The Times Beach Chronicles

A toxic history

BLOOD FEUD

Opponents of the Times Beach incinerator question the results of a newly released study measuring dioxin levels in nearby residents’ blood

BY C.D. STELZER

first published in the Riverfront Times (St. Louis), Nov. 13, 1996

The Missouri Department of Health (DoH) refused on Friday to make public any scientific data relating to its blood study of residents who live near the Times Beach dioxin incinerator.

The Riverfront Times had asked for the data so it could be independently analyzed. The newspaper’s request follows the premature announcement by the DoH last week that indicates dioxin levels in the vicinity of the Superfund site are among lowest ever recorded in the nation.

Daryl Roberts, chief epidemiologist for the state, rejected the possibility of releasing the raw numbers on the grounds of protecting the confidentiality of the subjects involved in the study. “I can’t provide it,” Roberts told the RFT. “The best I can give you is what’s in the news release.”

Pat Costner, a chemist for the environmental group Greenpeace, took exception to Roberts reasoning. “When those samples go into the lab, they’re numbered — they don’t have people’s names on them,” says Costner. “As long as there are no names on the data, it’s not a violation of confidence.”
Environmentalists opposed to the incinerator contend that the DoH’s selective analysis is seriously flawed and that publication of partial results is a violation of scientific standards that require such studies be peer reviewed before release.

“This isn’t science this is bullshit,” says Steve Taylor of the Times Beach Action Group (TBAG). “The methods for testing dioxin blood levels can be complicated or even deceptive. Due to the sensitivity of tests like these and their impact on our community, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) recognizes the importance of having results peer reviewed before publication.” Taylor says the DoH released the limited data in advance of the completion of the study in order to support the position that the incinerator is not a threat to public health.

In order to bolster the purported safety of the incinerator, the DoH restricted its published analysis to 2,3,7,8 TCDD — only one of many types of dioxins and other hazardous materials being burned at Times Beach. “TCDD represents about 10 percent of the total dioxin equivalents in a human body,” says Costner. “Nobody even talks about TCDD anymore because it’s such a minor contributor.”

The agency first tested dioxin levels of nearby residents in September 1995 and then again in July, four months after the incinerator began operating. Based on its analysis, the DoH now claims dioxin blood levels of nearby residents and a comparison group are far below the national average of 3.2 to 10.1 parts per trillion (ppt). Among nearby Times Beach residents, dioxin blood levels allegedly declined from 1.81 ppt to 1.24 ppt, according to the DoH.

Taylor of TBAG debates whether the national average for dioxin blood levels is valid because it is based on discredited or obsolete studies. He also brands the current analysis inconclusive in that it measures only dioxin levels in lipids or fats. In addition, the DoH study excludes those most likely to be effected: children, the elderly and anyone exposed to excessive dioxin levels in the past.

Besides these drawbacks, the DoH estimates are based on only four months of exposure to incineration. That short period, says Taylor, allows for little more than an inhalation study and ignores the long-term potential for ingesting dioxins through the food chain, which experts consider the primary path of exposure.

On this point, DoH and TBAG are in rare agreement. “Yeah, we’re looking at the inhalation exposure at this time,” says Roberts. “However, as another part of the protocol, we have collected vegetable and soil samples … and they are currently in storage.” But the state epidemiologist would not hazard a guess when those samples would be analyzed. “I don’t even have a laboratory that’s going to do the work (yet),” Roberts says. In regard to other chemical contaminants, the DoH press release last week stated that “a cursory look found no increased levels to cause concern.” None of the other data will be released until after the completion of the third blood draw expected within a month of the completion of incineration, according to Roberts. At that late stage, it will be too late to protect public health, if the incinerator is indeed dangerous.

Roberts sees nothing sinister in the timing of the latest announcement, and says it was part of the plan. “We talked to ATSDR and discussed the need to release the first two values publicly to provide information so the community can at least determine whether it believes its had an excessive exposure or not,” says Roberts. “TCDD is the congener of concern in Missouri. Other contaminants of concern have toxic equivalence factors magnitudes lower than TCDD. The best I can say is that we reported out the information as it was provided to us from Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, and CDC is the best laboratory in the nation.”

Costner of Greenpeace considers the DoH findings absurd. “If magically all the people around Times Beach were able to buy food with no dioxin in it, and breath air with no dioxin, it would then still take more than two years from September 95 for their TCDD levels to be expected to drop to the levels that they (DoH) are claiming for the second set of samples,” she says. “Are they saying the incinerator is sucking the dioxin out those people’s bodies? That’s what their data suggests. Does that make sense?”

Results of a separate ATSDR study released in September found abnormally high cancer rates among former residents of Times Beach and other Missouri dioxin sites. Interestingly, the DoH blood study, tentatively scheduled for release around the same time, was held up due to delays at the CDC laboratory, according to Roberts. The DoH finally released its optimistic findings in the aftermath of last week’s state and national elections. One day later, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) had more good news. A DNR investigation absolved International Technologies (IT) of any possible wrongdoing or conflict of interest regarding its partial ownership of Quanterra Environmental Services (“Twice Burned,” RFT, Aug. 28). The month-long state inquiry found IT and Quanterra guilty of nothing more than poor paperwork.

Meanwhile, the incineration forges ahead with no end in sight. Approximately, 228,000 tons of dioxin-contaminated soil and other materials from 27 sites in Eastern Missouri are expected to be burned before the cleanup is completed. This is more than twice as much waste as originally estimated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

TALENT TO BURN

U.S. Rep. Jim Talent requests a shutdown of the Times Beach of the Times Beach dioxin incinerator

BY C.D. STELZER

first published by the Riverfront Times (St. Louis),Oct. 2, 1996

Last Thursday, U.S. Rep. Jim Talent (R-2nd Dist.) requested an immediate shut down of the Times Beach dioxin incinerator pending an investigation into the mishandling of stack emissions samples at the controversial Superfund cleanup.

The congressman made the request in a letter to Elliot Laws, assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, D.C. The letter also asked the agency to re-conduct the trial burn at the incinerator near Eureka to assure it is operating safely.

