Re: agent orange's fingerprints

[Lew Baker <lab1@ezwv.com>]

Thanks Jon, I'll look into it.  I am aware of some of that story, but Greenpeace
no doubt has agood write-up.

Yep, we do have an astounding amount of contamination.  The 40 miles of Kanawha
River below Monsanto's plant has had an advisory on it since 1986 for people to
be aware not to eat the fish.  Still, the WV DNR maintains public fishing areas
on the river which are not posted with any warnings.  The DNR has nice pamphlets
to hand out to the public telling them of all the good waters in the state in
which to fish, but nothing regarding which streams have fish advisories.

Compare this to other states.  Arkansas, for example, has a "quarantine" on
fishing for the Arkansas River due to drainage from Vertac via Bayou Meto.  I
worry that my state's officials are more concerned with selling fishing licenses
than protecting the fishermen.

Jon Campbell wrote:

> Lew,
>
>       Ohmygod, that is an *astounding* amount of dioxin. I can see why you
> are pursuing this.
>
>        I remembered that Greenpeace issued a report called "Science For
> Sale" which outlined falsification of health data regarding the workers at
> the Nitro plant. I have a copy, but you can also get it from Greenpeace. If
> they are out, I'll send you a copy...
>
> Kind regards
> Jon Campbell
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lew Baker <lab1@ezwv.com>
> To: Multiple recipients of list DIOXIN-L <dioxin-l@essential.org>
> Date: Monday, April 06, 1998 11:47 PM
> Subject: Re: agent orange's fingerprints
>
> >Dennis, thanks for the tip on New Jersey.  I've loooked at published data
> >for sediment downriver of Diamond Shamrock's agent orange site there.  As I
> >recall, it was not congener specific, but seemed to indicate a very high
> >tcdd contribution to total teq in the sediments.  Surely there's more data
> >there, that I haven't seen yet.
> >
> >Congener/isomer specific sediment data for the Kanawha River below Monsanto
> >in WV has had from 50-90% teq from 2,3,7,8 tcdd.  The river's water has
> been
> >reported at 50% teq from 2,3,7,8 tcdd, but its fish have 90-100% of their
> >dioxin teq from 2,3,7,8 tcdd.
> >
> >Fish lipids do bioaccumulate this most toxic form of dioxins/furans more
> >readily than the others, hence the shift in the congener "fingerprint".  I
> >have found the fish lipids to generally be more consistent from sample to
> >sample, than the sediment and water samples.  The later are prone to vary
> in
> >space and time, with the seasons and with stream flow.  Each fish has a
> >composite sample in its lipids, and fish samples are usually a composite of
> >4 or 5 fish. There are also more fish lipid data available for the Kanawha
> >and Ohio Rivers than for the other media.
> >
> >Perhaps most importantly, the primary threat of these contaminants to
> humans
> >and other members of the food chain IS the food chain (i.e. the lipids).
> >The threat from drinking the water or otherwise ingesting the sediment is
> >negligible.  For example, the average total dioxin teq for fish lipids from
> >the 40 miles of Kanawha River below Monsanto is 981 pg/g (942 pg/g from
> >2,3,7,8 tcdd), whereas the water usually has less than 1 pg/l tcdd.  It
> >would be easy to consume a gram or so of fish fat per day, but impossible
> to
> >drink 1000 liters a day.
> >
> >At least for these rivers, the fish data is the most meaningful for
> >estimating risk.  They also contain the most complete and dependable
> >"fingerprints".
> >
> >Lew Baker
> >--------------------------
> >
> >Catalano, Dennis wrote:
> >
> >> Fish are a bit tricky to "fingerprint" in that the rate of
> >> bioaccumulation varies from congener to congener as well as isomer to
> >> isomer.  One of the reasons why non 2,3,7,8-substituted isomers are less
> >> toxic is that they don't bioaccumulate.  As far as other agent orange
> >> data, you may want to check with the State of New Jersey.  I was
> >> involved several years back on a study that may be published at this
> >> time.  I am not at liberty to give any other information at this time
> >> about the results, but they may be public record.
> >>
> >> Dennis Catalano
> >>  ----------
> >
> >
> >
> >