The Brockovich Report

There's been a public advisory about eating toxic fish. Those of you who have been eating fish because it's healthier, but you've been walking around achy and fatigued, listen up.

" Consumption of smallmouth bass caught in Chartiers Creek from the PA Route 980 Bridge in Canonsburg to the mouth in Washington and Allegheny Counties, and in Little Chartiers Creek from Canonsburg Lake Dam to the mouth in Washington County, should be limited to six meals per year, due to polychlorinated biphenyl, or PCB, contamination."

I see things like this and it really makes me wonder at the thinking. Do I need fish so much that I want a 1/6th portion of poison with it?

So what is PCB and why is it in my fish?

Polychlorinated biphenyl is an organic compound of benzene, carbon and chlorine that used to be used in coolant, electronics, sealants, adhesives, caulking, pesticides, carbon paper, and various other industrial uses. Production has been banned since the 1970s. It is especially dangerous because it is odorless and tasteless, and so stable that it hangs around a long time.

Clean water is always a concern for me. The EPA has set a limit of 0.0005 milligrams of PCBs per liter of drinking water (0.0005 mg/L). Unfortunately, industry released up to 1,300,000 pounds of PCBs into the Hudson river alone between approximately 1947 and 1977. It's seems that it is still there. And PCBs are bad for people.

PCB consumption is bad for pregnant and nursing woman, and harms the neonatal and natal immune system. It is linked to long term immune and autoimmune disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, dermatitis, bacterial infections, and various cancer.

If you want to know more about PCBs, you can contact the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

Division of Toxicology and Environmental Medicine
1600 Clifton Road NE, Mailstop F-32
Atlanta, GA 30333
Phone: 1-800-CDC-INFO • 888-232-6348 (TTY)
FAX: 770-488-4178
Email: cdcinfo@cdc.gov

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Licensing the Right to a Healthy Environment in New York City:
What Will Happen Next?

Raise your hand if you've seen the 1984 movie Ghostbusters. It's a cult hit that has Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson ghost hunting with the use of imaginary technology that attracts the attention of overbearing EPA agent Walter Peck (William Atherton.) Outraged at being ignored, there's a moment in the movie when this reckless EPA agent shuts down the unlicensed "protection grid," subsequently releasing a horde of wonky ghosts to ravage New York City. They should have gotten that license....

I've been pondering the concept of licenses. For the most part, they're a good thing. People should be licensed to do things which require expertise and which could cause harm. It makes sense to license drivers, because driving a car is not a right, it is a privilege earned by proving the ability to control a car and obey traffic laws. Construction permits make sense, because this protects the consumer from shoddy work. Service providers-like REALTORS-get licensed, because licensing confers respectability, high standards and accountability.

Should individuals be required to get a license to test the quality of their personal environment?

I think not.

New York's City Council is considering Proposed Int. No. 650-A. There's one of those two-step double-speak terms in this bill, which concedes the need for "certain instruments designed to detect the presence of certain chemicals, biological agents, and radiation in the environment."

I agree. We need reliable instruments that detect those environmental nasties.

But then the bill moves on to an assertion that isn't so straightforward.

"Such instruments should be deployed and operated only with the knowledge of the Police Department and other appropriate City agencies. "

Isn't this like having to report to the health department every time you take a birth control test? Is it really necessary that individuals pay to get a license to test the quality of their own air and water?

However, I'm not entirely throwing out the baby with the bathwater. There's another section that says "the City has an interest in the reliability and effectiveness of these instruments so that their deployment will not cause excessive false alarms and unwarranted anxiety that a large-scale public emergency is occurring. "

I partially agree with this statement, but not for the reason they state. The city DOES have an interest in the reliability and effectiveness of instruments and devices available to the public. The city should set, affirm and maintain standards for the testing devices; we all want to be able to rely on the quality of environmental testing devices the same way we can rely on the quality of that pregnancy test.

But it veers into a whole other realm of duplicity when the city claims the purpose of licensing is to control anxiety.

If there is no problem with the environment, then testing should not cause anxiety; testing will relieve anxiety by proving there is no cause for concern. If the tests indicate something bad, then concern is warranted, and the government needs to do something to control the problem, not the reaction of the victims.

Unlike the Ghostbusters, we don't have a protection grid.

But we do have reliable environmental testing.

So I say this to the New York City Council.

Develop standards for the testing devices. Make them available to all. If you license those who test, then don't use the license to prohibit testing; use it to promote testing, and acquisition of test results; then make the test results part of the public record so that environmental quality can be mapped. Problem areas can be found, and fixed. Rather than swooning in fear at the mere possibility of public concern, let's have the government make heroic efforts to be proactive and prevent the problem.

Control the problem and you won't have to deal with the reaction of the victims. Because if you do the right thing and keep it clean, there won't be any victims.

If the technology is available and dependable, everyone should have the right to test their immediate environment for safety.