Talent, who is running for re-election against former Democratic Congresswoman Joan Kelly Horn, has long voiced opposition to the dioxin incinerator. His intermittent efforts to halt the project, however, have failed to bring about any change in plans. Talent’s latest attempt to put out the fire follows a copyrighted story in the Riverfront Times (“Twice Burned,”Aug. 28).

The RFT story revealed that International Technologies (IT), the incinerator operator, partially owns Quanterra Environmental Services, the laboratory that handled emissions samples from critical stack tests conducted at the incinerator in November 1995. After Quanterra received the samples, it took seven to eight days for them to reach Triangle Laboratories in North Carolina, according to EPA documents. Environmentalists suspect that improper handling of the samples during that time may have invalidated the test results. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) issued the requisite operating permit based in part on the results of the laboratory analysis.

Although Talent referred indirectly to the RFT’s continuing investigation of the Times Beach project in his letter to the EPA, the congressman refused to be interviewed for this story. Talent’s reticence is not unique. Calls placed to the DNR last week also went unreturned. The EPA has had little to say either.

After the RFT filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request to obtain information on Quanterra’s involvement in the project, the agency’s regional headquarters in Kansas City claimed no such records existed and denied any association with the laboratory. “Please be advised that EPA has no documents responsive to this request. Quanterra has no official relationship with EPA regarding the Eastern Missouri Dioxin Sites Cleanup, including Times Beach,” an EPA offcial stated.

The denial contradicts a clause in the 1990 consent decree signed jointly by representatives of the EPA, DNR and Syntex, the corporation liable for the cleanup. The consent decree states: “…Settling Defendants shall notify EPA and the State, in writing, of the name, title, and qulaifications of any supervising contractor, and the names of principal contractors and/or subcontractors proposed to be used in carrying out the Work. Selection of any such contractor shall be subject to approval by EPA, after consultation with the State, which shall not be unreasonably withheld. EPA shall notify the Settling Defendants in writing of its approval or disapproval within 14 calendar days of receipt of the notice.”

KEEPING A SAFE DISTANCE

Last year, EPA boss Carol Browner withdrew from decision-making about Times Beach. Meanwhile, inquiries about the dioxin incinerator continue to rage

BY C.D. STELZER

First published in the Riverfront Times (St. Louis), Sept. 11, 1996

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)administrator Carol M. Browner has withdrawn from all decision-making responsibilities concerning the Times Beach cleanup, The Riverfront Times has learned.

Browner recused herself from addressing any aspects of the controversial Superfund project in an internal agency memorandum dated April 5, 1995. The administrator’s office in Washington, D.C. provided the RFT with a copy of Browner’s statement last week upon request.

The recusal statement does not specify why Browner bowed out of the case. An EPA spokeswoman now says Browner relinquished oversight because the administrator’s sister works for the corporation liable for the cleanup. Michelle Browner, the EPA chief’s sibling, is a research scientist for Roche Bio-Science in Palo Alto, Calif. Roche, a Swiss pharmaceutical conglomerate, purchased Syntex Corp. in 1994. Syntex, the responsible party, must burn the dioxin-contaminated soil at Times Beach and 26 other sites in Eastern Missouri, according to the to the 1990 federal consent decree with the EPA and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR). A subsidiary of Syntex, Agribusiness Technologies Inc., is carrying out the plan.

News of Browner’s withdrawal follows the initiation of a DNR inquiry into whether stack emissions samples were handled properly last November, after a trial burn at the Times Beach dioxin incinerator near Eureka. Earlier this year, the DNR issued a permit for the burner based in part on the results of those tests. Opponents of the incinerator, including the Times Beach Action Group (TBAG), raised concerns last month about a potential conflict of interest, after they discovered International Technology Corp. (IT), the incinerator operator, partially owns Quanterra Environmental Services, the lab that handled the samples (Twice Burned, the RFT, Aug. 28) .

“I am aware of the allegations by TBAG, and we are checking on those allegations,” says DNR director David Shorr. “I don’t believe there were any shenanigans here. The only question that I am looking into is whether there was a prospect of a breach in the chain of custody (of the stack emissions samples). … It’s not that we believe that there was a breach in the chain of custody, but we’ve have had that inquiry made to us.”
Shorr expresses equal confidence in Browner’s hands-off policy. “I am not aware of her ever being involved in Times Beach during her tenure,” says Shorr. “She has properly recused herself. All decisions from EPA, at least that we have had, have been through either Elliott Laws, the assistant administrator for waste or deputy (administrator) Fred Hansen.”

Martha Steincamp, chief counsel for Region VII of the EPA in Kansas City, views Browner’s recusal as insignificant. “Frankly, there have been no decisions that would be made at the administrator’s level on this case, anyway,” says Steincamp. “The decisions are made out here in the Region.

“The really important thing to remember is this is what one does, when one wants to take one’s self out of the decision making process — you recuse yourself,” says Steincamp. “She didn’t consult with me when she did it. Until you told me, I didn’t know that it was her sister or what this person’s name was. That’s not what I need to know to do my job. What I need to know to do my job is don’t go looking to Carol Browner on decision making on Times Beach.”

The EPA administrator, however, does wield statutory power over the Times Beach Superfund project. According to the consent decree:

EPA shall review the remedial action at the Facilities at least every five (5) years after the entry of this Decree to assure that human health and the environment are being protected by the remedial action being implemented. … Settling Defendants shall be provided with an opportunity to confer with EPA on any response action proposed during the EPA’s 5 year review process and to submit written comments for the record during the public comment period. After the period for submission of written comments is closed, the Administrator shall, in writing, determine if further response action is appropriate. …

In other words, the EPA could have reviewed the safety of the project and implemented changes to the plan at any time since the 1990 decree was signed, but the agency was required to do so within five years. The decree mandates that based on that review the EPA administrator take appropriate steps to protect public health and the environment, if necessary.

It didn’t happen. The five-year deadline expired July 19, 1995. According to the EPA internal memo, Browner recused herself on April 5, 1995.

Steincamp, whose signature appears on the consent decree, says the Times Beach agreement is superseded by a clause in the Superfund law, which requires that the “remedial action” (in this case incineration) be completed before the review takes place.

