Guest guest Posted October 4, 2003 Report Share Posted October 4, 2003 http://www.naplesnews.com/03/10/naples/d992434a.htm Deep Trouble: Scared sick From high cancer rates to overwhelming asthma, Gulf Coast residents grapple with effects of dirty air, water Thursday, October 2, 2003 By JANINE A. ZEITLIN, jazeitlin CHAPTER FIVE OF A 15-PART SERIES THE ILL EFFECTS Thursday, October 2, 2003 n Scared sick: Gulf Coast residents n grapple with effects of dirty air, water n A less-than Superfund: Twenty-three years later, n communities still waiting for federal clean-up cash n Profiles on the Gulf n Find the complete DEEP TROUBLE series here n Watch all the DEEP TROUBLE video clips here It's treatment No. 21 for Jo Ann Allen, who suffers from breast cancer. She's tired. The kind of tired that draws you to the closest bed, feeling no guilt clicking to trashy TV soaps. On this particular morning, while picking tomatoes in her garden, Allen got whomped by a bout of exhaustion before collapsing into her bed. Still, as a friendly gesture, she toted four plastic bags of tomatoes to give to the radiation crew at Baptist Medical Park in downtown Pensacola. " Mrs. Allen. " Her name is called. In the chilled, steely treatment room, she sheds her breezy, flowered blouse to reveal permanent purple slashes around her left breast pointing technicians to the treatment spot. " Y'all made me limp. My legs turned to toothpicks pickin'tomatas', " said Allen, 74, her short, white hair mussed, her brow slick with sweat. " I'm as weak as a kitten. " She traces her cancer to toxins she's been cloaked in for a half century and specifically, dioxins — the carcinogens linked to a paper mill spitting into the Gulf of Mexico's Perdido Bay, near where she resides with her husband, Harry. Jo Ann Allen receives radiation treatment at Baptist Medical Center in downtown Pensacola. Allen discovered last year during a routine mammogram that she had breast cancer. She's lived most of her life on Soldier Creek, a tributary of Perdido Bay near where International Paper's mill has discharged into Eleven Mile Creek since it opened in 1941. On April 14, 1992, there was a strong smell in Soldier Creek and Allen felt sick, had an eye infection and lost partial taste and smell for two years. Allen suspects that her health problems are related to dioxin or other harmful chemicals in the paper mill's discharge, though it hasn't been proven this caused her condition. Romain Blanquart/Staff Cancer isn't in her kin's genes, she said. Though she can't prove it, her belief isn't unfounded. Companies released 39,017,089 pounds of toxins and carcinogens in the Pensacola and Perdido Bay area, the latest 2001 EPA data shows. The Gulf community where the companies are located ranked 17th in the nation among counties in toxic releases, spewing more toxins into the air than the entire state of New Jersey. The Allens settled near Perdido Bay in the 1960s soon before Harry retired as a Navy fighter pilot. Years ago he used the smokestacks in the Pensacola skyline to guide him home. Today, he is a 12-year survivor of prostate cancer in a place where prostate cancer rates are 24 percent higher than the rest of Florida. " There have been so many sicknesses around here, " Jo Ann Allen said. " Pensacola is just overloaded. There's just too many biggies. It's bad. All these waters are bad. The truth is not known. " What is known is that residents in pollution-filled pockets along Gulf-rim states are contracting cancer and are at risk for respiratory diseases and other disorders at higher-than-normal rates: n Higher than average cancer rates exist in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi with hot spots in Florida and Texas, according to 2002 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. n Twenty-three counties rimming the Gulf Coast and Mississippi River were slapped with failing grades in air quality because of unhealthy amounts of ozone pollution, according to the American Lung Association's 2003 report. Breathing ozone-laden air can cause respiratory problems and increase the risk of respiratory disease, especially among children and the elderly, according to the Lung Association. n More than 9,000 asthma attacks in Florida could be avoided with tougher enforcement of air pollution laws, according to a 2001 study by the Clean Air Task Force, an environmental coalition. In Alabama, more than 6,500 asthma attacks could have been avoided. n Gulf states have among the highest levels of mercury, a potent neurotoxin, in the nation, concluded a 2003 National Wildlife Federation report based on federal data. Gulf Coast rivers, lakes and coastlines racked up 124 fish consumption advisories for mercury. Mercury in rain samples taken in Gulf-rim states far exceeded the EPA's health standards, with Louisiana registering levels 96.5 times the standard. Making the connection There's no categorical proof that industries pumping toxins into the environment