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Featured stories in this issue...

The Link Between Toxic Chemicals and Global Warming
  If we could all climb out of our foxholes for a moment and look
  around, we might see a huge opportunity spreading out before us: the
  solutions to global warming and toxic chemicals are both being
  thwarted by one group of people: coal company executives and their
  helpmates.
Now for Something Completely Different: The Sunset of Rachel's News
  A year from now, it will be time for a change. Pete Seeger helps
  explain what I'm thinking. --P.M.
Government Concedes Vaccine-autism Case in Federal Court
  An 18-month-old child with an undiagnosed disease (mitochondrial
  disorder) developed symptoms of autism after receiving 9 vaccinations
  simultaneously, 2 of which contained mercury. The government has
  conceded that the vaccinations "significantly aggravated" the child's
  mitochondrial disorder, producing the autism-like symptoms.
Mahanoy Township, Pennsylvania, Bans Corporate Sludge Dumping
  Another Pennsylvania municipality outlaws chemical bodily trespass,
  strips corporations of their claim to "rights," recognizes the rights
  of nature, and asserts the civil rights of residents to sue
  corporations as state actors.
What Are Our Pharmaceuticals Doing To the Environment?
  People and animals excrete pharmaceuticals and their metabolites,
  which then find their way into the environment through a variety of
  routes -- treated wastewater, agricultural runoff, and biosolids and
  manure that are used as fertilizers.
The Smallest of Pollutants Are Linked To Outsize Health Risks
  Scientists are increasingly concerned about air pollution's tiniest
  constituents -- virus-size particles produced by combustion. These
  ultrafines are ubiquitous near roadways and are emerging as one of the
  most dangerous components of air pollution, which kills an estimated
  60,000-plus Americans a year. That's more than the number killed
  annually by automobile accidents.
Will U.S. Become World's Nuclear-waste Dump?
  "If we establish a precedent for importing very large quantities of
  foreign nuclear waste, we're going to make the US and Utah the dumping
  ground for the rest of the world."

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From: Rachel's Democracy & Health News #948, Feb. 28, 2008
[Printer-friendly version]

THE LINK BETWEEN TOXIC CHEMICALS AND GLOBAL WARMING

By Peter Montague

As never before, opportunity is knocking for activists. The solutions
to global warming and chemical contamination are both peeking
over the horizon and they look very much alike. The timing is perfect
for building a global coalition to promote waste-free green
chemistry (or clean production), end the rush toward coal-burning
power plants, stuff the nuclear genie back into the bottle, power the
future with sustainable solar energy, and advance environmental
justice worldwide. From all this can flow many millions of truly
green jobs.

Global warming and chemical contamination are two sides of the same
coin, and solutions to both are now converging. Activists fighting
coal, fighting nuclear, fighting dangerous waste technologies
(landfills, incinerators and incinerators-in-disguise), fighting for
the cleanup of superfund sites and brownfields and toxic emissions,
fighting all the chemicals-and-health fights (childhood cancers,
autism, diabetes, asthma, Parkinson's and so many other environment-
linked diseases), and fighting for justice, joined with
activists promoting solar, wind and biofuels, promoting tidal power
and geothermal, promoting green jobs, clean production and green
chemistry -- could now work together toward a common purpose. The
combination would create a mountain of political power.

To curb global warming, we can transition as rapidly as possible to
renewable solar, geothermal and tidal power, and to end chemical
contamination we can transition as rapidly as possible to green
chemistry. But to do either of these things, we first must get around
one huge obstacle: the coal industry. I know that some influential
people are saying that fossil fuels are over, that oil has peaked and
coal is dead, but there's more to it than that.

Yes, perhaps oil has reached -- or soon will -- peak production and
will be declining in volume each year, which foretells steadily rising
prices (as we have seen -- a 10-fold increase since 2000). But coal
is not dead. Coal executives are planning to turn coal into
liquid fuels and into chemical feedstocks to replace oil. If they
succeed, they will entrench coal for the next 100 years, derailing the
drive toward green chemistry and clean production, and eliminating the
incentives for renewable energy. This is a strategic fork in the road
to the future. Which will we choose? This is a moment in history
when activism can make a crucial difference.

There is still a huge (though surprisingly uncertain) amount of coal
in the ground, especially in the U.S., and we would be naive to think
that the people who own that coal are going walk away from it
emptyhanded. Until it is all used up, they plan to (a) burn it for
electricity, (b) turn it into liquid fuels (diesel, kerosene and jet
fuel), or (c) turn it into chemical feedstocks (to create plastics,
pesticides, solvents, etc.)-- or they will sell it to China, which
will then burn it, liquify it, or turn it into chemicals. Peabody
Energy of St. Louis, the largest private coal company in the world,
opened an office in Beijing in 2005 because Chinese coal mines cannot
keep up with demand, and U.S. coal exports are now helping fill that
gap.

With coal-fired electric power now being fought to a standstill by a
swarm of grass-roots activists all across the U.S., coal-to-liquids
(CTL) and coal-to-chemicals are the most promising paths to salvation
for the coal industry. Private chemical companies can build coal-to-
chemical plants on their existing premises without getting any special
licenses of the kind required for electric utilities. Eastman Chemical
(formerly a part of Eastman Kodak) already derives 20% of its chemical
feedstocks from coal and is thinking about pushing that up to 40%.[1]
General Electric -- which sells coal gasification equipment needed for
both coal-to-liquids and coal-to-chemicals -- wants to sell coal
gasifiers to electric utilities, "But in the near term, turning coal
to chemicals offers the most significant opportunities," says Edward
C. Lowe, general manager of gasification for GE Energy.[1]

Coal-to-liquids and coal-to-chemicals both use heat and pressure to
break the molecular bonds in coal, producing gases (mostly carbon
monoxide and hydrogen), which can be recombined to make various fuels
and chemical feedstocks for paints, food additives, fertilizers,
plastics, and all manner of other modern molecules. Germany
commercialized these chemical processes before World War II, but after
the war cheap oil shoved coal-gas technology to the back burner. Now
oil is growing expensive and the chemical industry is paying roughly
$40 billion per year for petroleum-based feedstocks, so that's a huge
new market for Big Coal to penetrate. If they succeed, they're saved,
if not, they're sunk. Their back is to the wall.

Coal-to-chemicals plants will try to bury their waste carbon dioxide
(CO2) in the ground, just the way coal-fire power plants say they want
to do -- so coal-to-chemicals and coal-to-liquid-fuels could provide a
laboratory for the untried "carbon capture and storage (CCS)"
technologies needed to create so-called "clean coal." If they can
convince people that CCS works -- and will keep working safely for
thousands of years into the future -- they're saved; if not, they're
sunk. Current U.S. energy policy is providing large taxpayer subsidies
to coal-with-CCS, starving the research budget for renewable energy.

