Friday, August 14, 1998
The Halifax Herald Limited
More toxins enroute to Frederick Street
Residents safe, says toxicologist
By TERA CAMUS / Cape Breton Bureau
Sydney - A toxicologist says more toxins are creeping toward homes on
Frederick Street from
the coke ovens site, but residents who live there are safe.
"The source of seep hasn't stopped," said Christine Moore, vice-president
of Cantox
Environmental, a company hired to do a health-risk assessment of residents
living in the
neighborhood.
"There's off-site migration from the coke ovens site. ... It's starting
to migrate in the soils and
surface waters," she said. "But there needs to be a bigger study in the
coke ovens site."
A meeting was held Wednesday to present details from the assessment study,
which is
expected to cost the provincial Health Department up to $50,000.
In less than 15 minutes, most Frederick Street residents walked out in
disgust.
"This is a joke and I won't put up with it," resident Debbie Ouellette
said.
Residents have repeatedly complained to officials they're sick. They say
they suffer from
headaches, sore throats, burning eyes, kidney infections and other ailments.
"We will fight until we win. They have no consideration for people ...
that live in an area that's
the worst toxic site in North America," Ms. Ouellette said.
But the study said those ailments "are infections which are bacterial or
viral and are not
typically associated with chemical exposures."
Frederick Street borders 51 hectares of the former coke ovens site, where
coal was cooked
for 100 years of steel production at the nearby plant.
The ground was saturated with a brew of toxic chemicals, and organic and
inorganic
compounds.
Several weeks ago, an analysis of land and a brook on Frederick Street
by Environment
Canada showed elevated levels of arsenic (13 times higher than acceptable),
molybdenum,
benzopyrene, antimony, naphthalene, lead, tar, benzene, kerosene, copper
and other
polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons.
On Wednesday, results from hair-arsenic tests on 26 residents showed 17
have the high end
of acceptable levels of arsenic in their bodies.
Blood-lead results on 23 residents showed one person has unacceptable limits.
"They are typical concentrations that you would see in non-impacted populations,"
Ms. Moore
said.
The study was conducted over several weeks this summer.
Dr. Jeff Scott, the province's chief medical officer, said he will make
recommendations after
he reviews the Cantox study and samples from his department.
The Human Health Hazard signs posted in the neighborhood will stay up for
the time being,
he said.
The study - based on a survey of residents, the latest blood and hair tests,
tests of garden
vegetables and other data - was imputted into a computer model.
The study did allow that residents may have been affected by dust generated
by coal
removal on site several months ago, an activity that's expected to resume
very soon.
Cantox recommends once coal removal resumes, dust levels should be monitored.
It also
recommends putting up a permanent fence around the seep area, where arsenic-tainted
yellow ooze was found less than eight metres from the back door of one
home.
"Are you going to guarantee those people that their children or their children's
children are
not going to be affected by these chemicals?" concerned Sydney resident
Barbara Lewis said
at a news conference, which followed the meeting with residents.
"And what happens when their children ... are deformed," she continued.
"Oh, you put that
through the computer but it didn't show up. ... You're wasting taxpayers'
money. You should
be moving those people.
"I'm angry and this is not ending here. I guarantee, I'll die fighting
the coke ovens," she said.
New Democrat MLA Helen MacDonald, who attended the news conference, says
the study
doesn't seem to be money well spent.
Next
article -- RESIDENTS VOW TO CONTINUE BATTLE AGAINST TOXIC WASTE
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