Poison Spring (38 page)

 
12
   In addition to naming the animals, the EPA table summarizing the results of the sample analysis cites “sediment,” “sludge,” and “products of conception.” See Table VII. Analysis of TCDD in Biological and Environmental Samples (Alsea, Oregon Phase II Project, in letter of Congressman Jim Weaver of Oregon to EPA administrator William Ruckelshaus, August 11, 1983). See also Carol Van Strum and Paul Merrell, “No Margin of Safety” (Toronto, Canada: Greenpeace, 1987), IV, 20.

 
13
   Strum and Merrell, “No Margin of Safety,” IV, 19. See also Exposure Assessment Branch, “Analysis of EPA’s Handling of the Five Rivers Investigation,” Hazard Evaluation Division, OPP, November 22, 1983, 18.

 
14
   “Bay St. Louis would occasionally extract some of these samples but this was not the case with this group,” Hall wrote. “Dr. Gross extracted and analyzed the samples and sent the results to EPA. Dr. Gross was subsequently called by an attorney representing a plaintiff in one of the dioxin suites going on in the Northwest. As a result, Dr. Gross released the data [generated in his laboratory,] apparently thinking all the samples were from Oregon.” Homer Hall, “Note to Mike Conlon [deputy director, OPP] Regarding the ABC News Release and EPA Press Release on Dioxin Samples from Oregon—5 Rivers,” August 19, 1983.

 
15
   For several years I collected data on biological alternatives to pesticides. Not once did the biologists and economists doing the cost-benefit analysis take me seriously. They had already decided, before the evidence, that one chemical would be simply replaced by another chemical. I had the same feeling in countless meetings when the toxic evidence of chemicals would be cited, but no corresponding action would follow. Staff scientists would say, “Let’s wait to hear from the upper management,” and leave it at that.

 
16
   EPA, Office of Pesticide Programs, “Analysis of EPA’s Handling of the Five Rivers Investigation” (November 22, 1983).

 
17
   EPA, Inspector General, “Report on OIG [Office of the Inspector General] Review and Inquiry into the Five Rivers Incident” (November 22, 1983). See also “Analysis of EPA’s Handling of the Five Rivers Investigation” (Exposure Assessment Branch, Hazard Evaluation Division, Office of Pesticide Programs, November 22, 1983).

 
18
   I spoke to Hale Vandermer several times in late 1980 and after. I also spoke to other scientists involved with the Oregon study. They confirmed what I heard from Hale. Their branch was dismantled. The scientists were made paper pushers.

 
19
   EPA, Office of Research and Development, “The Carcinogen Assessment Group’s Risk Assessment on 2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxy Acetic Acid (2,4,5-T) and 2,3,7,8-Tetrachloro-Dibenzo-P-Dioxin (TCDD)” (February 23, 1979). See also letter from S. M. Jalal to Edwin Johnson, September 26, 1983.

 
20
   “Straight Talk About 2,4-D,” 2012 Industry Task Force II on 2,4-D Research Data.

 
21
   To the astonishment of knowledgeable scientists and environmental activists, EPA “reregistered” 2,4-D in 2005. And on August 8, 2007, EPA announced that the “weight of the evidence” did not support that 2,4-D was a human carcinogen.
Federal Register
, August 8, 2007, vol. 72, no. 152, pp. 44510–11.

 
22
   By June 1983, the EPA had a report that included the finding of the studies at both Alsea and Five Rivers. The report only increased the friction between the EPA and the women at Five Rivers. Sure, some of the samples had come from Michigan. But there was also dioxin in the sludge samples from Oregon. During 1984–85, Donald A. Marlow, chief, Chemical Operations Branch, Office of Pesticide Programs, reanalyzed those sediment samples from Five Rivers, Oregon, and found 1.6 and 1.1 parts per trillion of TCDD. EPA, Office of Pesticide Programs, Environmental Chemistry Laboratory, “Analytical Results for 2,3,7,8-TCDD in Reanalyzed Sediment Samples from Five Rivers / Alsea, Oregon” (Samples Received 8/30/84 from Region X, February 14, 1985).

