The Village of DePue: A totally unrealistic methods for looking at risk - Part 14

In the end, I want the folks in DePue to not be exposed to chemicals that were the result of past operations from a former zinc plant.  Nancy Loeb, director of the Environmental Advocacy Clinic at Northwestern University School of Law’s Bluhm Legal Clinic and pro-bono counsel for the Village of DePue, wants that too.

We are on the same side.  So why am I so hypercritical of her advocacy?  Because, like all my past posts on evaluating risk, she is not looking at it correctly.

I don't really expect a lawyer to understand the complexity of a risk assessment.  That's not a dis on lawyers, that's a reality.  It is complex.  So when Ms. Loeb states:

"The reality is that children are working and living as adults in DePue. Any realistic assessment of health risks has to take these multiple, constant and long-term exposures into account.” (1)

She is indicating to me that she understands how environmental risk is calculated.  She apparently takes issue with the way CBS and ExxonMobil have calculated that risk.  This indicates to me that she knows another way that it should be done; a way that is different than how we do it as wll as how the Illinois EPA and US EPA require it be performed.

Ms. Loeb is telling DePue that how the risk has been calculated is wrong.

As part of a university, Northwestern, I expect her, a lawyer, to get the necessary expertise to comment on the plan.  She appears to have done that according to the Campus Life newspaper at Northwestern:

Loeb quickly called on her Northwestern colleagues to help assess the situation. When she needed expertise to analyze reports on the human and ecological health risks in Lake DePue, she called on environmental engineering professor Kimberly Gray. (2):

Okay, cool, she has an environmental engineer assisting her.  So then it must have been Ms. Gray that told her "any realistic assessment of health risks has to take these multiple, constant and long-term exposures into account.”  I am assuming that Ms. Gray is familiar with EPA's soil screening levels and how that same methodology is used by the Illinois EPA to establish a cleanup objective.

Let's look at what Ms. Loeb contends is an unrealistic method for long term - chronic - risk.

“In determining whether a person is exposed to potentially harmful levels of toxic pollutants, CBS and ExxonMobil are counting each exposure as if it were an isolated incident, and pretending that residents are exposed only to a single contaminant and only in one area of the town."

Whatever contaminant levels the Illinois EPA agrees to in DePue must be calculated in a scientifically sound way.  At the present time, the way we look at chronic exposure for a non-carcinogen is based on this philosophy:

"Based on our understanding of homeostatic and adaptive mechanisms, systemic toxicity is treated as if there is an identifiable exposure threshold (both for the individual and for populations) below which there are no observable adverse effects." (EPA)

This leads us to accept the assumption that there is:

"a range of exposures from zero to some finite value can be tolerated by the organism with essentially no chance of expression of the toxic effect.” (EPA)

When we calculate a cleanup level for contaminated soil, we do it based on estimating what the level could be that can be tolerated by the organism.  In the case of DePue, we are looking at humans as our organism of concern.

What we want to know is for any given amount of soil that my human comes in contact with, what concentration of that toxic material can be tolerated.  This is based on the concept of a reference dose.

Whatever clean up objectives the Illinois EPA is agreeing to will be based on that assumption and concept.

We do not count each exposure "as if it were an isolated incident."  We look at exposure at a set amount over a lifetime of 70 years.  If a sample of soil is above that acceptable dose we assume it needs to be remediated.

I must assume, based on the statement from the Illinois EPA to the Illinois House and Senate, that the soil in OU-4, the area where people live, work, and play, will be remediated to a sound risk-based concentration.

Source

I don't know what those levels are, but for the Illinois EPA to "concur with this approach," they must be based on a sound risk based calculation such as the EPA's soil screening level models.  Ms. Loeb is indicating that there is a better model to use, one that takes "these multiple, constant and long-term exposures into account.”

Okay...show me how this is done and why it is more sound than the method we use now.

Is the concern one that believes the contaminants are not being addressed as additive?  Let's look at Illinois EPA's TACO's for an explanation on this concept:

TACOs Fact Sheet

I have discussed how we look at carcinogens in my previous posts.  Carcinogens will be cleaned to background, the chronic non-carcinogens that may be additive are cleaned so that the calculated HI is less than 1.

I am a bit confused here.  Since the Press Release was issued after the Illinois EPA letter to the Illinois House and Senate, does Ms. Loeb contend that the Illinois EPA is not following TACOs?

Because the Illinois EPA tells the House and Senate that CBS and ExxonMobil "proposes to excavate contaminated soil from residential lots and other areas of the Village" I am assuming that TACOs has been met.  If it has not, then Ms. Loeb has a beef and she should be advocating that TACOs be followed.

Ms. Loeb contends that this plan "leaves backyards, playgrounds and Lake DePue without real remediation.”  If that is true, show me.  Show me how her data calculates a risk differently than the one the Illinois EPA is agreeing to.

If TACOs is not being followed, show me.  Show me where the Illinois EPA has agreed to leave "backyards, playgrounds and Lake DePue without real remediation.”

Show me what a "realistic assessment of health risks" looks like that takes "these multiple, constant and long-term exposures into account.”  Show me where the plan is unrealistic in terms of risk.  I am not seeing it from the evidence provided in the CleanUp DePue website.

What Ms. Loeb is advocating for is one remedy and one remedy only.  Clean up.

They want the waste removed.  Picked up and taken away.

The reason for this is perception.  Behind that fence is “the pile of black death.”  The folks in DePue have been waiting for something to happen to cleanup this pile, and "after 17 years of waiting, the companies presented a plan that basically proposes to dig up a handful of the polluted areas and throw the toxic waste over the fence.”

This is how they see their situation and Ms. Loeb is doing little to bring them to understand the real risk.  Look at what they are being told by Northwestern's campus paper:

While no longitudinal health studies have been conducted on the residents of DePue, heavy-metal contamination in general leads to increased incidence of neurological issues and cancer. 

See it from the perspective of a citizen in DePue that lives in OU-4.  Pile of "black death,"  heavy metal contamination, and "increased incidence of neurological issues and cancer."

Now counter that with my 14 posts.  Yeah, they are all asleep and bored out of their minds.

She wins because she tells them "ExxonMobil and CBS are continuing to minimize the risks to human health and the environment and to set the groundwork for leaving the contaminated waste where it is.”

That's what they want to hear because that's what they think is going on in their town.  Pile of "black death,"  heavy metal contamination, and "increased incidence of neurological issues and cancer."


Next post: The Village of DePue: Put a Fence Around It - Part 15

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