A high-ranking official at EPA headquarters in Washington, on the other hand, says the Superfund provision means the Times Beach project can’t be reviewed because the incinerator hasn’t been operating for five years. The cleanups at Times Beach and other Eastern Missouri dioxin sites, however, have been going on for well over five years.
The two interpretations of the law share one thing in common — they thwart any review of the project until after the incineration is completed. Here is how the pertinent Superfund clause actually reads:

If the President selects a remedial action that results in any hazardous substances, pollutants or contaminants remaining at the site, the President shall review such remedial action no less often than each 5 years after the initiation of such remedial action to assure that human health and the environment are being protected by the remedial action being implemented. …

Hugh Kaufman, an EPA whistleblower, is candid in his opinion as to why Browner chose to distance herself from the project. “Well, Times Beach is getting hot now,” says Kaufman. “Carol Browner tries to find a reason to recuse herself from any sticky wicket case,” he adds. “She did that with the WTI (Waste Technologies Industries) incinerator. Apparently, her husband works for a group called Citizen Action, where she used to work. Citizen Action, at one time, … signed a letter asking the state of Ohio to relook at this mess. … The real reason she recused herself is because it’s a big sticky wicket issue involving Jackson Stephens … and the Clinton/Arkansas connection.”

Kaufman is referring to the WTI commercial hazardous waste incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio. Stephens, who founded WTI in 1980, is a Little Rock financier who has padded the campaign coffers of both Republican and Democratic presidential candidates in the past. Stephens and WTI have also been linked to the Union Bank of Switzerland, which has been implicated along with the CIA in the BCCI and Nugan-Hand banking scandals. The WTI incinerator was permitted to operate even though it emitted despite unsafe levels of dioxin.

In 1983, Kaufman felt the heat from Times Beach himself. The whistleblower then appeared on the Phil Donahue TV talk show and alleged that U.S. Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.) had received a list of potential dioxin sites in Missouri, while state attorney general, and had failed to do anything about it. During that period, Kaufman was the EPA’s chief hazardous waste investigator. His inquiry here led him to suspect that Russell Bliss, the waste hauler responsible spreading the dioxin, had connections to the “power-elite culture” in Missouri. “When I raised the issue of him being part of the old boy network of which Danforth was a member, Danforth screamed bloody murder,” says Kaufman.

The current dilemma with the incinerator has parallels with the past, according to Kaufman. He compares the political and social climate in Missouri to a banana republic. “Nothing changes, ” he says. “Especially, when you’ve got Ralston Purina and Monsanto. You’ve got an elite club, and the disposal boys are a part of that club. It’s like Arkansas — you’ve got an aristocracy — and then you’ve got everybody else.”

Confirmation of Kaufman’s jaded view can now be seen billowing from the stacks at the Times Beach dioxin incinerator, where state and federal regulators continue to turn a blind eye to an obvious public health risk. Studies by the EPA itself indicate dioxin is a probable human carcinogen and the cause of immunological and reproductive problems. The agency also acknowledges that incineration is one of the means by which dioxin is created.

Nevertheless, the EPA and DNR claim the Times Beach incinerator is safe. These assurances have continued despite a series of toxic releases at the incinerator this spring that bypassed pollution control devices and dispersed contaminants into the air. The odds of similar accidents occurring increased in July, when Syntex pushed back the completion date of the burn until next year because an estimated 70 tons of additional dioxin-tainted dirt will need to be destroyed.

Prior to firing up the incinerator, federal Judge John F. Nangle, the jurist responsible for the consent decree, ruled in the EPA’s favor, outlawing a St. Louis County ordinance that would have required that stack emissions meet the agency’s own stringent standard of 99.9999 percent destruction efficiency.

TWICE BURNED

The lab involved in testing emissions at Times Beach is partly owned by the company that operates the dioxin incinerator

BY C.D. STELZER
first published in the Riverfront Times (St. Louis), Aug. 28, 1996

When IT Analytical Services merged with another company and became Quanterra Environmental Services in 1994, the nascent laboratory didn’t even bother to change the phone number. The newly formed company also remained at the same location, 13715 Rider Trail North, in a strip of innocuous one-story offices known as the Business Center in Earth City. The doors to the lab were locked last Saturday, and mirror windows made it impossible to see the interior. Corporation records at the Missouri secretary of state’s office in Jefferson City show that Quanterra was officially dissolved as a business in the state in late 1994.

Nevertheless, the lab took part in important tests of stack emissions conducted in November 1995 at the Times Beach dioxin incinerator, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund cleanup near Eureka (see sidebar). The test results assured the EPA, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the public that the incinerator would operate safely. Based on these test results and other criteria, the DNR issued a requisite permit for the incinerator to operate earlier this year.

Despite the mirror windows at the lab and the smoke now flowing from the incinerator stacks, this much is clear: IT Analytical was owned by International Technology Corp. (IT), and Quanterra, its successor, is still partially controlled by IT–the builder and operator of the Times Beach dioxin incinerator. IT, in turn, has a contract with Syntex, the corporation held liable for disposing of dioxin-contaminated soil at Times Beach
and more than two dozen other sites in Eastern Missouri.

In short, the lab involved in testing incinerator emissions is partly owned by the company that operates the incinerator.

Steve Taylor, an organizer for the Times Beach Action Group (TBAG), objected to the Quanterra-IT relationship in a meeting with high-level EPA officials last Wednesday night at the Hilton Hotel in Frontenac. Robert Martin, the ombudsman from the agency’s Washington, D.C., headquarters, chaired the meeting, which was attended by 15 citizens, an aide to U.S. Rep. Jim Talent (R-2nd) and two other EPA officals.

“We have always had problems with how the trial burn was conducted. Now we have found that IT — the owner of the incinerator — was solely responsible forthe physical custody of the stack samples,” Taylor says. “There has always been a serious problem with credibility with (EPA) Region VII and the information that we’ve received pertaining to this incinerator (see sidebar). To date, this is probably the most blatant example of allowing those who have a financial interest in this cleanup to proceed without any oversight.”

That a laboratory with ties to the incinerator operator would be allowed to handle test samples from a Superfund site is enough to raise concerns, but there is another nettlesome detail that casts doubt on the credibility of the lab work.

