The United States Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) was created to protect the public by assessing health risks at the most contaminated sites in the United States. A Reuters investigation found that the company routinely downplays and ignores neighbors’ health problems in reports employing practices that its own review committee has called “virtually useless” and “not very good. “
In 68% of its findings, the firm said communities were suffering harm or did not make any decisions, according to a study of a large number of reports by the firm via Reuters. Reuters uncovered at least 20 cases in which the firm ignored fitness disorders that other government studies or ATSDR itself later learned about as hazards.
This is a small number of errors, the company publishes many reports, said Patrick Breysse, who led the company from 2014 to 2022.
However, those mistakes can have devastating effects. Under ATSDR’s supervision, young people have been exposed to poisonous grades of lead, and as many as one million service members and their families have been denied payment for their medical expenses for about two decades after drinking poisoned water.
ATSDR responded to questions for this story.
Polluters have used the agency’s studies to defend themselves against lawsuits, deny payment to victims, criticize opponents and argue to delay, reduce or cancel cleanup of their poisonous disasters. Here are some examples.
2013: Arsenic and other types discovered in residents’ yards near the site are not a major health concern.
2014: EPA samples found that arsenic, lead, and other poisonous ingredients in nearby yards posed an unacceptable threat to residents.
2017: In reaction to the EPA’s findings, ATSDR revisits the site and finds that infected soil in neighbors’ yards poses a health risk, especially to children.
Over decades, lead, arsenic and other contaminants from commercial services in north Birmingham, Alabama, spread to nearby neighborhoods. In 2014, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed adding the domain to the country’s list of maximally poisonous sites. One of the companies affected Drummond Co, a coal company founded in Alabama. The maximum measure would likely have made Drummond and four other corporations liable for millions of dollars in cleanup costs.
Drummond’s attorneys drafted a letter opposing the recommendation. The letter highlighted a 2013 ATSDR of the surrounding commercial area, which found no risk to public health.
The letter then went through state and federal authorities. The company’s lawyers sent it to the governor’s office, which then shared it with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management. They sent it to the EPA as their own. Drummond’s own lawyers gave state regulators arguments to use at a 2015 state hearing on the EPA’s proposal for the site, according to federal court records.
At that hearing, Lance LaFleur, director of the state agency, followed the lawyers’ recommendation, while refuting the considerations of fitness advocates. “We are not aware of ATSDR’s proposals,” LaFleur said. LaFleur did not respond to a recent request from comentarios. de Reuters.
The ATSDR report angered the predominantly Black network of 20,000 people who live near the site, said Charlie Powell, a local fitness advocate. The network reports high rates of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other fitness disorders linked to commercial pollution, according to Superfund Research. University of Alabama at Birmingham Center.
Two years later, after the EPA collected data showing dangerously high levels of arsenic and lead in residents’ gardens, ATSDR issued another reversal report. The new report finds that infected soil in yards near the site increases the threat of cancer and lead poisoning to residents. The report highlights the threat faced by young people playing outdoors in their yards.
But until then, Drummond had won. Although the community near the company’s plant is eligible for federal funding to remediate infected soil, the EPA withdrew a proposal that would most likely have found Drummond liable for some of the cleanup costs.
The EPA’s website says it is still negotiating with corporations to recover cleanup costs. In an email to Reuters, the firm said the public’s protective fitness was “critical to its mission. “
Reacting to questions about its actions, Drummond told Reuters by email that the company’s comments at the time were based on ATSDR’s 2013 findings “that, with few exceptions, soils in the site domain “did not represent a threat to public health. ” The corrected ATSDR report was not published until 4 years later.
This undated photograph shows about 100,000 Marines, sailors, retirees, and civilians in eastern North Carolina at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune.
Source: United States Marine Corps
1997: An ATSDR report concludes that cancer and other fitness disorders occur in adults exposed to infected drinking water at Camp Lejeune, a United States Marine Corps base.
2009: ATSDR withdraws the 1997 report, admitting that it failed to identify benzene contamination and underestimated the length of time citizens and on base were exposed to hazardous chemicals.
2014: ATSDR releases a report showing fuel damage and other contaminants in drinking water at Camp Lejeune.
