2006 CPEO Brownfields List Archive

From: Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>
Date: 6 Sep 2006 05:17:21 -0000
Reply: cpeo-brownfields
Subject: [CPEO-BIF] "Tracking the Toxic Storm"
 
Tracking the Toxic Storm

By Sue Sturgis
Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch
September 5, 2006

Wilma Subra has been studying the environmental health of the U.S. Gulf Coast for decades. An environmental chemist and CEO of the Subra Co. in New Iberia, La., Subra has served as a technical advisor to citizens' groups and government agencies, and she currently chairs the Gulf Coast Hurricanes Workgroup of the Environmental Protection Agency's National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, which will soon release final recommendations on environmental justice issues related to hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Subra has extensively investigated "Cancer Alley," the 85-mile corridor along the Mississippi from Baton Rouge to New Orleans where chemical plants and petroleum refineries ooze millions of pounds of pollution into the air and river every year. Much of that pollution washes out to the Gulf of Mexico, where it settles to the bottom as sediment. When Katrina and Rita hit last year, their powerful storm surge picked up that sludge and spread it over everything in their path - a ubiquitous layer that Subra has likened to cake batter. Soon after the storms, Subra began testing the sediment for toxics. What she found alarms her.

Of the numerous samples she's analyzed from Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, 90 percent have exceeded the EPA's allowable limits for arsenic - a known carcinogen that's been linked to skin cancer as well as cancer of the lungs, bladder, liver, kidney and prostate. Inhaling or ingesting arsenic can injure pregnant women or developing fetuses, and a mother can pass the chemical to her child through breast milk. There's also evidence that long-term exposure to arsenic may lower children's IQ.

With the anniversary of the storms approaching, Sue Sturgis interviewed Subra about her work, her findings and her concerns about the current and future health of Gulf Coast residents.


...


For the entire article/interview, see
http://www.reconstructionwatch.org/index.php?s=30&n=73

--
Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org

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