Poisoned Places: Part 2 - Smack dab in the middle of it!

Here is what NPR has to say about their Special Series NPR News Investigates called: "Poisoned Places: Toxic Air, Neglected Communities."

Two decades ago, Democrats and Republicans together sought to protect Americans from nearly 200 dangerous chemicals in the air they breathe. That goal remains unfulfilled. Today, hundreds of communities are still exposed to the pollutants, which can cause cancer, birth defects and other serious health issues. A secret government 'watch list' underscores how much government knows about the threat – and how little it has done to address it.

In my last post, I wrote about one of these "poisoned" places, Hayden, Arizona, Titled "EPA Takes Action Against Toxic Arizona Copper Plant."

According to NPR there is a "secret government 'watch list' underscores how much government knows about the threat – and how little it has done to address it."  So what is this secret government 'watch list' NPR speaks of?

The Bush administration's EPA faced criticism for not being tough enough on chronic polluters, so in 2004 it created a confidential watch list to manage the problem.

According to EPA reports, when regulators don't crack down within nine months of learning that a facility is a chronic or serious violator of the rules, the facility automatically pops onto the watch list. As a result, the agency says, some facilities may end up on the list in error.

Some of the facilities on the list likely are the "worst of the worst" polluters, but others may be breaking the rules in ways that do not pose significant risks for human health or the environment, says Grant Nakayama, who headed the EPA's enforcements under President Bush.

Apparently, Hayden, Arizona is on that secret list.  Is it a "worst of the worst" polluter or is it on there for  "breaking the rules in ways that do not pose significant risks for human health or the environment?"

That's an important distinction for two reasons.  One, you imply poisoning when you call someone a polluter, this leads to fear, concern, and stress for those who live in that "place."  Two, we have limited resources to spend, lets take that money and protect human health and the environment from real danger, not perceived risk.  Soapbox /off

Let's also look at the question: "how little it has done to address it."

“The bottom line is that the whole town is contaminated,” said Betty Amparano, who was born in Hayden and has lived here most of her life.  Which led the Center for Public Integrity to write:

In some families, generations claim to have suffered ill effects from bad air. Deaths from cancer are common. Regulators have done little; for people who live here, the sense of betrayal is profound.

Is there any way possible to look at this objectively?  I mean you have a town that is located for the most part within a factory that smelts copper ore.  What possible conclusion can one come up with other than the people in Hayden, Arizona have been "poisoned" and there has been "little done to address it."

Let's look at the evidence the NPR and the Center for Public Integrity put forth to support the claim of a "threat" and a "sense of betrayal."

1. We have a copper smelter
2. The town is right next to the copper smelter
3. We have citizens claiming they "suffered ill effects from bad air."
4. The Center for Public Integrity states "deaths from cancer are common."
5. "A copper smelter failed to keep toxic air pollution in check."
6. "The state failed to lean on the smelter’s owner, Asarco."
7. "The federal government failed, until days ago, to override the state."
8. A "finding of violation" claims the company has been continuously emitting illegal amounts of lead, arsenic and eight other dangerous compounds for six years.
9. The EPA says its monitors detected lead at two to three times federal limits on some days during 2011.
10. The EPA ordered Asarco to remove and replace the soil from more than 200 yards in Hayden after finding soil contaminated with lead and arsenic.
11. Does the smelter have a "License to Pollute" as the Center for Public Integrity claims in their video on the NPR web page?

Let's get 1 and 2 out of the way.  Yes, there is a copper smelter and the town is right next to it.  When you look at the EPA map and the satellite photo, it looks like a bad place to live.  The copper smelter in Hayden, Arizona has all the bells and whistles needed to make such a "poisoned places" claim.  I mean, look at this map from the EPA that they handed out to the community:

Handouts from EPA’s Open House and Community Meeting, January 9, 10, 2008

Maybe a satellite image might work a bit better:

Google Maps

Do you see what I see?  They built a smelter right smack in the middle of the town of Hayden Arizona!  That's similar to putting the Alamo smack dab in the middle of San Antonio, Texas!

Alamo in San Antonio, Texas

You can understand why Hayden citizen Betty Amparano sees it as failures "that all but ruined this wisp of a town occurred on multiple levels."

But here is one of the facts in play.  Hayden and Winkelman are there because of the copper smelter.

According to the EPA:

EPA Region 9 HHRA Report - Full

This is one of the fundamental problems we have in looking at the risk of an operation, such as a smelter or refinery, in an objective manner.  What is the risk now, not what was the risk pre-1990 Clean Air Act or the contamination that resulted before we had the environmental laws we now have in place.

The fact of the matter is this:  50 years before we had an EPA we had a copper smelter in the town of Hayden, Arizona.  For 50 years - till present day laws and regulation - that copper smelter did what it was designed to do - smelt copper - which results in ore being refined, tailings being produced, heat being generated, and emissions put into the air.

"I remember clouds of blue smoke coming down into the playgrounds in the community and coughing and your eyes burning," recalls Manny Armenta, 56, who represents union workers at Asarco.

