Lost momentum

Report says many Superfund sites not being cleaned
By AMANDA BENSEN
Published in The Post-Star (A1) 5/15/07

A new report by the Center for Public Integrity depicts the federal Superfund program as underfunded and sluggish, failing to clean up many of the hazardous waste sites that threaten communities nationwide.

CPI, a Washington-based, nonpartisan, nonprofit group that investigates public policy issues, used data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and interviews with government officials to study the effectiveness of the federal Superfund program.

In a report titled "Wasting Away," researchers concluded that the program has "lost both momentum and funding" since its inception in 1980, especially under the administration of President George W. Bush.

"Nearly half of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of one of the 1,304 active and proposed Superfund sites listed by the EPA," the study stated.

There are four federal Superfund sites in our area: the General Electric-Hudson River PCB site, a former GE plant in Malta where rocket fuels and weapons were tested and made, the Niagara Mohawk coal gasification plant in Saratoga Springs, and the former GE plant in Moreau. There are also numerous state Superfund sites in the region.

The study notes that cleanup work was started at about 145 sites in the past six years, but the startup rate was nearly three times as high in the previous six years.

Similarly, an average of 42 sites a year have reached what the EPA calls the "construction complete" phase of cleanup under the Bush administration, with twice as many sites reaching completion in the previous six years.

Joel Singerman, the EPA's chief remediation officer in central New York, suggested that the slowing rate of cleanups is actually a sign of the program's strength.

"The worst sites were probably captured in the beginning," he said.

New York has the third-most Superfund sites of all U.S. states, with 110 listed and only 23 of those completely cleaned up. Seventy percent of the state's sites contain at least one of what the government ranks as the top five most hazardous chemicals found on Superfund sites: arsenic, lead, mercury, vinyl chloride and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

Singerman's division oversees the four sites in Warren, Washington and Saratoga counties that fall under federal Superfund jurisdiction on what is called the National Priorities List. The other 41 hazardous waste sites in this region are supervised by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's Superfund program, rather than the EPA.

Taking the 'fund' out of Superfund

The budget for the state Superfund program has risen 25 percent in the last four years, with two-thirds of that funding drawn from "responsible parties," the companies responsible for pollution at specific sites.

But at the federal level, Superfund seems to be drying up. In fact, the fund itself is largely a figure of speech.

It contained $3.8 billion at its peak 11 years ago, but lost its source of revenue in 1995 with the expiration of a law that levied fees and taxes on corporate polluters.

Now, the EPA has only general tax dollars to channel toward the nearly 400 "orphan sites" where no one else has taken responsibility for cleanup work, and those dollars are dwindling.

The EPA's budget for the Superfund program was $1.47 million in 1993, and shrank slightly in nearly every year since then, falling to $1.24 million in fiscal year 2006. That represents a 15 percent decline -- closer to 35 percent when adjusted for inflation.

Elizabeth Sutherland, director of the EPA's Superfund assessment and remediation division, said she disagrees with the CPI's claim that the program is underfunded.

"If you look at the statistics, our budget has stayed constant, relatively speaking, over the years," she said. "Of course, like any big public works project, we could absorb more money."

Singerman agreed that federal funding for the program has diminished, but said that hasn't affected sites in this region so far. He said that's because most of the funding at these sites comes from the polluters, not the government.

"We've been fairly successful in getting responsible parties to do most of the work," he said. "We haven't had to pinch any pennies at these sites, although I can't guarantee it in the future."

Even when the companies responsible for pollution agree to fund cleanups, however, the EPA has to "front the money" for certain oversight costs, Singerman said.

"So if we can't afford to send a contractor to the work, go to meetings, etc., that would be a problem," he said.

On the local level

The most publicized Superfund cleanup in this region is the Hudson River, which had been on the National Priorities List for 23 years before construction began this spring on a facility to process PCB-containing sediment dredged from the riverbottom.

General Electric Co., the company that released the PCBs into the river, is one of the top 12 "potentially responsible parties" linked to the highest number of Superfund sites nationally, according to the Center for Public Integrity's recent study. The study identified 98 sites at which General Electric may be at least partially responsible for pollution, plus 18 which have been cleaned up and de-listed.

Locally, General Electric is linked to three of the four federal Superfund sites, including its plant in Moreau, the Hudson River, and a 165-acre Malta site once used to test and produce rocket fuels and weapons.