On the eve of the publication of a study on contaminated drinking water at a North Carolina marine base, an environmental scientist who is a candidate for a federal fitness company gave pollution officials a chance to make major changes to the 1997 report, according to never-before-seen data. Internal communications. Reviewed via Reuters.
The Navy and Marine Corps had claimed for years that the personnel and citizens of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, near Jacksonville, North Carolina, were not poisoned by drinking water infected with chemicals. chemicals. Locating no health threat through the federal health agency, ATSDR, would go a long way toward absolving them of any responsibility, epidemiologist Richard Clapp told Reuters. Clapp is the former director of the Massachusetts Cancer Registry and worked with an organization of former citizens and Camp Lejeune staff to advocate for physically powerful grassroots fitness studies. Any discovery that other people were injured through the water would be a blow to the prestige of the Navy and Marine Corps and could cost the federal government billions in reimbursement claims, Clapp said.
Two months before ATSDR released its report, Carole Hossom, the agency’s environmental aptitude scientist, invited the Marines and Navy to make adjustments, “preferably over the phone,” according to a June 6, 1997, letter from Hossom to Camp Lejeune’s environmental decomposition department. . After the phone calls, ATSDR made “substantial” adjustments to the report, according to a July 1997 internal Navy memo. The memo does not describe the adjustments but notes that the Navy was involved at the time when the draft ATSDR report had relied on incomplete or incomplete data (the Marine Corps is technically a component of the Navy).
When the final report was published in August 1997, it dismissed health concerns for adults and missed that drinking water was contaminated with benzene, a cancer-causing chemical found in fuel. Reuters was unable to determine why the ATSDR failed to consider benzene contamination or what information and changes the Navy discussed with the agency. The agency told Congress it lost its file containing all supporting documentation, according to a 2010 Congressional report. Hossom did not respond to requests for comment.
ATSDR examines a boon to the Navy and Navy leadership. The Navy and Marine Corps used the agency’s report to dispute claims that infected water caused fitness problems. In the absence of a location of the damage by ATSDR, the Department of Veterans Affairs denied medical reimbursement to former military personnel who claimed the water made them sick.
Jerry Ensminger, a retired Marine who served at Camp Lejeune, and Mike Partain, who was born there, searched thousands of Navy and Environmental Protection Agency records and discovered a report of a 1984 water sampling that showed benzene contamination in base drinking water. He followed media policy and in 2009, in the face of complaints from Congress, ATSDR withdrew the 1997 report, admitting that it did not mention benzene contamination and underestimated the duration of people’s exposure to benzene. harmful chemicals.
Under pressure from Congress, ATSDR agreed to revisit Camp Lejeune. North Carolina Senators Richard Burr and Kay Hagan blocked two nominations for senior Navy positions in 2010 until the Navy agreed to pay for the cleanup, which has cost $40 million so far. of dollars.
ATSDR began publishing studies in 2014 that linked infected drinking water at Camp Lejeune to higher rates of mortality, cancer and other diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease, among other people who lived and worked at the marine base.
A Navy spokesperson said the Navy is working to address considerations about beyond exposure to infected drinking water at Camp Lejeune. These efforts come in collaboration with other federal agencies that conduct fitness studies.
The VA did not have a policy from ATSDR’s erroneous 1997 report to deny veterans’ medical claims, VA press secretary Terrence Hayes told Reuters via email. The firm is still learning more about exposure to poisonous substances, and in doing so, has “dramatically expanded physical care and benefits for veterans exposed to poisonous substances,” Hayes said.
In 2016, after consultation with ATSDR, the VA agreed to provide free medical care to Camp Lejeune veterans suffering from one of eight physical conditions related to infected water, as well as leukemia and several types of cancer. Veterans’ family members obtained reimbursements for medical expenses not covered by other insurance programs.
ATSDR did not respond to questions for this article. Patrick Breysse, who led the company from 2014 to 2022, said the military stressed ATSDR, treating it as a subcontractor. He said that in the end ATSDR did a perfect job and learned of serious fitness issues at the Marine Corps base.
Denita McCall, who served as a Marine at Camp Lejeune in the early 1980s, was diagnosed with parathyroid cancer in 1997, around the same time the firm released its erroneous report.