The Wall Street Journal reported late last year that western
chemical companies are now flocking to China to participate in coal-
to- chemicals projects, some of which have an experimental carbon
burial (CCS) component. Because of cheap labor and lax regulations,
such plants cost 30% to 50% less to build in China than in the U.S.
Several Chinese companies already use coal to manufacture vinyl
chloride monomer, the building block of PVC ("vinyl") plastic, and
American and European chemical firms want some of that action. "No
one's made any real commitments yet, says the editor of Chemical Week
magazine, "but it's clear that this is the beginning of a wave."[1]
(Get more data about coal gasification in China and worldwide from
these slides.)

Coal-to-liquids and coal-to-chemicals will not develop in the U.S.
without a knock-down fight. This is where a big coalition of toxics,
environmental health, energy, and green jobs and environmental justice
activists could weigh in: Stopping coal-to-chemicals is 
essential to create space for the emergence of clean production,
green chemistry, renewable energy and green jobs with justice. We are
not going to have a coal-based chemical industry and a green
chemical industry. We'll have one or the other, not both. And the same
is true for electric power: if the public can be convinced that "clean
coal" is really clean and really safe, incentives for renewables will
dry up. We'll have coal or renewables, not both.

Here's the thing. The Achilles' heel of the coal-to-chemicals
industry, the coal-to-liquid-fuels industry, and the coal-fired
electric power industry is carbon dioxide. Compared to petroleum-based
fuels, coal-based fuels produce twice as much CO2 per gallon. With
Wall Street already looking askance at all coal-based technologies
because of the near-certainty that carbon emissions will face
expensive regulation one of these days, plans to bury CO2 in the
ground take on new urgency for the coal corporations. With it, they
may have a future; without it, they're sunk. To stop coal,
activists just have to frighten the money.

Rarely in history have activists on such a a broad range of issues
been offered such a clear strategic opportunity to work together to
kill a deadly, wasteful dinosaur like the coal-to-liquids, coal-to-
chemicals and coal-to-electricity industries, simultaneously opening
up a future of green possibilities for ourselves, for the world, and
for our children.

==============

[1] Claudia H. Deutsch, "Chemical Companies Look to Coal as an Oil
Substitute," New York Times April 18, 2006.

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From: Rachel's Democracy & Health News #948, Feb. 28, 2008
[Printer-friendly version]

NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: THE SUNSET OF RACHEL'S NEWS

By Peter Montague

A year from now, Feb. 26, 2009, we will publish Rachel's News #1000
and it will be our last. I turn 70 this year and I've been doing this
for 22 years (weekly, or bi-weekly -- I've tried both formats for long
stretches). Now it's time for something completely different -- longer
articles, perhaps a very short book, op-eds for daily newspapers,
videos for YouTube, focused gatherings with activists to learn their
ideas about direction and strategy, who knows?

Why, you ask? Here's the long answer...

Near the end of Lewis Lapham's video, "The American Ruling Class,"
there is an absolutely wonderful scene that might help explain what
I'm thinking.

Pete Seeger and a young man named Mike (who, throughout the video,
has been on a quest to find and join the American ruling class) are
walking through the woods on a dirt road. It is fall and the leaves
are bright with color. Pete -- who was 86 when the video was shot in
2005, wearing old jeans, a plaid shirt and a bright red watch cap --
is picking a tune on his 5-string banjo, singing his song from 1969,
"Quite Early Morning." It goes like this:

Don't you know it's darkest before the dawn
And it's this thought keeps me moving on
If we could heed these early warnings
The time is now quite early morning
If we could heed these early warnings
The time is now quite early morning

Some say that humankind won't long endure
But what makes them so doggone sure?
I know that you who hear my singing
Could make those freedom bells go ringing
I know that you who hear my singing
Could make those freedom bells go ringing

And so keep on while we live
Until we have no, no more to give
And when these fingers can strum no longer
Hand the old banjo to young ones stronger
And when these fingers can strum no longer
Hand the old banjo to young ones stronger

So though it's darkest before the dawn
These thoughts keep us moving on
Through all this world of joy and sorrow
We still can have singing tomorrows
Through all this world of joy and sorrow
We still can have singing tomorrows

* * *

After the song, Mike turns to Pete and says, "No offense but do you
really think you can change things, much less the world, by walking
down a country road singing a song -- or by singing a song anytime
anywhere for anybody, for that matter?"

Pete smiles broadly and says, "I suppose not. But I'm gonna make darn
sure the world's isn't gonna change me."

Then he pauses and turns to Mike and tells him a little story. "It's
like this," says Pete. "Imagine a big see-saw and one end is on the
ground because it's got a basket half-full of rocks on that end. The
other end is up in the air because it's got a basket on it one-
quarter full of sand, and some of us have got teaspoons -- we're
trying to fill that basket.

"Of course most people are kind of scoffing at us: They say, 'Don't
you see it's leakin just as quick as you're puttin it in? People like
you been tryin for centuries, but it's never gonna change.' And we
say, 'You might be right but we think we're getting more people with
teaspoons all the time and one of these days that whole see-saw is
gonna go zoooooooop! and our end will suddenly reach the ground and
people will say, 'Gee, how did it happen so suddenly?'"

Pete Seeger pauses and says, "Us and all our little teaspoons... over
the centuries."

Then he smiles and says, "Who knows? Hah!" and starts back singing
"Quite Early Morning" and ambling contentedly down that country road.

As for me, I'm just looking for a different teaspoon. --P.M.

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From: The Huffington Post, Feb. 25, 2008
[Printer-friendly version]

GOVERNMENT CONCEDES VACCINE-AUTISM CASE IN FEDERAL COURT

By David Kirby

After years of insisting there is no evidence to link vaccines with
the onset of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the US government has
quietly conceded a vaccine-autism case in the Court of Federal
Claims.

The unprecedented concession was filed on November 9, and sealed to
protect the plaintiff's identify. It was obtained through individuals
unrelated to the case.

The claim, one of 4,900 autism cases currently pending in Federal
"Vaccine Court," was conceded by US Assistant Attorney General Peter
Keisler and other Justice Department officials, on behalf of the
Department of Health and Human Services, the "defendant" in all
Vaccine Court cases.

The child's claim against the government -- that mercury-containing
vaccines were the cause of her autism -- was supposed to be one of
three "test cases" for the thimerosal-autism theory currently under
consideration by a three-member panel of Special Masters, the
presiding justices in Federal Claims Court.

Keisler wrote that medical personnel at the HHS Division of Vaccine
Injury Compensation (DVIC) had reviewed the case and "concluded that
compensation is appropriate."

The doctors conceded that the child was healthy and developing
normally until her 18-month well-baby visit, when she received
vaccinations against nine different diseases all at once (two
contained thimerosal).

Days later, the girl began spiraling downward into a cascade of
illnesses and setbacks that, within months, presented as symptoms of
autism, including: No response to verbal direction; loss of language
skills; no eye contact; loss of "relatedness;" insomnia; incessant
screaming; arching; and "watching the florescent lights repeatedly
during examination."

