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EPA calls for steps to save the Bay
EPA calls for steps to save the Bay
By Jane Kay
OF THE EXAMINER STAFF
Sunday, May 16, 1999
Agency concludes that dioxin menace
requires stricter regulatory control
Overruling California's own environmental monitor,
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has
concluded that dioxins and related chemical
compounds have so seriously compromised San
Francisco Bay water quality that stricter regulatory
control is needed to reduce their presence.
In a decision to be announced formally on Monday,
EPA will make it official that dioxins, dioxin-like
PCBs, and the solvent furans are high priority safety
items because of the human health risk they pose to
people who eat fish from the Bay.
"It's time to get serious about dioxins and PCBs," said
EPA Regional Administrator Felicia Marcus, who
suggested heightened controls over industrial and
municipal discharges and possibly new state and
federal regulations.
Giving high priority listing to dioxins, PCBs and
furans was a surprise move by the EPA because the
compounds are hard to control and measure in the
environment. Both the state and regional water
quality control boards had rejected such listing.
Inclusion on the EPA's list of contaminated
waterways will pressure local regulatory agencies to
establish dioxin pollution standards for the Bay and
may set in motion efforts to control dioxin releases at
the source.
Every two years, the EPA releases a list of pollutants
that impair water bodies, after consultation with the
states, under the federal Clean Water Act.
This year's California list contains 472 stream
segments, rivers, lakes and estuaries, many of which
exceed water-quality standards for a number of
pollutants. The EPA added 12 additional pollutants
and 37 new water bodies statewide, including San
Francisco Bay, despite their exclusion from listing by
the state and regional water resources control board.
EPA's review of data from the Bay persuaded its
scientists that the state water board "did not provide
a reasonable rationale" for excluding the Bay from its
priority list. EPA added 30 Bay Area creeks to that
list, including Mount Diablo, Pinole, San Pablo,
Wildcat, Coyote, Alameda, San Leandro and Walnut,
as well as Lake Merritt in Oakland, where floating
garbage has depleted the oxygen level.
Greg Karras, a scientist with Communities for a
Better Environment, called EPA's decision "a very
big deal."
"It's a decision made specifically because of the
health threat to subsistence fishing, and this is
unique," he said. "It's an environmental justice victory
from our perspective, and from EPA's perspective
it's a potential national precedent."
A year ago, the California Zero Dioxin Exposure
Alliance, a 40-organization coalition, asked the state
and regional water quality control boards to designate
dioxins and furans as a threat to the Bay but was
rebuffed.
Board members argued that the dioxin problem
should be dealt with on a national basis, because the
fish contamination in San Francisco Bay isn't any
worse than in many other parts of the country.
Karras noted that his organization subsequently
petitioned EPA "for exactly this kind of action,
because the state agencies were unwilling to listen to
our plan to eliminate dioxin completely — and more
cheaply than it can be controlled."
The EPA decision means that "now (the state) has to
listen to us and prove that its solution is better. It will
open up the dialogue."
Making the Bay fishable
Short term, the EPA decision "ups the priority for
controlling dioxin." Long term, he said, it's a step
toward controlling dioxin releases at the source. "The
goal is to make the Bay fishable so that people can
fish the Bay for food in health."
EPA also added the Stockton Deep Water Channel
to its priority list, because of excessive dioxin and
PCB levels, and the Santa Clara River, which was
found to have excessive chlorides.
The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality
Control Board's request for adding exotic species as
a threat to the Bay also won EPA's approval.
Ballast water in vessels and humans bringing in
foreign animals and plants have created the problem
over the last century.
Because these non-natives have no natural predators,
they can eradicate indigenous species, which
contribute to biological diversity. Some problem
predators are the red fox, which eat California
clapper rails, and Asian clams, mitten and green
crabs and zebra mussels which crowd out natives
and compete for food supplies.
The EPA said its listing of dioxins and the others
wasn't intended to redirect the state's resources
away from exotic species, mercury or PCBs, the
state's top priorities.
The EPA says it may take several years to complete
analyses and will work with the state and local
governments to monitor the Bay.
Urgent health risk
But establishing a priority "is intended to focus
attention on an urgent human health risk issue and
help initiate needed monitoring and assessment
activities. The efforts should begin now," the agency
said in a prepared statement.
In the case of dioxins, scientists say minute
concentrations escape from autos and factories in
particles of smoke during combustion and float down
and settle on land and the Bay.
The EPA bans dioxins at levels lower than it is
technically able to detect in the lab. Dioxin binds
DNA and disrupts enzymes, hormones and growth,
leading to cancer, developmental and reproductive
damage, diabetes and immune system impairment.
San Francisco, Oakland and Santa Clara County
have passed resolutions directing officials to find
substitutes for chlorine-bleached paper, PVC plastic
and other products that release dioxin during the
manufacturing process.
Eric Brazil of The Examiner staff contributed to this
report.
©1999 San Francisco Examiner
Examiner Hot News
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Neil TANGRI