be affecting the ability of the boys that are conceived to become fathers. It may be affecting sperm count, which is declining. It may also be affecting development of testicular cancer, which peaks in young men in their 20s. And these things are likely to be related to early life exposures to hormone-mimicking chemicals.

Pesticides, alcohol, lead and solvents have all been shown in occupational studies to reduce the ability of men to father boys and to increase the risk of birth defects in the babies that they have, including cancer. [...]"

Check out the full quote and let us know what you think. Have you been buying more "It's a Girl!" cards than ever before?

Oh, the beleaguered frogs. You probably already know that amphibian species are declining around the world. You have probably seen the depressing photos of deformed frogs trying to get through life with too many (or too few) legs. You may even have seen Dr. Tyrone Hayes‘ breathtaking presentation on how the herbicide atrazine turns boy frogs in to hermaphrodite frogs.

This week the N&O ran a story about a new study that reinforces the theory that farm runoff is causing the deformed limbs. Excess nutrients in the water lead to lots more parasites in the water that turn normal tadpoles into sickly, deformed adult frogs.

One of the questions about this research is, how come the trematodes make frogs so sick? They’re not a new pathogen - they’ve always been in the frogs’ environments. It’s just that lately the frogs can’t seem to fight them off. Another stumper: if it’s one disease deforming the frogs, why does it affect so many species? Leopard frogs, bullfrogs, wood frogs, and many others have shown up with the deformed limbs, in many different parts of the U.S. and Canada.

The answer may actually lie in the frogs’ immune systems: one of Tyrone Hayes’ experiments found that wild frogs who live in pristine waters are easily able to fight off common infections, while wild frogs who live in waters containing agricultural runoff die at astonishing rates from the same exposure to disease. Distinguished researchers around the world have pointed at all sorts of explanations for the frog decline, deformities and hermaphrodism: climate change, habitat destruction, parasites, pesticides, and more. The sad answer may be that there is no smoking gun, but that an alphabet soup of environmental changes have over-burdened the frogs’ immune systems to the point of destruction. Parasites and infections that formerly posed little or no threat to amphibian populations become deadly.

Biologists like to call frogs a “sentinel species,” because they are so sensitive to their environments and serve as indicators for problems that can grow to affect other species as well. I hope we’re paying attention.

Cross-posted from PESTed's weekly news commentary, Fair Ground.

LiveScience recently published an article siting the World's 10 Most Polluted Places; the result of a research project through the Blacksmith Institute. These locations have severe environmental health threats that affect the people and wildlife who live nearby, due to a variety of toxics such as coal dust, lead, radioactive waste, and hexavalent chromium.

As a parallel, LiveScience also released an article called "Pollution May Cause 40 Percent of Global Deaths," according to a study done by Cornell University ecologist David Pimentel.

Check out the articles if you get a chance, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. Has anyone actually traveled near these areas?

Like a good little environmentalist, I can be seen throughout the streets of Raleigh toting my green Nalgene bottle with my "treehugger" sticker. This reusable and washable bottle keeps me from having to buy bottled water while I'm out and about (many say bottled water is a waste of money and is definitely a waste of natural resources in making the plastic and transporting the bottles).

But, like most things in life, there are rarely perfect solutions to large problems. Just last week, the LA Times ran an article regarding Bisphenol A (BPA)--a highly toxic component of specific types of plastic used in baby bottles, water supply pipes, bottle tops, and--you guessed it--Nalgene bottles.  According to Dr. Jennifer Sass, senior scientist in the Natural Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) Health and Environment Program,

"Harmful effects in laboratory animals exposed to even the low levels of BPA that are commonly found in the blood and urine of Americans include an increase in prostate and breast cancer, type II diabetes, reproductive abnormalities, reduced semen quality, recurrent miscarriage, obesity, and neurobehavioral problems similar to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder."

The Times article focused on a recent study done by the Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (part of the National Institutes of Health) which studied the affects of BPA and concluded that "they had 'some concern' about neurological and behavioral effects in fetuses, infants and children, but 'minimal' or 'negligible' concern about reproductive effects."

The NRDC, in a press release last week, expressed their own concerns with the Center's conclusions:

In its report, the committee failed to incorporate public comments from scientific experts, disregarded dozens of studies published in highly respected peer-reviewed journals, and relied heavily on flawed data sponsored by the chemical industry. The result is a committee report that fails to warn Americans about the full range of risks associated with this toxic chemical that contaminates our food and water.

If you're interested in reducing your exposure to BPA, take the pledge to, at the very least, keep toxic Bisphenol A out of Nalgene plastics. Visit http://ecopledge.com/detoxnalgene/ to let your voice be heard today!

...green? In a recent article from LiveScience, a columnist discusses an emerging trend in chemistry—something they're calling "Green Chemistry." According to the article,

...at least 40 million tons of hazardous waste is generated [by chemical industries] in the United States each year[...]

A growing movement called green chemistry aims to reduce this ecological toll by redesigning how chemical products are made.

In fact, just this week 5 awards were given for the 2007 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards—a program set up to encourage chemical industries to eliminate much of their hazardous waste, reduce their water usage, and lower carbon dioxide emissions.

Do folks know of other companies working hard to "green their recipes" who didn't make the list?

One of the key issues impacting North Carolinians these days is that of environmental justice. As opposed to water and air quality issues, environmental justice issues haven't seen as much publicity until rather recently. Just last year, however, the legislature decided to form a commission to study environmental justice issues in our state--a great step in the right direction to ensuring that all North Carolinians, regardless of race, ethnicity, or income, are treated fairly and equally when it comes to environmental legislation. But just how far have we really come as a country in solving these issues? According to an article from United Press International, a recent study conducted by the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University:

...found more than 5.1 million people of color, including 2.5 million Hispanics or Latinos and 1.8 million blacks, live in neighborhoods with at least one hazardous-waste facility. Overall, more minorities reside near hazardous-waste sites than in 1987.