Seven months after vaccination, the patient was diagnosed by Dr.
Andrew Zimmerman, a leading neurologist at the Kennedy Krieger
Children's Hospital Neurology Clinic, with "regressive encephalopathy
(brain disease) with features consistent with autistic spectrum
disorder, following normal development." The girl also met the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-IV)
official criteria for autism.

In its written concession, the government said the child had a pre-
existing mitochondrial disorder that was "aggravated" by her shots,
and which ultimately resulted in an ASD diagnosis.

"The vaccinations received on July 19, 2000, significantly aggravated
an underlying mitochondrial disorder," the concession says, "which
predisposed her to deficits in cellular energy metabolism, and
manifested as a regressive encephalopathy with features of ASD."

This statement is good news for the girl and her family, who will now
be compensated for the lifetime of care she will require. But its
implications for the larger vaccine-autism debate, and for public
health policy in general, are not as certain.

In fact, the government's concession seems to raise more questions
than it answers.

1) Is there a connection between vaccines, mitochondrial disorders and
a diagnosis of autism, at least in some cases?

Mitochondria, you may recall from biology class, are the little
powerhouses within cells that convert food into electrical energy,
partly through a complex process called "oxidative phosphorylation."
If this process is impaired, mitochondrial disorder will ensue.

The child in this case had several markers for Mt disease, which was
confirmed by muscle biopsy. Mt disease is often marked by lethargy,
poor muscle tone, poor food digestion and bowel problems, something
found in many children diagnosed with autism.

But mitochondrial disorders are rare in the general population,
affecting some 2-per-10,000 people (or just 0.2%). So with 4,900 cases
filed in Vaccine Court, this case should be the one and only,
extremely rare instance of Mt disease in all the autism proceedings.

But it is not.

Mitochondrial disorders are now thought to be the most common disease
associated with ASD. Some journal articles and other analyses have
estimated that 10% to 20% of all autism cases may involve
mitochondrial disorders, which would make them one thousand times more
common among people with ASD than the general population.

Another article, published in the Journal of Child Neurology and co-
authored by Dr. Zimmerman, showed that 38% of Kennedy Krieger
Institute autism patients studied had one marker for impaired
oxidative phosphorylation, and 47% had a second marker.

The authors -- who reported on a case-study of the same autism claim
conceded in Vaccine Court -- noted that "children who have
(mitochondrial-related) dysfunctional cellular energy metabolism might
be more prone to undergo autistic regression between 18 and 30 months
of age if they also have infections or immunizations at the same
time."

An interesting aspect of Mt disease in autism is that, with ASD, the
mitochondrial disease seems to be milder than in "classic" cases of Mt
disorder. In fact, classic Mt disease is almost always inherited,
either passed down by the mother through mitochondrial DNA, or by both
parents through nuclear DNA.

In autism-related Mt disease, however, the disorder is not typically
found in other family members, and instead appears to be largely of
the sporadic variety, which may now account for 75% of all
mitochondrial disorders.

Meanwhile, an informal survey of seven families of children with cases
currently pending in Vaccine Court revealed that all seven showed
markers for mitochondrial dysfunction, dating back to their earliest
medical tests. The facts in all seven claims mirror the case just
conceded by the government: Normal development followed by
vaccination, immediate illness, and rapid decline culminating in an
autism diagnosis.

2) With 4,900 cases pending, and more coming, will the government
concede those with underlying Mt disease -- and if it not, will the
Court award compensation?

The Court will soon begin processing the 4900 cases pending before it.
What if 10% to 20% of them can demonstrate the same Mt disease and
same set of facts as those in the conceded case? Would the government
be obliged to concede 500, or even 1,000 cases? What impact would that
have on public opinion? And is there enough money currently in the
vaccine injury fund to cover so many settlements?

When asked for a comment last week about the court settlement, a
spokesman for HHS furnished the following written statement:

"DVIC has reviewed the scientific information concerning the
allegation that vaccines cause autism and has found no credible
evidence to support the claim. Accordingly, in every case under the
Vaccine Act, DVIC has maintained the position that vaccines do not
cause autism, and has never concluded in any case that autism was
caused by vaccination."

3) If the government is claiming that vaccines did not "cause" autism,
but instead aggravated a condition to "manifest" as autism, isn't that
a very fine distinction?

For most affected families, such linguistic gymnastics is not so
important. And even if a vaccine injury "manifested" as autism in only
one case, isn't that still a significant development worthy of
informing the public?

On the other hand, perhaps what the government is claiming is that
vaccination resulted in the symptoms of autism, but not in an actual,
factually correct diagnosis of autism itself.

4) If the government is claiming that this child does NOT have autism,
then how many other children might also have something else that
merely "mimics" autism?

Is it possible that 10%-20% of the cases that we now label as
"autism," are not autism at all, but rather some previously undefined
"look-alike" syndrome that merely presents as "features" of autism?

This question gets to the heart of what autism actually is. The
disorder is defined solely as a collection of features, nothing more.
If you have the features (and the diagnosis), you have the disorder.
The underlying biology is the great unknown.

But let's say the government does determine that these kids don't have
actual "autism" (something I speculated on HuffPost a year ago).
Then shouldn't the Feds go back and test all people with ASD for
impaired oxidative phosphorylation, perhaps reclassifying many of
them?

If so, will we then see "autism" cases drop by tens, if not hundreds
of thousands of people? Will there be a corresponding ascension of a
newly described disorder, perhaps something like "Vaccine Aggravated
Mitochondrial Disease with Features of ASD?"

And if this child was technically "misdiagnosed" with DSM-IV autism by
Dr Zimmerman, how does he feel about HHS doctors issuing a second
opinion re-diagnosis of his patient, whom they presumably had neither
met nor examined? (Zimmerman declined an interview).

And along those lines, aren't Bush administration officials somewhat
wary of making long-distance, retroactive diagnoses from Washington,
given that the Terry Schiavo incident has not yet faded from national
memory?

5) Was this child's Mt disease caused by a genetic mutation, as the
government implies, and wouldn't that have manifested as "ASD
features" anyway?

In the concession, the government notes that the patient had a "single
nucleotide change" in the mitochondrial DNA gene T2387C, implying that
this was the underlying cause of her manifested "features" of autism.

While it's true that some inherited forms of Mt disease can manifest
as developmental delays, (and even ASD in the form of Rhett Syndrome)
these forms are linked to identified genetic mutations, of which
T2387C is not involved. In fact little, if anything, is known about
the function of this particular gene.

What's more, there is no evidence that this girl, prior to
vaccination, suffered from any kind of "disorder" at all- genetic,
mitochondrial or otherwise. Some forms of Mt disease are so mild that
the person is unaware of being affected. This perfectly developing
girl may have had Mt disorder at the time of vaccination, but nobody
detected, or even suspected it.

And, there is no evidence to suggest that this girl would have
regressed into symptoms consistent with a DSM-IV autism diagnosis
without her vaccinations. If there was such evidence, then why on
earth would these extremely well-funded government attorneys
compensate this alleged injury in Vaccine Court? Why wouldn't they
move to dismiss, or at least fight the case at trial?