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I'm in the same boat as Mark Twain. "The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated." Well, not precisely the same boat since Mark Twain actually IS quite dead now; and I wasn't quite accused of being dead. However, it just so happens that someone emailed me a note about a blog that talked about something Erin Brockovich would have been interested in. "Would have been?" Excuse me? My statute of limitations has not run out yet.

I would just like the world to know that there are plenty of things that I AM STILL interested in. I haven't given up the ghost. I'm still live and kicking. In fact, I'm so interested in so many things that if I were the McCaughey septuplets, I would still barely have time for a private life.

To give you a little idea of the things that are interesting me right now...(I'm sure you're perched on the edge of your chair...)

First there IS that pollution map someone said I might be interested in.
The map is here. -- an air quality map sponsored by the Air Now website. In fact, the map is provided officially via "AIRNow, EPA, NOAA, NPS, news media, tribal, state, and local agencies (who) work together to report conditions for ozone and particle pollution." It's a good place to check to see if outdoor exercise is going to be a problem, or if planning a car trip is a bad idea on a particular day.

I've known an awful lot of people who have become sick because of their environmental situation. So it is well known that I have an active interest in a number of conditions like Aplastic Anemia and Mesothelioma . In fact I have a website and forum just for the purpose of discussing topics of interest.

Anyone who reads my blog knows I'm following the activities of Alcoa Australia who is facing a class action lawsuit over pollution. The people of Yarloop, a small community south of Perth, suffer from a range of health problems we believe are tied to emissions from an Alcoa bauxite refinery. Yes, I have been there, and lectured.

Anyone who reads my blog also knows I'm standing with the people to help clean up the heavily polluted Asopos River in central Greece, where industry has been blatantly dumping pollutants and toxic waste in the river and lately into deep wells that may be polluting the local aquifer. Yes, been there too.

I just came back from participating in the First Congress of Modernization of the Public Service of Punta Umbria, where for three days 3000 attendees participated in three conferences and six round tables, setting out an action plan to modernize administration and improve the quality of life in Spain.

Because one of my active concerns is to ensure environmental sustainability I was a keynote speaker at the Annual Global Problems, Global Solutions Conference: Saving the Earth and its People, which featured workshops on a variety of social issues.

Constantly things of interest are being thrown in my path. Some are the same things that everyone sees, like toxic toy recalls.

Sometimes I hear of positive things too. Like the Las Vegas Radio station where one of the disc jockeys was living on a platform in the parking lot on a toys for tots drive. They are accepting new and unused toys, (obviously non-toxic ones) or cash, but you can visit the website to participate. Go for it KLUC. We should all do more of the same kind of project, but why wait for the holidays?

I just wanted you all to remember that I am still here, still fiesty, still working toward a cleaner world. I hope you are too.

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Think of how it would be if life came with a crystal ball.

There would never be any surprises. We wouldn't have accidents, because we'd know they were going to happen. In fact, we'd have to get rid of the word accident, because we'd know ahead of time that mishap was coming.

Back in 1948 when my father was a football star at Kansas University, if he'd had a crystal ball, he'd have known ahead of time that he would have to turn down the 2008 Orange bowl tickets offered to the KU living legends, because he had prior commitments: taking care of his wife who suffers from dementia. But then, if he knew she was going to suffer from dementia, he might have chosen other insurance.

In fact, we'd all know ahead of time what kind of old age we'd have, and we'd be able to plan accordingly for the type of care we need.

There is no doubt that my father could have used a crystal ball back in the day when he signed up for that health insurance policy. He would not have had to spend decades paying premiums to MetLife for health insurance that would let him down when he needed it the most.

His problem right now is a whole lot bigger than missing that landmark football game. He's just at the end of his rope, since he stoically took care of our mother for as long as he could before he filed his Met Life Insurance claim. This is just the way he is: always acting above and beyond the call of duty. So after he filed his claim for help with her care, he found that there was a 100 day waiting period before the insurance policy will pay.

Legally, Met-Life is acting within their rights. But I ask you, when an agency fails to perform a morally significant action, what should we do? Because it would be morally significant for Met-Life to come to the plate on this, but if they do not, then the consequences of their inaction will be to cause harm to their very own client who has paid premiums for not days, not weeks, not months, not years, but decades.

This kind of omission of responsibility reflects on our entire culture. What kind of people are we? What kind of society do we live in when corporations can hide behind the legal "bottom line," get tangled in picayune issues and ignore the human consequence?

Where is our moral compass?

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The last day of the year, there's usually a cartoon of an old man on the newspaper's front page, news and tv shows fill up the day with pre-recorded retrospectives. It is a day of lists. Top ten actresses, top ten actors, top ten movies. If there's more space or time to fill, then the lists get longer: top fifty or top hundred sports figures, bloopers, rescues, crimes, lawsuits.

So here's my top ten, in alphabetical order and overlapping content.

