Finally ---Dioxin Report will be released by EPA

May 14, 2002

US TO RELEASE FIRST-EVER MEASUREMENT OF DIOXINS

Date: 020513

Reuters News Service, May 13, 2002

Washington - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said last week

it will release as early as next week new pollution data that for the

first time tracks emissions of the cancer-causing chemical dioxin.

The dioxin data will be included in the agency's so-called toxic

release inventory, released annually in the spring. The inventory

tracks emissions of more than 600 toxic compounds by U.S. industrial

facilities into the air, water and land.

Since 1995, the EPA has imposed regulations on major dioxin emitters,

including municipal-waste incinerators, cement kilns and pulp and

paper mills.

Dioxin has been fingered as the toxic component in Agent Orange, used

by the U.S. military to clear forests during the Vietnam War. Dioxin

pollution caused the 1983 evacuation of the town of Times Beach,

Missouri, and the 1978 evacuation of the Love Canal site in Niagara

Falls, New York.

Dioxin builds up in living tissue over time, so even small exposures

can accumulate to dangerous levels.

Experts say dioxin accumulates in the food chain and can be found in

trace amounts in meat and dairy products. In fish, for example, dioxin

levels can be found at 100,000 times that of the surrounding

environment, environmentalists say.

In 1998, the EPA ordered that dioxin be added to the toxic release

inventory, which is published two years after the data is collected

because of the volume of information involved. The 2000 figures that

soon will be released " will be the first time (the inventory) will

include dioxins, " an EPA spokesman said.

In people, dioxins can cause cancer, infertility and perhaps other

sexual changes. Vietnam War veterans exposed to dioxin in Agent Orange

say it has caused a variety of ailments, including cancer and birth

defects in their children.

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