Remedies are in the "construction complete" phase in both Moreau and Malta, but treating contaminated groundwater at the sites could take many more years, said Singerman.

"We can't delete a site from the National Priorities List until everything's cleaned up, including the groundwater, and that's not easy," he said. "There are very few sites where we are able to identify and dig up the contamination and be done in a short amount of time."

The Malta site is within the proposed Luther Forest Technology Campus, where Advanced Micro Devices is considering building a major facility.

The EPA's most recent five-year review of remediation efforts at the site recommends that any changes in the land's use should be carefully evaluated, "especially if a facility such as a day-care center is included in the redevelopment plans."

It also notes that developers may need to find off-site potable water supply sources, because new wells are prohibited near a major plume of contaminated groundwater on the site.

The fourth local site is a former Niagara Mohawk coal gasification plant in Saratoga Springs, where the soil was highly contaminated with coal tar and toxic chemicals like benzene and napthalene. It was placed on the National Priorities List in 1990, and construction of a permanent containment wall and groundwater treatment system began in 2001.

Looking forward

If any other hazardous waste sites in the region are added to the list, they are not guaranteed to receive federal funding, said Pat Carr, a regional EPA press officer.

"It's the new cleanups that compete for the dollars," she said, explaining that the EPA's regional offices must compete with each other for federal dollars left over after all ongoing cleanups have been funded for a given year. "So it's possible that there could be a site somewhere that doesn't get funded."

The CPI study asserts that many Superfund cleanups have been completed more slowly than necessary because existing funds are spread too thin among other sites, and sometimes delayed intentionally.

Carr argued that it just isn't realistic to expect each site to be fully funded simultaneously.

"You cannot fund 100 percent of the sites all at once," she said.

Singerman said he would like to see the Superfund program keep shrinking, but not because of budget cuts.

"Hopefully, there's an end," he said. "When you have identified and investigated all the sites, and you're out of work -- then you've been successful."

LOGGING ON:
Center for Public Integrity report: www.publicintegrity.org/superfund
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's listing of federal Superfund sites, searchable by county: http://www.epa.gov/region2/cleanup/sites/
New York Department of Environmental Conservation's listing of state Superfund sites, searchable by county:
http://www.dec.ny.gov/cfmx/extapps/derfoil/index.cfm

First-time fishing

Published in The Post-Star (G1)
5/3/07

The last time I was anywhere near a fishing pole, I threw a tantrum.

I cried and staged a PETA-worthy protest as my father smacked a writhing, gasping rainbow trout down on the dock during a family vacation to Colorado.

"Put it back! Put it back! It's dying!" I screamed.

"Well, you didn't want to eat it alive, did you?" he asked with infuriating logic.

It smelled delicious at the dinner table that night, but I refused to eat even a bite of the "poor little fish." Well, except the bite I snuck from my brother's plate when he wasn't looking. Darn. It did taste as good as it smelled.

About 17 years later, I decided it was time to confront my childish squeamishness. I've always enjoyed eating fish -- why shouldn't I enjoy catching them? Besides, people who fish talk about it like it's some kind of religion.

I wanted to be hooked, too.

CE Skidmore and I headed north on Monday for an afternoon of fishing with Michael West, whose family runs The Crossroads store in Chestertown. After buying a license, a basic rod and reel combo, and a cup of live "dilly" worms, we set off for Mill Creek, a few miles up the road in Wevertown.

I started by getting hooked a bit too literally, jabbing my own fingers several times as I struggled to work the barb through the body of a wriggling worm. I thought I was being terribly mature, but looking back at the pictures, I see I actually looked more like a 5-year-old concentrating fiercely on learning to tie her shoes.

West, a friendly outdoorsman who looks like an L.L. Bean model, must deal with a lot of first-time fishers. He didn't seem at all bothered by my basic lack of hand-eye coordination when it came to tying the hook onto the line. He didn't snicker when I closed my eyes as I ripped a worm in half. And he was thoughtful enough to point out that I should only remove my index finger -- not both hands -- from the pole when I cast it into the river. (Seriously, that's something I can see myself doing.)

I wasn't very good at aiming into the spots he suggested, but I was thrilled every time I simply managed to land the hook in the river. And on a sunny spring day like that, it was easy to fall in love with fishing.

West told us it was going to be tricky to catch anything, since the water was running so high and fast, but he was wrong. We caught a lot of things: the river bottom, some rocks and leaves, several tree branches, and even each others' lines. No fish, though.

