TIDEWATER'S TOXINS

Source: Holly Dygert

View of Tidewater Site from neighboring apartment complex.

Evaluating harm

Below, you can find a list of the main toxins found at the Tidewater Site, with links to basic information about each of these substances. Before turning to look at these, it is important to consider how scientists and policy-makers think about toxins and the crucial question of harm.

Evaluating whether particular substances cause illness can be challenging. Scientists can use statistical calculations to look for links between exposure to these substances and rates of illness at the population level. In some cases, the evidence is stark. For example, after being exposed to radioactive contamination during the 1950s, Marshall Islanders suffered from much higher levels of certain illnesses than populations not exposed to radioactive testing. [You can read about this history and anthropologists' work in support of reparations for the Marshallese at the Center for Political Ecology's website, here]. More typically, however, the impacts of exposures on health are more difficult to discern. There are many reasons for this. One is that exposures are often limited to small areas. The statistical calculations that are used to establish correlations between exposures and illness require large numbers. Another issue is that exposure to toxic substances often causes illnesses that are caused by many factors. In this context, deducing which factors are generating illnesses can be difficult. People are also often are exposed to much lower doses, or they are exposed to high doses for very short periods. In addition, most cancers develop over long periods of time. Since today's world is so mobile, tracing linkages between environmental exposures and illness rates can be extremely challenging. [Sandra Steingraber (1997) provides an excellent description of the challenges this poses in her book Living Downstream.] Finally, in the course of our everyday lives, most of us come into contact with all kinds of hazardous substances. Scientists have not made much progress in addressing the complex question of how these multiple exposures impact health.

For these and other reasons, population level studies are often not very effective in demonstrating causality - that is, that exposure to a certain substance causes a certain illness. One of the best ways scientists have developed to do this is to conduct controlled experiments. These involve the selection of a population of individuals (often mice) with common characteristics; the division of the population into two segments; the exposure of one segment to a particular substance; and then the comparison of illness rates between the exposed and unexposed populations. Often, by demonstrating that a certain substance causes illness in animals, and supplementing this with evidence of similar harm in people from accidental exposures and/or population-level data, scientists can provide a pretty compelling case that exposure to certain substances actually causes ill-health impacts. These are the kinds of processes scientists and health officials have used to determine the toxity - or harmfulness - of the substances found on the Tidewater Site.

Evaluating harm

In order to protect the community from the toxins on the Tidewater Site, public access to the property is prohibited: a large fence circles the property, with signs informing the public of this fact. Since the chemicals of concern are located beneath the surface of the soil, restricting access to the property itself is an important strategy for combatting potential exposures. In the past, this strategy has not been entirely effective. The previous property owner, Southern Union, documented holes in the fence from individuals who sought access despite the signs - apparently neighborhood youth and homeless adults. In 2004, youth who had broken into the site found mercury that had been improperly stored on the site - in plastic containers and children's pools. They transported the material off-site, contaminating residential areas of the community with this potent neurotoxin. You can read more about the resulting court case, which was subsequently taken up by the supreme court, here.

While the mercury spill captures the limits of fencing as a protective strategy, a

greater ongoing concern is the possibility for the substances located beneath the soil to migrate off-site, mainly through the air. There are two main ways that this can happen: 1) through the natural migration of substances underneath the soil, which can lead to vapor intrusion, and 2) through work on the site that disturbs the substances.

Recent community action has focused on these issues. You can read about vapor intrusion and recent efforts to figure out if it may be a pathway for the migration of Tidewater's toxins off-site here. Read about efforts to ensure that work on the site is conducted with appropriate cautions here.

Source: GZA GeoEnvironmental, Completion Report on Holder Decommissioning Project

Transfer of sludge at Tidewater Site

Source: EPA

Vapor intrusion diagram

Source: Joanna Dietz/EcoRI News files

View of Tidewater property with neighboring homes in background.

Toxics and justice

Challenging questions remain for policy-makers after a substance has been shown to have negative health impacts. Though most agree that reducing potential exposure to these substances is a priority, policy-makers face the difficult question of determining how many resources (time and money) should be allocated to reducing exposures. Decision-makers often weigh the likelihood that an individual who is exposed to a substance will contract an illness against the costs of reducing or even eliminating exposures. Scientists facilitate these calculations by estimating the likelihood that an individual who is exposed to a certain substance will fall ill. These estimations of risk require taking into consideration factors related to the individual being exposed (e.g., child, adult, individual with compromised immune system), the amount of the substance (dose), and the length of the exposure.

The question of how many resources should be invested in reducing toxic exposures is an extremely contentious one. In 1980, the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA, also known as the Superfund Act) established the "polluter pays" principle in dealing with contaminated sites. This principle states that polluters are responsible for the costs of remediating - or cleaning up - contaminated sites. Current property owners are also responsible, as are others involved in producing the contamination (see the Environmental Protection Agency's resources on CERCLA for more information on the law).

Rhode Island's State law follows the same polluter pays principle, assigning responsibility for remediating the Tidewater Site to the current owners, National Grid and the City of Pawtucket. Yet, the crucial question of How many resources is it reasonable to demand in remediating a site? -- essentially, How clean is clean?, remains. Put in another way, what kinds of exposures and corresponding health risks do we accept as basic burdens of everyday life?

Source: Wikipedia Commons

Pollution

In considering this question, observers often point out that we regularly subject ourselves to toxic substances. Though we often lack information about the harms these substances can cause, we also often accept these exposures for questions of comfort and/or expedience. For example, we expose ourselves to many of the same toxins that are found on the Tidewater site while fueling our cars. Most of us also keep toxic products (e.g., many household cleaners, cosmetics and pesticides) in our homes. What differs, of course, in the management of toxic sites is the question of harm to others. Moreover, we are often faced with harms that are produced through the pursuit of economic gain. In this regard, questions about how much responsible parties should be required to invest in remediating toxic sites engage basic questions about justice.

A second way in which questions about toxic exposures and everyday risk raise issues of social justice is in the unequal distribution of exposure to hazards among the population. Not all of us are asked to shoulder the burdens of environmental toxins equally: those with the greatest access to political, social and economic resources are often able to avoid these kinds of hazards, while marginalized populations bear a greater proportion of the toxic burden. Questions about how much property owners should be expected to invest in reducing exposures must also contend with this basic issue of environmental justice. [For more information on Environmental Justice, visit Robert Bullard's Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality, 1990 and WeACT for Environmental Justice]

Source: Jenny Labalme, 1987

Protest against dumping of PCB-contamined soil in Warren County, NC landfill, 1979

The contaminants at Tidewater

The toxins at Tidewater

The toxins found on the Tidewater site are located, for the most part, beneath the surface of the ground, in the soil and the water table. Some of the substances are "volatile," meaning that they transform from liquid or solid form to gas. These substances can also be found in the "soil gas" - the air particles between the soil. There, they can travel through the soil and contaminate air in other locations (see page on vapor intrusion).

Below, you can find a list of the primary chemicals of concern located on the Tidewater Site. You can link to a description of each of the chemicals that includes information about their impacts on health and official recommendations regarding exposure. This information was compiled by Elizabeth Limbrick of the New Jersey Institute of Technology's Technical Assistance to Brownfield Communities (NJIT-TAB) program.