 
23
   EPA, Office of Public Awareness, “Environmental News,” February 15, 1979.

 
24
   J. Milton Clark, “A Report on Polychlorinated Dibenzo-P-Dioxins (PCDDs) and Polychlorinated Dibenzofurans (PCDFs) as They Relate to the Great Lakes Area” (USEPA Region V, Office of Toxic Substances, June 18, 1981). The evidence for Hernandez’s passing the report to Dow comes from Clark’s handwritten note “Conference Call with Dow” dated August 10, 1981. See also “Hernandez may be forced out of EPA,” United Press International, March 20, 1983. See also “Scheuer Says EPA Aide Let Dow Delete Dioxin Tie in Draft Report,”
New York Times,
March 16, 1983, http://www.nytimes.com/1983/03/16/us/scheuer-says-epa-aide-let-dow-delete-dioxin-tie-in-draft-report.html; http://news.google.com/?newspapersnid=1842&dat=19830320&id=JGIeAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0cgEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3095,3885510.

 
25
   David Kee to Valdas V. Adamkus, “Briefing on Region V Dioxin Problem, Report, and Recommendations” (June 10, 1981).

 
26
   Valdas V. Adamkus to David Kee, Regional Administrator, EPA, Region V, “Statement Before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Committee on Energy and Commerce, US House of Representatives” (March 18, 1983). See also “EPA Aides Charge Superiors Forced Shift in Dow Study,”
New York Times,
March 19, 1983, http://www.nytimes.com/1983/03/19/us/epa-aides-charge-superiors-forced-shift-in-dow-study.html.

 
27
   News of Hernandez’s resignation can be found here: Martin Crutsinger, “Three More EPA Officials Asked to Resign.” Associated Press, March 25, 1983. http://news.google.com/newspapersnid=1665&dat=19830325&id=5HEjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NiQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6636,3685204. See also http://www.nytimes.com/1983/?03/?25/us/acting-epa-chief-is-said-to-be-ready-to-quit-post-today.html.

 
28
   
New York Times
, January 10, 1984. After three years of public debacles at EPA, Reagan brought back its first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, expecting that shrewd move would divert attention from his administration’s wrecking of environmental protection in the United States.

 
29
   Janet Gardner, “New Agent Orange Research: Answers at Last?”
The Nation
, April 11, 1987, 460.

 
30
   In 1979, as noted earlier, EPA had suspended the use of 2,4,5-T and another similar weed killer, Silvex, in forests, rights-of-way, pastures, home gardens, turf, and aquatic vegetation. Dow Chemical tried to get this decision overturned in court but lost.

 
31
   EPA, Office of Water Regulations and Standards and the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, in conjunction with the Dioxin Strategy Task Force, “Dioxin Strategy” (August 15, 1983), iv, 4.

 
32
   See Cate Jenkins, “Consultant Abuses at EPA and Cover-Up,” letter to Congressman John D. Dingell et al., October 7, 1988.

 
33
   “Carcinogen Assessment Group’s Risk Assessment on 2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxy Acetic Acid (2,4,5-T), and 2,3,7,8-Tetrachloro-dibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD)” (memorandum from Elizabeth L. Anderson, Executive Director, Carcinogen Assessment Group, to Harvey L. Warnik, Special Pesticide Review Division, EPA, February 23, 1979).

 
34
   Cate Jenkins, “Newly Revealed Fraud by Monsanto in an Epidemiological Study Used by EPA to Assess Human Health Effects from Dioxins” (memorandum to Raymond Loehr, Chairman, Executive Committee, EPA Science Advisory Board, February 23, 1990).

 
35
   Cate Jenkins, “Criminal Investigation of Monsanto Corporation—Cover-up of Dioxin Contamination in Products—Falsification of Dioxin Health Studies” (memorandum to John West and Kevin Guarino, EPA Office of Criminal Investigations, November 15, 1990).

 
36
   Cate Jenkins, “Impact of Falsified Monsanto Human Studies on Dioxin Regulations by EPA and Other Agencies—January 24, 1991, NIOSH Study Reverses Monsanto Study Findings and Exposes Certain Fraudulent Methods” (memorandum to John West and Kevin Guarino, EPA Office of Criminal Investigations, January 24, 1991).