“One of the reasons my diagnosis was delayed was that VA physicians relied on ATSDR’s 1997 public physical fitness assessment,” he told ATSDR in a 2008 email. “The VA administration cited its 1997 public physical fitness evaluation to deny my claim for benefits. “
McCall died in July 2009, three months after ATSDR admitted that its 1997 report was incorrect.
This Norlite plant in Cohoes, New York, opening in July 2023, uses a hazardous waste incinerator to manufacture construction materials. The company says dust from the plant is safe, but a state environmental company reported in 2022 that it had hazardous atmospheric conditions in the surrounding community.
Source: REUTERS/Amr Alfiky
2005: Dust from the Norlite hazardous waste incinerator in Cohoes, New York, poses an undetermined health risk, but limited knowledge shows it can cause health problems.
2021: A geologist at Columbia University discovers destructive remains of the incinerator in samples of cars, houses, and toys of neighbors’ children.
2022: An environmental scientist hired through the New York Attorney General reviews air tracking data and concludes that other people living near Norlite have been exposed to harmful grades of dust from the plant. An engineer with the State Environmental Conservation Breakdown reports that dust from the facility has caused dangerous atmospheric situations in the surrounding community. The experts’ reports are filed as part of a lawsuit filed by the state against Norlite.
For decades, clouds of dust have been emerging from a commercial owned by Norlite, a manufacturer of construction fabrics in Cohoes, New York. It covered the interior of neighbors’ homes and blocked their air conditioners. Twelve citizens interviewed through Reuters feared that Norlite would make them sick.
They turned to ATSDR for help. In a letter to the company in 2003, local fitness advocates said other people living in 14 homes within a one-mile radius of the city suffered from cancer, bronchitis, rashes, sinus disorders or emphysema. I would propose that state and local agencies direct the company to reduce emissions from the hazardous waste incinerator.
Instead, ATSDR released a report in 2005 that found no harm to the community. The report helped Norlite managers and former Cohoes Mayor John McDonald take their minds off concerns about neighbors’ health. McDonald told Reuters that at the time he believed ATSDR’s assessment, but he now believes the company will return to Cohoes for additional studies.
Neighbors at the plant were unaware of ATSDR’s findings, but the report halted local efforts to force Norlite to reduce its emissions. Citizens Halting Risks of Norlite’s Industrial Contaminants (CHRONIC), an organization leading this effort, was disbanded weeks after ATSDR declared Norlite safe.
“With this report, we ask ourselves where we stand and how to move forward,” said Kate Tarbay, who co-directed CHRONIC in 2005. “We are not a rich community. We didn’t have any chemists on staff.
“Norlite represents a health risk to the community,” wrote Jeff Beswick, then CEO of Tradebe, Norlite’s parent company, in a 2021 letter to a local newspaper. The letter referenced ATSDR’s work that found no health disorders related to the plant. Beswick responded to recent requests for comment from Reuters.
In 2021, 16 years after ATSDR released its report, David Walker, a semi-retired geologist at Columbia University, investigated the plant’s dust. Walker grew up 3 miles from Norlite and was curious to see what his microscope would show. He found that it contained remains of the incinerator, adding superheated stone and silica fragments, jagged bits of sand that can tear people’s lungs apart. ATSDR had not conducted such an analysis.
A year later, spurred on by Walker’s findings, the New York attorney general and the Department of Environmental Conservation sued Norlite. The lawsuit accused the company of failing to dust and cited violations beyond dangerous gases, chemicals and metals, the addition of chlorine, dioxins, chromium and arsenic.
Tradebe contests the claim. New York relied on suitability criteria that apply in other states and not in New York state, the company said in its legal reaction to the state’s complaint. The Norlite plant is temporarily closed while the company inspects and maintains the appliances and reassesses its operations, Tradebe spokesman Rich said. Bamberger said in an email to Reuters.
The state’s air monitors recorded other dust resources unrelated to Norlite, such as lawnmowers, Bamberger said. Norlite’s own internal air monitors revealed that the dust in its factory “is controlled and does not have a negative effect on the community. “
The company also referenced a 2023 New York City Department of Health study that linked the illnesses to the Norlite plant. The study reports higher rates of lung cancer in the community, but is inconclusive as to the cause.
In August 2022, the Cohoes Housing Authority announced it would relocate 70 families from a nearby public housing complex. The authority’s chairman, Mark Pascal, told Reuters the company involved that Norlite’s emissions would harm families living there.
