Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
started to ooze into the basements of the nearby resi-
dents, causing odor and complaints of various health
problems. More importantly, perhaps, the contaminated
liquid was found to have entered the storm sewers and
was being discharged upstream of the water intake for
the Niagara Falls water treatment plant.
The situation reached a crisis point and President
Jimmy Carter declared an environmental emergency in
1978, resulting in the evacuation of 950 families in an
area of 10 square blocks around the canal. But the solu-
tion presented a difficult engineering problem. Excavat-
ing the waste would have been a dangerous undertaking,
and would probably have caused the death of some of the
workers. Digging up the waste would also have exposed it
to the atmosphere resulting in uncontrolled toxic air
emissions. Finally, there was the question as to what
would be done with the waste. Since it was mixed, no
single solution such as incineration would have been ap-
propriate. The US Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) finally decided that the only thing to do with this
dump was to isolate it and continue to monitor and to
treat the groundwater. The contaminated soil on the
school site was excavated, detoxified, and stabilized and
the building itself was razed. All the sewers were cleaned,
removing 62 000 tons of sediment that had to be treated
and moved to a remote site. At the present time, the
groundwater is still being pumped and treated, thus
preventing further contamination.
The cost is staggering, and a final accounting is still not
available. Occidental Chemical paid $129 million and
continues to pay for oversight and monitoring. The rest of
the funds are from the Federal Emergency Management
Agency and from the US Army, which was found to have
contributed waste to the canal.
The Love Canal story had the effect of galvanizing the
American public into understanding the problems of
hazardous waste, and was the impetus for the passage of
several significant pieces of legislation such as the Re-
source Conservation and Recovery Act, the Compre-
hensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act, and the Toxic Substances Control Act. It
also ushered in a new bioethical perspective: ''toxics.''
Bliss obtained his waste oil from the Northeastern
Pharmaceutical and Chemical Company in Verona,
Missouri, which manufactured hexachlorophene, a bacte-
ricidal chemical. In the production of hexachlorophene,
considerable quantities of dioxin-laden waste had to be
removed and disposed. A significant amount of the dioxin
was contained in the ''still bottoms'' of chemical reactors.
Incineration of the wastes was very costly. The company
was taken over by Syntex Agribusiness in 1972, and the
new company decided to contract with Bliss to haul away
the still bottom waste without telling Bliss what was in the
oily substance. Bliss mixed it with other waste oils and he
used it to oil the roads in Times Beach, unaware that the
oil contained high concentrations of dioxin (greater than
2000 ppm), including the most toxic congener, TCDD.
Bliss oiled roads and sprayed oil to control dust, es-
pecially in horse arenas. He used the dioxin-laden oil to
spray the roads and horse runs in nearby farms. In fact, it
was the death of horses in these farms that first alerted
the Center for Disease Control to sample the soil at the
farms. They found dioxin, but did not make the con-
nection with Bliss. Finally in 1979, the US EPA became
aware of the problem when a former employee of the
company told them about the sloppy practices in han-
dling the dioxin-laden waste. The EPA converged on
Times Beach in ''moon suits'' and panic set in among the
populace. The situation was not helped by the message
from the EPA to the residence of the town. ''If you are in
town it is advisable for you to leave and if you are out of
town do not go back.'' In February 1983, on the basis of
an advisory from the Centers for Disease Control, the
EPA permanently relocated all the residents and busi-
nesses at a cost of $33 million. Times Beach was by no
means the only problem stemming from the contami-
nated waste oil. Twenty-seven other sites in Missouri
were also contaminated with dioxins. Most of the dioxin
contamination has since been cleaned up.
The contamination of Times Beach, Missouri, while
affecting much of the town, was not the key reason for the
national attention. The event occurred shortly after the
Love Canal hazardous waste problem was identified and
people were wondering just how extensively dioxin and
other persistent organic compounds were going to be
found in the environment. Times Beach also occurred at
the time when scientists and engineers were beginning to
get a handle on how to measure and even how to treat (i.e.,
by incineration) contaminated soil and water.
Other events, such as the worries about DDT and its
effect on eagles and other wildlife, cryptosporidium
outbreaks, and Legionnaire's Disease, also seem to have
received greater attention due to their timing. This il-
lustrate the importance of timing in bioethical decision
making. One would be hard-pressed to identify a single
event that caused the public concern about the metal
lead. In fact, numerous incremental steps brought the
Times beach
The Time's Beach story is an example of a confluence
of events that can lead to difficult bioethical decisions.
It had inauspicious beginnings. Times Beach was a pop-
ular resort community along the Meramec River, about
17 miles west of St Louis. With few resources, the
roads in the town were not paved and dust on the roads
was controlled by spraying oil. For two years, 1972 and
1973, the contract for road spraying went to a waste oil
hauler, Russell Bliss. The roads were paved in 1973 and
the spraying ceased.