are linked to health problems and deaths in polluted zones of the five Gulf-rim states, but evidence exists. Hydrocarbons, lead, mercury, dioxins, arsenic and other chemicals lawfully released by companies, some of which are known carcinogens, are capable of causing respiratory diseases and developmental disorders in children. A potpourri of these toxins show up in people. A 2003 study led by the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York detected an average of 91 chemicals, pollutants and pesticides, including 53 carcinogens, in people tested. Most of those chemicals didn't exist less than a century ago. VIDEO CLIP ONE — Oliver Houck, professor of environmental law at Tulane University, and environmental lawyer Ralf Brooks talk about pollution and an overall lack of enforcement of environmental laws. View the videoVIDEO CLIP TWO — Researchers, biologists, fisherman and others describe the different problems they see and encounter in the Gulf of Mexico. View the videoGO TO THE MAIN VIDEO PAGE — This page allows you to view the video clips from the 15 day Deep Trouble: The Gulf In Peril series. Go to the main video pageGO TO THE MAIN SERIES PAGE — From this page, you can view all all 15 days of Deep Trouble: The Gulf In Peril series. Go to the series pageSingling out who or what's guilty for Jo Ann Allen's cancer is more complicated, because factors like lifestyle and genetics play a role in causing cancer, health officials say. They will only go so far as to say industrial pollution is a suspect in chronic health problems in the Gulf's toxic zones. " Yes, people get sick. But is it due to lifestyle, smoking, drinking, taking drugs, versus living " near industrial pollution, Dr. John Lanza, director of the Escambia County Health Department, said of the area's health problems. " Do I suspect there is probably a causation? Yes. How much there is, I don't know. There haven't been any direct linkages. You couldn't absolutely, 100 percent say. " Ongoing health studies may forge new ground in proving companies' hands are dirty — or exonerating them — in places like Pensacola. There, 358 families were relocated from neighborhoods where toxins were dumped by two now-defunct companies, which left behind Superfund sites. Or it could be documented in Mossville, a Southwest Louisiana coastal town where residents had three times the normal levels of dioxins, deadly carcinogens, in their blood. Close to Mossville, there are five plants involved in the production of polyvinyl chloride, PVC, which has been blamed for creating dioxin. Then there's the trail of Mississippi River towns known as Cancer Alley, an 85-mile stretch with 130-plus petrochemicals plants and refineries from New Orleans north to Baton Rouge. People have died. More are dying. Still more are sick. Most residents of these areas are poor and the vast majority are black. Industries and state and federal governments need to start taking responsibility, advocates say — and now. " Mount Dioxin " In this central Pensacola neighborhood, you could hear a feather fall. It's that quiet. Pig-pink and Georgia peach apartments that held 200 families sit empty. Cookie-cutter homes lining lanes with charming names such as Hickory and Spruce are vacant. In the 1950s, these subdivisions were some of the few places where blacks could enjoy the benefits of being working-class. Blacks were cold-shouldered from white neighborhoods in Pensacola back then, former residents say. Today, swingsets have been replaced by metal fences at least 8 feet high. Shrubs are overgrown in front of once meticulously cared-for homes. Windows have been blocked with plywood. Posted " Property of U.S. government " signs tag the homes, warning " No Trespassing. " Chirping birds are the few heartbeats left in these neighborhoods, so familiar to the 358 families that once lived here. Gloria Malden rests in a bed at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola after suffering a heart attack and collapsed lungs last year. From age 3 until she was 34, she lived in the Panhandle neighborhood around the Escambia Treating Co. The former wood-preserving company operated 1942-82, leaving behind a Superfund site including arsenic and dioxin, EPA records show. A few years after moving out of the neighborhood, she started getting sick with severe asthma. Romain Blanquart/Staff What's more familiar is the Escambia Treating Co., just south of the neighborhoods. The former wood-preserving company for utility poles and foundation pilings operated from 1942-82, leaving behind a Superfund brew of creosote, arsenic, PCPs and dioxin, EPA records show. An underground plume of contamination has reached Bayou Texar, which flows into Pensacola Bay. The Superfund site is roughly 10 miles from the Gulf. The Environmental Protection Agency moved the residents — in essence supporting the Citizens Against Toxic Exposure group in its six-year fight for relocation after EPA workers began