Re: Chem weapon incin on trial

[KEFWILLI@ACS.EKU.EDU]

Chemical Weapons Working Group
P.O. Box 467, Berea, KY 40403
606-986-7565

Contact: Craig Williams: 801-768-1721
For immediate release: July 23, 1996

STATE OFFICIALS ADMIT SUPPRESSING EVIDENCE OF INCINERATOR
HEALTH RISKS TO BREAST FEEDING INFANTS AND SUBSISTENCE
FARMERS 

SECOND DAY OF UTAH CHEMICAL WEAPONS INCINERATOR TRIAL
REVEALS SECRET RISK ASSESSMENT DOCUMENT

 Salt Lake City (July 23)-- Utah Department of Environmental
Quality Officials revealed that they intentionally
suppressed data on the risks to breast feeding infants and
subsistence farmers in testimony given during the second day
of a hearing on a preliminary injunction to block the start
up of the nation's first mainland chemical weapons
incinerator in Tooele, Utah.
 Utah state officials testified that state's initial risk
assessment, recently discovered by plaintiffs attorneys,
showed risk to the public that exceeded federal guidelines. 
As a result, the Department of Environmental Quality
requested that their contractor remove breast feeding
infants from the risk scenario, and reduce the assumed
exposure to subsistence farmers in its risk assessment. 
The revised risk assessment assumes in one scenario, for
example, that subsistence farmers live on their farms only
175 days a year, and consume no homegrown dairy or vegetable
products. It completely excludes risks to breast feeding
infants, estimated by EPA to be one of the most vulnerable
populations for incinerator produced dioxin and other
chemicals. The EPA estimates that exposure to incinerator
produced dioxins are up to 1000 times greater through the
food chain than by direct inhalation. 
 Marty Grey, DEQ Section Chief of Chemical Demilitarization
testified that after a series of closed meetings between his
agency and the Army, the decision was made to exclude
vulnerable populations from the risk assessment contrary to
standard EPA guidelines. Moreover, he testified that the
explanation for those changes was included in several key
risk documents that had been "destroyed or recycled." 
 Formal requests from the citizens for key risk documents
were repeatedly denied during the development of these risk
assessments. Cindy King, Utah Sierra Club Vice Chair, said
"When I asked for the risk assessments in early 1995 they
told me the numbers were wrong and they would fix them. I
didn't realize what they meant by 'fixing' them."
--more--
UTAH CHEMICAL WEAPONS INCINERATOR TRIAL 
..2...2..2
 In other testimony, Bob Perry, Chief Risk and Safety
Manager for the Army's incineration program, said that
problems that had occurred at the Army's experimental
incinerator on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific, such as blast
gate failures have also been occurring at Tooele during test
burns, even as recently as October, 1995.
 Another witness, Dr. Peter deFur, independent risk
assessment expert and a member of the EPA's Dioxin
Reassessment Panel, testified that risks of cancer and other
serious health problems such as disruption of the immune,
reproductive, and hormone systems are 90-100 times greater
than EPA acceptable risk standards.
 Environmental lawyer Bob Guild, representing the Chemical
Weapons Working Group, Sierra Club , and Vietnam Veteran's
of America Foundation said "the evidence presented shows
significant new health risk and safety hazards requiring
court intervention to halt the Army's rush to burn these
chemical weapons."