Tag: Environmental Justice

The U.S. government issued another report that concludes there is uncertainty about the link between contamination of groundwater at Camp Lejeune and diseases among the residents.  All this really proves is that the conditions in the environment and in human bodies that might affect health are so complex that science is unable to determine direct causal links.   It reflects more the inadequacy of science to fully understand the complex process of disease formation.  And it underscores the argument for precautionary principle to guide decision making when there is reasonable suspicion that a contaminant may have an effect on health, even if direct causation cannot be proven.    The contaminants of concern at Lejeune are TCE and PCE, two chemicals found in the groundwater in Aiea and Wahiawa due to military contamination.   And the issue of childhood leukemia was a concern that arose in Lualualei in the early 1990s.   Hawai’i needs to pay attention to this.

Jun. 13, 2009 3:05 PM EDT

Lejeune water study finds no definite disease link

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Contaminated drinking water at Camp Lejeune can’t definitively be linked to health problems among people who lived at the Marine base over three decades, according to a government report released Saturday.

Former residents of the base in eastern North Carolina don’t have diseases different from the general population and the industrial solvents that tainted well water there between the 1950s and 1985 were at concentrations that don’t cause obvious harm to human health, according to the report ordered by Congress and released by the National Research Council.

But the 341-page report, which reviews past studies of the base’s water and health issues there, said there are severe challenges in trying to connect the contaminants to any birth defects, cancer and many other ailments suffered by people who lived and worked on base.

It “cannot be determined reliably whether diseases and disorders experienced by former residents and workers at Camp Lejuene are associated with their exposure to contaminants in the water supply,” the report states.

“Even with scientific advances, the complex nature of the Camp Lejeune contamination and the limited data on the concentrations in water supplies allow for only crude estimates of exposure,” David Savitz, chairman of the committee that wrote the report, said in a statement.

The study says the Marines and Navy shouldn’t wait for more scientific studies before deciding how to deal with health problems reported by former base residents. And it calls into question the value of further studies.

“It would be extremely difficult to conduct direct epidemiologic studies of sufficient quality and scope to make a substantial contribution to resolving the health concerns of former Camp Lejeune residents. Conduct of research that is deficient in those respects not only would waste resources but has the potential to do harm by generating misleading results that erroneously implicate or exonerate the exposures of concern,” it states.

A Marine Corps spokesman, 1st Lt. Brian Block, said the service would study the report before making a statement.

“After a thorough review of the report, we will determine what the next appropriate steps are,” he said.

One longtime critic of the military’s handling of the issue said he wanted to question the study panel, which he said didn’t have all the information it needed about contaminants.

“This is a whitewash of the facts,” said Jerry Ensminger, a retired Marine whose daughter was conceived on Camp Lejeune and died of childhood leukemia in 1985 at age 9.

Water was contaminated by dry cleaning solvents and other sources at the base’s major family housing areas – Tarawa Terrace and Hadnot Point, the report said. Health officials believe as many as 1 million people may have been exposed to the toxins tricholorethylene (TCE) or perchloroethylene (PCE) before the wells were closed 22 years ago.

But the sizeable number of people in those housing areas did not suffer more than “common diseases or disorders,” said the study by the working arm of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The lowest doses at which adverse health effects have been seen in animal or clinical studies are many times higher than the worst-case (highest) assumed exposures at Camp Lejeune. However, that does not rule out the possibility that other, more subtle health effects that have not been well studied could occur, although it somewhat diminishes their likelihood,” it states.

North Carolina’s senators have said they will seek details about the contamination from the military. Calls to the offices of Senators Kay Hagan, D-NC, and Richard Burr, R-NC, were not immediately returned Saturday.

Hagan said last month she and Burr were asking the Navy for details about gaps in information.

Federal health officials withdrew a 1997 assessment of health effects from the contamination at Camp Lejeune because of omissions and scientific inaccuracy. The assessment said the chemicals posed little or no cancer risk to adults who were exposed to the past water contamination at Camp Lejeune.

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/HIHON/513d3d78dabe49cd99f8480d90b4f0a2/Article_2009-06-13-US-Toxic-Tapwater/id-p5fd93d01f20946e98ad4479aef5e9de7

Note:  ATSDR dismissed environmental health concerns in Lualualei, Pearl Harbor and the Depleted Uranium contamination at Schofield and Pohakuloa.