to excavate toxics in 1991. Residents reported severe respiratory problems when the digging began. " It was just awful in those neighborhoods. Their eyes were not just irritated but there were separation of corneas, " said Frances Dunham, a graphic designer who co-founded Citizens Against Toxic Exposure. Less than a mile away is another Superfund site where fertilizer was produced from 1920-75, most recently by Agrico Chemical Co. The 35-acre site has high concentrations of fluoride, lead and arsenic. EPA officials capped the area with plastic after removing some contaminated soils. A Pensacola News Journal investigation, published in September 2003, found thousands of Pensacola and Gulf Breeze residents drank water laced with radium levels exceeding federal standards between 1996 and 2000. The newspaper linked a large toxic underground plume stemming from the Agrico site as the likely cause of the tainted drinking water. The underground plume also spurred a $500 million lawsuit filed by environmental lawyers. That site also is about 10 miles from the Gulf beaches. In addition, Pensacola hosts more than a dozen other toxin-emitting industries, including a coal-fired power plant and chemical companies, the latest EPA data shows. Relocated residents have reported respiratory problems, diabetes, heart trouble, higher cancer rates, miscarriages and babies born with birth defects. Autism rates have increased among children in Escambia County and neighboring Santa Rosa County, according to a recent investigation by the Pensacola News-Journal. Margaret Williams, 80, president of the Citizens Against Toxic Exposure and a now-relocated resident, lived most of her life in a three-bedroom home in the area with her mother and father, who both died of cancer. One of Williams' children was stillborn. Another, a boy, was dead at three months with respiratory problems. " We would get those smells and whatever, but no one ever associated them with illness. At that time, they were some of the best places that people of color could live, " she said. " It was nice as far as we were concerned ... But whole families just died out and we didn't know why. " The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry conducted public health studies near both sites and found higher-than-normal cancer rates. At the Agrico chemical site — once used as a youth baseball field — lead levels were high enough to spur learning disabilities in children, who were exposed to lead, the agency under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services concluded. The carcinogen dioxin was found in the surface soil in parts of the neighborhood near Escambia Treating Co. The federal agency said that " former workers ... trespassers and vagrants " on the plant property who were exposed to the toxic cocktail had a moderate-to-high risk of developing cancer. Margaret Williams is president of Citizens Against Toxic Exposure in the Florida Panhandle. Williams lived most of her life in a three-bedroom home in the Pensacola area with her mother and father, who both died of cancer. One of Williams' children was stillborn and another died when 3 months old. She helped lead the fight to relocate the residents of the Pensacola neighborhood where she grew up. Romain Blanquart/Staff At last count, roughly 450 of the more than 2,000 people who once live there have died, Williams said. " It's really been very tragic, " Dunham said. " They have just been exposed to a huge mix from both sides. The mix is likely responsible for a lot of illness and death, though we can't prove that to you. " Looking for possible proof is what university academics are now trying to do in the Pensacola area. University of West Florida and Escambia County officials are looking at the health effects on former residents near the sites as part of an environmental health study, proposed over five years. Congress gave researchers $1.7 million to start the study in 2002, though only $225,000 in federal money was set aside in 2003. University reseachers leading the study asked for $15 million for the five-year study. " We just don't know, " said Dick Snyder, associate professor at The Center for Environmental Diagnostics and Bioremediation under the University of West Florida in Pensacola. " We're looking for the end effect. " Lanza of the Escambia health department blames as much as 20 percent of sicknesses and mortality in the Pensacola area on the environment. He's hoping the study will more clearly define how it happened. Fish gulp the PCBs, dioxin, arsenic and mercury left over from industries and the nickel, cobalt and other heavy metals found in stormwater runoff, he said. " The fish eat that and some of those are associated with cancers and other diseases, " Lanza said. " If it's in the bay and probably taken up by someone's dinner, how much of it gets in a person? " That's topped with the polluted air Escambia County residents breathe. Escambia scored an 'F' in