What's more is that in another study (not published yet), researchers

...found minorities are already present when hazardous waste sites are put in. Although the numbers of people of color and poor increase, these changes had already been set in motion before the facilities were sited.

While having this information can certainly help our states pass effective legislation on environmental justice, we still need legislative champions to support the legislation as well as a federal government that takes environmental justice seriously. And being that just last year the Environmental Protection Agency decided that federal facilities no longer have to report their toxic chemical releases to the Toxic Release Inventory, it's hard to believe environmental justice is an important issue to the administration.

To me--it's all about equal opportunity, fair legislation, and good, sound, environmental decisions based on science (shall I mention the Navy's OLF proposal and the mega-landfills proposed for our state?) Don't we all deserve the chance to live without fear of toxics, without putrid fumes, without declining property values? Don't we deserve to feel comfortable in our own homes--despite our racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds?

This week the Triangle will get to hear from Tyrone Hayes, a biologist and herpetologist of UC Berkeley, on his experience with frog populations as an indicator for cancer risks from contaminated water sources.  He’ll be speaking at NC Central University on Thursday thanks to a collaborative effort between the Department of Environmental, Earth and Geospatial Sciences at NC Central and PESTed.  He will also be speaking on the UNC Chapel Hill campus on Wednesday. 

In an online bio, Hayes explains that he is currently assessing the affects in frogs that have been exposed to the world’s most common herbicide and contaminant of ground and surface water:  Atrazine.  According to Scorecard: The Pollution Information Website, Atrazine is a potential carcinogen.  Hayes is interested in effective public policies that address environmental and social concerns and is in particular

concerned about the adverse impacts of Atrazine on endangered species and on racial/ethnic minorities. Prostate and breast cancer are two of the top causes of death in Americans age 25-40, but in particular Black and Hispanic Americans are several times more likely to die from these diseases.

His experience in biology, environmental justice, and the environmental impacts of pesticides should provide for a fascinating lecture.  Be sure to attend and let us know how it goes!

PS. Check out your county’s pollution profile in English or in Spanish! 

My one major hang-up with getting things dry cleaned is that I hate how many toxic chemicals are used and released into the water and the atmosphere. However, a Weaverville dry cleaner recently decided that it doesn't have to be that way. According to the Citizen-Times, Peter Hartwick, president of Weaverville Cleaners:

...eliminated the use of Perchloroethylene (Perc), a potential carcinogen, from his dry cleaning process. He now uses an environmentally safe cleaning solvent, n-propyl bromide (nPB), decreasing employee and customer exposure to harmful chemicals and fumes.

Despite the increased up-front costs of the non-toxic solvent, Hartwick feels the change was worth it, especially since this safer alternative is drawing more customers to Weaverville Cleaners.

What local businesses do you know of that are making environmentally-conscious changes?

Last month Durham was officially cited in violation of EPA’s lead-testing policies.  In addition to stepping up their testing and lead abatement procedures, the city is now required to launch a PR campaign to increase awareness about the dangers of lead and the potential sources of contamination.  According to a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, lead can cause neurological problems in children and is correlated with a decline in IQ, learning disabilities, hyperactivity, and violence.  The usual suspects for lead exposure are paint, dust, and soil… though I’ve even come across stories about grasshoppers, candy, and vinyl lunchboxes.

In a campaign aimed to reach every preschool and elementary school in the county, Durham officials will have to take some non-English speaking populations into consideration.  According to the Natural Resources Defense Council's Hidden Danger report, Hispanic children in the United States are twice as likely to get lead poisoning as non-Hispanic white children and it is estimated that 4% of Mexican-American children have potentially dangerous (above CDC action levels) amounts of lead in their blood.  Effective campaigns to reduce lead poisoning in the Latino community must address the potential language barrier; groups like the Lead Poisoning Prevention Program at UNC-Asheville and the NC Rural Communities Assistance Project, Inc. are already helping to bridge this gap and ensure that no child in North Carolina endures the risk of lead poisoning.

Is our state doing enough to ensure the health of children at risk from environmental toxics, particularly those children from non-English speaking families?

More news this week on the Environmental Quality, Inc hazardous waste facility that caught fire two weeks ago. 

One of the most impressive discussions about the fire that we’ve seen is at Raleigh Eco News, where freelance reporter Sue Sturgis has put together a thorough description of the chemicals that were stored at the facility – check her posting for Wednesday, October 11.

Yesterday, Gov. Michael Easley announced that he is appointing a task force to review state rules for hazardous waste facilities and to study the lessons of the emergency response to the Apex fire.  Easley has charged the Hazardous Materials Task Force to prepare a report to him by December 15, in time to influence proposals for the 2007 session of the NC General Assembly.  One sensible recommendation would be to require facilities to keep a real-time manifest – available from offsite – of chemicals stored at each facility. 

It is less clear what will happen to the Apex facility itself.  Last night (Tuesday), more than 200 Apex residents attended a town meeting to hear what will happen next.  Company representatives were coy, saying they will clean up the site before deciding whether to try to continue operations.  As quoted in the Raleigh News & Observer, Apex Mayor Keith Weatherly was clear that he does not want the facility to rebuild:

“Let me just say our concern -- and the point we will not forget -- is that EQ has exposed our citizens to an unprecedented level of danger.”

Today one of the barrels at the EQ site caught fire, sending a pillar of dense white smoke into the air and prompting the evacuation of workers from several nearby buildings.  Speculation is that rain last night may have penetrated the barrel, coming in contact with a chemical that reacts to water or air.  Fortunately, it doesn’t look like this will get out of control – but it surely doesn’t improve the facility’s reputation.