Hazardous waste sites Canal

Think how many carcinogens are household names asbestos, cigarette smoke (a mixture of several thousand chemical compounds), DES, dioxin, saccharin, arsenic, PCBs, radon, EDB, Alar. Hundreds more of these substances, some very obscure, are known to the scientific and medical community, and many of these are scattered throughout the land at thousands of hazardous waste sites similar to Love Canal. People are exposed to these dreadful substances through the air they breathe, the water they drink and bathe in, and the foods they eat. Chemicals can also produce many other types of health damage, some very serious, such as birth defects and damage to our nervous and immune systems. 

The only direct measurements of isophorone in soil were found for samples taken from hazardous waste sites. Ghassemi et al. (1984) found isophorone in leachates from hazardous waste landfills, and Hauser and Bromberg (1982) detected the presence of isophorone in the "sediment/soil/water" of Love Canal. These studies suggest that isophorone also was present in the soil. The Contract Laboratory Program Statistical Data Base (queried April 13, 1987) reported that isophorone has been detected at 4 of 357 hazardous waste sites at a concentration range of 1.68-6500 ppm. 

In 1980, President Carter pushed hard for the CERCLA to be passed — mainly in response to various environmental tragedies in the news, such as the Love Canal toxic waste site near Niagara Falls and the valley of drums in Kentucky. People wanted someone to be held accountable for the toxic waste sites that littered the country. The CERCLA focuses on two issues responding to existing uncontrolled hazardous waste sites and preventing... 

Chlorobenzene, along with other chlorinated chemicals, was found in United States rivers at levels up to and exceeding 10,000 ng/L (Shackelford and Keith 1976 Sheldon and Hites 1978). Private wells near a hazardous waste site contained as much as 41 pg/L (Clark 1982) and tap water at Love Canal contained 10 to 60 ng/L of chlorobenzene (Barkley et al. 1980). 

In March 1982 the American Chemical Society sponsored a symposium on risk assessments of hazardous chemical waste sites, and the chapters of this volume are the final versions of the papers that were presented and discussed at this symposium. The first chapters present the problem the history of the development of Superfund legislation and the arguments about the most appropriate approaches to risk assessments, specific cases of hazardous waste problems in Louisiana, the problems of Love Canal and their bearing on risk assessment, and the impacts on human health that can result from hazardous waste sites. The next broad topic of the symposium was the central problem of methodology of risk assessment. The practical problems that confront the field teams who examine specific chemical waste sites are what to monitor, how to monitor, and how to have reasonable assurance of the reliability of the results of monitoring. A final chapter considers a problem of central importance to the Superfund effort how to incorporate risk assessment into the regulatory process. 

The Contract Laboratory Statistical Database reports that acrolein was detected in soil at 1 of 357 hazardous waste sites in the United States, at a mean concentration of 6.5 ppb (VIAR 1987). The National Priority List Technical Data Base (View 1989) indicates that acrolein was detected at 5 of 1177 National Priority List (NPL) sites however, the database does not contain media concentration data. Acrolein was identified in sediment/soil/water samples collected from Love Canal in Niagara Falls, NY (Hauser and Bromberg 1982) however, no quantitative data were available. 

An analysis of landfill gas from 20 Class II (municipal) landfills revealed a maximum concentration of 32 ppm for benzene (Wood and Porter 1987). Benzene was measured in the vicinity of the BKK landfill, a hazardous waste landfill in California, at a maximum concentration of 3.8 pg/m3 (1.2 ppb) (Bennett 1987). Maximum estimated levels of benzene in air near uncontrolled (Superfund) hazardous waste sites were 190 pg/m3 (59.5 ppb) at the Kin-Buc Landfill (Edison, New Jersey) and 520 pg/m3 (162.8 ppb) in Love Canal basements (Niagara Falls, New York) (Bennett 1987 Pellizzari 1982). 

Goldman LR, Paigen B, Magnant MM, et al. 1985. Low birth weight, prematurity and birth defects in children living near the hazardous waste site, Love Canal. Hazardous Waste and Hazardous Materials 2 209-223. 

Love Canal also contributed strongly to the development of risk assessment methodologies since the Superfund Act required that determinations of clean-up levels be made based on a scientific assessment of data on the toxicity of contaminants found at the hazardous waste sites and the potential for exposure to those contaminants. In light of the limitations in available knowledge, new approaches had to be devised to answer the question of how clean is clean The methodology that was adopted married scientific data to value judgments about acceptable risk and margins of safety. This approach remains in use. 

Superfund sites are sites that emit numerous neurotoxins into the air and water environments. Love Canal studies have shown nervous system effects that can be attributed to living near a toxic waste site. I36 Elevated neural tube defects in offspring were identified with mothers residing proximate to hazardous waste sites. I49 50 It has also been shown that people residing close to industrial facilities that emit solvents or metals have offspring with increased CNS defects J51l... 

