NAPALM-DDT Port Arthur Letter

[Center for Public Environmental Oversight <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

The following posting is from Neil Carman -- please respond to him directly.

Subj- URGENT: Sign onto NAPALM-DDT Port Arthur Letter
Date- Sat, 31 Oct 1998 22:59:00 GMT
From- Neil_Carman@greenbuilder.com (Neil Carman)

PLEASE SIGN ONTO the letter to EPA about NAVY NAPALM & DDT SUPERFUND
WASTE from California going to a poor African-American Community in Pt
Arthur, Texas. The community opposes the DDT & Napalm waste incineration.

Reply to me by November 4, 1998 with your name, organization, and
city/state.

Neil Carman
Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter
neil_carman@greenbuilder.com

**********************************************************

NOVEMBER 5, 1998

The Honorable Carol Browner
Administrator
US EPA
401 M Street, SW
Washington, DC 20460 Via Fax 202-260-0279

Dear Administrator Browner:

We have grave concerns regarding the emissions of hazardous air
pollutants from the Port Arthur, Texas incinerator operated by Chemical
Waste Management. A cursory analysis of the emissions shows hundreds of
pounds of mercury and grams of dioxin being released into the community.
The local and most affected community is 100% African-American and low
income, and many consume large amounts of locally caught fish.

Wastes from all over the nation are being shipped to this incinerator,
and most recently, shipments of DDT contaminated soil from the Montrose
Superfund site near Torrance, California and napalm from the Navy's
Fallbrook facility have been burned at the Port Arthur incinerator.

The Port Arthur incinerator is a huge environmental justice issue,
because shipping wastes from sites all over the nation to a
predominately black and poor community in Texas is environmental racism.
The Port Arthur community is already heavily impacted by hazardous air
pollutants being emitted from large complexes of petroleum refineries,
chemical manufacturing plants, petroleum coke processing facilities,
pesticide plants, and miscellaneous manufacturing facilities within
Jefferson county, Texas. Jefferson county, Texas ranked among the top
ten counties in the nation in 1993 for toxic air emissions with
15,826,112 pounds.

At a recent public hearing on the issue of the DDT and napalm waste
shipments to the Port Arthur incinerator, one retired school teacher
testified that he had buried more than 6,000 of his former Port Arthur
students in this relatively small community; he stressed that most all
of them died, not from accidents, but from a variety of unexplained
illnesses. This came as a shocking revelation.

A visit to the Port Arthur incinerator site on October 27th indicated
that there were dangerous, hazardous air pollutants being released
during its operation and made observers ill. Burning eyes, burning skin,
uncontrollable coughing, headaches, nausea, and disorientation were
symptoms all experienced by observers after standing along the fenceline
downwind of the incinerator for only a few minutes.

We are asking for your immediate intervention to protect this community
from further releases of dangerous, hazardous air pollutants. We request
your investigation of the emissions from this facility and their impacts
on human and ecological risks.

Sincerely,

CC: Felicia Marcus, EPA Region 9, Gregg Cooke, EPA Region 6, Senator John
Chafee, Senator Barbara Boxer, Senator Diane Feinstein, Rep. Nick
Lampson, Rep. Gene Green, Rep. Ken Bentsen, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Rep.
Duncan Hunter, Rep. Ron Packard, Rep. Duke Cunningham, Rep. Jane Harmon,
Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., Secretary
William Cohen, Secretary John Dalton