“We had to get those other people out of there because we had no explanation why that was going to change,” Pascal said.
Bamberger, a spokesperson for Tradebe, said the social housing complex was built after the Norlite factory was commissioned and that there is no evidence that the facilities put citizens at risk.
Nightly tests of rocket engines at the Santa Susana field laboratory, like this one in 1961, lit up the valley and can be heard from miles away.
Source: Los Angeles Public Library Special Collections and Special Collections and Archives, University Library, California State University, Northridge.
1999: An initial ATSDR test at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a former rocket testing and nuclear study center near Los Angeles, finds no health risks to surrounding communities. The report notes that other people were also not exposed to negative levels of contaminants.
2006: An ATSDR-funded study conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) found that people living within two miles of Santa Susana were at risk of chronic exposure to certain contaminants in the Array. Among the concerns: Children in a community People close to the country may be exposed to destructive levels of lead and arsenic.
2006: A clinical panel created by California lawmakers estimates that the partial meltdown of an experimental nuclear reactor in the lab in 1959 could have caused as many as 1,800 cancers in the community.
2007: People who live within two miles of the lab have higher rates of certain cancers than those who live more than five miles from the site, according to an ATSDR-funded study conducted at the University of Michigan. with cancers of the thyroid, blood, bladder, and lymphatic tissue.
Neighbors of a former rocket testing and nuclear study center in northwest Los Angeles began calling for suitability studies after learning that an experimental nuclear reactor had partially melted down in 1959. This attracted little public attention until 1979, when academics from the University of California, Los Angeles delved into the history of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory.
Aerospace giant Boeing bought the assets in 1996. Soon after, clinical studies published in 1997 and 1999 found that staff at the Santa Susana lab were at increased risk of dying from lung, blood and lymphatic cancer. Community members wanted to know if they were also in danger.
ATSDR, in response to California legislators, sent a team to Southern California in the fall of 1999. Its task was to determine whether sufficient data were available to examine the potential effects of the laboratory on physical fitness. The team visited the site and listened to the consideraciones. de more than 250 citizens of the Los Angeles suburbs.
The team advised that further studies be done to determine whether the site was contributing to the emergence of cancers and other physical disorders in the surrounding community. Despite the absence of such information, the team issued a “preliminary” conclusion that the Santa Susana site did not pose a danger to the surrounding community.
The discovery highlighted Boeing’s protection guarantees. The company, in collaboration with the Department of Energy and NASA, is responsible for cleaning the site.
“I think this reassures the network that there is no evidence of a fitness hazard caused by the operations of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory,” a Boeing spokesperson said in an article published in the Associated Press in November 1999 regarding the ATSDR report.
Lawmakers and network advocates have been pushing for fitness studies. ATSDR agreed to fund the studies, and a contractor recruited researchers to do the work.
The UCLA researchers found that other people who lived near the old lab could be chronically exposed to contaminants from the site. Children in a community just south of the site could be threatened by lead and arsenic. In 2007, researchers at the University of Michigan found that other people who lived within two miles of the lab had higher rates of thyroid, blood, bladder, and other cancers than those who lived farther away from the site.
Burt Cooper, who was part of the ATSDR team for the 1999 review, said he was not surprised that subsequent studies had drawn different conclusions than the initial ATSDR work. “The science of all of this is not precise science,” Cooper said.
Boeing went on to cite the 1999 ATSDR report. When the 2006 UCLA study was released, Boeing used the previous report to question the new one. The company questioned how the UCLA researchers used “essentially the same” data as ATSDR but “came to conclusions that are very different from that,” according to a letter the company sent to the UCLA study’s author.
In 2011, an industry-backed organization cited the 1999 ATSDR report to dispute claims made through a media outlet that a cluster of thyroid and bladder cancers surrounded the former lab.
Boeing also cited the 1999 report in response to questions for a Reuters article about Santa Susana in 2022 and in an email to a county fitness official who spoke about the need to delete the report at a town hall in 2023.
In an article for this article, Boeing said that many studies, taken together, “do not help establish a link between cancer incidence and beyond operations at the Santa Susana box laboratory. “
ATSDR did answer questions about Boeing and the Santa Susana lab.