No tantrums, either, on the plus side.

--

GEARING UP:
Fishing doesn't have to be an expensive hobby; first-timers can get started for under $50. You'll need:
-- A license, unless you are under 16 years old. A one-week license for New York residents costs $12, but it's a better deal to get the whole season for $19. Senior citizens cost just $5.
-- A basic rod and reel with line, $20 and up
-- Hooks, $1 and up
-- Sinkers or split-shot (non-lead metals), $1 and up
-- Bait, such as live worms (type depends on fish)
-- A cooler, or at least a plastic bag, in case you catch something
-- Pliers or a pocketknife to cut tangled line and remove hooks


WHAT'S IN SEASON:
-- Trout, landlocked salmon, kokanee, shad, sunfish, American eel, lake whitefish, crappie, striped bass, black bass (catch and release only until June 15). Opening May 5: walleye, northern pike, pickerel and tiger muskellunge.


LOGGING ON: More information on freshwater fishing is available from the New York state Department of Environmental Conservation: http://www.dec.state.ny.us/website/dfwmr/fish/

Good as new

Published in The Post-Star (D1)
4/29/07

Editor's Note: This is one in an occasional series on skills or traditions that are fading away.

When a shoe gets tired, most Americans would rather give it the boot than a little TLC.

"It's a disposable world out there," said Patrick Merrill, who has run Merrill's Shoe and Leather Repair on Main Street for the last 24 years. His grandfather, Alfred Nicolai, ran a shoe repair
business on Main Street in Hudson Falls for 60 years before that.

At 45, Merrill's not planning to retire anytime soon, but he recognizes that he's an anachronism in modern American culture.

"Even in the years that I've been here, things have changed," he said. "I don't think getting shoes repaired is something most people are brought up with anymore."

The Shoe Service Institute of America estimates that the number of shoe repair shops has declined by more than 90 percent in the last century, and only about 10 percent of Americans still get shoes repaired.

That doesn't mean business is slow for Merrill, however. His closest remaining competitors are in Clifton Park and Plattsburgh, giving him a monopoly on what's left of the market.

"My customers are usually in a good mood, because they're happy to find me," he said. "People bring me all sorts of things, anything that needs to be patched, sewn or fixed, because nobody repairs anything anymore."

Joe Podnorszki, a local landscaper, stopped in last week to pick up a pair of work boots that had been resoled. He has a tipping point for getting shoes repaired -- it's not worth it unless they cost more than $50. But he used to do things differently.

"I originally came from Budapest (Hungary)," he said, where, during the Communist era, many goods were scarce. "There, you almost had to get repairs."

Dress shoes used to be the bread and butter of the repair business, Merrill said, but people don't dress up as much as they used to. When they do, they often wear cheap imports that aren't worth repairing.

"I wear sneakers myself, because I'm on my feet all day," he said. "I know, it's funny, the shoe guy doesn't repair his own shoes!"

He still gets customers who find it worth repairing expensive dress shoes, but he has moved into other niches, too.

In the back of the shop, leather jackets bearing the emblems of several motorcycle clubs hang next to police jackets -- perhaps closer than some of them would like to be in real life, he notes with a grin. He also patches chaps, sews on zippers, restrings baseball gloves and even fixes scuba gear. He draws the line at larger projects.

"I've had people bring in old car seats and even a boat cover. I'm just not set up for that."

Recently, he's discovered a growing niche: orthopedic lifts.

"Hip replacement is a pretty common procedure these days, and when the bones heal up, they're not always level," he explained, as he brushed glue onto a 3/4-inch thick piece of rubber and pressed it against the sole of a white tennis shoe.

Other things haven't changed much. The stitching machines in Merrill's shop are at least half a century old, handed down from his grandfather, and he still relies on glue, sandpaper and elbow grease.

Although he gets brochures in the mail about trade shows, Merrill rarely pays attention. It's hard to imagine what new tricks they could teach him, anyway. He's been fixing shoes since he was 8 or 9, helping out in his grandfather's shop.

"It all seemed cool then, you know, the machines and all that," he said. "I just grew up with it. I don't have to think, I just do it."

On the other hand, Merrill said, it's not a dream job.

"People ask me how many shoes I've done in my life. I tell them if I knew the answer, I would probably throw myself in front of the next bus," he joked. "I mean, do I get up in the morning and say, 'Hey! I get to repair shoes!' No, but I don't mind it either. I like being my own boss."

