Shelton: Gateway to Industrial Blight
The City of Shelton, County of Mason, and Port Of Shelton (POS) continue to serve their corporate masters at the expense of the people, i.e. It’s business as usual after reelecting much of the same crowd on the most recent ballot. That would have to include the private, for profit corporation, the Economic Development Council (EDC) which recirculates the public tax $ it sucks up to the very same politicans’ campaign coffers that handed them it in the 1st place–all with NO competitive bidding or accountability. Simpson (aka: ‘Green’ Diamond) is also a local favorite despite having dumped Dioxin into Oakland Bay for years by flushing the waste from its downtown facility into the sewers of Shelton. When that proved insufficiently covert, it took to dumping the Dioxin onto several non-certified local (in the Matlock area) private landfills, covering the toxic waste with woody debris and other forest byproducts from its operations. Yet this is only the merest hint of the tip on the iceberg that has been identified on the radar screen.
Not one elected official is standing by the public to defend it (in its ignorance) from the poisons these industrial/business special interests leverage against the people, all in the name of profit…or, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs! (The local euphemism for Death on the installment plan)
Sandy Bauers (of the Philadelphia Inquirer) reports this nationwide pattern as follows:
PHILADELPHIA — In testimony before a Senate subcommittee, Ken Cook spoke passionately about 10 Americans who were found to have more than 200 synthetic chemicals in their blood.
The list included flame retardants, lead, stain removers and pesticides the federal government had banned three decades ago.
Left-handed
“Their chemical exposures did not come from the air they breathed, the water they drank or the food they ate,” said Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, a national advocacy group.
How did he know?
The 10 Americans were newborns. “Babies are coming into this world pre-polluted with toxic chemicals,” he said.
Simpson’s Legacy
More than 80,000 chemicals are in use today, and most have not been independently tested for safety, regulatory officials say.
Yet we come in contact with many every day — most notably, the bisphenol A in can linings and hard plastics, the flame retardants in couches, the nonstick coatings on cookware, the phthalates in personal care products, and the nonylphenols in detergents, shampoos, and paints.
These five groups of chemicals were selected by Sonya Lunder, senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group, as ones that people should be aware of and try to avoid.
They were among the first picked in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s recent effort to assess health risks for 83 of the most worrisome industrial chemicals.
Lunder’s basis was that they are chemicals Americans come in contact with daily. You don’t have to live near a leaking Superfund site to be exposed. They are in many consumer products, albeit often unlabeled.
Studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others have shown that they are detectable in the blood or urine of many of us.
Plus, much data exist showing their harm. “We have an incredible body of evidence for all these chemicals,” she said. “In all cases, we have studies linking human exposure to human health effects.”
Lunder and others see these five as symbolic of the government’s failure to protect us from potential — or actual — toxins.
“A lot of people presume that because you’re buying something on the store shelf … someone has vetted that product to make sure it is safe,” said Sarah Janssen, senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, another advocacy group. “Unfortunately, that’s not true.”
Some chemicals are regulated through laws governing, say, pesticides or air quality.
But most are regulated through the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA. It has been identified as the only major environmental statute that has not been reauthorized, or revised, since its adoption in the 1970s.
Since 2005, U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., has worked to change that. In 2010, he introduced the first version of the Safe Chemicals Act, which would require companies “to prove their products are safe before they end up in our home and our children’s bodies,” he said recently by e-mail.
A later version, with 27 co-sponsors, passed out of committee in July. Lautenberg has vowed to keep fighting for a vote in the full Senate.
The American Chemical Council, a trade association representing large chemical manufacturers, declined comment, although it too has called for reform.
“Public confidence in TSCA has diminished, contributing to misperceptions about the safety of chemicals,” council president Cal Dooley said in 2011 testimony. But he said the proposed law would cripple innovation in fields from energy to medicine. It would “create an enormous burden on EPA and on manufacturers with little benefit by requiring a minimum data set for all chemicals.”
EPA officials declined comment, but in a series of appearances before the Senate subcommittee on the environment, staff members repeatedly said the current law is not protecting Americans.
In July, Jim Jones, acting administrator of EPA’s office of chemical safety, said that “with each passing year, the need for TSCA reform grows.”
When TSCA was passed, it grandfathered in, “without any evaluation,” the 62,000 chemicals in commerce that existed before 1976, Jones said.
He noted that in the 34 years since TSCA was passed, the list of chemicals has grown to 84,000, and EPA has been able to require testing on only about 200 of them.
“The real issue of TSCA reform is that science is not what it was 30 or 40 years ago,” said Linda Birnbaum, head of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
In the past, she said, “we were looking almost exclusively at visible birth defects. We were concerned with cancer.”
Researchers are now looking at chemicals’ effects — some extremely subtle — on numerous other conditions, including reproductive development and disorders, diabetes, heart problems, asthma, autism, even obesity and learning disorders.
Paradigms have evolved so that researchers can study concurrent exposure to more than one chemical, as happens in real life. Toxicology has grown from a descriptive science of what has occurred to a predictive one.
Uses: It hardens clear “polycarbonate” plastics, which are used in compact discs, plastic dinnerware, eyeglass lenses, toys, beverage bottles, and impact-resistant safety equipment. Also used in the linings of food cans, in dental sealants, and on cash register receipts.
Nonylphenols, including nonylphenol ethoxylates
Uses: Laundry detergents, shampoos, household cleaners, latex paints.
PFCs (perfluorinated chemicals)
Uses: Widely used water, grease, and stain repellents. Contained in the coatings of nonstick cookware. Used to greaseproof paper and cardboard food packaging. Added to carpeting and clothing for stain protection.
Flame retardants, including PBDE
Uses: To prevent the spread of fire, many versions of these chemicals are added to upholstered furniture and mattresses — including many products for babies — plus textiles, plastics, electronics.
Phthalates
Uses: They make plastics more malleable, and are found in vinyl shower curtains, toys, vinyl flooring. They help lotions penetrate skin, so they are found in a wide variety of personal care products, including cosmetics, fragrances, and nail polish. Also found in air fresheners and cleaning products.
Sources: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Environmental Working Group,
Natural Resources Defense Council