And I remember the air being so bad in Garden Grove, California that it burned my eyes when we went outside to play. That was Orange County back in the 60s before it was all grown up. That was then, this is now.

So one again, we have two opposing claims:

A "finding of violation" claims the company has been continuously emitting illegal amounts of lead, arsenic and eight other dangerous compounds for six years.

...and:

 "Our smelter is in compliance with its air permit," writes Tom Aldrich, an Asarco spokesman. "Asarco works closely with its regulators and proactively seeks innovations as science evolves and environmental laws and rules are updated."

Two men claim they're Jesus one of them must be wrong.




Next post: Poisoned Places: Part 3 - The whole towns contaminated.


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Poisoned Places: Part 1 - That claim makes it sound real bad

If you have done anything today, it involved something that was produced.  Everything we do depends on something being produced - made.

This is a given, and it needs to be understood and accepted.  If you fly on an airplane, it's not just the fuel that was burned to move you from point A to point B, but the fuel burned by all those who support the flight.  Not only is fuel burned, but the materials that went into the airplane and airport had to be produced.

Case in point, the radar we use to get us from A to B safely requires electricity.  Electricity must be produced and it must be transported from that generation point to the radar.  That transmission is done through copper lines, and that copper must be produced.

Which brings me to this post.  A given:  If we are going to use copper it must be mined from the ground and smelted to produce a usable product.  If you don't want to mine or smelt then you will not produce copper or any of the other materials we use and depend on day to day.

That's a given.  There is no way around mining and smelting to produce copper.

The question now must focus on this: Can we mine and smelt copper in a way that is protective of public health and the environment?

Well of course we can, right?  I mean we put a bunch of guys on the moon, we can mine and smelt copper safely.  The question now becomes: Are we mining and smelting copper in a way to protect public health and the environment?

One group says they are, another says they are not.  Or, as Dire Straits says in their 1982 song "Industrial Disease" (no irony intended with that title): Two men say they're Jesus one of them must be wrong.

NPR - who I listen to and support - has an ongoing series called "Poisoned Places" and this Thursday's episode was on a copper smelter in Hayden, Arizona that "has drawn complaints about toxic pollution for years."

If you have read any of my other posts you will come to see I spend very little time on waste and a whole bunch on looking at exposure and the risk to health from that exposure.  So when someone uses the term "poison" to describe a place, I'm skeptical as why they chose that particular word.

Here is how the word "poison" is defined by Merriam-Webster:

a : a substance that through its chemical action usually kills, injures, or impairs an organism
b : something destructive or harmful

For me, the NPR title implies that the people of the town of Hayden, Arizona are being killed, injured, or impaired by a copper smelter that is putting into their environment something that is destructive or harmful.

Is that what is happening now?  Is that what has been happening over the last couple of years?  Let's face facts here.  Prior to about 1980, what industry put into the air, water, and soil was not good for public health and the environment.  Since 1980, industry has changed as laws on what can be put into the air, water, and land have forced compliance with thresholds, controls, and monitoring designed to be protective of public health and the environment.

Did this smelter in Hayden, Arizona at one time (its been in operation since 1912) cause harm to public health and the environment?  I would hazard a guess as to yeah, it most likely did.  Is the smelter still causing harm to public health and the environment?  That's the $64,000 question.

NPR, through the Center for Public Integrity makes a number of statements indicating that there is still harm to the public, hence showing up in NPRs Poisoned Places series.  After all, if it wasn't poisoning anyone, why would they be reporting on it?

Here's the thing.  If you are going to make a claim that something is bad, dangerous, unhealthy, or a poison, you need to have data to support that.  And, if you have data, you need to understand what the data tells you and how it fits in with the claim of risk or harm.

Let's look at how Center for Public Integrity starts of their webpage article:

“The bottom line is that the whole town is contaminated,” said [Betty] Amparano, who was born in Hayden and has lived here most of her life.

Soil tainted by airborne metals has been excavated from hundreds of yards. In some families, generations claim to have suffered ill effects from bad air. Deaths from cancer are common. Regulators have done little; for people who live here, the sense of betrayal is profound.

Should we believe this?  Is the "whole town" contaminated?  Are deaths from cancer "common?"  Have regulators "done little?"

First, lets look at the claim: "In some families, generations claim to have suffered ill effects from bad air. Deaths from cancer are common."

Where is the data?  Sounds cruel, doesn't it?  But that's how it has to be.  For the Center for Public Integrity to report that claim, they should have looked into information to support that claim.  Was their an epidemiological study done?  What do the medical professionals have to say?  Did Arizona's Public Health officials look into this?

Two men claim they're Jesus one of them must be wrong.

According to the American Cancer Society, the lifetime probability of developing cancer for men, 2005-2007 was a risk of 1 in 2 (slide 17).  Do all of these men live near a copper smelter?  Is the incidence of cancer in men higher or lower than this in Hayden, Arizona?

But now that NPR and the Center for Public Integrity has your attention, it seems only probable that they can build a case to support such a claim.

But what they will build is nothing more sound than a straw house.  The truth is a wolf, and you know what he can do to a straw house.

Next post: Poisoned Places: Part 2 - Smack dab in the middle of it!



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