Re: [CPEO-MEF] PRESS RELEASE: Physician Warns Burning Buildingsis Health Risk

[christinebettencourt@earthlink.net]

In Response to Safe Water Around Badger's Concern about burning
contaminated buildings in the name of 'Clean Up' I have this to say; In
1996, I collapsed with my newborn in my arms.  I thought I was going to
die and immediately started praying for God to let me live to raise her.
Then she began screaming, her head turned purple, her swollen, blue
veins stuck out as though they would pop.  I knew something was in the
air, I grabbed my keys and ran to my car heading for the hospital.  I
knew they
would be unprepared so instead I drove an hour down the coast to a
friends.

I returned that evening to learn that the Army contractor at Fort Ord
had generously donated their contaminated buildings to the local fire
agencies for 'training.'  I was told some were barracks with lead based
paint, abstestos and treated with arsenic trichloride.  I contacted the
Army and they promised to warn me before they did it again.  I would
evacuate and ponder and ache in my heart for those who were sick and had
the rare cancers in my neighborhood and decided to try to stop hazardous
waste burnings altogether and this is what I did;

1.  First, I went to the Air District and was told there was nothing
they could do.
2.  I wrote all my elected officials and was ignored.
3. I wrote a letter to the editor which was rejected because they said I
wasn't nice enough to the Army because they were masquerading as good
Samaritans when they were really illegally disposing of hazardous wastes
at the expense of our children's brains.
4.  I rewrote a nicer letter that printed the Air Districts phone
number, who when called referred everyone to the Presidio of Monterey.

This is what happened next;
1.  The Army's newspaper man put in a full page article with a picture
of a burning building complete with firemen hosing it down.  The article
explained these burns were necessary to save our lives.  (Kinda like
burning Fort Ord's thirty square mile munitions landfill of chemical
mutagens to save our lives in case we trespass or pick one up.)
2.   Firemen I contacted to educate yelled at me for costing people
their lives due to lack of training, even though a Fire Chief told me a
total burn down was not necessary because they just needed room for
smoke simulation and the burn down was
the favor for getting the building.
3.  The phone rang off the hook at the Presidio and the burns were
halted.
4.  A moral man on the inside called laughing saying BRAC was really
pissed off at me because it cost them $350, 000 to knock the buildings
down and put them in the leaky onsite general landfill .

I thought who is BRAC, what is going on, I had no idea and when I
figured it out.  I moved, unfortunately downwind and have been stuck
eversince fighting the impact area burning, which they say doesn't count
for burning hazardous wastes because it's not their 'intent.'  Their
intent they say is to burn only the vegetation to look for ordnance.

Good luck Laura and the rest of you and thank God your ready for them.
The less they have to spend money on and the more they get to do studies
the more they get to keep.

Christine Bettencourt
Life2000
PO Box 1852, Greenfield, CA 93927
christinebettencourt@earthlink.net
(831-674-1773




----- Original Message -----
From: <info@cswab.com>
To: cpeo-military <cpeo-military@igc.topica.com>
Sent: Monday, February 03, 2003 1:53 PM
Subject: [CPEO-MEF] PRESS RELEASE: Physician Warns Burning Buildings is
Health Risk


> CSWAB
> Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger
> E12629 Weigand's Bay South - Merrimac, WI  53561
> Phone (608) 643-3124 - Fax (608) 643-0005
> Email: info@cswab.com - Website: www.cswab.com
>
> February 3, 2003
>
> PRESS RELEASE
> For Immediate Release
>
> For more information contact:
> Laura Olah, CSWAB (608)643-3124
> Dr. Christine Ziebold (Email: c_ziebold@yahoo.com)
>
>
> Physician Warns Burning Buildings is Health Risk
>
> Proposed open burning of explosive-contaminated buildings will place
> human health and the environment at risk, according to a statement
> released today by Christine Ziebold, MD, PhD.  Ziebold has a doctorate
> in Pediatrics and Pediatric Infectious Diseases and currently serves
on
> the Restoration Advisory Board for Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant.
> "The proposed open burning of contaminated buildings at Badger Army
> Ammunition Plant, which produced nitrocellulose and
nitroglycerine-based
> propellants in the past, will place human health and the environment
at
> risk," Ziebold said.  "Therefore, open burning cannot be called
> decontamination in the proper sense."
> Ziebold is particularly concerned about how the Army's proposal to
burn
> as many as 100 buildings could affect "sensitive receptors" such as
> children and chronically ill individuals.  "Open burning will
especially
> increase suffering for children, elderly, and all people with
> respiratory problems."
> "Children have narrower airways than adults.  Thus, irritation or
> inflammation caused by air pollution that would produce only a slight
> response in an adult can result in a potentially significant
obstruction
> of the airway in a young child," Ziebold added.  "Air pollution is
known
> to exacerbate asthma and be a trigger for asthma attacks in infants
and
> children."
> The pollutants of greatest concern created with open burning are
> particulate matter and what has been termed "air toxics" (toxic
> substances released to the air).  The so called "criteria pollutants"
> are nitrogen dioxide, a brown colored gas emitted from combustion
> processes.
> "It is an ozone precursor, and can cause health problems by itself in
> sensitive people.  It can also convert to acid rain or to a fine
> particulate, contributing to PM10 levels," she said.  PM10 is made up
by
> fine particles of dust, soot, ash, smoke, metals, and fumes suspended
in
> air.  PM10 is so small that it gets by the human body's natural
> filtration systems and lodges in the deepest, most sensitive areas of
> the lungs.  PM10 often includes toxic components that are absorbed by
> the body through the lungs and skin.
> Residues of the propellants manufactured at Badger are contaminants of
> concern including carbon tetrachloride, trichloroethylene,
> 1,1,1-trichloroethane, chloroform, 2,4- and 2,6-dinitrotoluene and
> benzene.  "Dinitrotoluene and polyaromatic hydrocarbons are
> semi-volatiles, but will become volatilized when burnt," Ziebold said.
> Lead vapors and lead particulates are predicted emissions, according
to
> Plexus Scientific, a contractor working for the Army.  "The
> neurodevelopmental, hematological and endocrinological toxicity of
lead
> is undisputed," Ziebold warned.
>  "Forty-one years of open burning waste propellants and waste process
> chemicals at Badger's Propellant Burning Ground are enough," Ziebold
> concluded.
>
> -END-
>
> NOTE: Dr. Ziebold's complete statement is attached.
>
>
>
> --
> Laura Olah, Executive Director
> Citizens for Save Water Around Badger
> E12629 Weigands Bay S
> Merrimac, WI 53561
> phone: (608)643-3124
> fax: (608)643-0005
> email: info@cswab.com
> website: http://www.cswab.com <http://www.cswab.com/>
>
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