REASSURANCES are offered after something bad has already happened, as in “Yes, the tiger escaped from the circus but the chances are pretty slim you are the one it will pick to eat.”
The revelation that yet another man-made chemical with likely negative health conse-quences was dumped into Northwest Georgia’s rivers, this time up by Dalton on the Conasauga at some of the highest levels ever detected, brought the expected reassurances for Floyd Countians. The stuff shouldn’t get this far.
But, just to be on the safe side, one of seven new monitoring stations to detect perfluorooctanoic acid, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has branded a “likely carcinogen,” will be placed north of Rome on the Oostanaula River (Rome’s main water intake is on the Oostanaula). The Conasauga joins the Coosawatee River to form the Oostanaula near Calhoun.
It’s unlikely Greater Romans will get panicky about this, given this is already the prime site for pollution in the local rivers from another man-made chemical, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), from the now-closed General Electric medium-transformer plant. We’re used to prowling tigers on the loose.
STILL, IT’S becoming plainer all the time that the ball has long been dropped by those supposedly looking after our common interests (the govern-ment) regarding what gets poured into the environment.
And, it is also interesting to note that some of the worst of such perils regularly appears to be “man-made” in nature, meaning not originally created by either God or Darwin. And, at least Mother Nature’s creations seem to be self-healing or self-dissipating to some degree. The new peril, perfluorooctanoic acid (nicknamed PFOA), is like PCBs apparently fairly indestructible.
The main difference is that PCBs are really heavy and settle in the soil or pile up against dams. It explains a lot about why a monitoring site for this new risk was deemed advisable near Rome and so far from the main dump site in Dalton to learn from Elizabeth Booth, manager of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division’s planning and watershed program, “It doesn’t bind to soils. It slips right on by.”
How much farther can a greased pig travel before being caught than a dry one? Quite a ways.
THE SLIPPERINESS is to be expected as this chemical has been used, among other things, to make carpet stain resistant (the spills slide right off). It’s also prized for fire resistance (like PCBs) and generally repels oil, stains, grease and water. It’s used for a whole lot of stuff: non-stick cookware, waterproof outer clothing and, according to a USA Today article, “microwave popcorn bags, fast-food and candy wrappers and pizza-box liners.”
Actually, when bound to an actual product it isn’t viewed as a threat but rather in its original form when the excess, in copious quantities, becomes waste. In Dalton, which uses spray fields for dispersing sewage, it apparently just slid right into the nearby river. Nor is this some new peril, though the Dalton-area discovery of its presence is.
In 2003, the EPA ordered changes made in PFOA use because it was a “likely carcinogen” (cancer-causing agent). PCBs are listed as “probable carcinogens,” meaning there’s a higher level of proven association. PFOAs have also been linked to low birth weights in newborns.
At that time, all eight U.S. manufacturers of the chemical agreed to reduce emissions and product content by 95 percent by 2010 and eliminate the current formulation entirely by 2015. According to the EPA, there are some 50 chemical alternatives for slipperiness now under review (all of them man-made, one assumes).
APPARENTLY the omni-presence of the stuff has resulted in pretty much everyone in the United States having traces of the chemical in their bodies. The actual threat results from the fact that it can build up to ever-higher concentrations (like PCBs and DDT do).
Luckily — if one can call it that — the PFOA elimination half-life is believed to be four years (after that time you will have naturally shed half of what you started with). For PCBs, depending on which of several formulations is involved, it can be as much as 25 years.
It’s certainly a good idea to now keep an eye on what’s already been dumped into the environment, even if it took too long to uncover the peril in Dalton, in particular, and the compound in general, everywhere. Nor is there any real reason to fear a tiger around every corner in the vicinity.
The real question, which seems overlooked every time such a potential is discovered, is simply this: Why can’t brains brilliant enough to invent things brand-new under the sun figure out the ramifications before the creation is released into the general manufacturing process and a consumer society?
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