=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #292
—July 1, 1992—
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
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WHAT HAS GONE WRONG?–PART 1:
CONGRESS CREATES A MONSTER: THE ATSDR
When chemical wastes hit the headlines in 1978 the name “Love
Canal” entered the American vocabulary. Suddenly Rachel Carson’s
vision of a “silent spring” seemed real: the genie of modern
chemical technology had turned upon its master. In truth, it was
the chemical industry’s worst nightmare: they had known since the
late 1950s that burying chemicals in the ground did not get rid
of them but merely created pockets of poison. But they were
hooked on cheap disposal so they kept doing it anyway, hoping
against hope that no one would find out. (See RHWN #97 and #98.)
By that time industry had produced–and stashed SOMEWHERE–about
100 trillion pounds of hazardous wastes, enough waste to create a
highway to the moon 100 feet wide, 10 feet deep.
When things hit the fan at Love Canal in 1978, many chemical
executives thought it was all over. The 50-year chemical joy-ride
was finished. The public knew. There was no way to pretend any
longer. Perhaps the chemical industry itself was finished.
But these chemical-industry doomsayers were wrong. Congress could
be counted on to help out, and help out it did.
In 1980 Congress passed the “Superfund law” to clean up all the
Love Canals–all 32,000 of them, or all 439,000 of them,
depending on which government estimate you accept.[1] In the 1980
law, Congress gave the bulk of the cleanup job to U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], but it also created a new
unit of government inside the U.S. Public Health Service, called
the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR,
usually pronounced one letter at a time, A-T-S-D-R).
According to the 1980 law, ATSDR’s “mission is to prevent or
mitigate adverse human health effects and diminished quality of
life resulting from environmental exposure to hazardous
substances.” ATSDR was supposed to measure the HUMAN HEALTH
aspects of hazardous waste sites so illness could be prevented or
mitigated. At the time, this seemed a bold and worthy goal. In
retrospect the 10-year history of the agency has proven to be
anything but bold and worthy, as we shall see.
From 1980 to 1983, the Public Health Service simply refused to
create ATSDR. A lifelong bureaucrat and physician named Vernon L.
Houk was in charge, and he just put ATSDR on a shelf and thumbed
his nose at Congress. Houk was honest about his feelings: he said
ATSDR wasn’t needed because chemicals don’t harm people. ATSDR
was finally created in 1983 by a lawsuit filed jointly by the
Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the Chemical Manufacturers
Association, and the American Petroleum Institute, all seeking to
force Houk and the Public Health Service to comply with the law.
It is not hard to imagine why EDF wanted ATSDR, but why would the
Chemical Manufacturers Association and the American Petroleum
Institute want ATSDR created? And particularly under Houk’s
leadership? (We’ll explore this mystery as we go along.)
By 1985 ATSDR was two years old but under Houk’s leadership it
was a “crippled” agency that “still did not have a clear agenda
and work plan and had not produced any substantial work on the
health aspects of hazardous waste sites,” according to the
National Academy of Sciences.[2]
In 1986 Congress reacted to ATSDR’s 5-year failure by giving the
agency more responsibility, requiring the agency to:
(a) conduct health assessments of every site listed on, or
proposed for, the National Priorities List (or NPL, the official
list of dangerous old dumps needing Superfund cleanup);
(b) establish a priority list of chemicals found at Superfund
sites;
(c) produce toxicological profiles for each substance on the list;
(d) and undertake studies of the health effects of hazardous
substances and hazardous waste sites.
Congress gave ATSDR two years to produce health assessments at
all 951 sites that had been put on the Superfund list as of
October 17, 1986, and one year to produce health assessments for
any site added to the list (or proposed for the list) thereafter.
The first requirement meant that ATSDR had to crank out almost
two health assessments EACH DAY for the next two years. The
second requirement meant ATSDR had to produce studies of health
effects at a site well before EPA itself completed initial site
evaluation. It is EPA’s initial site evaluation that produces the
bulk of the data about what chemicals were dumped at a site and
where they have gone, so ATSDR was required to study health
effects four to five years before data was available about
particular toxins and possible pathways of exposure.