(1) ATSDR Withdraws Scientifically Flawed Public Health Document

(2) ATSDR pulls report; will there be others?

(3) US does about-face on Camp Lejeune’s tap water

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/april282009/astdr_release_4-28-09.php

Apr-28-2009 21:43

ATSDR Withdraws Scientifically Flawed Public Health Document

Salem-News.com

For years, Camp Lejeune community activists have claimed ATSDR’s 1997 report used flawed data to support its conclusion that exposure to the detected levels of volatile organic compounds would not pose a health hazard for adults.
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Today, the House Committee on Science and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight Chairman Brad Miller (D-NC) applauded the withdrawal of the public health assessment of Camp Lejeune’s drinking water system by a federal agency, but questioned whether there were assessments for other sites that should also be withdrawn. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), a sister agency of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, announced this morning that it was withdrawing from its Web site the 1997 public health assessment at Camp Lejeune stating that it could no longer stand behind “the accuracy of the information concerning the drinking water exposure pathway evaluation.”

“This is a welcome step. But it took more than 10 years, pressure from Camp Lejeune activists, numerous press articles and Congressional hearings for this to happen,” said Miller. “Our military families have suffered needlessly because of ASTDR’s flawed work. But our hearings have revealed other sites for which questionable public health assessments were done.”

The Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee held two hearings based on concerns with ATSDR’s public health documents, ranging from its failures to appropriately access the dangers of formaldehyde in travel trailers used by survivors of Hurricane Katrina to its inadequate evaluation of exposures to depleted uranium by residents living near a depleted uranium plant in New York.

Chairman Miller called for the agency to review those other health assessments and withdraw those that could not stand up to a rigorous scientific review.

“Other steps are necessary to ensure that the agency’s future public health assessments are scientifically sound, achieve valid public health conclusions and are based on the most current set of data and information available,” said Miller. “Unfortunately, the Subcommittee’s investigation of ATSDR over the past year has found that is often not the case.”

For years, Camp Lejeune community activists have claimed ATSDR’s 1997 report used flawed data to support its conclusion that exposure to the detected levels of volatile organic compounds, including perchloroethylene (PCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE), as well as other toxic chemicals, such as benzene, would not pose a health hazard for adults. It was difficult to review ATSDR’s findings because, as detailed in a Subcommittee staff report released last month, ATSDR had lost many of the critical scientific documents and data upon which the agency had based its 1997 public health assessment.

“Over the past year, the Subcommittee has been examining how ATSDR permits the production of such scientifically flawed documents in the first place, and, frankly, we haven’t come up with a credible answer,” said Miller. “I hope that the agency’s decision to rescind the public health assessment on Camp Lejeune is a sign that the leadership of ATSDR is now willing to acknowledge the agency’s past mistakes and take measures to protect the public’s health in the future. While this is an encouraging sign, the administration and Congress need to be vigilant in overseeing this agency so that it implements its goal of protecting the public’s health.”

For more information, including on the Committee’s work on ATSDR, please visit the Committee’s website.

http://blogs.knoxnews.com/knx/munger/2009/04/atsdr_pulls_report_will_there.html

ATSDR pulls report; will there be others?

The House Science and Technology oversight subcommittee chairman cheered the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry’s decision to withdraw a 1997 public health assessment of Camp Lejeune’s drinking water.

In a statement, U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., said, “This is a welcome step. But it took more than 10 years, pressure from Camp Lejeune activists, numerous press articles and Congressional hearings for this to happen. Our military families have suffered needlessly because of ATSDR’s flawed work. But our hearings have revealed other sites for which questionable public health assessments were done.”

The House subcommittee issued a report last month that was strongly critical of the ATSDR’s work, including public health assessments.

The federal agency has done a number of public health assessments in Oak Ridge, based on a review of historic pollution discharges at the Dept. of Energy’s plants. But, to date, those reports have not identified any serious health impacts related to releases of radioactive and toxic materials at Y-12, ORNL and K-25.

While the Oak Ridge reports have been criticized for their lack of findings, I’m not aware of any review that found them scientifically flawed.

In the subcommittee’s press statement, Miller indicated that more attention needs to be focused on these health assessments.