Paigen B, Goldman LR Lessons from Love Canal the role of the public and the use of birth weight, growth, and indigenous wildlife to evaluate health risk, in Health Effects From Hazardous Waste Sites. Edited by Andelman JB, Underhill DW. Chelsea, MI, Lewis Publishers, 1987, pp 177-192... 

The chemical leaks at Love Canal near Niagara Falls, NY, gained a lot of national media attention. That led to a public outcry to clean up chemical waste sites, and the creation of the federal Superfund. A national cleanup program for hazardous waste sites resulted. 

Soil contamination was not perceived as a problem until the 1970s, when incidents in the U.S. and Europe (Love Canal, NY Times Beach, MO Lekkerkerk, the Netherlands) awakened public awareness about the serious threats posed to human health and the environment by abandoned or improperly managed hazardous wastes. In response to the growing public concern, the U.S., the Netherlands, and a number of other European countries started a systematic effort beginning in 1980 to identify potentially contaminated sites, assess the level of contamination, establish priorities for remediation based on risk assessment studies and gradually implement the required remedial actions. 

It was once an important industrial chemical used directly as an agricultural fumigant and as an intermediate in the manufacture of insecticides. Hexachlorocyclopentadiene and still bottoms from its manufacture are found in hazardous waste chemical sites, and large quantities were disposed at the Love Canal site. The pure compound is a light yellow liquid (fp, 11°C bp, 239°C) with a density of 1.7 g/cm3 and a pungent, somewhat musty odor. With two double bonds, it is a very reactive compound and readily undergoes substitution and addition reactions. Its photolytic degradation yields water-soluble products. 

As a result of this review, the Panel has concluded that there has been no demonstration of acute health effects linked to exposure to hazardous wastes at the Love Canal site. 

After review of the fact chronology in Love Canal it is easy to see that the factors for effective management of hazardous waste disposal sites were simply not utilized or available in Love Canal. These factors again are ... 

It was clear as soon as it was passed that CERCLA would address only the most serious sites and that there were literally thousands of other sites containing hazardous wastes that also needed to be dealt with. In the absence of federal resources for this task, a number of states passed their own legislation to identify, assess and remediate such sites. Activities undertaken under both the federal and state statutes revealed that hazardous wastes had been buried not only in industrially owned sites but also in municipal and private landfills. Indeed, some of these hazardous wastes were the result of citizen disposal practices. Thus, the dimensions of the problems that Love Canal uncovered were revealed to be larger than first thought and the resources needed to address them much greater than anticipated. Twenty-five years later, these problems persist and many sites still await remediation. 

After Love Canal, near Niagara Falls, NY, received national attention (see Case 27-1), a study by New York State reported that companies had dumped nearly 22,000 tons of chemical waste into Love Canal (see Table 27-1). The study also found that 152 of 215 waste disposal sites in Niagara (Niagara Falls area) and Erie (Buffalo area) Counties of New York had had or potentially contained hazardous waste. Some contained even more waste than Love Canal. One site contained entire tank cars of waste. 

Love Canal was built near Niagara Falls, New York, in the 1800s to link waterways. Although it was never completed, the canal, in the form of a half-mile ditch, remained until the Hooker Chemical Company purchased it in the early part of the twentieth century as a dumpsite for hazardous waste. Once full, the canal was covered and eventually wound up as the building site for a school with residential properties nearby. 

From the late 1960s to the 1970s, homeowners in the community in Love Canal, New York suffered a number of well-publicized health problems, such as miscarriages, chronic infections, chemical bums, internal disorders, and genetic mutations. These maladies were traced to 20,000 tons of hazardous waste buried by Hooker Chemical and Plastics Company from 1947 to 1954. President. Timmy Carter declared the town a disaster area in 1978. In 1980 the neighborhood was evacuated and in the same year, the Superfund [the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA)] was created. This program was created to clean up toxic waste sites using a fund collected from chemical manufacturers and oil producers (3). 

The Love Canal affair of the 1970s and 1980s brought hazardous wastes to public attention as a major political issue in the United States. Starting around 1940, the Hooker Chemical Company used this site of an abandoned canal in Niagara Falls, New York, to dispose of about 20,000 metric... 

Children are especially vulnerable to the health effects of hazardous substances. As noted in the discussion of the Love Canal waste disposal site in Section 15.1, a particular concern with this notorious site was the exposure of children in residential areas and even in a school that was constructed essentially on top of some of the buried wastes. Another concern involving children is the possibility of increased birth defects due to exposure to toxic substances in hazardous wastes. 

In the United States, the Love Canal debacle near Buffalo, New York is an example of a dangerous landfill used for homes. A mixture of industrial and domestic waste was dumped into an abandon canal. After only a few years, the land was used to build homes. Toxic waste seeped from the ground and made many of the residents sick. The Government had to buy the homes and spend a large amount of money cleaning up the site. In the United States thousands of highly hazardous landfills and disposal sites have been identified. Similar hazardous sites exist through the world. 

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