In 1990, IT purchased the assets of metaTRACE, a laboratory located at the same address in Earth City and having the same phone number as the two previously cited labs. In the year preceding the acquisition, metaTRACE came under scrutiny for conducting fraudulent tests for the EPA, including faulty soil analysis at Times Beach and other dioxin sites in Eastern Missouri. Ultimately, the EPA canceled metaTRACE’s contracts and two company officials pled guilty to fraud charges. The rescinded contracts had a value of more than $8.7 million.Most of that money was earmarked for EPA Region VII, which includes the St. Louis
area.

After purchasing metaTRACE, IT moved its own analytical operation into the defunct lab’s Earth City office. MetaTRACE didn’t dissolve until 1992, according to Martha Steincamp, head counsel for Region VII. So it appears IT Analytical in some manner shared the facility. IT even hired some of metaTRACE’s employees, Steincamp concedes. When the sign on the front door changed to Quanterra in 1994, IT Engineering conveniently moved in next door. Again, if this is not disturbing enough, state records show that Quanterra was dissolved in December 1994 for failure to file an annual report. Quanterra,in other words, doesn’t even exist as a corporate fiction in the state.

IT created Quanterra in May 1994, when it merged IT Analytical with Enseco, an environmental test lab owned by Corning Inc. Originally, each company held a 50 percent stake in the joint subsidiary. IT’s share of the lab has since decreased to 19 percent, following a $20 million buyout by Corning in January. The change in the percentage of ownership, however, did not take place until after criticalstack-emissions tests were conducted in November. The results of those tests were published in January. Quanterra’s name appears on the title page of that report. Despite the lab’s obvious role in the stack tests and its connections to IT, Bob Feild — the EPA project manager at Times Beach — denied knowledge of Quanterra’s participation at last week’s meeting in Frontenac. Under questioning by Mick Harrison, an attorney for the Citizens Against Dioxin Incineration (CADI), Feild stated: “I’m not aware of any involvement that they (Quanterra) had in the chain of custody.”

Feild’s denial contradicts documents provided to the RFT by the Region VII office last Friday. The documents show a representative of Quanterra signed over stack-emissions samples to an employee of Triangle Laboratories of Durham, N.C. Triangle was charged with analyzing the samples. Nevertheless, a lapse of seven to eight days existed between the time the samples were collected and the point when Quanterra handed them over to the other lab. Environmentalists familiar with the case say the time lapse could invalidate the tests results, if the samples were not stored and handled properly.

In a phone interview on Monday, Feild dismissed all of these issues as inconsequential. Feild argued that it is standard procedure for the incinerator operator to collect test samples. He claimed all aspects of the tests were overseen properly by the EPA and that safeguards prohibited any kind of manipulation of the findings.

“We haven’t done any research as to the current status of a company called Quanterra,” Feild says. “It doesn’t really matter if IT themselves did the work or if they paid a partially owned subsidiary to do the work. The contractual relationship between the operator and Syntex is really not pertinent here. It’s not our concern, and we certainly don’t have that information. We don’t know who Quanterra is under direct contract with.”

The RFT filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the EPA on this matter last Friday. In a letter to EPA regional administrator Dennis Grams last week, Rep. Talent, whose district includes Times Beach, requested “all chain of custody documents for all stack samples collected during the dioxin stack test, which took place in November of 1995.” A spokesperson for Talent could not be reached for comment. Spokespersons for IT, Quanterra and Corning did not return calls placed to them. An official at the EPA’s Criminal Investigations Division in Kansas City would not confirm or deny whether an inquiry had been initiated into the matter. This latest controversy follows an announcement in July that the completion date for the incineration has been pushed back to early next year because an estimated 70 tons of additional
contaminated dirt will need to be burned. Since initiating operations in March, the incinerator has been plagued by a series of emergency releases that have spewed unknown quantities of untreated dioxin-contaminated particulate matter into the atmosphere. The EPA’s own dioxin draft reassessment concludes that dioxin is a likely human carcinogen and is responsible for reproductive and immunological problems. EPA research further indicates that everyone is already overexposed to the toxin, and incineration is one of the sources of the pollution.

BLOWING IN THE WIND

Studies show airborne dioxin vapors travels great distances from their source

BY C.D. STELZER

(first published in the Riverfront Times, June 19, 1996)

Dioxin found in the Great Lakes region originated at incinerators located as far as 1,500 miles away from the affected area, according to recent scientific studies conducted by the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems (CBNS) at Queens College in New York City.

The findings draw into question the reliability of long-established risk assessment guidelines used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for rating incinerator safety, including the current Times Beach Superfund project. The research also contradicts assurances issued here last week by Linda Birnbaum, head of the EPA’s reassessment on the dangers of dioxin. Birnbaum was in St. Louis to address a conference of the Society of Toxicologic Pathologists. In an interview following her speech, she cited the dangers of allowing dioxin-contaminated soil from 27 sites in Eastern Missouri to be further distributed by the wind.

Blaming potential dust storms, however, is not an accurate representation of how dioxin enters the environment, says former Washington University professor Barry Commoner, the biologist who heads the CBNS.

“What Birnbaum was forgetting is that we now know exactly how dioxin gets into crops, which is the key thing for human exposure. It penetrates the leaves of the crops as vapor — not as dust,” says Commoner. “Any time you burn dioxin or any other chlorinated material, you are going to get some airborne dioxin that contributes to the health hazard.”

Commoner’s warnings are partially based on the EPA’s own research showing the average person is already exposed to dioxin levels that can result in health problems, including cancer and reproductive and immunological disorders. Birnbaum was out of the country last Friday and unavailable for comment.

“Our study, … released a year ago — (which) she must know about — shows that the stuff travels all over the country,” Commoner says. The CBNS Great Lakes data tracks dioxin from incinerators as far away as Florida. Typically, dioxin enters the food chain through crops and is passed to humans through dairy products and meat.
Standard EPA site risk assessments, such as the one at Times Beach, are flawed because they misrepresent dioxin dangers by limiting their focus to a very small geographic area, Commoner says. “The risk doesn’t come from any one incinerator, it comes from all the incinerators.”

