Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2011 20:05:56 -0400
From: Tom Glendinning
Subject: Ms. Dotson
To answer your criticisms, in part, this email will list sources of data and articles and a few comments. I will not answer point for point. I find no purpose in that.
Please avail yourself of the Chatham Journal (chathamjournal.com/weekly). It contains previous publications on water quality and other issues. My sources of data are generally cited therein.
For water quality data, I refer you to several sources. I am sure that these will provide you with current and historical results.
Links:
Old basinwide water quality plans –
http://portal.ncdenr.org/web/wq/ps/bpu/basin/capefear
List of DWQ Cape Fear stations –
http://portal.ncdenr.org/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=1c5c1e2f-c03d-4366-af09-019bee7f923a
Environmental Sciences section reports – See additional links to Cape Fear reports. There is a 2009 set in which most of the data that I’m using has come from.
http://portal.ncdenr.org/web/wq/ess/reports
If you want to pull the raw data for the Division of water qualities stations – that is done through STORET (EPA data warehouse – easiest to pull data by station number)
This is the guide that tells you how to pull the data out of STORET –
http://portal.ncdenr.org/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=b66ec16d-a2a4-44a8-8443-d2a2acec5f11
This is the link to the EPA STORET site –
General coalition monitoring program link –
http://portal.ncdenr.org/web/wq/ess/eco/coalition
Upper Cape Fear River Basin Association (UCFRBA) link –
http://portal.ncdenr.org/web/wq/ess/eco/coalition/ucfrba
UCFRBA station list –
http://portal.ncdenr.org/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=e5c9d7e4-4c51-4a66-95a0-689846a575e0
Latest 2006-2010 data summary for each coalition station. –
http://portal.ncdenr.org/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=5a1b3b46-f075-42e9-a21f-9266b965c71c
Data for the coalition can be requested from Carrie Ruhlman at 919-743-8411
Having designed and led the Haw River Drinking Water Survey, 1985, I am aware of cancer incidents. However, linking these to any particular environmental factor is an epidemiological mystery. Though 70% of the original residents of Bynum from 1947 to 1980 contracted cancer, no link could medically be established between carcinogens in HR drinking water and the cases reported. This fact emerged after linking with Dr. Carl Shy of the UNC School of Epidemiology. There are so many pathways and vectors for this disease that blaming one factor is statistically improbable. Making that leap between sludge application and cases in that area is a leap of faith, not science. If you have medical documentation, on the other hand, publish YOUR source. I will gladly modify my opinion after evaluation. I am sorry for any cancer victim’s suffering.
As to most of the other criticisms, I stand by my statements. Furans and dioxins can enter a body through foods and exist in meats. Sludge is tested for the list of pollutants in your first source, but foods are not tested for them. To that criticism – false. To metals, my statement stands. To aromatics and volatiles, the answer should be obvious. Don’t breath them. They will dissipate with exposure to air and sunlight. Polyaromatic hydrocarbons are remediated by microbes(except benzene forms.) Polybrominated diphenyl ethers are treated with nickel and iron. Antibiotics respond best to phytoremediation (plants.) Hormone migration studies reveal that soil-aquifer treatment and bioactivity cease movement to groundwater. Done and done.
Sources on these statements are too numerous to cite. Do your own research.
Yes, there are pollutants in sludge as there are everywhere in our environment. I suggest that the culprits are consumption habits and lack of new product design. Change the sources, not the wastes. This strategy has produced lower pollution over the last decades. Continue on this path.
Your analyzes are from heavily industrial areas, not Chapel Hill and Siler City. Specific test results for each source of sludge should be available. Just do not generalize for the purpose of causing fear and making a point to argue. The OEEB recommendations appear reasonable. Any improvement in processing waste would be an improvement in human health. I would spend my time contributing to these improvements, not pointing fingers at public servants and transferring blame. Advancements in research and design would be welcome. Ways to decrease environmental disease vectors and their effects would be praised.
I wish you success in improving DENR, DWQ, Solid Waste and other departments of state. We will certainly benefit from that.
Tom Glendinning