NEW YORK -- Dioxin imperils towns in Missouri, threatens other sites around the country and has become the most feared of any non-radioactive poison.
More than 170,000 times as deadly as cyanide, dioxin can exist indefinitely, environmentalists and government scientists agree. There are 75 types of dioxin and all virtually defy control after being discharged into the environment.
Scientists say only three ounces of the 2,3,7,8-TCDD form of dioxin, the most deadly compound ever assembled by man, could kill the entire population of New York City.
A leading toxic waste expert, Dr. Samuel Epstein, describes dioxin as 'absolutely deadly ... a time bomb that is ticking.' He wants a 'Peace Corps for this country, a Manhattan Project to deal with the problems of hazardous waste.'
Geraldine Cox, PhD., vice president and technical director of the Chemical Manufacturers Association, advocates more study on the effects of dioxin.
'I'm not saying there is no problem,' Ms. Cox said, 'but before we run in a panic, we better sit down with a panel of experts to see how bad the problem really is.'
It was dioxin that forced evacuation of Times Beach, Mo., and a $33 million federal 'buy-out' of the small community. If accepted by the townspeople, it would be the first purchase of an entire town made unlivable by hazardous waste.
In a cruel irony, a suburban St. Louis mobile home park to which some Times Beach residents relocated was one of four newly discovered Missouri sites found contaminated by dioxin. Confirmation of the new sites brought to 26 the number tainted with the toxic chemical in the state.
At a site in Frontenac, Mo., dioxin levels were discovered that exceeded safe levels by 100 times. Until the late 1970s, the Frontenac site was used by waste hauler Richard Bliss to store waste oil and chemicals. Authorities said the field became contaminated when dioxin-laced oil spilled during transfers between trucks and storage tanks.
Scientists fear dioxin may be strewn alongside many highways and in waste dumps around the nation. A recent study showed dioxin in fish taken from lakes and rivers in Michigan.
Dioxin wasamong wastes found in the 1978 Love Canal pollution case near Niagara Falls, N.Y. In the 1970s, dioxin was a contaminant in the defoliant Agent Orange sprayed in Vietnam and in many herbicides used in the United States.
If dioxin is this dangerous, why did man create it?
He did so almost by accident, while making other things.
In technical terms, dioxin is a byproduct from the chemical reactions of chlorine and hydrocarbons in the manufacture of plastics, herbicides and wood preservatives. The dioxins and another toxic substance family called dibenzofurans are formed from other halogenated hydrocarbons in the presence of oxygen from the air, especially at high temperatures.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency says dioxin is highly stable and resists breakdown by chemicals or bacteria. In its free state it can bond tightly to solid surfaces like soil and other particulates and is extremely nonsoluble.
Medically, it is a nightmare.
Dioxin literally can make one's skin crawl. Some scientists say people exposed to even a billionth part of dioxin can contract a potentially fatal skin disease called chloracne.
Dioxin also has been linked to cancer in laboratory animals and is listed by the government as an extremely potent carcinogen. In laboratory tests on animals it has caused birth defects and diseases of the nerves, liver, kidneys and bladder.
Epstein, a physician, pathologist and author of the book 'Hazardous Waste in America,' said in an interview, 'Without any question at all, it is the most toxic substance known to man. There is overwhelming evidence that humans exposed to dioxin suffer high blood lipids, abnormal liver functioning, high incidence of coronaries. And there is a wide range of case reports of cancer even without symptoms of chloracne.'
Other scientists like Ms. Cox claim more tests are needed to determine how dioxin affects humans. They say scientists cannot generalize from animal studies.
'If this material is so deadly toxic,' Ms. Cox said, 'then we should have seen something more serious than chloracne in children that went away with time in the Italy exposure case, for example.'
Epstein called this reasoning 'nonsense.'
'The industry party line -- if you don't have chloracne, there is nothing to worry about and there is good dioxin and bad dioxin -- is madness, bloody madness,' he said. 'The position of the chemical industry is a reflection of wishful thinking, ignorance and a need to trivialize the hazardous waste issue and to deceive the public.'