“Other steps are necessary to ensure that the agency’s future public health assessments are scientifically sound, achieve valid public health conclusions and are based on the most current set of data and information available. Unfortunately, the subcommittee’s investigation of ATSDR over the past year found that is often not the case.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090429/ap_on_go_ot/us_toxic_tapwater_6

US does about-face on Camp Lejeune’s tap water

By RITA BEAMISH, Associated Press Writer Rita Beamish, Associated Press Writer – Wed Apr 29, 2009
Nearly 12 years ago, a federal report told Marines and their families that adults faced little or no increased cancer risk from drinking and bathing in chemical-tainted water at North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune. That report – long challenged by skeptical veterans – no longer stands.

Federal health officials said Tuesday they were withdrawing their 1997 assessment of health effects from the water contamination because of omissions and scientific inaccuracy.

“We can no longer stand behind the accuracy of the information in that document, specifically in the drinking water public health evaluation,” William Cibulas, director of health assessment for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, said at a meeting in Atlanta. “We know too much now.”

The agency, charged with protecting public health around toxic sites, said some parts of the document – dealing with lead, soil pesticides and fish contamination – remain accurate in characterizing the past environmental hazards.

But the water section, analyzing toxins that seeped into wells from a neighboring dry cleaner and from Camp Lejeune industrial activity, contained “troublesome” information, said Cibulas.

As many as 1 million people may have been exposed to water toxins over 30 years before the bad wells were closed in 1987, health officials now say. The Marines estimated the number at 500,000.

When former Marines took their stories last year to Congress, they were dubbed “poisoned patriots.”

Some people have interpreted the 1997 report as, “No way, no how, would any person who drank contaminated water at Camp Lejeune be expected to suffer any adverse health effects, be they cancerous or non-cancerous,” said Cibulas. “The science is just not that good for us to make that determination.”

Problems in the document included omission of the cancer-causing chemical benzene, despite high levels found in a well in 1984, said Cibulas.

Additionally, the contaminating solvents the report focused on have been characterized in newer science as even more potent, he added. Levels of one solvent, called TCE, measured higher than in any known public water supply, an ATSDR scientist said.

Cibulas also noted the report underestimated the extent of the contamination in base housing areas. The mistake, due to inadequate information from the Marines, was reported by The Associated Press in a 2007 investigation of the toxic water.

The health agency did not make any new conclusions, but pulled its flawed document from the Internet to redo its analysis with new science. People who want the still valid parts of the report now have to contact the agency in Atlanta.

The health officials are continuing a separate study into whether fetuses might have been harmed by the water. Agency scientists are conducting elaborate water models to get to the bottom of the contamination.

Tuesday’s unusual about-face came at a meeting of the health agency, part of the Health and Human Services Department, with its community advisory panel that works on follow-up to Camp Lejeune’s past water problems.

It comes at a sensitive time, after congressional investigators last month accused the agency of obscuring or overlooking potential health hazards at toxic sites. The agency’s director, Howard Frumkin, assured Congress he was working to improve on any shortcomings.

The Camp Lejeune report ambiguously stated both that adults faced no increased cancer risk from the water, and that cancer was not likely but that more study was needed.

It said children’s cancer risk was unknown, but it raised concerns about fetuses exposed to the water, citing studies elsewhere on leukemia and birth defects.

Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., said he hoped Tuesday’s development signaled “that the leadership of ATSDR is now willing to acknowledge their past mistakes and to take measures to protect the public’s health in the future.”

The reversal Tuesday was cold comfort for some former Marines.

Allen Menard believes his rare non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is linked to his time at Camp Lejeune in the early 1980s. “They knew about the benzene,” he said. “Why didn’t they tell us?”

According to the Navy’s legal office, which handles claims, 1,500 former Camp Lejeune residents have filed claims for $33.8 billion in damages. The military is waiting for conclusions from the study of fetal effects before deciding the claims.