the American Lung Association's most recent report on ozone air pollution, the worst-ranked Florida county. Hillsborough (Tampa) came in second. Cancer victim Allen, the woman with the Pensacola tomato garden, said it's not the quality of life she'd expected in her retirement years. Allen wears a brace on her weakened left leg, which got a bacterial infection after she visited the Gulf beach. " They have no concern for public health, " she said. " The only concern is for the almighty dollar and I just think it's regrettable. " Dunham of Citizens Against Toxic Exposure thinks the black neighborhood's plight is environmental racism. Before the group organized, EPA declared the cleanup an emergency and didn't go through the slower Superfund cleanup routine that requires greater public comment. The two sides have yet to agree on the level of dioxin cleanup. " You had EPA in the highest level of protective gear and 15 feet away, children playing in the yard. It was awful, " Dunham said. " I don't believe that would have happened in a white, middle-class neighborhood ... People were treated as their lives didn't count. " The citizens group and local elected leaders are pushing for a higher level of cleanup. Among the concerns: both Superfund sites have seeped into the groundwater, forming an underground plume of contamination that has reached Bayou Texar. Final stop for the bayou: the Gulf of Mexico. Remembering Mossville From the steps of her red wood-frame home, Lillie Adams, a 62-year-old grandmother, fights back tears when she remembers Mossville before it became what it is. She remembers the Southwest Louisiana coastal town before it was known as a global dioxin hot spot. Residents have as much as three times the normal levels of dioxins in their blood, according to a 1999 study by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Dioxins are considered some of the most deadly carcinogens. Mossville residents are three times more likely to contract a dioxin-related cancer than average citizens, according to Greenpeace, the environmental organization. Asthma, allergies and respiratory diseases also run rampant through the area. Adams and her husband settled in the predominantly black community, near the Louisiana-Texas border, in the 1950s. Industries blossomed around the unincorporated community, founded by descendants of former slaves in the 1800s, since before and after the Adamses arrived. Adams now suffers from painful lumps under her skin, allergies and sinus problems. She had two miscarriages. Her husband has respiratory problems and suffered a collapsed lung more than once. One daughter had a heart attack at 40. Another, lumps in her breasts. Her only son committed suicide. When remembering Mossville, she sees the barbershop on the corner, now overgrown with brush. She remembers the swingsets where children played and lush gardens that fed families, now gone or deserted. Hazy memories have been overtaken by reality. Close to Mossville, on the fringes of Lake Charles, there are at least four plants involved in the production of PVC, polyvinyl chloride. More than 30 industrial plants call the Mossville area home, EPA records show. PVC production and chemical companies release dioxins into the air and water as a byproduct, which is created by heating chlorine. The parish along the river where Mossville is situated ranks 13th in dioxin releases in the nation among counties with 10 sites releasing dioxin, EPA data shows. " There is nothing like Mossville. The first time I came to this place I cried as I was driving down this road. It's incredible how these industries have built on top of people, " said Monique Harden, an environmental lawyer with Louisiana's Earthjustice, which closed in December 2002 because it ran out of money. " I remember thinking to myself driving out there at night that this is what hell must look like. " Harden and the managing attorney of the office formed Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, based in New Orleans, in Earthjustice's ashes. Mossville arrived on the toxic map in 1998 when a private law firm tested high levels of dioxin in Mossville residents' blood and contacted the state health agency, said Harden, who began working with Mossville residents that year. Buddy Holshouser goes canoeing once a week on Bayou Texar, which flows into Pensacola Bay. Although signs like this one caution swimmers about potential health risks, he thinks the water quality is good and not harmful to people. Toxic plumes flow into Bayou Texar from Escambia Treating Co., a former wood-treating plant. The water from Pensacola Bay in turn goes to the Gulf of Mexico, which is about 10 miles from the plant. Romain Blanquart/Staff Harden, on behalf of Earth Justice, pushed the EPA for blood tests, which another federal agency did on 28 residents in December 1998. The agency didn't release the disturbing levels of dioxin until 1999, after the group threatened a lawsuit. Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster announced a state task force would put together a plan of action to address Mossville's problems. Promises were made by state and federal health officials, then broken, Harden said. There were no real medical services provided to the residents, she said. " Nothing has really changed since then, " she said. " At this point, this is a dioxin crisis and they are holding the card. We need to get some health responses. We need to talk about a moratorium on permits and the agency said we need to issue you blank calendars " to mark days they sense heavy pollution. " It's pretty amazing how hostile this agency has been to this community. There's clearly resistance by the industries in this area and they have control over our state agencies, " Harden said. Mossville Environmental Action Now, a group of about 50 Mossville residents, has been fighting alongside Earthjustice for health services. The group is asking the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry for a recommendation that residents be relocated and for medical services. The group claimed a small victory in April 2003 when the agency's assistant director came to meet with them. After reviewing preliminary results from a 2002 study, the agency said blood results showed parish residents' dioxin levels were similar to levels in a neighboring parish. A press release on the results made no mention of Mossville, but rather focuses on the parish where Mossville is located. " People who live in Calcasieu Parish and Lafayette parishes have similar dioxin levels, " it concludes. However, Harden and Mossville Environmental Action contend the agency threw in 200-some residents from the entire parish who didn't live in dioxin to gloss over the higher levels of dioxins in Mossville residents. Environmental Action leaders Dorothy Felix and Edgar Mouton questioned agency officials about it. The agency " is really not accepting that we still have a problem and they're just trying to deny that fact, " said Felix, a 64-year-old Mossville native. " We're just not that many people that they could not handle a buyout situation .... Seeing how the situation still exists, it shouldn't be that hard for the government to make this recommendation. " Some who accepted a relocation payment from one of the manufacturers in 1998 now say it was a mistake. It wasn't enough. The company, Condea Vista, began relocating about 420 Mossville families in 1998 after settling a lawsuit seeking property damages for groundwater contamination. Conoco Refinery, the former owner of the Condea Vista facility, was a co-defendant in the suit. The facility has since been bought by Sasol North America and Georgia Gulf. Ollie Mae Hadnot, 71, collected a piece of the settlement and now can pursue no future medical claims for the kidney disease, breathing and bladder problems from which she suffers. That, she regrets. " I made a mistake when I signed that waiver, " Hadnot said. " I'm sick and this is going to last me the rest of my life. I worry for my grandkids, too. " The Adamses didn't participate in the suit. Robert Adams had been a longtime employee of a chemical waste management company. " He just didn't want to get involved, " Adams said. " Sometimes I regret it. I'm hoping they make another offer so we can move and live the time the Lord has planned for us. " It's called Cancer Alley Along an 85-mile stretch between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La., there are 130-plus petrochemical plants and refineries discharging toxins to the air and the waters flowing to the Mississippi River, then the Gulf. Cancers, respiratory problems and emotional disorders seep through the communities, collectively called Cancer Alley. Most of the residents in the tiny towns freckling the Mississippi River chemical corridor are poor. Most are black. Following the Civil War and freeing of slaves, blacks sought haven on the outskirts of Louisiana towns. White men who sat on parish and state boards decided to allow companies to build toxic plants within yards of the mostly black communities. " There's no question it's racially biased, " Florence Robinson said of the state's industrial permitting process. Clayton Harrell, 64, right, and his son, Billy Harrell, 39, often go fishing in Perdido Bay after work. Companies released more than 39 million pounds of toxins and carcinogens in the Pensacola and Perdido Bay area in 2001, according to EPA data. However, all areas of the bay aren't sick. " I grew up on this beach and the last five years it has been looking better. (Industry) has done their part for cleaning but fish should be in great abundance. They are not. I don't know why — it's the mysterious part, " Clayton Harrell said. " You used to be able to come anytime and catch mullet. Now, you might catch one, or none. " Romain Blanquart/Staff Robinson founded the North Baton Rouge Environmental Association and is a former