From a June 9^th press release from the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. Contact persons: Laura Forman at 304-522-0246, Vivian Stockman at 304-927-3265, Renae Bonnett at 304-755-3047

As EPA releases overdue report on dioxin, Putnam residents still await full remediation of dioxin sites

POCA, WV. Renae and Bob Bonnett and their three children live about 1,000 feet down Manila Creek from a dump, where in the ‘50's and ‘60's, Monsanto disposed of waste from its manufacture of Agent Orange. Dioxin may be leaking from that and other dumps Monsanto used in Putnam County.

Today (Friday, June 9) the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is due to release its draft reassessment on dioxin, six years after the report was first expected. This year, according to the report, a minimum of 4,000 people in the United States will get cancer from dioxin, at least ten new cases every day. The report states that dioxin is such a potent and pervasive poison that its harmful effects can occur at levels already found in the American people. Dioxin will cause an unknown number of children to be born with birth defects, suppressed immune systems and learning disabilities. Adults will develop diabetes, endometriosis and heart disease because of dioxin exposure.

Renae, a member of the Heizer-Manila Creek Watershed Association, wonders what effects living near the dump will have on her family. Many of her neighbors are sick from cancer. Many others have died from cancer.

"Love Canal, New York. Times Beach, Missouri. Will Poca, West Virginia, be the next site to be evacuated?" Bonnett asked.

The problem doesn’t stop in Bonnett’s watershed. Manila Creek flows passed her trailer, into the Pocatalico River, which joins the Kanawha, which joins the Ohio. "There’s a potential dioxin contamination problem for everyone living downstream," she said.

But water contamination is not the only dioxin problem. The EPA report indicates that dioxin, the most dangerous man-made chemical known, mainly enters humans via the food we ingest. Dioxin concentrates in fatty tissues as it moves up the food web, so the EPA is recom- mending that people curtail their intake of fish, meat, eggs and dairy products.

"EPA is at last telling us what we already knew -- that our food is poisoned with dioxin," said Buffalo resident Missy Anthony, a member of the Huntington-based Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC). "This report was long held hostage by polluters who feared that this information would threaten their bottom line, while we continued to be poisoned.

"Now that EPA is finally releasing the report, they are blaming the victim, telling us to eat lower on the food chain," Anthony added. "The government should declare that the dioxin poisoning of our food is a public health crisis and should hold companies like Monsanto responsible. We all have a right to safe food and the only way to ensure a safe diet is to clean up the messes we already have and stop dioxin at its source. The government shouldn’t put us on a fat free diet. It should put industry on a dioxin free diet."

Bonnett, Anthony and Lew Baker, another OVEC member, were among citizens who spoke at a press conference held today (Friday) at the Manila Creek dump, which is now the Amherst/ Plymouth Wildlife Management Area. Across the nation, 38 citizen groups participated in a day of action at dioxin contaminated or dioxin producing sites to bring attention to the EPA report. Additionally, 178 groups have signed onto a letter initiated by the Center for Health, Environment and Justice asking the Clinton Administration to create an Emergency Task Force to end the dioxin poisoning of Americans.

"EPA tells us that there has been a reduction in dioxin levels nationwide since 1970, but they fail to mention that much of those reductions are the result of citizen activism, such as pushing for the shutting down or retrofitting of numerous incinerators" said Baker, who has been asking the WV Division of Environmental Protection and the EPA to clean up area contamination for years.

"The main reason dioxin levels in the Kanawha Valley have declined since 1970 is that’s when the US military quit buying Agent Orange. The Pentagon decided back then dioxin was too toxic for our troops. Decades after production stopped, there are still the dioxin laden dumps and sediments, which continue to contam- inate our water, the fish and us," Baker said.

"The waste water plant at the old Monsanto facility may still be a source of dioxin, but the state doesn’t require dioxin testing for it and the company ignores orders from the feds to test it. Still, EPA’s new dioxin report may help goad Monsanto to take some actions. After decades of dragging their feet, the company has apparently just begun buyout negotiations with two families who live at the foot of the still unsecured and accessible Heizer Creek Road dump.

"The order to clean up the 1950's Heizer dump first came from EPA in the 1980's," Baker noted. "Then, when Monsanto made a feeble effort at clean up, EPA just looked the other way. Perhaps its no coincidence Monsanto was treated this way, while William Ruckelhuas (the first EPA director) was on Monsanto’s Board of Directors at the time."

There exists a Superfund National Priority List of the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites, which prioritizes their clean up. Nationwide, there are over 1,200 sites on the list, but not one of Monsanto’s dioxin dumps in the Kanawha Valley is listed. The dioxin-laden sediments of the Kanawha River and some of its tributaries should also have National Priority status, just like the PCB-laden sediments of the Hudson River have received. However, EPA has adopted a new policy, which essentially leaves it up to the fifty Governors to nominate any new entries to the National Priority List.

Both Baker and Bonnett noted that Governor Cecil Underwood was a vice president of Monsanto in the late 60's when the company’s production of Agent Orange was peaking. "We don’t hold out much hope there, since Underwood was so highly placed at Monsanto. We have seen what the revolving door between industry and regulatory agencies means for citizens," said Bonnett.

Anthony, Baker and Bonnett all called on the DEP and EPA to begin monitoring the health of residents and to list the area dumps for immediate and complete clean up.

For more information contact OVEC at 304 522 0246 or visit http://www.gristmagazine.com www.chej.org.