Many people on this list serve are interested in 'food Security'. It is
notable where food security and the petrochemial industry intersect. In
July, while I watched unstoppable oil spew into the Gulf of Mexico, I made a
suggestion to the ACGA that Petrochemicals should be banned from Community
Gardens and that ACGA could take a leadership role in this respect. We know
that petrochemicals have no place in the garden. Yet they have found their
way there. If we each took a step to reduce the use of petrochemicals it
would be good for our gardens, our food and ourselves. Our communities.
Which is what ACGA is about, gardens and communities. Food security is a
myth, we have none. Read on.
BP Successfully Disposed of the Oil ... In the Gulf Food Chain
There's a great corporate tradition of "disposing" toxic waste by putting it
into things we eat.
For example, some folks have found a great way of disposing of toxic sludge:
they helpfully relabel it as "organic compost" and then give it to people to
grow food in. See this
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ISW/is_250/ai_n6116530/ ), this (
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=7312710
), and this (
http://my.firedoglake.com/jillrichardson/2010/03/07/food-sunday-toxic-sludge-as-organic-fertilizer/
)
.
The Department of Energy also helpfully created the National Center of
Excellence for Metals Recycle (NMR), which allegedly has allowed scrap metal
from nuclear power plants to be recycled into utensils and other consumer
items. See this (DESCRIPTION OF UNRESTRICTED RECYCLING OF CARBON STEEL -
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/source-management/tsd/scrap_tsd_041802_ch5.pdf
)
, this (QUANTITIES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF POTENTIAL SOURCES OF SCRAP METAL
FROM DOE FACILITIES AND COMMERCIAL NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS -
http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/docs/source-management/tsd/scrap_tsd_041802_ch4.pdf
)
, this (U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY BASIC ORDERING AGREEMENT -
http://www.oakridge.doe.gov/procurement/BlankBasicOrder.pdf ), this (Public
Citizen's letter to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission -
http://www.citizen.org/documents/radrecyclingrule.pdf ), this (Getting Its
Foot in the Back Door: Energy Department Could Ignore Process and Quietly
Resume "Recycling" of Potentially Radioactive Metals -
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/pressroomredirect.cfm?ID=972 ), this (Theft
of "Hot" Tools from Utah Facility Shows Dangers of Widespread Release of
Radioactive Materials -
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/pressroomredirect.cfm?ID=1034 ), this (U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY NATIONAL CENTER OF EXCELLENCE FOR METALS RECYCLE -
http://www.wmsym.org/archives/1999/18/18-1.pdf ), this (An
nternatonaApproach to Montorng, Interception & Managing Radioactively
Contaminated Scrap Metal -
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/images/source-management/unce-epa-poster.pdf ),
this (Lawyer Admits to Federal Judge that Radioactive Metals from Atomic
Bomb Factory Could Be Recycled into Children's Braces, Hip-joint
replacements, etc. - http://www.nirs.org/press/04-29-1999/1 ), this
(Warning: Radioactive Materials Released into the Marketplace from Atomic
Complex - http://www.nirs.org/press/10-07-1997/1 ), and this (Out of
Control - On Purpose: DOE's Dispersal of Radioactive Waste into Landfills
and Consumer Products -
http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/outofcontrol/executive_summary.pdf ).
And as I wrote in August:
The government allegedly ordered Manhattan Project scientists to whitewash
the toxicity of flouride (flouride is a byproduct in the production of
weapons-grade plutonium and uranium). As Project Censored noted in 1999:
Recently declassified government documents have shed new light on the
decades-old debate over the fluoridation of drinking water, and have added
to a growing body of scientific evidence concerning the health effects of
fluoride. Much of the original evidence about fluoride, which suggested it
was safe for human consumption in low doses, was actually generated by
"Manhattan Project" scientists in the 1940s. As it turns out, these
officials were ordered by government powers to provide information that
would be "useful in litigation" and that would obfuscate its improper
handling and disposal. The once top-secret documents, say the authors,
reveal that vast quantities of fluoride, one of the most toxic substances
known, were required for the production of weapons-grade plutonium and
uranium. As a result, fluoride soon became the leading health hazard to bomb
program workers and surrounding communities.
Studies commissioned after chemical mishaps by the medical division of
the "Manhattan Project" document highly controversial findings. For
instance, toxic accidents in the vicinity of fluoride-producing facilities
like the one near Lower Penns Neck, New Jersey, left crops poisoned or
blighted, and humans and livestock sick. Symptoms noted in the findings
included extreme joint stiffness, uncontrollable vomiting and diarrhea,
severe headaches, and death. These and other facts from the secret documents
directly contradict the findings concurrently published in scientific
journals which praised the positive effects of fluoride.
Regional environmental fluoride releases in the northeast United States
also resulted in several legal suits against the government by farmers after
the end of World War II, according to Griffiths and Bryson. Military and
public health officials feared legal victories would snowball, opening the
door to further suits which might have kept the bomb program from continuing
to use fluoride. With the Cold War underway, the New Jersey lawsuits proved
to be a roadblock to America's already full-scale production of atomic
weapons. Officials were subsequently ordered to protect the interests of the
government.
After the war, ... the dissemination of misinformation continued. Now, the
nice folks at BP have done a great job of disposing of oil from its spill:
in the Gulf food chain.
As AP notes:
Scientists say they have for the first time tracked how certain nontoxic
elements of oil from the BP spill quickly became dinner for plankton,
entering the food web in the Gulf of Mexico.
***
"Everybody is making a huge deal of where did the oil go," said chief
study author William "Monty" Graham, a plankton expert at the Dauphin Island
Sea Lab in Alabama. "It just became food."
***
Michael Crosby of the Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida didn't take part
in the study but said what fascinated him was that the carbon zipped through
the food web faster than scientists expected. That in itself isn't alarming,
but if the nontoxic part of the oil is moving so rapidly through the food
web, Crosby asks: "What has happened to the toxic compounds of the released
oil?"
***
Graham's study, released Monday, is published in Environmental Research
Letters. It was mostly funded by the National Science Foundation, with
additional money from the state of Alabama and BP's Gulf Research
Initiative, which distributed money through the Northern Gulf Institute in
Mississippi.
Of course, if BP had used standard clean up procedures instead of hiding the
oil with Corexit dispersant, things would have been much better.
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