Burning the dioxin-contaminated soil at Times Beach is actually contributing to the problem not solving it, according to Commoner. “The way you get dioxin vapor is out of an incinerator,” he says. “If you keep dioxin attached to the soil particles and not able to get into the air it’s safe.” The biologist recommends paving over the contaminated soil or confining it in concrete bunkers.
Meanwhile, the St. Louis County Executive Buzz Westfall has refused to meet with opponents of the Times Beach incinerator, citing a revised EPA risk assessment that again claims the project is safe. In a June 10 letter to incinerator opponents, Westfall called their concerns “alarmist attacks.”

Opponents had requested the meeting to explain factors that have been omitted from the latest EPA report, including data on incomplete combustion, fugitive emissions and food chain exposure. The renewed assurances from the EPA come after repeated electrical outages at the incinerator, which allowed unknown quantities of dioxin to escape into the atmosphere.
The burn continues.

VENTING ANGER

Another accidental release of dioxin at Times Beach heats up the debate over the incinerator’s safety

 BY C.D. STELZER

first published in the Riverfront Times (St. Louis), May 15, 1996

It happened again. 
     A power outage at the Times Beach dioxin
incinerator near Eureka caused a release of unknown
quantities of dioxin into the air on Monday morning.
This time the Department of Natural Resources (DNR)
blamed wildlife for the malfunction, according to
Chesley Morrissey, a member of the St. Louis County
Dioxin Monitoring Committee.
     "This is really getting to be to much," says 
Morrissey.  "A squirrel got into a transformer. ... This
isn't supposed to be happening."  Morrissey says the DNR
informed her the problem had been rectified and the
incinerator would continue to operate as usual. "I don't
think they should start putting feed back into it until
they are more thorough," says Morrissey. The monitoring
committee is scheduled to meet with officials to discuss
the continuing problems at the incinerator on Wednesday
at the Environmental Protection Agency's offices at the
site. 
     Meanwhile,  opponents of the Times Beach dioxin
incinerator have announced plans to meet with U.S. Rep.
Jim Talent (R-Chesterfield) this week. They also
anticipate speaking to the EPA ombudsman, who will be in
St. Louis. In addition to the technical problems at the
incinerator, Among the subjects to be discussed are
recently obtained court documents that indicate Monsanto
Chemical Co. provided samples of dioxin to the Army
Chemical Corp as early as 1952. 
     Since burning began at the Times Beach dioxin
incinerator in March, there have now been four
documented emergency releases in which untreated dioxins
have been released. After the incident on April 28, the
Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) shut down
the Superfund project to evaluate its safety.  Following
the recommendation of the Missouri Department of Health,
the incinerator was allowed to start back up last week. 
After the Monday emergency release, a spokeswoman for
the DNR continued to expressed confidence in the
incineration project. "If we didn't feel it was
protective of public health, we wouldn't do it," says
Nina Thompson, a spokeswoman for the DNR.
     Despite the latest official reassurances nettlesome
questions remain as to why such a flawed technology
would be approved when it carries with it the potential
for harm to both the environment and humans.  The lax
attitude of the of the DNR and  EPA has led Steve Taylor
of the Times Beach Action Group (TBAG) to conclude that
the regulatory agencies are generating smoke other than
that pouring out of the incinerator's stacks. 
     "They don't want a close scrutiny of what is being
burned at Times Beach," say Taylor.  Taylor says the
past withholding of soil samples by the EPA is  part of
a coverup. Letters between Monsanto and the Army
obtained by TBAG add credence to his allegation.       
     According to a 1952 correspondence, Lt. Col. Loyd
E. Harris of the Army Chemical Corp asked Monsanto
research director Russell Jenkins for samples of the
toxic by-product of the chemical 2,4,5-T. The context of
the letters indicates the Army was investigating the
possibility of using the substance as a chemical weapon
not a herbicide. The Army Chemical Corp expressed
interest in the then-unnamed toxin after an industrial
accident at a Monsanto plant in Nitro, W.Va. in 1949.  A
Subsequent letter  from Harris to Jenkins indicates the
Army had dropped its interest in the compound.
     TBAG obtained the correspondence from Peter Sills,
a former attorney for the Vietnam Veterans of America,
who acquired the evidence after the 1984 settlement of
the Vietnam veterans' class-action suit against Monsanto
and other manufacturer of 2,4,5-T, the dioxin
contaminated component found in Agent Orange. Sills, who
is writing a book on the subject,  says the  military
continued its research on the deadly toxin before
introducing Agent Orange to Vietnam in the early 1960s.
     "We already know this (type of) waste is associated
with the production of Agent Orange," says Taylor of
TBAG. "We feel this waste is associated with Monsanto.
Analysis of this soil would produce even further
questions or confirm some of our suspicions that
Monsanto's involvement is being covered up.

WINDS OF SHAME

Fugitive toxic emissions at the Times Beach incinerator reveal lax safety policies of Syntex, the DNR and the EPA

