#098: What We Must Do--Part 8 What The Poisoners Knew In 1961.

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RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #98
---October 10, 1988---
News and resources for environmental justice.
------
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org ========== RACHEL-4CM = DIOXIN FOCUSED DIRECTORY Remote Access Chemical Hazards Electronic Library. Dioxinnz.com
================== Original Source ==================

[Continuing our series, What we must do: We first looked at the waste industry which buries poisonous chemicals in the ground for the producers of those chemicals; now we are looking at the producers themselves, asking when they learned about the toxicity of their products and the effects those products would have if dumped onto, or into, the ground. Did they ever have reason to believe people would not be poisoned?]

The U.S. Public Health Service sponsored a national conference in April, 1961, entitled "Ground Water Contamination." Three hundred experts attended from government, industry and universities. The 1961 report of the conference summarizes a large body of scientific knowledge that had accumulated during the first half of the 20th century. The report makes it crystal clear that the entire problem of groundwater contamination from chemical waste disposal, and from landfilling of municipal wastes, was well understood, well documented, and the subject of urgent warnings in 1961.

The picture in 1961 was essentially as we know it today:

95% of the nation's surface waters were being used in 1961 so "groundwater affords the only water resource available for supplying much of the anticipated three-fold increase in the amount of water that will be required 30 years from now [i.e., in 1991]," said the U.S. Geological Survey. (pg. 32)

Underground water is vulnerable to poisoning by chemicals, because when chemicals are dumped onto, or into, the ground, gravity pulls them down until they reach the saturated zone, the large lakelike body of water called groundwater. This view of the earth was described in detail at the conference by the U.S. Geological Survey. (pgs. 4, 8)

"Passage of landfill leachate through sand or gravel may be expected to improve conditions so far as bacterial and organic pollution is concerned, but chemical pollution can be expected to reach the ground water...," said the U.S. Public Health Service. (pg. 109)

Bacteria are filtered out by the soil and only travel a few hundred feet; chemicals, on the other hand, can travel as far as 15,000 feet or more through soil. Evidence supporting this view was presented by the U.S. Geological Survey, as well as by university researchers. (pgs. 37, 108, 213)

Groundwater does not mix the way a turbulent surface stream mixes. In addition, the earth below ground is dark and cool, and the population of bacteria below ground is much smaller than on the surface. Consequently, contaminated groundwater tends to remain contaminated for long periods, or forever.

"Although our present information on the persistence of organic contaminants in groundwater is limited, indications are that once such materials reach the water table they may persist for long periods of time," said the U.S. Public Health Service. (pg. 54)

One outstanding example of groundwater poisoning was the subject of several presentations--the situation in Suffolk County (Long Island), New York. There, chromium wastes and municipal solid wastes had ruined water quality in the 1950s.

"Ground water is extremely vulnerable to contamination by the introduction of industrial and domestic wastes into subsurface leaching systems. This is evidenced by the numerous incidents of contamination that are constantly being brought to light by complaints and spot check water quality surveys," said the Suffolk County Health Department. (pg. 81)

"We have found from bitter experience that it is unwise to depend on any dilution factor in our ground waters. Hexavalent chromium was found to have traveled over a mile from the source of contamination and with concentrations as high as 40 ppm off the plant site," said another representative of the Suffolk County Health Department. (pg. 155)

The population of Suffolk County, Long Island produces 450,000 tons of garbage each year [in 1961]; a small part of this is incinerated and the remainder "is incorporated in raw form into landfill. Undoubtedly the decomposition of vast quantities of organic material is affecting the ground water" near each of the county's 19 landfills, said the Suffolk County health department. (pg. 75)

"[The U.S. Public Health Service] described the newcomer in the field of contaminants, organic [chemicals]. Most common offenders are gasoline, oil, detergents, and phenols. As recently as 1952, only a few states recognized organics as a problem. Now the problem is full blown, but knowledge is scarce.... A feature of organic pollution is its persistence; it has been shown to travel 15,000 feet over a period of 7 years," said the Illinois State Water Survey. (pg. 213).

"Of more immediate concern is the organic, inorganic, and bacterial pollution of ground water that can result from improperly located dumps and landfills," said the Illinois State Water Survey. (pg. 214).

The Suffolk County health department warned that industrial innovation, the creation of new chemicals, had already in 1961 overwhelmed society's ability to cope with the resulting problems. They also pointed out that regulatory authorities were not the ones discovering the damage: people using the water were discovering it the hard way--by being poisoned. After poisonings occur, then the regulators get involved; this is still true today.