resident of Alsen, a town of about 1,000 that's 99 percent black. Alsen folks live among petrochemical plants, two Superfund sites and hazardous waste landfills. Robinson, a former biology professor, moved from there in 1998 because living there made her sick. She developed asthma and experienced dizziness and nausea during her 27 years there. A study showed 80 percent of Alsen residents have respiratory problems. Others suffer from spontaneous nosebleeds, sore throats, irritated eyes and headaches. She's angry at industry. " I'm furious with them, " Robinson said. " I just felt bad all the time. It got to where I thought that's how you were supposed to feel ... You shouldn't live in a place like that. I'm angry at the industry for its callousness. " Industry was drawn to the river by tax breaks and the benefits of easy product transport via the water. A congenial coupling grew between Big Oil and the state, a pairing some have called cozy. Many companies discharge toxins with outdated permits and little enforcement by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, as evidenced in a 2002 Louisiana legislative audit. A GIS mapping project by the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, part of Xavier University in New Orleans, found blacks constituted 80 percent of the population within three miles of toxin-emitting plants in the toxic corridor. The study was paid for by EPA. " We shouldn't have economic development that sacrifices humanity, " Harden said. " (In Louisiana) economic models have shifted to industrial plants from plantations. It's the descendants of slaves that bear the brunt of industries much like their ancestry had to bear conditions of slavery. " The Deep South Center works with at least eight communities in which toxic chemicals have wreaked havoc on people's health, affecting the air they breathe, water they drink and fish they eat. The Center was formed in 1992 by Louisiana environmental officials, activists and academics to address pleas from those getting sick and watching life die along Cancer Alley, said Beverly Wright, the founding executive director. " It was people in the area that began to notice the moss on trees were dying and all the birds were disappearing except the crow, " she said. " The kind of sicknesses and ailments people were having — headaches, rashes on their bodies — that could not be explained. " Since inception, the Center has banded with organizations such as Earthjustice and the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, a group formed three years ago to give residents devices to sample air. They have organized to give Mississippi River communities help in seeking relocation or medical attention. Their approach: Raise a unified racket for all to hear. " It's been mostly community organizations with companies that really don't want their names muddied and we allow them to be the hero, " Wright said. So far, the Center's had success in relocating four communities. Groups are now focusing on Mossville. They already claim a victory in Convent, a predominantly black area where Shintech Corporation, a Japanese firm, wanted to build a super-sized PVC plant. Early estimates said the plant would have pumped 600,000 pounds of chemicals into the air each year and 8 million gallons of waste into the Mississippi River each day. Residents won a battle to keep the company out, though it did build a smaller plant 25 miles north near Baton Rouge. The missing link In areas such as Mossville, one of the highest hurdles toward gaining ground with industry is the lack of concrete health studies linking the industrial toxins with health problems that residents are experiencing, activists say. There has never been a health study of the industrial corridor by the state, Wright said, while adding in the same, discouraged breath that in a place like Mossville, where a federal study highlighted problems, still nothing gets done. " If you're in a state that denies there's a problem, just try and get a health survey done, " Wright said. " The political side has hindered really anything. When they are talking about sicknesses, they say their lifestyles are hurting them and then you have industry with so much influence and this is what you end up with. A blind person would know (it's industry). " It's difficult to draw a direct line from toxins released by industry to health problems, state health officials say. Samuel Jones, 76, inhales medication for his asthma. Jones lived from 1958 to 1998 next to the Escambia Treating Co., a former wood-treating plant. He has diabetes, high blood pressure and assorted other ailments, but notes that many others in the area died of cancer from 1991 to 1996. Jones, who takes about 10 medications a day and sleeps with a breathing machine, believes that he is sick as a result of exposure to dioxin and arsenic. " This is the price you have to pay for life. Is it worth it? Yes. I have been exposed but I'm going