BY C.D. STELZER

First published in the Riverfront Times (St. Louis), May 8, 1996

Gary Pendergrass stood before the St. Louis County
Council last Thursday and tried to explain the latest in
a series of snafus at the Times Beach incinerator, which
have resulted in the releases of unknown quantities of
dioxin into the environment.
      It was not an easy task for Pendergrass, who is
the Times Beach project coordinator for Syntex, the
company found liable for the Superfund cleanup.
Defending the project's already questionable safety
record  became even less tenable due to the belated
actions of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources
(DNR).  Earlier in the day, the state agency announced
it had shut down the controversial incinerator in the
wake of the most recent incident, an electrical power
outage on April 28. 
     DNR Director David Shorr could not be reached on
Monday. Nina Thompson, a spokeswoman for the department,
said the amount of the dioxin released during the
emergency had not been determined as of yet. "We don't
think that it was a health risk, but we still want to
know for sure," she said. The DNR does not know how long
the shut down will be in effect, according to Thompson. 
     At the council meeting, Pendergrass blamed an
unforseen act of God for the latest debacle. "As you can
see the wind velocity range went from the 20 to 30 mph
range very quickly up to a maximum of 62 mph," he told
the council, referring to a chart he had brought with
him.  
     "When this happened, the high winds extinguished
the pilot lights on the standby combustion system,"
Pendergrass added. Less than a minute later, the
electricity went out, according to Pendergrass. The
combination of the high winds and electricity outage
prevented the full burning of dioxin-contaminated
materials and thereby allowed toxic matter to spew
untreated out of the dump stack reserved for such
emergency releases.
     "Honestly, the events were very unfortunate the way
things worked,"  Pendergrass said.  The Syntex official,
nevertheless, reassured the council that the release
posed no danger to public health. To prevent a similar
occurrence, a wind screen has been installed to shield
the pilot lights, and a private weather forecaster has
been hired, Pendergrass said.
     The incineration of dioxin-contaminated soils is
scheduled to continue over the next several months,
according to the terms of the 1990 federal consent
decree. The plan -- signed by Syntex, the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) and the DNR -- calls for burning
toxic waste from Times Beach and 26 other sites in
Eastern Missouri.  
       Under questioning from Councilman Gregory Quinn, 
Pendergrass testified that IT Corp. -- the incinerator
operator contracted by Syntex -- would calculate the
amount of toxins released and provide their estimate to
the DNR and the EPA for further evaluation.  
     Quinn then asked why air monitoring data on the two
previous emergency releases, which occurred on March 20
and March 30,  had not yet been provided to the St.
Louis County Health Department. Pendergrass responded by
saying the data would be forthcoming and added: "There
has been no attempt to hide anything on this project."      
     Opponents of the incinerator disagree. Dan
McLaughlin, who spoke to the council prior to
Pendergrass, alleged that "air monitors that surround
the site are ... either by accident or purposely shut
off during these releases."
     Joe Taykowski, the local resident who has been
videotaping the emergency releases from a bluff
overlooking the incinerator, says he has documented
other problems with the project. "They (Syntex) don't
want to talk about the fugitive emissions that are
coming out of the bottom of this stack at least five
times an hour -- every day," said Taykowski. 
      Reached for comment over the weekend, Steve
Taylor, a spokesman 
 the Times Beach Action Group (TBAG), criticized the
state and federal regulators for permitting incinerator,
which he says is an inherently dangerous. "The only
people surprised that this happened are the DRN and EPA,
the agency's that have been charged with safeguarding
public health. The community anticipated this," said
Taylor. 
      Last month, federal Judge John F. Nangle, the same
jurist who cobbled the 1990 consent decree, dismissed a
suit brought by the Citizens Against Dioxin Incineration
(CADI), a group affiliated with TBAG. By so doing, the
judge sided with the lawyers representing the  EPA and
Syntex,  who contend that Superfund law prohibits any
court challenges until after cleanups are completed.
Nangle's latest decision follows an earlier ruling in
which he overturned a St. Louis County ordinance that
sought to impose stricter emission standards on the
incinerator.

ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN

Two emergency releases of dioxin-laden pollutants at the Times Beach incinerator have residents burning mad

First published in the Riverfront Times (St. Louis), April 3, 1996

BY C.D. Stelzer

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) predicted it
would happen. But no one on either side of the
contentious issues surrounding the Times Beach dioxin
incinerator was totally prepared to deal with the
reality of watching thousands of pounds of dioxin-laden
particulate matter spew into the air. 
     Two emergency releases, which bypass the Superfund
incinerator's pollution control system, have already
occurred in the first two weeks of what is expected to
be a seven month burn. The latest accident occurred last
Saturday morning when a valve failed. On March 20, an
electrical power outage resulted in a discharge of
dioxin-contaminated pollutants that lasted for about one
hour, according to a spokesman for the Missouri
Department of Natural Resources. Environmental
activists, on the other hand, claim the same incident
lasted three-and-a-half hours. 
     The eminent danger posed by emissions is the main
legal argument of a federal lawsuit filed earlier in
late March by the Citizens Against Dioxin Incineration
(CADI). CADI is comprised of Eureka-area residents and
the Times Beach Action Group (TBAG), a group of
environmental activists. 
"We are convinced that incineration is releasing
substantial amounts of dioxin and other dangerous
poisons into the environment both from the stack and
from other sources at the incinerator," says Mick 
Harrison, the attorney for CADI. Concerns over public
health is reason enough, according to an existing
federal environmental law, to take the issue to court,
Harrison says. In a separate legal action, CADI will
also ask the court this week to allow the group to
intervene and become a party to the 1990 consent decree
that mandates the cleanup, Harrison adds. 
     For its part, the EPA continues to maintain that
emissions from the incinerator will have a negligible
impact on the health of nearby residents. Those
reassurances, however, contradict the agency's own
studies, which estimate that the population of the
entire country has already been overexposed to dioxin.
That opinion is further bolstered by a 1994 EPA analysis
that indicates dioxin is a probable human carcinogen and
is responsible for immunological and reproductive
disorders.
     According to the EPA's initial Times Beach risk
assessment, a typical emergency venting "may occur at a
frequency of once per week and last for several minutes.
... Because of the absence of a gas cleaning system,
approximately 350 pounds of treated particulate matter
may be emitted during a typical ... release." This
means, by conservative estimates, more than a ton of
toxic material escaped from the dump stack on March 20.
The EPA euphemistically refers to such occurrences as an
"Environmentally Safe Temporary Emergency Release
(ESTER).
In a subsequent risk assessment published in late
February, the EPA called ESTER events "hypothetical."
The same report downplayed both the potential effects of
such accidents and even the possibility of them
occurring. 
     Nevertheless, the pollution control system has now
been acknowledged to have been circumvented twice.
Unfortunately, ESTER events are only one of the
potential hazards tied to the incinerator's inefficient
operation. Video tapes made by incinerator opponents
clearly show repeated incidences in which billowing
plumes of brown clouds can be seen escaping from the
foundation and intake conveyor. 
But the DNR denies any knowledge of these fugitive
emissions.
     "Obviously, we had the ESTER events," Jim Silver of
DNR told a group of local residents last Saturday
afternoon. The impromptu meeting at the agency's office
near Times Beach took place after the second emergency
in as many weeks. Silver told the concerned residents
that he was unaware of any other problems at the site.
When asked about the brown smoke pouring out of the base
of the incinerator, Silver replied:      "I'm not sure
what you're talking about."
The DNR official admitted no one from the state
regulatory agency or the EPA monitors the incinerator
site 24 hours a day. Instead, they rely on data provided
by Syntex. Syntex has in turn contracted IT Corp. to
construct and run the incinerator. 
Chesley Morrissey, a member of the St. Louis County
Dioxin Monitoring Committee, has accused the DNR
official of not responding to the March 20 emergency in
a timely manner. Morrissey, who was appointed to the
watchdog group by County Executive Buzz Westfall, says
the Silver did not inform her of the first emergency
release until well after it happened. It then took three
days of repeated telephone calls for her to reach him,
she says.
     The Monitoring Committee member is concerned about
the frequency of the emergencies given the brief time
the incinerator has been operating. "It's very alarming
that you don't know what's going on," Morrissey told
Silver on Saturday.
     Morrissey and other residents of the area have been
observing the incinerator operations occasionally from a
bluff overlooking the site. "This is kind of amazing. We
don't go up there that often to see what is going on and
just the few times we have gone up there we've got this
on tape," she says, referring to multiple instances of
both fugitive emissions and emergency releases that
bypass the pollution controls.
     Last week, U.S. District Judge Charles A. Shaw
transferred the CADI lawsuit to Judge John F. Nangle,
the senior jurist in the 8th Circuit who oversaw the
negotiations of the 1990 consent decree. In August,
Nangle upheld the limited terms of that court-ordered
agreement by outlawing a St. Louis County ordinance that
imposed stricter emission standards on the incinerator. 
     Both the EPA, and Syntex, which entered the CADI
suit of its own volition, are asking Nangle to dismiss
the case. According to their arguments, Superfund law
prohibits all litigation until after cleanups are
completed, making any citizens' objections to such
projects a moot point.
Not surprisingly, Harrison, the attorney for CADI,
disagrees with that legal stance. "There is a provision
of the Superfund statute that says consent decrees can
be challenged, set aside, or modified not withstanding
any other provision of the Superfund law," says
Harrison. This interpretation of the law has been upheld
in other federal cases, according to the environmental
attorney. As of yet, the Supreme Court has declined to
take up the issue, he says.
     As the legal fight continues, the
dioxin-contaminated soil continues to roll into Times
Beach from some of the 26 other sites in Eastern
Missouri that are a part of the cleanup. All together
more than 100,000 cubic yards are scheduled to be
burned. 
     An observer can see all this activity quite well
from up on the bluff overlooking the Meramec Valley. The
vantage point is populated by a small colony of prickly
pears that cling precariously near the edge of a rock
outcropping. These dwarfed cacti are evidence of a
botanical transition zone. Human influences on the
environment are far less subtle.
In the background, an EPA air monitoring station hums
incessantly. Earlier in the day, workers installed a
second cyclone fence around this equipment, and topped
the new barrier with three strands of barbed wire. New
roads are being bulldozed along this ridge, too. The
3-acre wooded lots here sell for more than $50,000. Soon
houses will be built and foraging deer will move
elsewhere.
     Meanwhile, in the flood plain below, a column of
white smoke rises from a tall stack and then drifts away
on the whims of the wind.
Some days it blows toward the high school in Eureka,
other days it drifts toward Sacred Heart elementary.
Next to the smokestacks at the incinerator site, the
U.S. and Missouri flags also wave in the breeze.