"The nature of the waste introduced into our ground water changes as rapidly as new products are produced by our chemical industries. These wastes become firmly entrenched in our ground water long before we have an opportunity to evaluate their effect," said the Suffolk County Health Department. (pg. 82)

Health officials learn of groundwater contamination not by vigilant enforcement of laws, but because users complain of bad taste and odors, said the Suffolk County Health Department. (pg. 76)

"I was struck by the fact that we professionals have generally not been the ones who initially uncovered ground water contamination. More likely the revelation stemmed from citizens' complaints of taste and odor, or foam, or crop damage, or sickness," said the Illinois State Water Survey. (pg. 214)

"Many incidents of contamination resulting from waste dumping into pits or upon the surface in highly permeable sands or gravels have been reported. Some of these have required the abandonment of private wells and great personal hardship.... Where materials are dumped onto the ground, normal observation should detect the potential danger to ground waters. It is when, under the guise of 'good citizenship,' fluids are injected into the ground that detection may be delayed until actual damage has occurred," said a private consulting engineer. (pgs. 118-119)

"One thing stands out in all the reports on the subject--we are up against another crisis resulting from man's perversity in breaking the laws of nature," said a conservation consultant in 1961.

The U.S. Public Health Service's report, GROUND WATER CONTAMINATION (Cincinnati, OH: Robert A. Taft Sanitary Engineering Center, 1961) is still available from the National Technical Information Service in Springfield, VA; document No. PB 214 895; it's $25.95 plus $3.00 shipping. Phone (703) 487-4650.

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

Descriptor terms: culpability; responsibility; liability; groundwater; water pollution; conferences; u.s. public health service; history of pollution;

#097: What We Must Do--Part 7: Toxics In Your Drinking Water: When Did People Know It Was Bad?

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RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #97
---October 3, 1988---
News and resources for environmental justice.
------
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org ========== RACHEL-4CM = DIOXIN FOCUSED DIRECTORY Remote Access Chemical Hazards Electronic Library. Dioxinnz.com
================== Original Source ==================

When someone in industry claims that they contributed to the creation of a Superfund site by dumping toxics into the ground, but did it out of ignorance, what is the truth behind such claims? When some polluter says, "I didn't know. It's not my fault. Twenty years ago, no one knew," can you believe them? When did people really understand that dumping chemicals into the ground would contaminate soil and subsurface water?

Human knowledge of toxicity has its roots shadowed in the mists of time. Prehistoric humans no doubt understood that some fruits and berries are toxic and others are not. There were practicing toxicologists in early Greece and Rome, selling their wares to would-be murderers and suicides. They sold chiefly vegetable potions that killed or injured their victims, but they also sold arsenic. The toxic properties of lead and mercury were understood by the Romans, but they did not come into use as intentional poisons until the renaissance (14th through 17th centuries).

Between 1830 and 1880 the field of "organic chemistry" developed and by 1880, 12,000 compounds had been synthesized. The goal was to create dyes, solvents and pharmaceuticals, but many of the new chemicals were toxic and sometimes the chemists themselves were killed by their creations. This quickly led to the practice of dosing dogs and cats (later rats and mice) with new chemicals, to reduce the need for experiments on humans in the laboratory and in the workplace.

By the mid-1930s, three major chemical firms (DuPont, Dow and Union Carbide) had established their own laboratories of industrial toxicology where they systematically looked for toxic effects of the chemicals they sold. Others soon followed suit because it made good business sense not to poison your workers or your customers--at least not to poison them so they died right on the spot. The effects of long-term, low-dose poisoning were always hard to detect and hard to prove, and many industrial leaders have been willing to wink at this sort of poisoning from earliest times.

It is simply not true that people 20 years ago did not understand the toxicity of chemicals. If you want exhaustive proof that people have understood the toxic properties of modern chemicals since the early 1900s, you have only to glance through a book like Donald Hunter's The Diseases of Occupations. The third edition of Hunter's classic appeared in 1964, 24 years ago and among its 1225 pages one can find early knowledge of every chemical we are concerned about today. Benzene toxicity was first reported in 1897. Phenol toxicity was reported in the 1880s. Cyanide toxicity was well understood in 1934. The toxicity of halogenated organic compounds (chloroform, trichloroethylene, carbon tetrachloride, for example) was reported extensively in the 1930s. And on and on.

But what about the relationship between polluted water and human disease? How long has that been recognized?

