In New York City, When it Rains it Pours Raw Sewage

Gracie Mansion: Mayor Bloomberg's yard runs down to the East River Promenade where raw sewage is discharged during rainfall.On a sparkling Fall day in Manhattan a walk along the Upper East Side waterfront promenade that runs past Gracie Mansion--Mayor Bloomberg's official New York City residence--yields a stunning riverfront vista, bracing sea air and a sense that the city has made great strides in cleaning up and creating livable urban landscapes for city dwellers. But just steps from the Mayor's terrace overlooking a prime waterfront view even Walt Whitman could appreciate is a sign that tells a different story. Entitled "Wet Weather Discharge Point," the gist of it is: at that particular point (and at more than 460 other such locations on New York City's waterways) raw sewage is released into the East River (technically a tidal strait) during rainfall.

One would hope such deliberate and flagrant polluting by city authorities would be a rare event--used only for emergencies--but according to the Riverkeeper (New York's clean water advocacy group) as little as one twentieth of an inch of rain can trigger a release of toxic sludge on the magnitude of something you'd expect to find in the slums of Calcutta. New York City receives 45 inches of rain in an average year, though 2011 is a record breaking year (in just two months this past summer more than 30 inches of rain fell on the city.) That's a lot of raw sewage spewing into an urban waterway bordered by tens of thousands of residences--many of which, incidentally, sell for upwards of $3 million.The sign that tells it all: "This outfall may discharge rainfall mixed with untreated sewage."

The New York City Deparment of Environmental Protection (a misnomer if we've ever heard one) presides over the release of a staggering 27 billion gallons of raw sewage and polluted storm water into the environment each year. A steady drip of sludge that averages about once per week. According to the city, without such releases during rainstorms untreated sewage would back up and pour out of manholes--and possibly even toilets. This mingling of storm water runoff and human waste is the product of a century old sewage system that moves human effluvia on a scale far beyod proportions ever imagined by the systems' designers who were just starting to become familiar with a newfangled thing called the lightbulb.

A little digging reveals that Rainfall Discharge in New York City contains not just untreated sewage, although that's the predominant smell according to people who live near the discharge points; the effluent--known in the trade as Combined Sewage Overflows (CSOs)--is a mix of untreated human waste, ammonia, pesticides (such as malathion sprayed on the city to fight West Nile Virus), petroleum products (from sources such as gas stations, auto repair shops, and garages), and other potential toxins and pathogenic microorganisms associated with human disease. Fecal coliform, e-coli bacteria and an additional 40 types of disease-causing pathogens reside in the raw sewage that the city discharges. The toxic brew also contains debris that washes off the streets or is flushed down toilets including syringes, tampon applicators, and other plastic products. It just doesn't seem possible that in the 21st Century there is not a better system for disposing of hazardous waste than to dump it untreated and uncontained into natural waterways.

In the wake of Hurricane Irene: A NASA satellite image showing murky brown sludge pouring out from New York City (top, center) and into the clear dark green depths of the Atlantic Ocean (bottom, right.)Thousands of people live within a couple of hundred yards of the East River Promenade release point; although the Mayor sleeps at his own townhouse closer to Central Park and nearly a mile's distance from the waterfront.  Lucky for him, because residents report being able to smell the raw sewage inside their homes on rainy days. There are at least two schools in the vicinity, one directly on the waterfront, less than 6 blocks down river from the release point. We can take some comfort in knowing swimming is prohibited in the East River; however, the impact of inhaling micronized, airborne fecal and pathogenic particles during raw sewage releases is anyone's guess.