6) What are the implications for research?

The concession raises at least two critical research questions: What
are the causes of Mt dysfunction; and how could vaccines aggravate
that dysfunction to the point of "autistic features?"

While some Mt disorders are clearly inherited, the "sporadic" form is
thought to account for 75% of all cases, according to the United
Mitochondrial Disease Foundation. So what causes sporadic Mt disease?
"Medicines or other toxins," says the Cleveland Clinic, a leading
authority on the subject.

Use of the AIDS drug AZT, for example, can cause Mt disorders by
deleting large segments of mitochondrial DNA. If that is the case,
might other exposures to drugs or toxins (i.e., thimerosal, mercury in
fish, air pollution, pesticides, live viruses) also cause sporadic Mt
disease in certain subsets of children, through similar genotoxic
mechanisms?

Among the prime cellular targets of mercury are mitochondria, and
thimerosal-induced cell death has been associated with the
depolarization of mitochondrial membrane, according to the
International Journal of Molecular Medicine among several others.
(Coincidently, the first case of Mt disease was diagnosed in 1959,
just 15 years after the first autism case was named, and two decades
after thimerosal's introduction as a vaccine preservative.)

Regardless of its cause, shouldn't HHS sponsor research into Mt
disease and the biological mechanisms by which vaccines could
aggravate the disorder? We still do not know what it was, exactly,
about this girl's vaccines that aggravated her condition. Was it the
thimerosal? The three live viruses? The two attenuated viruses? Other
ingredients like aluminum? A combination of the above?

And of course, if vaccine injuries can aggravate Mt disease to the
point of manifesting as autism features, then what other underlying
disorders or conditions (genetic, autoimmune, allergic, etc.) might
also be aggravated to the same extent?

7) What are the implications for medicine and public health?

Should the government develop and approve new treatments for
"aggravated mitochondrial disease with ASD features?" Interestingly,
many of the treatments currently deployed in Mt disease (i.e.,
coenzyme Q10, vitamin B-12, lipoic acid, biotin, dietary changes,
etc.) are part of the alternative treatment regimen that many parents
use on their children with ASD.

And, if a significant minority of autism cases can be linked to Mt
disease and vaccines, shouldn't these products one day carry an FDA
Black Box warning label, and shouldn't children with Mt disorders be
exempt from mandatory immunization?

8) What are the implications for the vaccine-autism debate?

It's too early to tell. But this concession could conceivably make it
more difficult for some officials to continue insisting there is
"absolutely no link" between vaccines and autism.

It also puts the Federal Government's Vaccine Court defense strategy
somewhat into jeopardy. DOJ lawyers and witnesses have argued that
autism is genetic, with no evidence to support an environmental
component. And, they insist, it's simply impossible to construct a
chain of events linking immunizations to the disorder.

Government officials may need to rethink their legal strategy, as well
as their public relations campaigns, given their own slightly
contradictory concession in this case.

9) What is the bottom line here?

The public, (including world leaders) will demand to know what is
going on inside the US Federal health establishment. Yes, as of now,
n=1, a solitary vaccine-autism concession. But what if n=10% or 20%?
Who will pay to clean up that mess?

The significance of this concession will unfortunately be fought over
in the usual, vitriolic way -- and I fully expect to be slammed for
even raising these questions. Despite that, the language of this
concession cannot be changed, or swept away.

Its key words are "aggravated" and "manifested." Without the
aggravation of the vaccines, it is uncertain that the manifestation
would have occurred at all.

When a kid with peanut allergy eats a peanut and dies, we don't say
"his underlying metabolic condition was significantly aggravated to
the extent of manifesting as an anaphylactic shock with features of
death."

No, we say the peanut killed the poor boy. Remove the peanut from the
equation, and he would still be with us today.

Many people look forward to hearing more from HHS officials about why
they are settling this claim. But whatever their explanation, they
cannot change the fundamental facts of this extraordinary case:

The United State government is compensating at least one child for
vaccine injuries that resulted in a diagnosis of autism.

And that is big news, no matter how you want to say it.

NOTE: Full text of the government's statement is posted here.

David Kirby is the author of "Evidence of Harm -- Mercury in Vaccines
and the Autism Epidemic, A Medical Controversy" (St. Martins Press
2005.

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From: Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, Feb. 25, 2008
[Printer-friendly version]

MAHANOY TOWNSHIP, PENNSYLVANIA, BANS CORPORATE SLUDGE DUMPING

The Board of Supervisors for Mahanoy Township in Schuylkill County,
Pennsylvania on Feb.1, 2008, enacted a law that bans corporations from
dumping sewage sludge as "fertilizer" and for "mine reclamation,"
while declaring that within the community corporations possess no
constitutional "rights," privileges or immunities intended for people.

The Ordinance takes the offense in challenging corporate managers in
Pennsylvania and around the nation, who effortlessly wield
constitutional "rights" and legal privileges to dictate corporate
values and nullify local laws.

In adopting the law, Mahanoy Township also became the second local
government in the country to define liability and impose penalties for
chemical bodily trespass, following the lead of the Town of Halifax,
Virginia, where an ordinance banning corporate mining and bodily
trespass became law on February 7, 2008.

The people of Mahanoy Township included a provision that recognizes
the right of natural communities and ecosystems to exist and flourish
within the Township, joining eight other communities that have
asserted environmental protection as an enforceable right rather than
a matter of discretionary convenience.

The Mahanoy Township law

1) Bans corporations from engaging in the land application of sewage
sludge;

2) Bans persons from using corporations to engage in the land
application of sewage sludge;

3) Provides for the testing of sewage sludge prior to land application
by individuals, with testing costs to be borne by the applicant;

4) Prohibits chemical bodily trespass upon residents of the Township;

5) Establishes strict liability and burden of proof standards for
chemical trespass;

6) Removes claims to legal rights and protections from corporations
within the Township;

7) Recognizes and provides for enforcement of rights of residents,
natural communities and ecosystems;

8) Subordinates sludge hauling and disposing corporations to the
People of Mahanoy Township;

9) Adopts Pennsylvania regulations as locally enforceable concerning
the land application of sewage sludge by individuals.

In the Ordinance, the Township Board of Supervisors declared that if
state and federal agencies -- or corporate managers -- attempt to
invalidate the Ordinance, a Township-wide public meeting would be
hosted to determine additional steps to expand local control and self-
governance within the Township.

Adoption of the Ordinance came after years of consideration by the
municipality, several community educational forums and a weekend
Democracy School, where the Township hosted the Community
Environmental Legal Defense Fund to discuss its rights-based strategy
for confronting corporate and state preemptions of community self-
governance.

Sharon Chiao, Chairperson for the Mahanoy Township Board of
Supervisors commented that "we feel the Township has the right to
accept or deny it. This is to protect the health, safety and general
welfare of the citizens and the environment of our Township."