In 1854, 134 years ago, the greatest pollution disaster of modern times struck the city of London, England. Nearly 20,000 people died of cholera in two separate epidemics. Scientists and doctors of that time had no idea that bacteria and viruses caused disease, and it would be another 25 years before that discovery was made. Despite this important gap in knowledge, careful detective work in 1854 pinpointed sewage-contaminated drinking water as the source of the cholera outbreaks, and public health measures were instituted to prevent epidemics from recurring. Physicians and scientists throughout the western world have recognized ever since that clean water is essential to human health.

In 1906 the U.S. Geological Survey published its first paper on the prevention of groundwater contamination by careful well construction. By 1910 the Survey published its recommendation that dumping garbage and other filth into sinkholes in limestone be abandoned because the practice was contaminating groundwater.

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Americans conducted studies of water contamination. As early as 1923, researchers injected dye into the soil along with bacteria, indicating that bacteria did not flow through soil as far as chemicals did. In 1937 in Alabama, another study showed that chemical pollution traveled through soil farther than bacteria. Bacteria seemed to be filtered out by soil, but chemicals were not. Two additional studies in 1938 confirmed these findings. More dye studies in 1957 confirmed these findings once again.

In 1952 a task force of the American Water Works Association surveyed state governments for evidence of groundwater pollution. In 1953 the task force reported, "although ground water pollution by industrial-waste disposal is reported as relatively minor in many states, and even non-existent in some, it is, nevertheless, nationwide in distribution." Specific compounds mentioned as contaminating groundwater in 1952 and 1953 were gasoline, phenols, picric acid, and cleaning fluid. When the same task force surveyed the states in 1957, 47 states replied and 42 of them reported groundwater contamination. Clearly the problem was growing or awareness of the problem was growing, or both. By 1960 the task force found the following chemicals contaminating groundwater in the U.S.: creosols, 2,4-D (a pesticide), dichlorophenol, gasoline, hexachlorocyclohexane, hydrocarbons, kerosene, pentachlorophenol, phenol, picric acid, pyridine, and trichloroethylene.

The modern era had clearly arrived. In 1960.

The U.S. Public Health Service sponsored a national conference in April, 1961, entitled "Ground Water Contamination." Attendees at the conferences reported all the pollution facts we've given above, and a great deal more. In fact, the 1961 report of the conference makes it crystal clear that the entire problem of groundwater contamination from chemical waste disposal, and from landfilling of municipal wastes, was well known, well documented, and the subject of urgent warnings in 1961.

The picture in 1961 was basically as we know it today:

near its surface, the earth is made up of soils that contain small amounts of water, but which are not saturated. About 30 feet below the surface (more in some places, less in others), you run into a saturated zone. This is groundwater; it is like a large lake. It flows toward the sea very slowly (two feet per day to two feet per year), pulled by gravity.

Chemicals dumped onto or into the soil are pulled downward by gravity until they run into the groundwater table (the upper surface of the saturated zone), at which time they start moving horizontally with the groundwater. Dilution does not take place in groundwater as it does in a turbulent stream, and there's little oxygen, so groundwater remains contaminated for long periods. Furthermore, cleanup is difficult at best, and usually impossible, so groundwater contamination must be thought of as essentially permanent.

In 1961, geologists said that 95% of the nation's surface waters were already in use and that future drinking water would have to rely on clean supplies of groundwater. They urged that pollution be stopped.

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

Descriptor terms: history of pollution; culpability; responsibility; liability; groundwater; water pollution;

#101: Guerilla Media: How to Use Radio as a Tool in Your Local Fights.

=======================Electronic Edition========================

RACHEL'S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #101
---October 31, 1988---
News and resources for environmental justice.
------
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
==========
RACHEL-4CM = DIOXIN FOCUSED DIRECTORY Remote Access Chemical Hazards Electronic Library. Dioxinnz.com ========================Original Source========================

Here's a potent new idea for grass roots activists who want to influence politicians and the public: make radio spots and air them as public service announcements or, for a few hundred dollars, buy air time. This video makes the case that radio advertising is the cheapest, most effective and least-used way to get your message out to a mass audience, throwing light, heat and pressure on your adversaries. Not convinced it's effective? Afraid it's over your head or over your budget? Buy or rent the video tape, Guerilla Media, from Varied Directions, Inc., 69 Elm Street, Camden, Maine 04843; phone (207) 236-8506. This video will convince you that making radio spots is cheap, easy and an effective force for winning your local fight. It sells for $299 but rents for seven days for $75. Your group wouldn't be making a mistake to invest $75 in renting this video. As you watch the tape, pay careful attention and take notes. You'll find a bundle of good ideas packed into this 90-minute tape.

--Peter Montague, Ph.D.

Descriptor terms: video; radio; advertising; publicity; mass media; tactics; ads; public relations;