Officials absent from forum to discuss PCBs (Mount Clemens, MI )

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Officials absent from forum to discuss PCBs

By Tony a, Macomb Daily Staff Writer June 06, 2002

St. Clair Shores resident Jack Doerr wanted to know exactly how much PCB

exposure it would take to negatively affect his health. Resident

Consiglio wanted to know whether PCB contamination had gone airborne and was

affecting others nearby.

Another resident wanted to know why the cleanup of PCBs found in St. Clair

Shores was taking so long.

The three were among more than 100 St. Clair Shores residents and area

environmentalists at South Lake High School on Wednesday night looking for

answers.

But governmental experts handling PCB cleanup in two St. Clair Shores canals

and the adjacent Ten Mile Drain system weren't there.

The discussion, sponsored by a group calling itself, " Toxic Free Shores "

included a speech by an environmental health doctor as well as a public

question and answer session.

Resident Donna Hetzel, who is involved with the group, said she felt the

agencies publicly ducked the resident-run discussion so they could hold

their own meeting.

" I believe if we hadn't gone through with this tonight, they (government

agencies) wouldn't be holding their meeting on the 17th, " she said. " They

would not have taken us seriously. I think this (turnout) shows we have the

respect and clout to pull this together. "

St. Clair Shores City Manager Mark Wollenweber denied that officials were

dodging anything.

" We had tried to work with the group to change the date, because there were

two other meetings already scheduled that night that couldn't be canceled, "

he said.

One meeting included a discussion of revitalizing Harper Avenue, while

another dealt with new development on Jefferson Avenue, he said.

Ginny Narsete, a spokeswoman with the Environmental Protection Agency,

offered a similar explanation that was uniformly approved by the team of six

governmental units working on the PCB cleanup. She attended Wednesday's

meeting to gather questions for a June 17 meeting governmental officials

plan to attend.

It read: " The people qualified to answer citizens' questions by attending

the meeting had previous commitments that could not be canceled. We were

already in the process of coordinating a public informational meeting with

federal, state, county and city officials through Congressman ()

Bonior's office. "

The June 17 meeting will begin at 7:30 p.m. at South Lake High and will draw

representatives from Macomb County Public Works, the city, the EPA, the

Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, The Michigan Department of

Community Health and the Macomb County Health Department.

Dr. R. Harbut, a doctor who works with people exposed to PCBs and

other toxins, applauded residents for their efforts to find out more about

the PCB contamination.

He told residents that there's no definitive safe level of PCB exposure, and

that any exposure is a negative one. He also said PCBs typically don't go

airborne, but warned against swimming in contaminated waters or eating fish

caught in the waterways.

Toxic Free Shores leaders deferred cleanup time line questions to the June

17 meeting.

Concerns over PCB exposure in the city's Lange and Revere streets canals and

adjacent Ten Mile Drain system have been raised since officials confirmed

high levels earlier this year.

In March, experts confirmed PCB levels some 250 times what's safe for human

contact in the two canals while preparing to dredge them deeper for boating

season. Additionally, levels some 120,000 times what's safe for human

contact were confirmed in the adjacent Ten Mile Drain system. A level of

about 1 part PCBs per million is considered safe.

The Ten Mile Drain system is not the same system that brings drinking water

to residents, but snakes through the city along 10 Mile Road, and Jefferson

and Harper avenues before dumping into the canals. The canals connect to

Lake St. Clair.

Since the discovery, residents have raised numerous concerns about the

health risks associated with the contamination. The EPA, working with other

agencies, has conducted several tests and initially said the PCBs pose no

health risk unless someone comes into direct contact with them, either by

touching lake sediment where the PCBs settled or through ingestion.

But residents have since been told it would be best not to swim in the

canals.

An investigation into how the PCBs got into the system continues, but one

theory is someone dumped the chemicals into a storm sewer about a year or so

ago. No definite date of contamination or point source has been confirmed.

PCBs -- short for polychlorinated biphenyls -- are a group of organic

chemicals used largely for industrial purposes such as hydraulic fluids,

adhesives and inks. They were banned from production in 1977 by the federal

government after tests linked them to cancer. Still, the chemicals have

continued to enter the environment, largely through purposeful or improper

disposal methods.

©The Macomb Daily 2002