Ben Price, Projects Director for the Community Environmental Legal
Defense Fund, the organization that helped draft the Ordinance said,

"Passage of this Ordinance is especially significant at this time,
since neighboring East Brunswick Township has been sued by the
Pennsylvania Attorney General for adopting a similar Ordinance. Acting
as private litigator for agribusiness and sludge corporations, under
authority of a State statute lobbied for heavily by these industries,
the PA Attorney General recently filed a legal brief requesting the
court overturn East Brunswick's Ordinance without giving the community
its day in court.

In that brief, a key argument for nullifying the local law makes this
stunning assertion in bold print: "There is no inalienable right to
local self-government." It's a point of view we see played out every
day in communities across Pennsylvania and the United States. By
enacting their new Ordinance, the community government of Mahanoy
Township has outshone its State counterpart by recognizing that the
consent of the governed is a prerequisite for just governments and
law."

CONTACT: Ben Price, Projects Director (717) 243-6725;
bengprice@aol.com

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From: Chemical & Engineering News (pg. 13), Feb. 25, 2008
[Printer-friendly version]

WHAT ARE OUR PHARMACEUTICALS DOING TO THE ENVIRONMENT?

Pharmaceuticals have been finding their way into our environment for a
long time, but just what are they doing there?

By Bethany Halford

No one ever planned for fish to take birth control pills. But they
are. As treated wastewater flows into rivers and streams every day,
fish all over the world get a tiny dose of 17a-ethinylestradiol, a
synthetic steroidal estrogen that's used in birth control pills. They
also get a little sip of the anticonvulsant carbamazepine, a nip of
the antidepressant fluoxetine, and a taste of hundreds of other drugs
that we take to make our lives better.

Every drug begins its life as a promise -- a promise to fight disease
or improve our quality of life. It wends its way through the discovery
process and clinical trials until it ends up in our bodies, ready to
do its job.

But that's not the end of the story. A drug doesn't simply disappear
once it has served its purpose. People and animals excrete
pharmaceuticals and their metabolites, which then find their way into
the environment through a variety of routes -- treated wastewater,
agricultural runoff, and biosolids and manure that are used as
fertilizers. Pharmaceuticals also enter the environment when people
dispose of medications by flushing them down the toilet or pouring
them down the drain.

========================================================

What to do with your unused pharmaceuticals.

========================================================

Concentration-wise, pharmaceuticals represent just a small fraction of
the thousands of man-made chemicals in the environment, including
everything from pesticides to personal care products. Even though
medications have been in the environment for as long as people have
been taking them, it's only through the advent of advanced analytical
instrumentation and techniques that scientists have been able to
detect them in the wild.

The small concentrations, however, belie the potentially powerful
effects of these compounds. Pharmaceuticals are specifically designed
to elicit a biological response at very low levels, and scientists are
increasingly becoming aware of how medications let loose on the
environment may have effects no one ever anticipated.

By far, the most dramatic example of this kind of pharmaceutical
pollution has been the effect of estrogenic compounds on fish. In the
1990s, scientists working in the U.K. noted that male fish living
downstream from wastewater treatment plants were becoming feminized.
They were making proteins associated with egg production in female
fish, and they were developing early-stage eggs in their testes.
Feminized male fish have now been observed in rivers and streams in
the U.S. and Europe.

Research led by John Sumpter, an ecotoxicologist at England's Brunel
University, linked the feminizing phenomenon to the presence of
estrogenic compounds, such as the synthetic birth control compound
17a-ethinylestradiol and the natural hormone 17beta-estradiol, in the
water (Environ. Sci. Technol. 1998, 32, 1549). Municipal wastewater
treatment plants don't completely break down these estrogenic
compounds or their metabolites. For example, 17a-ethinylestradiol is
excreted in the form of glucuronide and sulfate conjugates. Bacteria
in the wastewater treatment process cleave these conjugate groups,
regenerating the original estrogenic compound.

"It doesn't take a lot of estrogen to feminize male fish," says Karen
A. Kidd, a biology professor at the Canadian Rivers Institute,
University of New Brunswick. "If you can measure the estrogen in the
water, then that's enough to cause an effect, and we can measure it at
very low parts-per-trillion concentrations."

Kidd recently spearheaded a research project to study the overall
impact of estrogenic compounds on fish (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA
2007, 104, 8897). "No one knew what feminization meant for the fish
population," Kidd explains. "Can feminized males still successfully
reproduce, or is there going to be an impact on the number of fish in
the rivers? That's the big question we set out to address."

FOR THREE SUMMERS, Kidd and her colleagues spiked a lake in Canada's
Experimental Lakes Area with 17a-ethinylestradiol at a concentration
of 5 ppt -- a concentration that has been measured in municipal
wastewaters and in river waters downstream of discharges. During the
autumn that followed the first addition of the estrogenic compound,
the researchers observed delayed sperm cell development in male
fathead minnows -- the freshwater equivalent of a canary in a coal
mine. A year later, the male fathead minnows were producing eggs and
had largely stopped reproducing. The minnow population began to
plummet. The decline continued for an additional three years until the
fish had all but disappeared from the lake.

The fathead minnow wasn't the only fish to feel the effects of the
trace amounts of birth control. The population of lake trout, which
feed on smaller fish, fell by about 30%. "The numbers of lake trout
dropped not because of direct exposure to the estrogens but because
they lost their food supply," Kidd says.

But Kidd's story is not all doom and gloom. In 2006, three years after
her team stopped adding 17a-ethinylestradiol to the lake, the fathead
minnow population rebounded. "So given enough time, once you remove
the estrogens from a system, the fish can recover to their original
population size," Kidd notes.

Although estrogenic compounds may have the most dramatic effect on
fish, they aren't the only pharmaceuticals that have been implicated
in the pollution of aquatic environments. Laboratory studies have
shown that the antidepressant fluoxetine, or Prozac, can slow the
development of fish and frogs. The anticonvulsant carbamazepine
affects the emergence of mosquito-like insects that are a popular food
source for certain fish.

"The challenge is that we don't have a good understanding of" a lot of
drugs that are being used, Kidd says. "We've looked at only a handful
of the drugs that are actually used and discharged into our waters.
There are just a lot of unknowns in this field right now."

And it's not just aquatic organisms that are feeling the effects of
pharmaceutical pollution. One study traced massive die-offs of
vultures in Asia to the veterinary use of diclofenac, a nonsteroidal,
anti-inflammatory (Nature 2004, 427, 630).

Diclofenac is frequently used to treat domestic livestock in India and
Pakistan. When these animals die from disease or injury, they're
typically left for scavengers. An international team of scientists,
led by J. Lindsay Oaks of Washington State University, found that the
vultures were consuming these carcasses and dying from renal failure
and visceral gout caused by diclofenac poisoning.

Scientists also worry that the massive amounts of antibiotics used to
treat livestock may be creating antibiotic-resistant microbes.
"There's a whole other source of pharmaceutical pollution that really
needs attention, and that's livestock use, which generates an
estimated 500 million tons of waste each year," says Dana W. Kolpin, a
research hydrologist at U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) who studies
emerging contaminants in the environment.