Chemical manufacturers counter that the media and some environmentalists are uninformed and trying to scare the public.
Epstein agrees with environmentalists who claim the dioxin problem is far beyond the study stage.
'Unless you want to have literal ghost towns throughout states like Missouri, what is needed is a massive national awakening,' he said. 'And, first and foremost, we must toilet train the chemical industry.'
Although there is some debate on the effects of dioxin solutions on humans, nearly everyone agrees dioxin poses a massive environmental problem.
Incineration of PCB-containing trash chemical manufacturers co for example -- is likely to produce dioxins and dibenzofurans. Some of these chemicals have been found in fly ash from municipal incinerators, according to a report by the New York Academy of Sciences.
Dioxins also are found as contaminants in chlorophenols, which are produced worldwide at the rate of 200,000 tons a year. Chlorophenols are used as herbicides, fungicides and wood preservatives; if the plants or the wood they are used upon are later burned, the chlorophenol burns, too, and dioxins are created and released in the smoke.
In addition, chlorophenols are used to make the disinfectant hexachlorophene and the herbicides 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D.
Dioxin contamination was dramatically brought to national attention in the case of flood-ravaged Times Beach.
In the early l970s the city's unpaved streets were sprayed with waste oil contaminated by dioxin as a dust-control measure. The waste hauler, Russell Bliss, said he did not know the oil was contaminated.
When horses in the area died, investigators noticed the waste oil and started making tests. Preliminary results showed contamination of as much as 300 parts dioxin per billion parts soil in much of the St. Louis suburb.
(One part dioxin per billion is considered a significant health risk.)
The federal Center for Disease Control advised people to stay out of town. A new round of tests was ordered after record flooding by the Meramec River in early December spread the contamination throughout the town of about 2,000 residents.
After the EPA ordered the historic $33 million buy-out of homes and businesses, tentative cleanup plans were announced to turn Times Beach into a riverside park.
In Edwardsville, Ill. on Aug. 25, 1982, a jury awarded almost $58 million in damages to 47 workers exposed to dioxin. The suit was brought by former and current employees of the Norfolk & Western Railway Co. who cleaned up a chemical spill from a ruptured tank car at Sturgeon, Mo., in January 1979.
They reported dizziness, labored breathing, fatigue, memory loss, impotence, liver damage and cancer.
All this from only a half-teaspoonful -- or less -- of dioxin mixed in the ruptured tank car with 30,000 gallons of orthochlorophenol -- a ratio of 22 parts of dioxin per billion.
Dioxin has caused cancer in animals, scientists say, in even smaller doses than that -- as little as five parts per trillion. The most dangerous dioxin, TCDD, can cause birth defects in experimental animals at concentrations as low as 10 to 100 parts per trillion.
Three sites in New York State have been linked to dioxin contamination.
On Feb. 5, 1981, an electrical fire at a state office building in Binghamton, N.Y., caused PCB-laden oil used for cooling electrical transformers to vaporize, spewing dioxins and dibenzofurans throughout the 18-story building.
The building has since been closed and the Office of General Services and State Health Department are slowly cleaning it up.
Health Department spokesman Peter Slocum said that in dealing with the problem, New York state developed the first system in the nation to measure dioxin contamination in the air. The state also set up a telephone hotline for those who may have been exposed to dioxin-laden herbicide spraying.
New instruments, state officials said, can measure dioxin particles down to one-trillionth of a gram.
The Health Department set a level one-500th of the amount of dioxin needed to cause cancer in animals (1 part per trillion) as the standard which must be reached in the cleanup before the Binghamton building may be reopened.
In the widely reported Love Canal case, $40 million in federal money was spent for cleanup. A trench 12 to 15 feet deep was dug around the site to collect and drain contaminants.
All potentially hazardous areas were fenced off and the toxic wastes are mostly underground. 'There is little likelihood of it migrating,' one official said.