DIOXIN, PCBS, THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AND NATIONAL SECURITY

BY C.D. STELZER

Previously unpublished, Feb. 14, 1996 

Whenever PCBs or dioxin are mentioned, secrecy seems to
descends: doors close, sources become unavailable,
Freedom of Information requests go wanting, and lies are
told.  
     Former U.S. Sen. Thomas Eagleton (D-Mo.) recognized
early the consequences of such a flawed policy.  "If we
were discussing national security such as the A-bomb or
nuclear warheads, I could see where there would have to
be a cloak of secrecy," Eagleton told the St. Louis
Globe-Democrat in 1982. ... "But we are discussing a
situation that is affecting people's lives. ... The worst
thing is for there to be secret leaks that may be
misleading to the people in those affected areas,"
Eagleton said.     
     That the senator referred to national security is
telling. From the beginning, the military-industrial
complex has inhabited the edges of the dioxin
controversy. 
     Hoffman-Taff and Monsanto, of course, both
originally  manufactured a chemical component of Agent
Orange for use by the Army in Vietnam. But Monsanto's
military connections predates that era by decades. As far
back as World War II, the chemical company did work for
the government. In 1944, for example, the St. Louis Star
Times reported that Monsanto had gained approval from the
Army to produce a catapulting rocket" fashioned after the
German "robot bomb," an allusion probably to the early V
2 missiles used by the Nazis. 
     Another intriguing detail is that Syntex -- 
Hoffman-Taff's  parent and the company ultimately held
liable for the Times Beach cleanup --  is incorporated in
Panama, a center for clandestine banking and
international espionage.
      The Roche Group, a Swiss-based pharmaceutical
conglomerate bought Syntex in 1994. During World War I,
the allies suspected Hoffman-LaRoche of aiding Germany.
More recently, the company's American subsidiary 
provided a hallucinogenic drug, quinuclidinyl benzilate,
known as BZ, to the U.S. Army. The Army Chemical Corp is
reported to have conducted human experiments using BZ  at
the Edgewood Arsenal between 1959 and 1974.  
     There are also indications of a close working
association between public health officials and the
military. As already stated, health officials were
steered to the Verona plant by the Defense Contract
Administrations Services, a part of the Pentagon. In
addition, one of the early investigators of the Missouri
dioxin case had a background tied to the armed forces. 
In a 1975 deposition relating to the Piatt case, Coleman
Carter, a physician for the U.S. Public Health Service
(PHS), testified he had joined the health agency less
than two years before, while still a commissioned officer
on active reserve duty. Carter worked under the auspices
of the Epidemiological Intelligence Services (EIS).  EIS
had been specifically set up to respond to the threat of
biological warfare, according to Alexander D. Langmuir,
the chief epidemiologist for the PHS  from 1949 to 1970. 
     In addition, the Bliss Waste Oil Co. picked up used
motor oil from Ft. Leonard Wood near Rolla. One former
Bliss driver alleged that the company also collected
waste from Scott Air Force Base near Belleville.  IPC,
the St. Louis company that sub-contracted Bliss to haul
the dioxin-contaminated waste from Verona, was a
subsidiary of Charter Oil.  During the 1970s, Charter Oil
engaged fugitive financier Robert Vesco, and Billy
Carter, the brother of Pres. Jimmy Carter, to negotiate
trade deals with Libyan dictator Moammer al-Qaddafi.
     Perhaps the most bizarre footnote to this toxic
odyssey are the tete-a-tetes Bliss reportedly shared with
the late U.S. Rep. Richard Ichord (D-Mo.)  In a 1980
prison interview,  an alleged Bliss Waste Oil Co.
employee, recalled witnessing  meetings between his
former employer and the ultra-conservative congressman. A
transcript of the interview is on file at the IEPA
offices in Collinsville.  According to the transcript,
DNR and EPA officials and an assistant Missouri attorney
general interviewed inmate Scott Rollins at the Missouri
Penitentiary in Jefferson City. Rollins is quoted as
saying Bliss met Ichord, on more than one occasion, at an
unspecified restaurant and the two would sometimes leave
together. 
     Ichord is probably most remembered for being the
last chairman of the House Un-American Activities
Committee, and a zealous anti-communist. After leaving
office, he became a lobbyist for the extreme-rightwing
American Freedom Coalition, which received funding from
the Unification Church, founded in Korea by the Rev. Sun
Myung Moon. During his tenure in Congress, the
congressman also strongly supported chemical weapons. In
1980, Ichord pushed a more than $3 million appropriation
through Congress for a binary nerve gas facility at the 
Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas. In the prison interview,
Rollins mentions that Bliss also did business in that
state, but didn't say where. 
     Whether the congressman and the waste oil hauler
ever met is, for now at least, still a matter of
conjecture. But it is clear that they both, in their own
ways, contributed to massive pollution problems. The Army
is now faced with destroying tons of chemical weapons. 
In this way, it faces the same kind of problem the EPA
has at Times Beach. Local residents in both circumstances
oppose the use of incineration as a means of destroying 
toxic chemicals.  
     In a 1970 speech before the St. Louis County Chamber
of Commerce, Ichord, warned that the environmental
movement could someday be subverted by the radical left.
Speaking at Slay's  restaurant in Affton, the congressman
said, "Solving the problems of pollution will require
sound and pragmatic actions from state and city
governments, plus massive volunteer activities as well as
the support you have the right to expect from the federal
government."      
     Although Taylor, the organizer for TBAG, would
likely not match the late congressman's profile of a good
citizen, he agrees that the federal government, in
particular Congress, does have an important obligation. 
     "The Times Beach Action Group has always wanted to
uncover the truth about what's been happening with these
toxic sites," says Taylor. "We have requested a
congressional investigation from (Rep.) Jim Talent. Also,
we've sent a letter requesting (the same) of (Sen.
Christopher "Kit") Bond."
      TBAG hasn't heard back from Bond. They're not
holding their breath.