Kolpin points out that livestock manure is full of antibiotics,
synthetic and biogenic hormones, and other veterinary medicines.
Farmers use sludge generated by sewage treatment plants as a
fertilizer and a source of nutrients for crops, but this material also
contains excreted medications.

SCIENTISTS KNOW that these pharmaceuticals can travel into the
environment as agricultural runoff and soil contaminants. A new report
from chemistry professor Chad A. Kinney of Colorado State University,
Pueblo, shows that earthworms living in the contaminated soil can take
up some of these pharmaceuticals, notably the antibiotic trimethoprim,
albeit in small amounts (Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI:
10.1021/es702304c). "It shows there is uptake into earthworms that
leads to a potential pathway up the food chain, as earthworms are a
major food source for many higher organisms," says Kolpin, who was a
coauthor of the report. Studies have also shown that pharmaceuticals
can be taken up into crop plants (J. Agric. Food Chem. 2006, 54,
2288).

Researchers continue to suss out the subtle effects of pharmaceuticals
on the environment, such as antibiotic resistance and changes in
feeding and mating behaviors. But getting a handle on the whole
problem is a huge task. Not only do researchers need to consider the
parent compounds in their analyses, but they also have to look at
metabolites and at the transformation products that are formed either
during treatment or from natural processes taking place in the
environment, such as microbial degradation and photolysis.

"If you just look at the parent compound, that's only giving you a
piece of the story," Kolpin explains. "Each compound can break down
and form new environmental contaminants, which can become much more
mobile and much more persistent."

"Sometimes there are cases for which the biodegradation product is
more toxic than the parent compound," adds Diana Aga, an analytical
chemist at State University of New York, Buffalo, who is developing
tools to detect trace levels of pharmaceuticals.

Scientists also have to keep in mind that pharmaceuticals aren't
isolated in the environment, Kolpin notes. They could be acting in
concert with a surfactant, another pharmaceutical, or some other
environmental contaminant.

The Food & Drug Administration requires pharmaceuticals to undergo an
environmental risk assessment before they can go on the market. These
tests are performed on both terrestrial and aquatic organisms, but
they're usually short-term tests that measure how much of a compound
is required to kill an organism outright or stunt its growth within a
matter of days.

"If we're going to identify the compounds that are going to be
problematic, we need to be looking for the right things," says Bryan
Brooks, an environmental science professor at Baylor University. For
example, he explains, it takes a lot of 17a-ethinylestradiol to kill
an aquatic organism, so by current testing standards, the compound
would appear to have a very low potential risk. But feminization of
male fish -- something those short-term tests would have never
detected -- occurs at very low concentrations of the drug.

THE BIG QUESTION is whether pharmaceutical pollution has any impact on
human health. While trace amounts of pharmaceuticals do find their way
into drinking water, studies indicate that the concentrations are far
too small to elicit any appreciable effect.

Fetal exposure to certain pharmaceuticals is also a cause for concern.
An extreme example would be exposure to thalidomide or to a
chemotherapeutic drug, says Christian G. Daughton, chief of the
environmental chemistry branch at the Environmental Protection
Agency's National Exposure Research Laboratory. He adds, however, that
"the doses that a fetus would get from its mother ingesting several
liters of water a day are still orders of magnitude below the dosages
that are known to cause effects."

Daughton says that toxicologists are now trying to understand the
effects of continual sustained exposure to multiple chemicals, each
present at a very low level. "It could be that the chemical stress
that's put on any organism is the result of minute stresses of a
multitude of chemicals," whether they're synthetic or naturally
occurring compounds, he says.

Francesco Pomati, a toxicologist at Australia's University of New
South Wales, and colleagues at Italy's University of Insubria recently
discovered that a low-concentration mixture of 13 drugs -- including a
chemotherapeutic agent and several antibiotics -- can inhibit the
growth of human embryonic kidney cells in vitro (Environ. Sci.
Technol. 2006, 40, 2442). It's important to note, however, that the
concentrations used were those found in the environment, not in
drinking water.

"Studies conducted to date suggest that it is highly unlikely that the
quantities of pharmaceuticals detected in the environment would be
harmful to human health," says Ken Johnson, senior vice president with
Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America.

"I think it's unambiguous that the trace pharmaceuticals we're seeing
in drinking water have no human health problems so far," adds Shane
Snyder, an environmental toxicologist at the Southern Nevada Water
Authority. A few months ago, Snyder published an analysis of water
from 20 drinking water utilities across the U.S. These utilities were
treating water known to contain wastewater that had come from a sewage
treatment plant upstream.

Notably, Snyder's team did not detect any of the estrogenic compounds
that have been implicated in the feminization of fish in either the
source water or the treated drinking water. They did find that
drinking water from at least half of the treatment facilities
contained ibuprofen, carbamazepine, the antiepileptic dilantin, and
the antianxiety drug meprobamate, but each occurred in extremely low
concentrations -- in the parts-per-trillion range.

"The treatment processes we have are highly effective," Snyder
concludes. He points out that we're seeing more pharmaceuticals in our
environment because we're getting better at detecting them, not
necessarily because there are more of them. It's therefore important,
he says, to develop toxicologically based limits for pharmaceuticals
in our water. "If we ignore concentration and say presence or absence
is our litmus test, then there will be no end to that," Snyder says.
"Detection does not infer health risk and nondetection does not ensure
safety."

Snyder's study also assessed the removal of pharmaceuticals from
drinking water, using both conventional and advanced drinking water
treatment processes. Conventional treatments, such as coagulation,
flocculation, and filtration, were basically ineffective. Chlorination
proved to be better, removing about half of the compounds considered
in the study. Advanced treatments, such as ozonation, activated
carbon, and reverse osmosis and nanofiltration membranes, worked well,
but these methods are expensive, and they're generally used to treat
drinking water, not wastewater.

"YOU HAVE TO keep in mind that sewage treatment plants were originally
designed a long time ago to improve the aesthetic quality of treated
sewage and to reduce the incidence of disease -- to reduce odor and
make the water look better and get rid of bacteria and viruses," EPA's
Daughton says. "They were never engineered to remove synthetic
substances."

Whether or not sewage treatment plants should be equipped to remove
pharmaceuticals is a matter of some controversy. "There's this huge
risk-benefit equation that's very difficult to address," Daughton
explains.

"I think for a lot of drugs out there, we are probably more concerned
than we should be," says Alistair Boxall, an environmental chemist at
the University of York, in England. "I think there are examples of
substances that perhaps we do need to look at a bit further, but I'm
not convinced we should be putting advanced treatment mechanisms on
every sewage treatment plant just to get rid of pharmaceuticals."

Snyder agrees. "I would be very cautious about building energy-
intensive wastewater treatment plants," he tells C&EN.