Poor communities combat military pollutants

By Charlene Muhammad
Western Region Correspondent
Updated Apr 21, 2009 – 12:08:30 AM

Activists charge environmental racism, and genocide

‘The government will not address the health affects in communities like ours, whether it’s Black, Native American, Asian, if you live around a federal site, they’re not going to address any health issues but I will say the government is equal opportunity. They pollute the hell out of everybody.’
-Dorothy Bradshaw

(FinalCall.com) – Dorothy Bradshaw knows devastation. Her father passed away from cancer in late March. Her grandmother passed away after just six months of being diagnosed with an aggressive, rare form of bladder cancer in 1995 and when her grandfather died of the cancer a year later, she recalled a letter sent by a nearby military distribution site the year before, which said various chemicals may have seeped offsite into the drainage ditches in their community.

She began researching the USA Defense Depot Memphis (DDMT) and her Memphis, Tenn. neighborhood and said she found that in every household there was a history of cancer. In some, at least three to four people had the disease, but the problem was worse than that.

“Our rate here is between 75 percent mortality and morbidity. My next-door neighbor’s daughter was 13 and had uterine cancer. We had a young man here with testicular cancer at 17. Most women at 25 have hysterectomies and if they don’t go and have their children early in our community, normally they can’t have kids because they are always affected by some type of reproductive illness,” Ms. Bradshaw told The Final Call.

The 54-year-old had cancer cells in her uterus at 30 years old; a baseball-sized tumor at 28 and now she has an unidentifiable lung disease and suffers with diabetes, high blood pressure and thyroid disease, all which she attributes to exposure to hazardous waste from the DDMT. Stomach, colon and cervical cancer are reported as the highest types there, Ms. Bradshaw said, but that’s only because “prostate cancer rates are so high, they don’t even report it.”

The DDMT is made up of 642 acres in a residential, commercial and industrial area of south central Memphis. Since 1942 it has distributed clothing, food, medical supplies, electronic equipment, petroleum products, and industrial chemicals to all U.S. military services.

It also conducted numerous operations utilizing hazardous substances with contamination resulting from leakage, spillage, disposal of out-of-date materials, and normal application of pesticides, according to the Defense Dept. (DOD) website description of the center.

In 1946, the Army disposed of leaking mustard bombs (a chemical warfare agent) and other waste at Dunn Field, a 60-acre open storage and burial area at the DDMT. The waste included oil, grease, paint thinners, methyl bromide, pesticides and cleaning fluids (chlorinated solvents). Approximately 154,300 people rely on drinking water from public supply wells within four miles of Dunn Field.

Ms. Bradshaw created Defense Depot Memphis Tennessee Concerned Citizens to document their ordeal, provide support, and advocate for accountability and health care for people who now are sick, can’t work and are on disability.

“When you get 50 you’re considered a senior citizen now because most of our seniors are dead. There’s only one person on my street within a block that is 80 years old. There aren’t too many 60 year olds and most of us are in our 50s over here. It’s not that people don’t know what’s going on. They do, but environmental racism kicks in,” Ms. Bradshaw said.

The group joined a coalition of communities and organizations around the U.S. to help push legislation that would require the government to clean up the sites and comply with health and environmental protection laws.

Congressman Bob Filner (D-CA) introduced the “Military Environmental Responsibility Act” (H.R. 672) on August 3, 2007 to eliminate military waivers to key environmental laws like the Clean Air Act and the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

In a March 24 letter to the White House, the coalition said it wants to expose hidden casualties at home that are caused by unregulated military projects that have increased the risks for cancer and exposure to military toxins

“We are united in seeking to protect those most vulnerable from these harmful exposures especially the unborn, babies, youth, elders, disenfranchised communities of race, Indigenous Tribal Nations and peoples, economically disadvantaged communities, military personnel, civilian workers, military garment workers, and families living in the vicinity of military operations and installations throughout the nation,” the letter expressed.

Specifically, H.R. 672 would amend the United States Code to require the Department of Defense and all other defense-related U.S. agencies to comply with Federal and State environmental laws, including those applicable to public health, worker safety, protecting the environment, and the health and safety of the public, particularly children, members of the Armed Forces, civilian workers and people who live in the vicinity of military operations and installations.

Chris Isleib, DoD spokesperson, told The Final Call that the department takes environmental issues very seriously and works with both governmental and non-governmental agencies to ensure maximum protection, remediation and meet EPA requirements.