CHEMICAL LIVES

BY C.D. Stelzer

first published in the Riverfront Times (St. Louis), Feb. 14, 1996

One of the most disturbing scientific debates to have
resurfaced lately is over the decline in male sperm
counts. Studies indicate a drastic reduction in healthy
sperm in the last two generation. In 1992, A Danish
researcher  estimated that sperm counts throughout the
world went down 42 percent since 1940. Some scientists,
including those at the EPA, suspect that dioxin and PCBs
may be at least partially responsible.       
     Perhaps most germane to Times Beach and the hazard
waste situation in Missouri, however, is the close
relationship PCBs share with dioxin. Evidence suggests
that small amounts of dioxins and dibenzofurans, a
related chemical, can actually be created inadvertently
during the manufacturing of PCBs. More important, as PCB
oil ages and begins to breakdown, the concentrations of
dioxin-like chemicals increase, according to authorities
on the subject.  
     The rule of thumb is the more chlorinated the PCBs,
the more toxic the contaminated soil will become with
dioxin-like chemicals as it ages, says Tom Gasiewisz, a
University of Rochester professor of environmental
medicine.  The scientist also offers another caveat: "In
some of those earlier days, they didn't have an isomer
specific analysis on ... dioxins and furans present in
those formulations. ... Although the compounds might
have been suspected to be there, the exact isomer
concentrations were probably unknown," says Gasiewisz.
In laymen's terms, this means the contents of some PCBs
are uncertain.
     The effects of exposure to the chemical is less of
an enigma, however. Although not as potent as dioxin,
PCBs, nevertheless, pose many of the same health risks.
In 1991, the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services labeled PCBs carcinogenic. Exposure to the
chemical has also been linked to  birth defects,
immunological problems and reproductive disorders. If
all this weren't enough, the federal Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) warns that PCBs
don't burn easily. The chemical's resistance to heat is
one of the reasons they were formerly used as an
insulators in electrical transformers.   
     PCBS were first commercially produced in the United
States by the Swann Chemical Co. in 1929. But for
decades thereafter Monsanto Chemical Co. exclusively
manufactured PCBs up until 1977, when production stopped
shortly before the federal government banned the
chemical as apart of the Toxic Substances and Control
Act (TSCA).  Monsanto produced PCBs at its  W. G.
Krummrich plant in Sauget, Ill. and at another facility
in Anniston, Ala. 
     An industry source estimates more than one billion
pounds of the indestructible chemical were manufactured
since 1929.  Hundreds of millions of  pounds have since
been indiscriminately dumped, according to EPA
estimates. As a result, ground and surface waters have
been permanently polluted from coast to coast.  
     PCBs are part of a family of more than 200
different related chemical compounds, which range from
light oily fluids to heavy greasy substances. For
decades prior to their prohibition, they were used as
insulators in electrical transformers and capacitators.
Many other products once contained PCBs, including:
plastics, adhesives, paints, varnishes, pesticides,
carbonless copying paper, newsprint, fluorescent light
ballasts and caulking compounds. 
     Concerns about PCBs developed in 1964, after a
Swedish scientist became aware of their persistent
nature and tendency to accumulate in higher
concentrations as they moved up the food chain. Four
years later,  a PCB leak at a rice factory in Japan
resulted in the best documented case of human exposure.
Those who ate the contaminated rice were later found to
be 15 times more likely to contract liver cancer.