"With regard to pharmaceuticals in the environment, I do believe that
we have the treatment technologies available to address these
problems," says Nancy G. Love, a professor of civil and environmental
engineering at Michigan University. "The challenge comes in improving
the engineering implementation of the technologies" to make them more
cost-effective, she adds.

Even though pharmaceutical pollution is a problem we are equipped to
deal with, the solution may not be so simple if the contaminants are
causing antibiotic resistance, Love says. "We do not necessarily have
the technology to design antibiotics that are not vulnerable to
generating antibiotic-resistant characteristics in microbes. And if
pollution is an inducer of antibiotic resistance, then we have a
larger problem on our hands than we realize."

Scientists working in this area agree that more research needs to be
done on all aspects of pharmaceuticals' effects in the environment.
"We need to determine which compounds or sets of compounds are the
worst players, and then we need to make the decision whether these
things need to be removed before they get into the environment,"
USGS's Kolpin says. "There's more information needed before any sort
of policy or regulatory decision can be made. Otherwise, I'm afraid it
will be ineffective or unnecessary."

Copyright 2008 American Chemical Society

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From: U.S. News & World Report, Feb. 27, 2008
[Printer-friendly version]

THE SMALLEST OF POLLUTANTS ARE LINKED TO OUTSIZE HEALTH RISKS

Can steering clear of particles from traffic fumes protect the heart?

By Adam Voiland

Sitting in traffic triples a person's short-term heart-attack risk.
Living in a city with heavy air pollution such as Los Angeles is as
risky for the heart as being a former smoker. And having a house near
a highway ups the risk of hardened arteries by some 60 percent. In
each case, tiny "ultrafine" particles in the air may be a key culprit.

While air pollution comes in many forms, scientists are increasingly
concerned about its most minute constituents -- virus-size particles
produced by combustion. These ultrafines, which measure no more than
0.1 micrometer in diameter, are ubiquitous near roadways and are
emerging as one of the most dangerous components of air pollution,
which kills an estimated 60,000-plus Americans a year. That's more
than the number killed annually by automobile accidents.

The tiny particles are worrisome for several reasons. For one, they
tend to be rich in potentially toxic organic compounds and other
reactive chemicals. Their size, moreover, allows them to travel deep
into the lungs, lodge there for long periods, and stress the body in a
variety of ways, researchers theorize. They may even slip into the
bloodstream, where they can do further damage. In comparison, so-
called fine particulates, which can be up to 25 times wider than
ultrafines, are snared more easily by protective hairlike structures
in the nose and throat. Not that fine particulates are benign: Last
year, a study of older women in the New England Journal of Medicine
linked a 10-microgram-per-cubic-meter increase in fine particulate
pollution -- approximately the difference between Pittsburgh and
cleaner Anchorage -- to a 76 percent increase in the cardiovascular
death rate.

More recent data seem to confirm researchers' suspicions that smaller
particles are even worse. With Environmental Protection Agency
funding, a team co-led by Jesus Araujo, an environmental cardiologist
at UCLA, zoomed in on the ultrafines and found that mice exposed to
those particles developed more atherosclerotic plaque than mice
breathing fine particulates only -- and did so faster. "Much, much
faster," says Araujo. In addition, HDL, or good cholesterol, didn't
work as well in ultrafine-exposed animals, Araujo's team will report
in the March 14 Circulation Research. Other recent experiments have
found troubling cardiovascular changes in human volunteers following
exposure to ultrafines.

Such findings are bad news for people with heavy exposure to traffic.
Diesel vehicles are particularly potent sources of both fine and
ultrafine particles, and their fumes, recent studies show, have
adverse effects on the heart. European researchers found, for example,
that exercising men who inhaled fresh diesel fumes at levels that can
occur near major roads experienced rapid reduction in blood flow to
the heart and a one-third drop in a protective protein that prevents
dangerous clotting. "The effect was about the same as what we see with
secondhand smoke," explains Nicholas Mills, the University of
Edinburgh cardiologist who led the research.

At risk. The elderly, young children, and those with pulmonary and
cardiovascular problems are most at risk from particulate air
pollution. However, particles affect everybody. Recent Taiwanese
research shows, for example, that inflammation, oxidative stress, and
other cardiovascular warning signs are detectable among urban teens
breathing polluted air as well.

While fine particulate matter and certain smog-generating emissions
are regulated, ultrafine particles are not. "There's no doubt
particulate matter is the elephant in the room," says Dan Costa, the
director of the Environmental Protection Agency's air research
program. Since 1997, the agency has been cracking down on fine
particulates, and their levels have generally been falling nationwide.
A new rule, phased in last year, requires trucks to use cleaner-
burning diesel fuel and should help reduce both fines and ultrafines.
But it may be a decade, Costa says, before scientists amass enough
evidence on ultrafines to justify directly limiting them.

A third to a half of ultrafine exposure comes from driving. "If you
have otherwise healthy habits and don't smoke, driving to work is
probably the most unhealthy part of your day," says Scott Fruin, an
environmental scientist at the University of Southern California. The
tiny particles can also slip into homes, especially those near busy
roads. Cooking with a poorly ventilated stove can be another source of
exposure to ultrafines, he says. Some fireplaces also generate
particulates. However, so-called HEPA filters can help clear indoor
air of particulates, including ultrafines.

Avoiding exposure. Exercising near traffic increases one's exposure,
since heavy breathing draws particles deep into the body. Murray
Mittleman, a cardiologist at Harvard University, suggests that people
-- especially those with heart conditions -- try to exercise away from
major roadways. Masks probably won't have much of an effect on the
tiny ultrafines, says Fruin, but might stop larger particles. (Some
U.S. Olympians, in fact, have been advised to wear face masks in
heavily polluted Beijing.) Two government websites, airnow.gov and
epa.gov/airtrends, can help people plan outdoor activities.

Still, there's no reason to live in complete fear of particulates; the
risk for any individual remains quite small. That tripling of heart
attack risk due to traffic exposure, for example, sounds frightening
but is similar to the increased short-term risk posed by exercise or
even sexual activity, says Robert Brook, a University of Michigan
cardiologist. "The absolute risk -- meaning the risk you have every
single time you are exposed to air pollution, exercise, or have
intercourse -- is still very, very low," he says. "But when you
multiply that by the tens of millions of people being exposed to
polluted air all of the time, you end up getting large numbers of
people who are affected."

Araujo, for one, isn't taking any chances. He used to bike frequently
in heavy traffic. However, after seeing what happened to his mice, he
says: "You won't find me stuck behind bus tailpipes anymore."

Additional reading:

Smallest air pollution particles hurt heart most

Air Pollution Kicks Men Where it Counts

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From: Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 28, 2008
[Printer-friendly version]

WILL U.S. BECOME WORLD'S NUCLEAR-WASTE DUMP?

Critics say a plan to import up to 20,000 tons of low-level waste from
Italy, the biggest import ever, could lead to even larger flows.