U.S. Glossed Over Cancer Concerns Associated with Airport X-Ray Scanners

Are airport x-ray scanners the next big environmental health catastrophe?  Scientific American reports the security scanners would have been subject to more stringent safety testing if they'd been designed for use as medical devices. Among many startling revelations, the article reveals:

• The FDA has limited authority to oversee some non-medical products and can set mandatory safety regulations. But the agency let the scanners fall under voluntary standards set by a nonprofit group heavily influenced by industry.
•  While the TSA doesn’t regulate the machines, it must seek public input before making major changes to security procedures. In July, a federal appeals court ruled that the agency failed to follow rule-making procedures and solicit public comment before installing body scanners at airports across the country. TSA spokesman Michael McCarthy said the agency couldn’t comment on ongoing litigation.
•  The Federal Aviation Administrations' medical institute has advised pregnant pilots and flight attendants that the machine, coupled with their time in the air, could put them over their occupational limit for radiation exposure and that they might want to adjust their work schedules accordingly. No similar warning has been issued for frequent fliers. 
• Inspections of X-ray equipment in hospitals and industry are the responsibility of state regulators — and before 9/11, many states also had the authority to randomly inspect machines in airports. But that ended when the TSA took over security checkpoints from the airlines. Instead, annual inspections are done by Rapiscan, the scanners’ manufacturer.

Read the article. 

Dangerous Levels of Radioactive Isotope Found 25 Miles From Nuclear Plant

WASHINGTON — A long-lasting radioactive element has been measured at levels that pose a long-term danger at one spot 25 miles from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, raising questions about whether Japan’s evacuation zone should be expanded and even whether the land might need to be abandoned.

The isotope, cesium 137, was measured in one village by the International Atomic Energy Agency at a level exceeding the standard that the Soviet Union used as a gauge to recommend abandoning land surrounding the Chernobyl reactor, and at another location not precisely identified by the agency at more than double the Soviet standard.

The measurements, reported Wednesday, would not be high enough to cause acute radiation illness, but far exceed standards for the general public designed to cut the risks of cancer.

While the amount measured would not pose an immediate danger, the annual dose would be too high to allow people to keep living there, according to Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an American organization that is often critical of nuclear safety rules. Cesium persists in the environment for centuries, losing half its strength every 30 years.

Read the rest of the story in The New York Times.

For Ski Wax Technicians, Chemicals Can Build Up in Blood

By Cheryl Katz for Environmental Health News

BERKELEY, Calif. –A storm has dropped a big snow on Lake Tahoe resorts, and there’s a flurry of activity at the California Ski Company as hordes of skiers and snowboarders prepare to hit the slopes. In a cluttered workroom at the back of the shop, technician Bobby Panighetti is getting a pair of skis ready to make their first tracks – infusing the bottoms with a coat of hot wax. This essential ritual is being performed at winter sports centers around the world as the ski season gets underway.

Now scientific research suggests that ski wax can expose users to perfluorochemicals (PFCs) that build up in their bodies and may carry potentially serious health risks, including cardiovascular disease, liver damage, hormone disruption and cancer.

Racers, in particular, covet waxes with high amounts of fluorinated compounds because they make skis go faster. But that extra speed could come at a cost, especially to thousands of junior ski racers and parents who may layer on highly fluorinated race wax week after week without knowing how to handle it safely.

Two new studies, conducted in Sweden and Norway and published in September, found that wax technicians working for World Cup ski race teams had very high levels of PFCs in their blood. Their median levels of one compound, perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA, were up to 45 times higher than the general population’s. The second-highest compound was perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), a common contaminant in wildlife that is now on the rise in people.

Adding to the concern, one of the studies suggests that the technicians may be manufacturing PFOA and PFNA in their own bodies, metabolizing it after breathing in a common industrial chemical, fluorotelomer alcohol (FTOH), that was found in high quantities in the workroom air. That process, known as biotransformation, has been demonstrated in animal studies, and lead author Helena Nilsson of Sweden’s Orebro University said her group’s research now reveals for the first time “direct evidence of human biotransformation.”

The research provides a key piece to the puzzle of how PFCs build up in the human body, said Olga Naidenko, a senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization. “This study is really important because it shows that this process is happening in humans,” she said. “We already knew that it happens inanimals.”

In shops, chalets and slope-side tents from the Sierra Nevada and the Rockies in the American West to the European Alps and beyond, legions of skiers and snowboarders are waxing up their gear before a big race or just a fun day on the mountain. A base saturated with wax is the key to making cross country and downhill skis and snowboards glide fluidly over snow, the prerequisite for speed.