to fight and stay alive so it won't happen to others, " he said. Romain Blanquart/Staff " Linking a cause to an effect, in most situations, the science just doesn't allow it to happen, " said Bob Johannessen, director of communications for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. When asked if the state had ever done a complete health study of the alley, he noted there was a $1.2-million study by Louisiana State University, which began in 1994 and was funded by the EPA. " The science just hasn't caught up with that yet, " he said. Medical experts or those wishing to dismiss the " Cancer Alley " label point to a hard-knocks lifestyle of smoking, drinking and eating fatty foods as a reason for steeper cancer rates in the area. Poor lifestyle habits can rack up cancer risks. " It may be a black eye we don't really deserve, " said Weezie Cashat, former executive director of the Ascension Chamber of Commerce in the midst of the toxic zone. Ascension Parish ranks 13th in the EPA's list of counties with toxic air releases. " I think we're all good Cajun folk. We like to eat. We like to smoke. We have all these things. When you take the typical Cajun diet, the percentage of smokers and those who consume alcoholic beverages, I think that has to be considered in all the cases of cancer, " she said. The Health Sciences Center of Louisiana State University is crunching data from a $1.2 million Mississippi River corridor study that started in 1994 and wrapped up in 2001, said Donna Williams, an instructor with the Department of Public Health and Preventative Medicine at LSU. Initial results showed higher-than-average lung cancer and prostate cancer rates in men in the corridor, she said. A team of investigators conducted in-depth interviews with 450 corridor residents with lung cancer from 1998 to 2001. With few ways to link industry to health problems, residents in places like New Sarpy have started taking matters into their own hands by doing air sampling. New Sarpy is six miles south of Norco, where toxins from a pair of chemical plants and a refinery resulted in a subdivision's relocation. Health concerns from the Concerned Citizens of New Sarpy brought about a 2002 health survey of 74 residents in St. Charles Terrace, a subdivision adjacent to the refinery. The number of residents suffering from chronic bronchitis is five times the national average, the study showed. Frequent cough and mucus were experienced at about 19 times the national average. Anxiety was experienced by 77 percent of the residents and exhaustion by 66 percent. Peter Orris, a national environmental health expert who helped with the study, said the residents' health problems were " logically related " to the refinery. Hydrocarbons released into the air by the refinery were detected by air-quality sampling and are pulmonary irritants that can be linked to respiratory problems, said Orris, director of the Occupational Health Services Institute at University of Illinois at Chicago. Air samples were taken by residents trained by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, a nonprofit organization that gets EPA money. The brigade trains residents with 5-gallon plastic buckets, equipped with a vacuum pump and a tube that captures air in an inflatable bag that they store at home. The technique started in California in 1995. When New Sarpy residents sense heavy pollution, they capture a sample of air, which is sent to an environmental lab for testing. Residents have found toxins like hydrogen sulfide and documented accidental releases with the buckets, the study shows. " It quantifies the complaints of the communities, " said Elizabeth Miner, an organizer with the brigade. " Whether they want medical care or reduction of pollution, we help them figure out how to make a strong front. " In 2001, residents won a lawsuit against the refinery for violating federal air-quality laws. Louisiana's Department of Environmental Quality slapped a manufacturer with a $1 million fine in 2002 and required millions of dollars of upgrades. Dorothy Jenkins, 61, president of the Concerned Citizens of New Sarpy, shares a street with a refinery that now stands where a school once did. Whiffs of rotten-egg and mildew were once as common to New Sarpy residents as the smell of rising bread to a baker, residents say. Jenkins said the smells have decreased in the past year. But illnesses have not and likely won't. " The asthma, the breathing problems are all over. When people go places, they have to bring oxygen with them. They are in wheelchairs because they can't walk too far. They get out of breath. It's nothing but health problems, " said Jenkins, blaming her recent stroke and her lethargy on the pollution that's cloaked her for decades. " People who moved away, they're still sick. Once you get like that, that's it. " A new century: The testing begins Scientists are trying to find out how environmental chemicals are hurting people, but