“No entity in the world, government or private sector, has spent more money-or more effort-than the Defense Department has on environmental cleanup, cleanup research, cleanup assessment, technology to conduct cleanup, cleanup operations, cleanup follow-up monitoring,” Mr. Isleib countered.

The DoD’s current estimate of future costs for environmental restitution is approximately $32 billion for sites with remaining work at active installations and it has some 11,500 sites either in cleanup or tagged for clean up.

Of the DoD’s 31,500 clean up sites, about 20,500 of them have reached their remedial action objectives, Mr. Isleib said.

Laura Olah, executive director, Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger, who is leading the coalition, said she became involved when the Army announced that groundwater contamination had traveled three miles offsite and within a quarter mile of a municipal well in Prairie du Sac, Michigan. Then, the drinking water supplies of three private homes became contaminated with high levels of the cancer-causing chemical carbon tetrachloride.

Contaminant concentrations in the ground water are more than 50 times the Health Advisory Levels established by the Wisconsin Division of Public Health.

“The government will not address the health affects in communities like ours, whether it’s Black, Native American, Asian; if you live around a federal site, they’re not going to address any health issues but I will say the government is equal opportunity. They pollute the hell out of everybody. They find poor White communities and do the same thing to them also, anybody who’s not able to fight them,” Ms. Bradshaw said.

Gilbert Sanchez of the Tribal Environmental Watch Alliance, has worked on nuclear environmental issues for decades-ever since the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), where the atomic bomb was first tested and implemented, was built on his tribe’s ancestral land.

He is a member of the 19 Pueblos, which is a sub-group of the San Ildefonso Tribe and from LANL’s inception in 1945, there has been no regulation of the waste products used by the lab. Today, there are uncontrollable chemical and biological wastes violating his people’s food chain and like residents near the DDMT, they are experiencing high rates of rare cancers.

“My concern has always been the health impact from all of the activities of the past. Not only my relatives but people, young people in the valley, are dying from very young ages of cancer because they or their parents worked up on the hill,” he said.

He has spent years fighting for a baseline study of the current health impacts that the uranium and plutonium used to make the bomb has had on his people. “The Euro-American or Anglo-American scientists knew very well that the dust particles from this uranium and plutonium was going to be dangerous and impact the respiratory system,” Mr. Sanchez said.

In order to cover that up, he charged, the lab freely gave its workers tobacco products-a carton of cigarettes per day, but they couldn’t take the cigarettes out of the mines, refinement factories or plutonium areas.

Now, Mr. Sanchez said, the tribe’s condition is very much like a third world country with very low living standards, a sub par health care system, and they are often used as guinea pigs.

“This is part of the Euro-American genocidal movement. It’s a part of that orchestrated genocidal commission that’s continually going on. It started at the time of discovery and continues today,” he said. He believes that President Barack Obama is sincere about his commitment to abolish the nuclear weapons industry, and he hopes that Pres. Obama can open the books and secrecy cloaked around U.S. military research centers and laboratories.

“We have no need to have massive weapons of destruction that are going to totally annihilate portions of this earth or completely the earth itself. Conventional weaponry and the use of current nuclear weapons is beyond any human’s right mind,” Mr. Sanchez said.

Source: http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_5940.shtml

The U.S. EPA releases its latest Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) today for the year 2007.   Toxic chemical releases in Hawai’i totaled 3 million pounds, a less than one percent increase from the previous year according to the EPA press release.

The EPA press release states:

The data comes from the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory, commonly referred to as TRI. It’s one of EPA’s largest publicly available databases, arming communities with valuable information on more than 650 toxic chemicals released by various industries. The chemical information in the inventory is calculated by industrial facilities and reported to the EPA, as required by law.

Total releases include toxic chemicals discharged by facilities to air, water, land, and underground, and the amount transferred off-site for disposal. Regulatory controls apply to many of the reported releases. Reporting facilities must comply with environmental standards set by local, state and federal agencies.

Data from 2007 in Hawaii shows:

Electric power generating facilities accounted for 67 percent of Hawaii’s Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) chemical releases, including 83 percent of the air releases.

On-Site land releases decreased by 33 thousand pounds or 19 percent, led by the U.S. Army Pohakuloa training area range facility, which had a decrease of 28 thousand pounds.

Water releases increased 89 thousand pounds, a 25 percent change. The U.S. Navy Pearl Harbor Naval Complex reported an increase of 70 thousand pounds over the previous year.