 
37
   Memo from William Sanjour, “The Monsanto Investigation,” July 20, 1994.

 
38
   Jenkins had become so concerned about this treatment, she told me, that she began secretly taping conversations she had with her EPA colleagues. I sympathized with Jenkins as I, too, had suffered similar humiliations: supervisors ordering you to do clerical jobs, checking up on the use of the EPA computer, telephone, the time of arrival and departure, etc. One of those supervisors would stop in the middle of the street and check his watch the moment he saw me. Another supervisor in the early 1980s even checked if I had done postdoctoral studies at Harvard. An official from Harvard called me and asked me why the EPA was anxiously asking about my Harvard studies. Did I really study at Harvard, the EPA official wanted to know.

 
39
   See http://www.combatmonsanto.org/docs/doc%20scan/Dioxine/Jenkins%20v.%20EPA/Jenkins%20vs%20EPA%20case.pdf.

 
40
   Sanjour, “The Monsanto Investigation,” 21, 24. See also http://www.greens.org/s-r/078/07-49.html.

 
41
   See http://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/14/obituaries/elmo-r-zumwalt-3d-42-is-dead-father-ordered-agent-orange-use.html; http://articles.latimes.com/1988-08-14/?news/mn-793_1_agent-orange.

 
42
   “Affidavit of Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr.,” August 28, 1991 (in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York,
Shirley Ivy et al., Plaintiffs, v. Diamond Shamrock Chemicals Company et al., Defendants
. CV-89-03361 (E.D.N.Y.) (JBW) [B-89-00559-CA (E.D. TEX)].

 
43
   Kate White, “Monsanto Vows 93 Million Dollars to Nitro Residents,”
Charleston Gazette-Mail
, February 24, 2012.

 
44
   EPA, “EPA, Dow reach agreement for dioxin cleanup” (Region 5, Chicago, July 13, 2007). Barrie Barber, “EPA Quits Dioxin Talks,”
Saginaw News
, January 5, 2008. “Dioxin Cleanup Near Dow Chemical Plant remains on Slow Track,”
Saginaw News
, March 17, 2008.

 
45
   Eartha Jane Melzer, “EPA Misses Dioxin Deadlines,”
Michigan Messenger
, January 11, 2011.

 
46
   
Michigan Messenger
, January 7, 2011.

 
47
   “E.P.A. Chemist Who Warned of Ground Zero Dust Is Reinstated,”
New York Times,
May 8, 2012.

Chapter 4: DDT: A New Principle of Toxicology

 
  
1
   The letter was sent to the EPA administrator in Dallas by Jenny L. Stegman, acting regional director of the Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service in Albuquerque, New Mexico, July 7, 1980.

 
  
2
   Morton S. Biskind, “Public Health Aspects of the New Insecticides,”
American Journal of Digestive Diseases
20 (November 1953): 331–41, 332.

 
  
3
   Rachel Carson,
Silent Spring
(first published 1962, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987), 5–13.

 
  
4
   Ibid., 7–8.

 
  
5
   Ibid., 10, 297.

 
  
6
   
Time
magazine, June 30, 1947. The ad was taken out by the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company.

 
  
7
   
Agricultural Chemicals
, December 1951, in
The War on Bugs
 by Will Allen (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008), 170. See also “The Editor Comments,”
Agricultural Chemicals
, December 1951, in Allen,
War on Bugs
, 170.

 
  
8
   EPA,
DDT: A Review of Scientific and Economic Aspects of the Decision to Ban Its Use as a Pesticide
(EPA-540/1-75-022, July 1975).

 
  
9
   Ibid., p. 11.

 
10
   
United States v. Goodman
, 486 F. 2d at 855 (7th Cir. 1973).

 
11
   Steven G. Herman and John B. Bulger, “Effects of a Forest Application of DDT on Nontarget Organisms,”
Wildlife Monographs
69, October 1979, p. 49.

 
12
   Richard Balcomb, “Dicofol: A review of the biological effects associated with the contaminants DDT and DDE” (EPA, Office of Pesticide Programs [1985]), p. 1.

 
13
   See Dick Beeler, “DDT Post Mortem,”
Agricultural Age
, July 1972, in Allen,
War on Bugs
, 174. See also Frank Graham, Jr., “The Witch-hunt of Rachel Carson,”
The Ecologist
, March 3, 1980.