About
the organizer
Angel Kruzen
213 E. 3rd St.
Mountain View, MO 65548
(417) 934-2818 (also fax)
pansgarden@hotmail.com
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Nukes and Spooks! Club Protects Public from PCBs
in Blue River and Indian Creek
By Missouri Water Sentinel Angel Kruzen and Water Sentinels Program Director Scott Dye
The United States Department of Energy (USDOE) owns a facility
on Bannister Road, near the intersection of Indian Creek and the
Blue River, which makes non-nuclear triggers for nuclear weapons
- and a big mess.
The Ozark Chapter's Water Sentinels project first became aware of
serious pollution problems at the plant this summer, while auditing
state Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) files to make nominations
to Missouri's 303(d) list of polluted streams. We discovered a rabbit
hole a mile deep - a federal agency that has spewed dangerous toxins
into the environment for decades; a state agency that has done essentially
nothing to stop it; and the failure of both agencies to protect
the public from known health risks.
The primary pollutant of concern discharging from this federal facility
is Polychlorinated Biphenyls, or PCBs. PCBs are one of the most
toxic manmade substances ever created - so toxic they are measured
and regulated in parts per billion (ppb). PCBs are a known carcinogen
and endocrine disruptor, and can cause adverse effects on the immune
system, reproductive system and nervous system. The composition
of PCB mixtures mutate and bio-accumulate in the environment, and
can also synergize with other toxic materials, making the total
toxic load even more powerful than the sum of its parts.
Due to PCBs' dangerous toxicity, Missouri Water Quality Standards
limit PCBs concentrations in streams to 0.000045 ppb (45/100,000th
of 1 ppb), to protect human health via fish consumption. However,
MDNR set the federal plant's state operating permit to allow a PCB
discharge of 1.0 ppb - more than 22,200 times the state's instream
safety standard! Worse yet, the plant has consistently failed to
meet even that high permit limit.
The USDOE plant discharged PCBs at levels up to several hundred
ppb throughout the 1970s, up to 51.4 ppb (or 1.1 million times the
state standard) throughout the 1980s, up to 7.6 ppb (~170,000 times
the state standard) throughout the 1990s, and as high as 3.2 ppb
(~71,000 times the state standard) within the last two years.
If that's not bad enough, wait, it gets worse.
Mix in 30 years worth of chemical spills of hazardous substances
including contaminated cooling tower water, hexavalent chromium,
volatile organic compounds, chlorinated hydrocarbons, phenols, propylene
glycol, perchloroethylene, and a host of other nasty chemicals.
And mix in contaminated soil, and groundwater polluted by heavy
metals, PCBs, solvents and petrochemicals, that have leached into
the Blue River.
Wait, it gets worse.
Both the Blue and Indian Creek are classified by MDNR as Whole Body
Contact Recreation Waters - or streams that are supposed to support
swimming, wading and fishing. MDNR is literally luring the public
to swim and fish in this toxic soup of carcinogens.
Unbelievably, it gets worse.
Both USDOE and MDNR are in possession of a recent Health Risk Assessment
that clearly shows that adult and child recreational users are exposed
to PCB hazards several times EPA's safety standard - for contacting
sediment or surface water, and eating contaminated fish. For children,
just touching the contaminated water carries a PCB hazard quotient
more than 2.5 times the EPA's safety standard.
We asked the state repeatedly to designate the streams as polluted,
and immediately post warning signs at downstream public access points.
MDNR refused. So we prepared a rap
sheet of pollution dating to 1969 and a press packet bulging
with other frightening documentation, made our own warning signs,
called a press conference, and then dropped the bomb (so to speak).
Then it got weird. The feds got ouch-y, and out came the spooks.
Our press conference was 'observed' by four USDOE employees and
recorded by their hired three-man film crew. Staff was followed
as they posted the warning signs. And all media inquiries were referred
to the National Nuclear Security Agency (founded in 1999, but that's
another story).
Despite the intimidation, the KC media gutted up and got the word
to the people via TV, radio and print. The resulting embarrassment
even moved the state bureaucracy - before the close of business!
MDNR publicly vowed to 'revisit' the health risks with regard to
environmental justice issues (the streams' users are predominately
African-American), and to 'reevaluate' the need for warning signs.
Of course, we will bird-dog MDNR as they 'revisit' and 'reevaluate'
this plant's impacts.
It takes guts and smarts to take on the 'Men in Black' and prevail.
The Thomas Hart Benton Group, the Ozark Chapter and the Club's Water
Sentinels program have both attributes in abundance.
This article originally appeared in the Thomas
Hart Benton Group newsletter.
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