Titan’s hired toxicology consultant, Dr. Rick Pleus of Seattle-based Intertox, has finally released his report on the health impacts of Titan’s mercury—which will double the county’s current emissions of the known neurotoxin. Not surprisingly, Dr. Pleus has found that Titan’s mercury emissions will have absolutely no impacts on our health—even if sensitive populations lived right under the stack! His advice to local residents? Stop worrying…oh and eat less fish from the Northeast Cape Fear River, because some of us, it turns out, eat quite a lot of fish from the river, and those bass and sunfish are chock full of mercury! Oh, and while we’re cleaning up our unhealthy diets, Dr. Pleus recommends that the school district come up with a safety plan in case, oh, some accident happens and there’s a big release of toxic emissions from Titan’s kiln.

Thank you, Dr. Pleus!

Now we can all relax and stop worrying about the “environmental time bomb,” that the Charlotte Observer called the Titan plant and mine. Let’s not forget that Dr. Pleus has rarely met a toxic substance produced by a high-paying industry that he doesn’t like—and that his company Intertox specializes not just in toxicology but in “risk communication,” which seems to mean selling the company line to citizens who have to drink, inhale, or who are otherwise exposed to the pollutants produced by his clients. Some recent examples are perchlorate, a rocket-fuel additive that now contaminates much of the groundwater in California, herbicides used in roadside spraying programs, jet fumes and engine additives inhaled by airline employees, and numerous chemicals and pesticides used in the wood treatment industry including hexavalent chromium, a known carcinogen. Guess what? They’re all just fine! The risks are negligible!

As for Titan’s mercury, Pleus estimates that only about 2 percent of the 263 pounds will be deposited locally, even though a 1997 EPA report to Congress on mercury says local deposition can be as high as 45 percent. A more recent Congressional Research Service report to Congress noted that scientists studying the Florida Everglades have estimated that half the mercury deposited in the Everglades is emitted locally. A 2003 EPA study noted that when local mercury emissions were reduced by 99 percent over two decades, mercury levels in fish and wading birds in the Everglades dropped by 60 to 70 percent. Neither report was cited in Pleus’s study.

For a look at how “science advocacy” works, check out a series of Wall Street Journal articles on Intertox’s lobbying efforts for the perchlorate industry, collected at: http://www.iceh.org/bulletins/LDDIbulletin1-10-06.html, which describes in detail how Pleus set up an allegedly independent symposium on perchlorate at the University of Nebraska, and then stacked it with experts who supported his clients’ side.

All the more reason for a moratorium on cement plant permits until a truly independent commission can investigate all the impacts of Titan’s plant and mine. To email members of the N.C. Senate and encourage them to support Julia Boseman’s moratorium bill SB-699, click here.

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Bull  - bull     |2009-04-13 13:58:46 This is crazy give the company a break there just trin to make a livin Reply | Quote 1 4

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