first have to determine what's already in people's bodies. The testing for levels of such chemicals has just started. Some say it's the next wave of science. " It's one thing for us to go back and forth with companies but when I can draw your blood, we don't have to argue any more about parts per billion in the air, water. Now the question is: 'It's in me. What do I do?' " said Lauren Sucher, communications director for Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit research organization. What to do? — that's yet to be answered by industry, and federal and state governments. The Environmental Working Group, in a 2003 study led by the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, uncovered an average of 91 chemicals, pollutants and pesticides — including 53 carcinogens — in people. They tested for 210. " This is really new, " Sucher said. " We are the baseline, which is both exciting and scary. " The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just started monitoring levels of toxins in 2001 with the first National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals. The first report tested for 27 environmental chemicals; the second in 2003 tested for 116. Agencies should require health tests on chemicals before industry gets the OK to inject them into the environment, the report states. Chemicals that persist or accumulate should be banned, the report says. " If you're industry and there's a good chance that something will end up in people, you ought to do some basic toxicity ... We don't really develop those kinds of studies unless there's problems " like in the case of DDTs and PCBs, said Kristina Thayer, a senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group. " It's essentially a day late and a dollar short when it's already in your blood. " Science is coming along too late for many of the people from places like New Sarpy, Mossville and Pensacola — the Jo Ann Allens of the Gulf-rim states. They rely on pills, doctors and caring family members. Allen, the Pensacola area resident, had just finished a radiation treatment. She would need 12 more in the months ahead. Short of breath, Allen collapsed into a plastic chair in the lab at Baptist Medical, waiting for bloodwork. Her birthday was two days away and she was looking forward to a gambling trip to Biloxi. " I've got to get better by Sunday because I'm goin'. Maybe I'll even win something because it's my birthday ... Boy it's good to get 21 behind me, but I'll get through it ... And I do thank you, " she says as a young woman sticks her right arm with yet another needle. Staff writers Jeremy Cox and Cathy Zollo and David Sikes of Scripps Howard News Service contributed to this report. DEEP TROUBLE: THE GULF IN PERIL TODAY — CHAPTER FIVE: THE ILL EFFECTS n Gulf Coast residents grapple with effects of dirty air, water n Communities still waiting for federal Superfund clean-up cash n Profiles on the Gulf n Did you miss a day of the DEEP TROUBLE series? Want to n read an article again or send a story to a friend? Find the n complete series so far in our special online section. n Miss one of our video clips? Want to view a video clip n again? Find all the online-only clips from the entire n DEEP TROUBLE series so far on our video page. n Behind the scenes: Meet the writers, editors and others n who worked on bringing Deep Trouble: The Gulf in Peril n to readers across Southwest Florida. view the staff page COMING TOMORROW: Friday, October 3, 2003 CHAPTER SIX: THE ESTUARIES When people pollute the Gulf of Mexico, they harm more than people. The fragile sea grasses and other vegetation that nourish both the coast and lower links in the aquatic food chain are at risk. So are several endangered and threatened species, such as manatees, sea turtles and bottle-nosed dolphins. Pesticides, trash and an algae bloom called red tide are harmful to marine life, as are other pollutants in five states around the Gulf of Mexico. Reports of red tide in the water are on the rise: It has been reported every year since 1970. Animal and bird hospitals along the Gulf Coast of Florida are reporting other mysterious illnesses affecting marine species. In today’s chapter of the 15-part series " Deep Trouble: The Gulf in Peril, " the Daily News looks at the effect Gulf pollution has on the estuaries and animals. Staff Writer Eric Staats reports on coastal vegetation and the estuaries. In a separate report, he looks at the history of red tide and ongoing research into its causes. Staff Writer Dianna Smith reports on her visits to marine animal hospitals along the Gulf Coast. Today’s chapter offers this observation by Dave Tomasko, senior environmental scientist at the South Florida Water Management District: " It could be we’re priming the system for collapse. You’d just have to be lucky as hell not to have an impact at some point in the future. " NEW WEB MESSAGE BOARDS - JOIN HERE. 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