OT: Update on Toxic squirrels, Real culprit Faulty blenders ???

[Guest guest]

Our federal agencies at work. BLENDERS? I'm not sure I want to ask.

This almost sounds as bad as eating moldy dry wall.

KC

EPA puts squirrel back on the menu

Sunday, November 4, 2007

By JAN BARRY and BARBARA WILLIAMS

STAFF WRITERS

RINGWOOD -- Notice to those hunting near Ford's toxic dump site:

This year, squirrels are safe to eat, but don't add lead-laced wild

carrots to the recipe.

That's the latest advice from federal and state agencies

investigating potential health threats from toxic waste buried in

Upper Ringwood near a residential neighborhood and in a corner of

Ringwood State Park.

After startling local hunters with an official report last winter

that elevated levels of lead were found in a squirrel at Ford Motor

Co.'s former landfill area, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

announced last week that those test results were actually caused by

a lab problem.

The EPA issued a press release stating that the problem was caused

by a defective blender. But adding to confusion on the wildlife

tests, the federal agency also posted on its Web site a detailed

April report from its lab consultants describing how they found the

same defect in three blenders, which led to discarding five of 73

wildlife samples.

At a public meeting Thursday, state and federal officials assured

residents that further testing showed that squirrels, deer, rabbits

and wild turkeys are not contaminated by lead, a component of the

waste. However, they added, the battery of tests also showed that

smaller animals, including frogs, and wild carrots have elevated

levels of lead.

Fast facts

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• Flora and fauna tests at Ringwood Superfund site:

• After adjusting for lab problems, the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency says its tests found elevated levels of lead in

wild carrots, mice, voles, shrews and frogs. It found small amounts

of lead in four squirrels (up to 0.78 parts per billion) and in the

liver of one deer. Even in small amounts, lead can harm the nervous

system, kidneys and red blood cell production, and can affect

reproduction and development, federal health advisories warn.

• For more information: epa.gov/region2/ superfund/npl/ringwood

" There is exposure that is accumulating on the site, but it's not

showing in the larger game animals, " said Mark Sprenger, the EPA

manager for the wildlife study.

That explanation raised more questions among residents in the

audience at M.J. Ryerson School.

Many belong to the Ramapough Mountain Indian tribe and hunt in the

area that includes Ford's former tract of more than 500 acres of

woodlands and old iron mining works. Ford dumped waste from its

Mahwah assembly plant at the Ringwood site in the 1960s and 1970s.

It has been doing a cleanup since the 1980s, most recently removing

more than 25,000 tons of lead-based paint sludge and tainted soil in

a renewed Superfund effort.

" Are we safe with eating squirrels? " asked DeGroat, who lives

across s Mine Road from the area where the wildlife was

tested. " I'd like to have a definitive answer. "

Jerald Fagliano, project manager with the New Jersey Department of

Health and Senior Services, said game animals are safe, but

residents should avoid wild carrots. His statement clarified a state

health warning about eating squirrels that was issued in January,

based on the EPA report of high levels of lead in a squirrel tested

in October 2006. That advisory will now be rescinded, said Ken

Petrone, the state Department of Environmental Protection's case

manager for Ringwood.

Not everyone was buying the new test results, however. A resident

who said she had done similar laboratory work, Kathy McGinnis,

questioned whether the EPA used a standard lab procedure designed to

uncover equipment problems. That procedure involves running a

control sample through each piece of equipment.

Sprenger said the EPA lab did not do " anything outside standard

practice. " After discovering this problem, he added, the staff

changed its procedure to list which blender handles which samples.

In an interview after the meeting, Sprenger said he didn't know if

other samples from other EPA cases might have been affected by the

brass part that wore out in the defective blenders, mixing metal

shavings into the wildlife samples.

" That's something that would have to be looked at, " he said.

E-mail: barry@..., williamsb@...