Air Pollution
When you can see the air, time to start cleaning it up.
This year, California has seen our own waste management's diesel truck fleet fined for not abiding to our own state standards. Big West of California's refinery was stopped from using hydrofluoric acid which forms a toxic cloud-not that our smog needs any additional components. Air is already loaded with exhaust from airports, seaports, trucks and trains, and particulates. Unfortunately we just can't hold our breath until the air is safe. If we have a right to breathe clean air, that right has been severely compromised and we should do something about it.

Habitation Destruction.
Joni Mitchel was right.
"Don’t it always seem to go/
That you don't know what you’ve got/
‘Til it's gone/
They paved paradise/
And put up a parking lot."
From polar bears to frogs, from bison to birds, habitat loss is the leading threat to non-domesticated animals. Between global warming (anthropogenic or not), human use of the land, pesticide and nutrient contamination, habitats where undomesticated animals can survive are shrinking. Sustainable wildlife needs the undamaged ecological niche to sustain itself. If we have a right to pass on to our children the infinite exquisite panorama which is our natural world, that right has been severely compromised and we should do something about it.

Land Pollution
In the movie Field of Dreams, an Iowa farmer, Ray Kinsela, hears a mysterious whisper as he stands in his cornfield. “If you build it, he will come. If you build it, they will come." In real life, we deal with a negative corollary of that statement; if you build it, and use it, waste will come. We leave a trail of waste. We just haven't yet figured out how to manage our personal and industrial byproducts in an earth-centric way. If we have a right to live in a clean land, as a population we have severely compromised our environment, and it is up to us to do something about it.

Land Degradation
Yes, we humans degrade the land. We don't fit well in the ecosystem. We must learn how to live on the land, how to use it, enjoy it, and share it, without using it up.

Sustainable resources are only possible because life operates in a cycle of generation/ destruction/ regeneration. (Wouldn't would be nice if human population didn't specialize in the destruction cycle?) That's not to say we don't participate in generation and regeneration. We do work to add topsoil, grow crops, and clean up after our messes. We just seem to have more of a knack of destruction than maintenance.

We have to learn how to honor mother earth the way Native Americans did. As natural creatures our own selves, we have a right to nature unspoiled. That right has been severely compromised and since we are the guilty culprits, we are the only creatures on earth intelligent enough to know how to do restore it.

Resource Depletion
Water, fuels, minerals, crops, topsoil. Virtually everything is a resource. If there's anything we know how to do, it is exploit our resources. But we are only the precursors of what is to come. Our generation has a right to survive. If we have a right to, then our children and our children's children have a right to; our conspicuous consumption has severely compromised that right, and it is our responsibility to do something about it.

Superfund.
If you're not familiar with it, Superfund is the name given to the environmental program established to address the hundreds of abandoned hazardous waste sites where the EPA Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, and the Office of Superfund Remediation Technology innovation are designated to solve these unsolvable. If this fight is close to your heart, check the regional contacts in your area and see what you can do. If we have a right to live unpolluted, that right has been severely compromised and we should do something about it.

Toxins
Toxins, toxins, every where,
And all the boards did shrink ;
Toxins, toxins, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
Apologies to Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
I can't ignore global industrial carelessness, and shifty waste management. Is it really too much to ask to expect that packaged foods (and non-foods for that matter) not come prepackaged with their own toxins? Sometimes I look at the recall lists and wonder what manufacturers are thinking. If they're that careless with what they put IN the package, it goes without saying they have some kind of magical thinking regarding industrial processing waste. I can't help but think about the horrible consequences of the pollution of the Asopos river in Greece, where industrial waste mismanagement is well on the way to killing an entire country. If we have a right to eat and drink and breathe without being poisoned, that right has been severely compromised and we should do something about it.

Waste Management
I recently read something disturbing.
Profits are falling in the waste management industry.
It seems weird to me that there is profit in waste management. I know that profit is what runs the commercial world, but it still strikes me as bizarre that waste management has a profitability factor. It would be infinitely better if efficiency rather than money were our criteria. If we have a right for our waste not to despoil everything that isn't waste, that right has been severely compromised and we should do something about it.

Water Pollution
This year toxic seepage, accidents, mismanagement, polluted water tables touched everyone, one way or another. Clean water must be a priority for us all. We must have clean water in order to survive. If we have a right to quench our thirst without fear of poison or cancer, that right has been severely compromised. It is a survival imperative to do something about it.
In the myth, Pandora opens her box and all the evils fly out. There is left only hope; and hope did not fly away, but settled in her heart. Just as "hope" was the last creature to fly from the box after it was opened, I have saved something positive to end with. So what am I thinking is our one hope?

Renewable Energy
We don't have to start living in teepees and eating cactus and pureed dirt. We can light our homes and power our appliances using solar power, wind power. We can act like custodians instead of consumers and use renewable resources.

Our right to live in an intelligent, technological civilization has been severely compromised by bad choices made in the past. We should do something about it. So my 2008 resolution is to make better choices. Green choices.

What is your resolution?

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