By Mark Clayton, staff writer of the Christian Science Monitor

The federal government is weighing a Utah company's request to import
large amounts of low-level radioactive waste from Italy -- a step
critics say could lead the United States to become a nuclear garbage
dump for the world.

If approved, the company would ship up to 20,000 tons of metal piping,
sludge, wood, contaminated clothing, and other mildly radioactive
material from Italian nuclear-power plants to Tennessee, process most
of it, then dispose of the remainder in Utah. It would be by far
America's largest import of nuclear waste.

The proposal, which entered a 30-day public-comment period on Feb. 11,
is gathering opposition from environmentalists, regulators, and
congressmen. It would not only pave the way for more such imports,
critics say, but also give nations less incentive to take care of
their own nuclear waste.

"If this massive quantity from Italy is accepted, it just blows the
doors wide open for nuclear waste to come in from all over the world,"
says Tom Clements, Southeast nuclear campaign coordinator for Friends
of the Earth, an environmental group in Washington. "The NRC [Nuclear
Regulatory Commission] has an obligation to deal with the waste
generated in this country first and not accept foreign waste that
fills up existing sites."

Critics misrepresent how much material would be ultimately disposed of
in Utah, counter officials of EnergySolutions, the Salt Lake City
company proposing to import the Italian waste. Most material would be
recycled or incinerated in Tennessee. Just 8 percent of the original
volume would travel to Utah, the company wrote in a letter to the NRC.

"EnergySolutions does not believe the United States should be
responsible for the world's nuclear waste," company spokesman Mark
Walker writes in response to e-mailed questions from a reporter. But
as reliance on nuclear power grows worldwide, "the US is in a
leadership role to provide technical solutions."

Whether such imports will become a regular practice remains a
question. The company "has no plans" to open its Utah disposal site
"to wholesale disposal for the world's nuclear waste," Mr. Walker
writes. But in a recent prospectus, the company envisions "specialized
decommissioning and disposal services" for Europe and the United
Kingdom.

Only 10 of 18 nations surveyed by the Government Accountability Office
(GAO) last year have disposal options for low-level nuclear waste and
none has options for all classes of such waste.

Critics say import regulations are weak because Congress never foresaw
that the US would import large volumes of radioactive waste. "There is
no indication in [legislative action or NRC regulatory action] that
there was any intention that the United States would ever become a
welcome repository of foreign-generated radioactive waste," Rep. Bart
Gordon (D) of Tennessee, chairman of the House Committee on Science
and Technology wrote earlier this month in a letter to Dale Klein, NRC
chairman.

While the US has long permitted low-level radioactive waste imports,
most have been small compared with the EnergySolutions request. Of 24
such waste-import license applications over the years, NRC records
show 13 granted, according to an analysis by the House committee. The
EnergySolutions plan is 25 times bigger than the largest import from
outside North America, that analysis shows.

EnergySolutions says its plan is not out of line with past licenses.
The company cites a 2006 license to import 6,000 tons of waste from
Canada -- about one-third the size of its Italy request.

Yet the Italy proposal would be "the first attempt by a US waste
processing company to import large amounts of [low-level radioactive
waste] as part of an agreement to decommission foreign nuclear
reactors," Representative Gordon writes. If granted, "many other such
license applications will follow" rather than forcing nations to deal
with their own waste.

That could be a problem, since the space available in US low-level
waste sites would fill up in the long run if the US nuclear industry
expands, as many expect.

"The uncertainties surrounding disposal costs and availability and
other limitations in [low-level radioactive waste] management are
taking on even greater significance as the United States embarks on
developing new nuclear power plants, which would eventually create
even more" low-level waste, the GAO reported last year.

At present, the US has 104 commercial nuclear power plants each
generating on average about 12,000 cubic feet of low-level nuclear
waste -- about 15 million cubic feet annually, the GAO says. The US
has
three facilities that accept the least-toxic "Class A" radioactive
waste.

But the site in Barnwell, S.C., is nearly full and in June will be
closed to waste from all but three states. The site in Richland,
Wash., is accepting only limited amounts. That leaves EnergySolutions'
site at Clive, Utah, which took more than 99 percent of the nation's
low-level waste in 2006. There appears to be "sufficient disposal
capacity" for "Class A" waste, but "uncertain future access" for other
categories, the GAO says.

Walker says the EnergySolutions facility has "at least 20 years of
capacity" and that the Italian material represents less than 1 percent
of the annual average amount disposed at the site.

While the NRC keeps an eye on disposal site capacity, Chairman Klein
in a letter last month noted that the NRC's environmental and public-
health review of the application to import Italian waste "is limited
to ensuring that the import and transportation of the waste to the
disposal facility is conducted safely" and that other regulatory
limits for the facility "will not be exceeded."

Even so, the NRC has sought details about material to be imported and
assurances that it will meet US standards for low-level waste
disposal. EnergySolutions, in a December letter, revealed to NRC that
three of the eight Italy sites from which it expects to get material
"may be comparable" to US Superfund sites, akin to sites identified by
the US Environmental Protection Agency as among America's most toxic
waste sites.

In the end, though, it is largely up to states to decide whether such
shipments make sense for them, the NRC spokesman says.

"Is there a place willing and able to accept the material -- that's
where we consult the states in question, Tennessee and Utah," says NRC
spokesman David McIntyre. "If the states say 'no,' we wouldn't let it
in."

So far, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has not put a halt to the
EnergySolutions plan. Yet concern seems to be growing in Utah,
including the state's three-man Radiation Control Board, whose members
are appointed by the governor. At its December meeting, two members
expressed unhappiness with the Italian waste import plan. A statement
by the board reflecting opposition to it is expected, some observers
say, although it is unclear what effect that might have.

Activists are also ramping up calls for public opposition.

"We see this as the camel's nose under the tent," says Vanessa Pierce,
executive director of Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, a
coalition of environmental groups. "If we establish a precedent for
importing very large quantities of foreign nuclear waste, we're going
to make the US and Utah the dumping ground for the rest of the world."

Copyright 2008 The Christian Science Monitor

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  Rachel's Democracy & Health News (formerly Rachel's Environment &
  Health News) highlights the connections between issues that are
  often considered separately or not at all.

  The natural world is deteriorating and human health is declining  
  because those who make the important decisions aren't the ones who
  bear the brunt. Our purpose is to connect the dots between human
  health, the destruction of nature, the decline of community, the
  rise of economic insecurity and inequalities, growing stress among
  workers and families, and the crippling legacies of patriarchy,
  intolerance, and racial injustice that allow us to be divided and
  therefore ruled by the few.  

  In a democracy, there are no more fundamental questions than, "Who
  gets to decide?" And, "How do the few control the many, and what
  might be done about it?"

  As you come across stories that might help people connect the dots,
  please Email them to us at dhn@rachel.org.
  
  Rachel's Democracy & Health News is published as often as
  necessary to provide readers with up-to-date coverage of the
  subject.

  Editors:
  Peter Montague - peter@rachel.org
  Tim Montague   -   tim@rachel.org
  
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