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Arctic Pollution Impact
According to a report by the NAFTA created North American Commission for
Environmental Cooperation, dioxin pollution from TXI and other waste-burning
cement plants in the US and even Mexico is reaching the Arctic circle. Why
is this significant?
1) For the first time, you have a study of continental proportions of how
TXI in Midlothian affects people thousands of miles away in the Arctic! This
is in direct contrast to the long-stated claim by TXI and the state during
TXI's haz waste hearing that TXI's pollution was not a significant threat to
DFW, much less places further north. This study shows how our own local
industries can affect human health far from their smokestacks - it makes the
world smaller. And it should raise questions about the impacts closer to
home, the same questions citizens were raising all along.
2) The dioxin pollution of the Arctic has received lots of press in the
past because of the fact that mothers' milk there contains twice as much of
the poison than mothers' milk sampled in urban areas - yet there are hardly
any local sources of dioxin. It all comes from outside the region, carried
there by the prevailing winds, and gets absorbed by the food chain. Despite
living relatively healthy lives, the Arctic residents are being posisoned by
industries like TXI in the US and Mexico.
3) 70-80% of the Arctic's dioxin pollution is from US sources. Most of
that comes from just three sources - municipal waste incinerators, backyard
burning and cement plants that burn hazardous waste like TXI.
4) The report states that presently, the average person in the US is
carrying around enough dioxin to equal a lifetime cancer risk several
hundred times greater than the generally accepted 1 in a million EPA
standard. This is a real problem for the entire country - but particulalry
for those living around large dioxin polluters like TXI. Although still
high, the national average body burden of dioxin is declining, but nobody
knows if that trend is also true for "downwinders."
5) Threat to food supply. Here's a direct quote from the report's
summary: "For example, the finding that secondary copper smelting and cement
kilns burning hazardous waste in Mexico and Texas are among the top dioxin
contributors to deposition in the Arctic indicates that these sources are
likely to deposit dioxin at much higher rates in the U S-Mexico border area.
It is likely therefore that the US sources are exposing Mexican dairy farms
- and the milk they produce - to dioxin and that Mexican sources have a
similar effect on Texas dairy farms." Although it does not list TXI by name
in the summary of the report, the plant is included in a published appendix.
However, the waste-burning cement plants further north in Kansas, Missouri
and Nebraska are mentioned by name because of their closer proximity and
larger impact on the Arctic environment.
For more info on the report, check out the following wire story or the
report itself at www.cec.org.
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