06/21/08

If only tiny amounts of dioxins or furans are released in emissions – amounts that are below levels that government regulations say are safe – is there any reason to be concerned?

I ask, because Premier Dalton McGuinty is planning to allow incinerators to be built in Ontario without requiring them to undergo environmental assessments where they can be subjected to rigorous, public examination.

You can be sure that proposals for incinerators, such as the gasification plant planned by Plasco Energy near Ottawa, will come with certification by independent consultants that they are safe.

But that's like having independent witnesses in the Conrad Black trial testify unchallenged – which won't happen. You can be sure they'll be cross-examined.

So, how is it that people in Ontario are expected to accept without challenge that incinerators will be safe, when the issue at stake is not only their own health, but the possible deformation of their as yet unborn children?

Many dioxins and furans are endocrine disruptors; they can scramble messages being delivered by hormones to develop, repair or renew the human body. They can even interfere with the creation of hormones, so that messages are not sent or are sent too late.

This can wreak havoc in the human body and, as Theo Colborn points out in Our Stolen Future (1996, Plume Books, $23 in paperback), it can be caused by seemingly insignificant quantities of endocrine disruptors.

Timing, much more than dosage, is key. Unlike toxins, such as arsenic and other poisons that can be safe under certain levels, endocrine disruptors are dangerous by simply being present at the exact moment that a message is being sent within the body.

Also, unlike toxins, they don't necessarily make people sick, although they can do that too. They can lower intelligence levels, decrease sperm counts, reduce short-term memory, shorten attention spans and, in the case of developing fetuses, create genital deformation.

A recent study in Lancet, the British medical journal, says there is a "silent pandemic" caused by chemicals such as endocrine disruptors that is impairing fetal development. "One in every six children has a developmental disability..." it says, adding that "3 per cent of developmental disabilities are the direct result of environmental exposure ... and another 25 per cent arise through interactions between environmental factors and genetic susceptibility."

The study, published in December, is entitled Developmental Neurotoxicity of Industrial Chemicals, and can be found at www.thelancet.com.

Another study, appearing in Environmental Health Perspectives (June 2006, page 810), says that during gasification-type incineration, nanoparticles can be emitted. They are so small (less than one ten-thousandth of a millimetre) that they can penetrate the walls of human cells. In other words, once into the lungs, they can insert themselves into blood cells.

Plasco executives note that there are no government regulations dealing with nanoparticles. However, they offer assurances that their plant "will remove most or all of such particles as do exist." They also say they have proved experimentally that levels of dioxins and furans will be below detection levels.

The premier shouldn't be in such a rush to accept such assertions, credible as they may sound. People who will be breathing incinerator emissions, and especially expectant parents, deserve to have such statements cross-examined in public.

Cameron Smith can be reached at camsmith@kingston.net