The technicians in the studies used hot irons to melt layers of wax onto racers’ skis, then ironed the waxed surface to make it adhere, and scraped it smooth. The process, often performed in small, stuffy cabins, produces clouds of fumes, dust and airborne wax particles, which the World Cup team waxers inhaled for approximately 30 hours a week during the November-to-March race season.

Little information is available on the chemical composition of ski waxes, because companies closely guard their formulas. Most race waxes contain water-repellant additives known as “fluoro”, but manufacturers do not reveal whether these include the potentially harmful perfluorinated chemicals turning up in human blood. When the researchers in Norway analyzed 11 different race waxes, however, they found PFCs in every one.

Costing as much as $100 a gram, high-fluoro waxes are too expensive for most recreational skiers and boarders. But the products are in big demand at competitions, including junior race events.

 “With the fluoro, we all know it’s a little bit on the nasty side,” said Greg Whitehouse, who owns California Ski Company in Berkeley. “We prefer to not be around it.”

Read the rest of the story at ScientificAmerican.com

Scientists Project Path of Radiation Plume

By WILLIAM J. BROAD for The New York Times

Published: March 16, 2011

A United Nations forecast of the possible movement of the radioactive plume coming from crippled Japanese reactors shows it churning across the Pacific, and touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting Southern California late Friday.A forecast by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization shows portions of the radioactive plume from Japan arriving in Southern California by Friday. The quantity of radioactive particles is expected to be minute, with purple and blue indicating 0.01 or fewer arbitrary units of radiation.

Health and nuclear experts emphasize that radiation in the plume will be diluted as it travels and, at worst, would have extremely minor health consequences in the United States, even if hints of it are ultimately detectable. In a similar way, radiation from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 spread around the globe and reached the West Coast of the United States in 10 days, its levels measurable but minuscule.

The projection, by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, an arm of the United Nations in Vienna, gives no information about actual radiation levels but only shows how a radioactive plume would probably move and disperse.

The forecast, calculated Tuesday, is based on patterns of Pacific winds at that time and the predicted path is likely to change as weather patterns shift.

On Sunday, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it expected that no “harmful levels of radioactivity” would travel from Japan to the United States “given the thousands of miles between the two countries.”

The test ban treaty group routinely does radiation projections in an effort to understand which of its global stations to activate for monitoring the worldwide ban on nuclear arms testing. It has more than 60 stations that sniff the air for radiation spikes and uses weather forecasts and powerful computers to model the transport of radiation on the winds.

On Wednesday, the agency declined to release its Japanese forecast, which The New York Times obtained from other sources. The forecast was distributed widely to the agency’s member states.

But in interviews, the technical specialists of the agency did address how and why the forecast had been drawn up.

“It’s simply an indication,” said Lassina Zerbo, head of the agency’s International Data Center. “We have global coverage. So when something happens, it’s important for us to know which station can pick up the event.”

“I don’t want to speculate on various scenarios,” he replied. “But based on the design and the distances involved, it is very unlikely that there would be any harmful impacts.”

The likely path of the main Japanese plume across the Pacific has also caught the attention of Europeans, many of whom recall how the much closer Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine began spewing radiation.

In Germany on Wednesday, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection held a news conference that described the threat from the Japanese plume as trifling and said there was no need for people to take iodine tablets. The pills can prevent poisoning from the atmospheric release of iodine-131, a radioactive byproduct of nuclear plants. The United States is also carefully monitoring and forecasting the plume’s movements. The agencies include the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy.

On Wednesday, Steven Chu, the energy secretary, told Congress that the United States was planning to deploy equipment in Japan that could detect radiation exposure on the ground and in the air. In total, the department’s team includes 39 people and more than eight tons of equipment.

“We continue to offer assistance in any way we can,” Dr. Chu said at a hearing, “as well as informing ourselves of what the situation is.”