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THE WARREN SENTINEL
Less than 1 percent of 1,500 invitees show up By: Roger Bianchini If environmental alarm bells are ringing over potential health hazards associated with the Avtex Superfund cleanup, they are sounding upon largely deaf ears. Only 10 people showed up for an Open House hosted by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) on Sept. 18 at Samuels Public Library. That is about two thirds of one percent of the recipients of approximately 1,500 notices mailed out seeking input from area residents concerned about possible negative health impacts from the Superfund cleanup, ATSDR officials said. But despite the turnout, the ATSDR is taking the concerns of the small minority seriously. Dr. Dianyi Yu said on Monday that he is in the process of developing a written survey to be distributed to a number of people whom he was informed could not or would not attend the ATSDR Open House. Yu wants all area residents with concerns to be included in the data tabulation and informational dissemination that ATSDR plans. ATSDR has already collected and released the results of air samplings they took around the perimeter of the 467-acre Avtex site between October 2001 and January 2002. They have also asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to conduct future air samplings that will factor in weather patterns, including summer, not observed during the ATSDR testing period. At the open house Yu and other ATSDR scientists reiterated the results of their air samplings, which show very little likelihood of health consequences from particulate matter released into the atmosphere by cleanup activities at Avtex. The cleanup is being overseen by the EPA and is being conducted by former plant owner FMC Corporation, the Army Corps of Engineers and subcontractors. "We cannot directly assess a causation of health effects related to any odor" associated with the cleanup, Yu said during last week's open house. Yu and another ATSDR environmental scientist, Timothy Walker, observed that average readings of only 2, 3, or 4 parts per billion of hydrogen sulfide with spike levels measured at 16 parts per billion were extremely low readings. "Normally human health effects are associated with readings of so many parts per million. Parts per billion is another step up in the measuring scale." Walker pointed out. However, the ATSDR did not rule out that people who are especially allergy-sensitive might be affected by what they termed "nuisance levels" of odor associated with Avtex cleanup activities. Norma Landicho whose Massanutten Avenue home overlooks the Avtex site, believes that she is an allergy-sensitive person who has been make sick by the Avtex cleanup odor. Landicho says that the smell that has wafted over her property from Avtex has been bad enough to make her sick to her stomach. Landicho is gratified that ATSDR has taken air samples and has called for the EPA to conduct further monitoring around the site. She said that government at both the local and federal level had been unresponsive to her concerns prior to ATSDR's involvement. ATSDR was created as a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by the Superfund law in 1980. It is the principal federal public health agency involved with hazardous waste issues. Yu said that among the 10 people he spoke to during the ATSDR Open House, which ran from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., there was approximate 50-50 split between those seeking information and those with specific health concerns. One of the goals of the ATSDR study is t inform local physicians of symptoms that could be associated with the Avtex cleanup, should they be found to exist. |