When is Bush going to clean up our waters?

[SunTracker]

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/11504012.htm

Bay oysters contaminated, study says

Oysters harvested from reefs near the mouth of St. Louis Bay are polluted to the degree that eating just one a day would be too much to safely consume, according to a report published in a scientific journal.

The report concluded that the oysters are contaminated with chromium, which can cause kidney and liver damage, and nickel, which can cause allergic reactions in about 10 percent of the population. The research for the report was funded by a four-firm legal team through Baron & Budd, P.C., a Dallas law firm. The team alleges in lawsuits that the DuPont DeLisle plant has sickened people.

The study appeared in the Journal of Shellfish Research, a scientific publication that conducts peer reviews of articles before publishing them. It was written by oyster biologist Ralph Elston and four other researchers.

A spokesman for DuPont discounted the reliability of the article because the research was funded by the law firm suing the company on behalf of Glenn Strong, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit. He and more than 2,000 people have alleged in separate lawsuits that chemicals from the plant have caused illnesses.

"To put this report in context, it is important to understand that Dr. Elston was retained by Glenn Strong's attorneys to perform this study," said Terry G. Gooding, a spokesman for DuPont. "DuPont believes that studies conducted by agencies such as the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry are far more reliable. These agencies provide independent, reliable analysis unassociated with the litigation."

Gooding noted that DuPont routinely monitors wastewater and sediments for metals, then forwards the reports to the DEQ.

One of the report's authors, Edwin W. Cake Jr., an oyster biologist from Ocean Springs, said he does not believe the shellfish are safe to eat.

"According to the Food and Drug Administration guidelines, we found that folks who eat oysters from that area should not eat more than eight-tenths of one oyster per day," Cake said. "The biggest point that I have about that is which two-tenths do you cut out or spit before you swallow?"

The researchers used a 1978 study, conducted before the DuPont plant began operations, as the baseline for their work. They found that the level of chromium was between 7,000 percent and 11,300 percent greater in oysters in reefs outside the bay collected in July 2004.

DuPont manufactures titanium dioxide at the plant near the north shore of the bay. The pigment is used to make products white, ranging from paint to the filling in Oreo cookies.

Cake challenged state and federal environmental protection agencies to do their own research.

"If they don't undertake their own study to confirm or refute these results, then the public will not be served and the public will be at risk from what we found in those oysters," he said.

In October, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry issued a statement that dioxinlike compounds posed no apparent public health hazard because the levels in locally caught fish and in the air were at or below the national average. But it is unclear whether oysters were examined as part of that study because federal officials responsible for the findings were unavailable for comment Tuesday.

DuPont said that a final report from the federal agency, which is a division of the Centers for Disease Control, will include studies on both fish and shellfish.

Phil Bass of DEQ, the state agency that works in parallel with the Environmental Protection Agency, said he had not read the report in the Journal of Shellfish Research. Over the past two years, DEQ has collected specimens of fish and crabs.

"I'm not sure that we have collected any oysters at this point," Bass said. "If we haven't, we will get back out there and collect some."

The article eliminated other possible sources for the oyster contamination, such as power plants and plastics manufacturers, using geographical and weather factors.

"It seems likely that the titanium refinery is the most significant source of the dioxins found in the St. Louis Bay," the article states. "Such compounds could enter the bay by several pathways, including fallout from airborne emissions as well as fugitive emissions from surface-water runoff or discharges."

Two of the highest concentrations of dioxins were found at two locations closest to a sewer discharge pipe, the article noted.

The Department of Marine Resources checks oysters for bacterial contaminants, such as fecal coliform, but not chemical pollutants. However, a DMR spokesman said its staff was reviewing the report. The St. Louis Bay is closed to oystering because of bacterial contaminants, but there are reefs in conditionally approved waters at Henderson Point and between the U.S. 90 and CSX Railroad bridges.

Those reefs were closed Tuesday afternoon due to rainfall amounts exceeding management criteria.

The numbers

The study compared the increase of trace metals in oysters collected in St. Louis Bay from July 2004 to 1978, the year before a titanium dioxide refinery was built near the northern shore of the bay.

Arsenic: 404 percent.

Chromium: At least 1,167 percent.

[Leslie]

There's a large dead zone that extends from the mouth of the Mississippi River hundreds of miles out into the Gulf of Mexico.  There are no living things in this area, no fish or other aquatic life that we would consider edible.

Water polution is a big problem, maybe the biggest problem we face as a planet.

I don't eat oysters anymore on the half shell, though I love em.  Only fried, though that may not be as good for me as raw ones.  Cooking kills the bad bacteria that may be present.  Far as pollution goes, oysters thrive on it.  That's what they eat, or so I'm told.



Les

[oboe]

Oh!  Oh!   I know this one!!  

The answer is never.    Conventional thinking says you cannot be pro-business and pro-environment at the same time.   The Republicans are pro-business, period.    Anything they do towards protecting the environment is a sham (like Bush's "clear skies" proposal, which allows polluting companies to continue to pollute even longer).

If you're really concerned about the environment, I'd say check out the Green Party.  Or vote a Democratic ticket; they are at least better than the Republicans on the issue, whose insincerity could make the Devil himself blush with embarrassment.

I read an interesting opinion piece somewhere that said religious fundalmentalists in the right-wing movement are encouraging environmental destruction and war in the Middle East in an attempt to help bring about the end times described in the Book of Revelation in the Bible.

Sorry to hear about your chromium contaminated clams.   If they are indeed acting as a biological pollution filter maybe its a blessing in disguise though.

[lada]

how can you think abou tpolution, while there are terrorist outside ... baaad baaad american you are.

[Nilsen]

Same here Oboe. The rightwing parties wanna start drilling for oil up north in areas that really should be left alone. There are a few billion barrels of oil and gas up there but I don't really care.

Some areas should be left unspoiled.

[FUNKED1]

Sounds like a local problem.  Why blame Bush?

[Leslie]

I ate 4 dozen of them things one time.  Had about 4 rum and cokes and drank a gallon of draft beer when I got home.

I thought I was gonna die.  Got the dry heaves at 3 in the morning and the next morning there there was nothing by the bed on the carpet.

Found out later that mixing oysters and alcohol turns them solid like a rubber ball.








Les

[lazs2]

hmm... local enforcement sounds lax.   I am sure that no federal guideline allows arsenic and chromium.  

You seem to believe that Bush has lessened the standards on those pollutants for recieving waters.

lazs

[john9001]

""A spokesman for DuPont discounted the reliability of the article because the research was funded by the law firm suing the company on behalf of Glenn Strong, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.""

[Jackal1]

If all else fails blame Bush.
It goes a little further back than that. Say a century or so.
If it were found out that menopausel cramps had increased, some would say that it was Bush`s fault and was his job to put an end to it.

[SunTracker]

This is definately not a local problem.  Powerplants burn coal that releases mercury.  Arsenic and metals come from other sources of industrial pollution.

John Kerry had a plan to clean up our waters.  Thats why I voted for him.

[Jackal1]

Originally posted by SunTracker

John Kerry had a plan to clean up our waters.  Thats why I voted for him.

  Yep......It was fill the oceans with ketchup bought from his dominatrix.......errrrr I mean wife.

[Toad]

Evil Booooooooooooooooooooooosh.

Water pollution stared in 2000! Before that all US waters were crystal clear and pure as life itself.

[Pooh21]

It didnt just start, he went out and started pouring it in by the buckets personally.

[lazs2]

if kerrie had a plan he wasn't forthcoming with it.

Do you know how to remove arsenic and chromium or any heavy metals from large recieving water bodies?

lazs