Two rings of contamination were identified and residents moved out of homes in those areas, with the state buying the houses. People outside the two rings report no problems.
In 1981, at Hooker Chemical's Durez plant in North Tonawanda, N.Y., small traces of dioxin were found in sewers. Environmental testing was done to determine if there had been any 'migration' off the site.
The tests determined the amounts of dioxin were very small and there was no migration. Hooker agreed to clean up the site under the watchful eye of the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
In California, while dioxin dumping apparently is not a problem, officials worry about burning of PCB or other compounds that release dioxin.
The insulation used in many electric power transformers on telephone poles often contains PCBs. If a short circuit results in a fire, the burning PCBs have been known to emit dioxins.
In 1970, 12,500 gallons of dioxin-contaminated liquids may have been shipped to Rollins Environmental Services Inc. in Baton Rouge, La. Officials assume the shipment contained 38 pounds of dioxin but their records show only one 4-ounce sample received.
The dioxin shipment was from the same batch that contaminated Times Beach, originating from the Northeastern Pharmaceutical Co in Missouri, officials said.
Truckers told UPI it was not uncommon 13 years ago -- and many say the practice continues today -- to dump the load on the side of a road and collect for a delivery.
As a result, some investigators believe there are gallons of dioxin-contaminants spread all through the Midwest and South.
What is the federal government doing -- and what can it do -- to control dioxin?
Chris Rice of the EPA said the agency is having difficulty just trying to locate sites and then test them.
'Other than the list of 100 or so sites in Missouri that has been developed, there isn't a nationwide listing,' he said.
But the agency does have some weapons:
-The Clean Water Act requires detailed reports be filed with the EPA in the case of fresh water discharges as well as separate reporting requirements for ocean dumping discharge.
-The federal Fungicide Insecticide Rodenticide Act has suspended certain uses of dioxin. There also is a 'rebuttal presumption against registration' (registration means government approval) of newly developed substances containing dioxin.
-The Safe Drinking Water Act lists dioxin as a 'potential contaminant' of drinking water.
-The Superfund law is 'developing' regulations to deal with disposal of dioxin.
-The Clean Air Act is assessing potential problems with airborne dioxin.
-The Toxic Substances Control Act establishes further rules for control of dioxin.
In addition, the Food and Drug Administration has set limitations on dioxin levels in Great Lakes fish.
Why doesn't the EPA simply ban dioxin?
'It's not that simple,' said Rice, 'because dioxin is only a byproduct of a variety of manufacturing processes.'
And although dioxin may not be produced for any specific purpose, the EPA, of course, could ban other substances in which dioxin is a possible contaminant. The 'rebuttal presumption against registration' does not imply that a substance with dioxin is automatically barred from approval, but it makes approval extremely difficult.
'Manufacturers have to file things like plans for safe disposal, how much of the substance will be handled, and precisely how it will be disposed in a safe manner,' Rice said.
Does the EPA know how much dioxin is really out there?.
In a word, no.
'It's an evolving situation that the EPA has pursued in several regulatory actions since the early 1970s, when it was first found in Agent Orange.' Rice said.
The cleanup of contaminated sites is extremely costly, perhaps prohibitively so. So far, the average cost of cleanup of a site ranges from $5 million to $35 million.
Estimates range from $200 to $250 billion to clean up known hazardous waste sites in the United States. The federal Superfund has allocated only $1.5 billion for this purpose.
In water supplies, there may be no way to clean up dioxin contaminants.
'Dioxin does not degrade in ground water, where it is cold and there is no sunlight,' Epstein said. 'There are 35 quadrillion gallons of aquifers and of these, it is estimated that 1 percent are already contaminated.'
Epstein recommends banning dioxin in all its forms, placing an extremely high user tax on any company that makes substances of which dioxin is a contaminant or byproduct and placing 'the strictest of controls' on any dioxin disposal.
One proposal is to place dioxin contaminants in underground concrete containers for at least 100 years until technology can find a way to deal with them.