Combined with Houk’s conviction that the agency had no valid role
because he “knew” chemicals never harmed people, the new
Congressional requirements guaranteed ATSDR would produce shabby,
inconclusive work, and sure enough that has become the hallmark
of ATSDR. In fact, a new report on ATSDR’s performance, released
this week is titled INCONCLUSIVE BY DESIGN: WASTE FRAUD AND ABUSE
IN FEDERAL ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH RESEARCH.[3] The title refers
to
the fact that, in the vast majority of its health assessments to
date, ATSDR has chosen to employ techniques that cannot discern
the kinds of health effects Congress told it to study.
This early history of ATSDR produced two results, both of which
directly benefited the member corporations of the Chemical
Manufacturers Association and the American Petroleum Institute.
First, as the National Academy of Sciences has noted,[4] by
creating ATSDR as it did, Congress appeared to “absolve EPA of
the need to directly incorporate public health considerations
into site assessments.” This left EPA free to spend its time
conducting “risk assessments”–mathematical exercises nearly
devoid of data–instead of assessing the health consequences of
chemicals.
Secondly, ATSDR pumped out a tremendous number of bad studies,
the vast majority of which found no human health problems, just
as Houk predicted. ATSDR itself concluded that, of the 951 sites
it initially studied, the data were adequate for evaluating
environmental contamination and public health risks at only 31
percent (295) of the sites.[5] This means the agency knew that
656 of the 951 studies it produced were based on data that were
inadequate to support ANY conclusions. In truth, it adds up to a
massive scientific fraud. Yet ATSDR pushed those studies out the
door bearing the stamp of the U.S. Public Health
Service–averaging more than one flawed study EACH DAY for two
years.
There were two important results from all this:
First, major polluters and their apologists could–and still
do–use these low-quality studies as weapons to silence citizens
concerned about chemical exposures. For example, FORBES magazine
says in its July 6, 1992, issue, “Mainstream scientific opinion
is now agreed that the danger from toxic waste was vastly
exaggerated.”[6] ATSDR has produced more than a thousand bogus
studies that support such a conclusion.
Second, as the National Academy of Sciences has said, “The health
of the public has remained in jeopardy at many sites long after
the risks could have –and should have–been identified.”[7] As
the National Academy concluded in a book-length study published
late in 1991, “hazardous wastes have constituted a significant
health hazard to specific populations at specific sites.” HOW
MANY specific sites affecting HOW MANY PEOPLE is the key
question, but neither EPA nor ATSDR has an answer, despite a
direct mandate from Congress to develop an answer. It is a sorry
record indeed.
In its clinical language, the National Academy study indicts both
EPA and ATSDR for their failures. But to learn the human side of
these failures, you must read the new report on ATSDR released
this week by the Environmental Health Network (Harvey, Louisiana)
and the National Toxics Campaign (Boston, Mass.). It offers a
litany of the agency’s wrongdoings and wrong-headedness, from the
perspective of citizens. From a series of case
studies–Jacksonville, Arkansas; Texarkana, Texas; St. Gabriel,
Louisiana; North Hampton, New Hampshire; and Hope, Maine–you can
begin to get a sense of what it is like for victims living near a
dump when ATSDR comes to town. Often the agency arrives
unannounced, conducts a health assessment without ever speaking
to a single individual who has complained of symptoms that may be
related to chemical exposures, and leaves. Results of the study
will be released a year or so later, with no explanation of what
the results mean.
The report ends with a series of specific recommendations for
reforming ATSDR. The time is ripe for change. Vernon Houk has now
developed cancer of the larynx and is undergoing radiation
therapy, so he is no longer the gray eminence he once was.
Perhaps the release of this new report, with attendant publicity,
can jolt the ATSDR into a new view of the importance of its own
mission. The problem of hazardous waste continues to increase at
a steady 6.5 percent each year, doubling every 11 years. FORBES
magazine and the polluters like to pretend the problem isn’t
serious, but the National Academy of Sciences says different.
Valid studies of health effects are needed now more than ever,
and significant efforts to fix ATSDR are fully warranted.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
[2] Miller, cited above, pg. 65.
[4] Miller, cited above, pg. 65.
[5] Miller, cited above, pg. 67.
[7] Miller, cited above, pg. 94.
Descriptor terms: love canal; congress; atsdr; edf: cma; api;
american petroleum institute; npl; superfund; environmental
health network;