Approximately 81 thousand pounds of total lead releases were reported. The military facilities released the largest amounts of reported lead, releasing 77 thousand pounds.

The top ten polluters in Hawai’i (reported in pounds) were:

1. Hawaiian Electric Co Inc Kahe Generating Station Kapolei:  820,976
2. US Navy Pearl Harbor Naval Complex Pearl Harbor:  373,735
3. Hawaiian Electric Co Inc Waiau Generating Station Pearl City:  342,801
4. Chevron Products Co – Hawaii Refinery Kapolei:  277,526
5. Hawaii Electric Light Co Inc Hill Generating Station Hilo:  210,169
6. Maui Electric Co Ltd Kahului Generating Station Kahului:  210,123
7. AES Hawaii Inc Kapolei: 155,988
8. Hawaii Electric Light Co Inc Puna Generating Station Keaau: 92,006
9. Maui Electric Co Ltd Maalaea Generating Station Kihei: 88,368
10. US Army Schofield Barracks/Wheeler Army Airfield Schofield Barracks: 79,115

What is very interesting and distressing is the 2007 Hawai’i State Report is the data on Persistent, Bioaccumulative and Toxic (PBT) chemical releases.  This includes substances like lead, mecury, PCBs and PACs.   Lead accounted for 98% of all PBT chemical releases.   Approximately 81,000 pounds of lead were released into Hawai’i’s environment.  Military facilities made the top four largest releases of PBTs.  According to the fact sheet:

The military facilities released the largest amount of reported lead, releasing 77,000 pounds. Ninety-four percent of the lead reported was released to land (approximately 77 thousand pounds).

Facilities with the largest PBT releases:

1. U.S. Army Schofield Barracks / Wheeler Army Airfield: 42,269
2. U.S. Marine Corps Base Hawai’i Pu’uloa Training Facility: 13,471
3. U.S. Marine Corps Base Hawai’i: 10,539
4. U.S. Army Pohakuloa Training Area: 10,479
5. AES Hawaii Inc: 1,441
6. Hawaiian Electric Co. Inc. Kahe Generating Station: 1,275
7. Maui Electric Co. Ltd. Ma’alaea Generating Station: 908
8. Chevron Products Co. Hawai’i Refinery: 601
9. Hawaiian Electric Co. Inc. Waiau Generating Station: 599
10. Kalaeloa Cogeneration Plant: 290

The following web sites also provide city, county and facility information on TRI: http://www.epa.gov/triexplorer/ and http://www.epa.gov/enviro.

State fact sheets are available at: http://www.epa.gov/triexplorer/statefactsheet.htm.

Also see, Region 9 TRI Home Page: http://www.epa.gov/region09/toxic/tri/index.html

Hawaii: http://www.epa.gov/region09/toxic/tri/report/07/tri-hi.html

The AP posted a story about a House investigative report on the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), which is charged with protecting the health of communities affected by toxic contamination. According to the AP story:

A House investigative report says officials from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry “deny, delay, minimize, trivialize or ignore legitimate health concerns.”

Here in Hawai’i we have had our own problems with ATSDR.

Several years ago, Father Alapaki Kim of St. Rita’s church called on the Centers for Disease Control to investigate the high incidences of cancer in his tiny Nanakuli parish. The ATSDR was dispatched.

After conducting some interviews and reviewing old state studies, they concluded that health risks from radio towers in Lualualei were “inconclusive”.

In 2005, ATSDR did a Public Health Assessment for the Pearl Harbor Naval Complex. Basically they concluded that the various contamination sites they looked at posed no threat to the community. Their only recommendation: “avoid eating fish and crab from Pearl Harbor in order to prevent exposure to PCBs.”

In Vieques, the community picketed and boycotted the meeting held by the ATSDR to take community testimony.  They accused the ATSDR of working to undermine the legitimate concerns of the community and told them that they were not welcome in Vieques.   After picketing outside for a time, the protestors filed in and held a mock funeral for Milivy Adams, a young girl who died of a horrible cancer. Then as they left,  they each placed a small white cross with the name of a Viequense who died of cancer on the desk of the ATSDR officials and walked out.  There was a tall stack of crosses when they left.