He hopes his 16-year-old son will find an easier way to make a living but, personally, Merrill said he plans to stick with the business for a long time.

"At this point, I plan on going to the finish line with it," he said. "When they shovel dirt on me, I'm retired."

A man with many hats

Published in The Post-Star (D1)
4/28/07

Paul Pines is a poet, professor and psychotherapist — an alliterative coincidence that suits someone who sees everything in life as grist for the creative mill.

At a few weeks shy of 66, Pines has already collected several lifetimes’ worth of grist. He’s been a jazz club owner and a cabbie in New York City; a Vietnam vet who found temporary paradise on the beaches of Belize; and a novelist who dabbled in cheap erotic fiction to pay the bills.

These days, he’s living what he calls "a very suburban life, on the surface of things." He’s a husband and father, the kind of guy who seems at home in an armchair with a dog at his feet and a cluttered bookshelf at his back. He plans to retire this spring from teaching creative writing and literature at Adirondack Community College, although he will continue his psychotherapy practice at Glens Falls Hospital.

There’s a surprising lack of nostalgia in Pines’ descriptions of his bohemian past. While you could view his last two decades as comparatively dull, he gratefully calls this time "my second incarnation," a chance to reflect on things below the surface.

"There are people who go on forever collecting experiences, and they become repetitious," Pines said recently. "For me, the completion of that particular stage of my life ... freed me to grow in other areas of my life. Now my adventures are in the emotional realm."

In his latest book, "Taxidancing," a collection of poems to be published this fall by Ikon, Pines included aspects of both his past and present.

"Half of them are poems I wrote while living in the jazz world and others were written much more recently," he explained. "I thought it would be interesting to have those side by side."

The title is a play on words, adding whimsy to the mundanity of taxis weaving through traffic to pick up fares. It’s also a reference to the "taxi dancers" of the Great Depression, women who charged men by the dance for companionship. Pines is fond of images that combine beauty with a hint of something darker, and believes that pairing lies at the heart of jazz.

"The juxtaposition of sublime music and danger is really what, to some extent, jazz has been about," he said.

He recalled a jazz club he frequented in the 1960s in New York.

"It was called Slug’s Saloon, and it was like the gateway to Hades. There was this sublime music, but drugs were passed around openly, and a great trumpet player got shot right on stage."

When he opened his own jazz club, The Tin Palace, in the Bowery section of Lower Manhattan in 1970, Pines said he "took great care" not to let it go the way of Slug’s. Drug use was forbidden on the premises, although he didn’t ask what people did out on the sidewalk.

"My idea was to create an environment in this sort of no-man’s land that was safe for the arts," he said. "It became very exciting."

Some jazz greats performed at the Tin Palace during the ’70s, he said, including David Murray, Claudio Roditi, Henry Threadgill, Hilton Ruiz and Eddie Jefferson. Pines eventually closed the club and moved to Central America, but he used it as the setting for a mystery novel, "Tin Angel," published in 1983.

"Tin Angel" got strong reviews in The New York Times and other high-profile publications, was translated into several languages and even optioned for a French film (though that never materialized). It also earned Pines a six-month fellowship from the New York State Council on the Arts as a writer-in-residence at Crandall Public Library.

Pines only meant to visit Glens Falls, figuring he could earn enough money here to live for a year in Belize, where, after the Vietnam War, he had bought a few acres of beachfront property with a buddy from the Merchant Marines.

But one dinner changed everything.

He met his wife, Carol — an aspiring opera singer who, it turns out, lived in uptown Manhattan at the same time he lived downtown — while tossing a salad at a mutual friend’s house.

"We kind of fell in love in about five minutes," Carol said. "I just had a sense of his tremendous depth of spirit and humor. And I know this sounds corny, but there was that sense of finding a soulmate."

As Pines puts it: "We just knew." They were married in October 1985.

His next book, "Redemption," took on U.S. involvement in a genocide in Guatemala. Pines’ agent in America said he couldn’t sell the book, although an editor in France accepted it.

"The subject matter was not what people wanted," Pines said. "I was deeply upset about not having it out in English, just devastated. I stopped writing everything except poetry for a while."

When Pines did return to book writing, his next two attempts were also rejected by an agent as "not big enough" to sell. He sees this as evidence that what used to be considered "mid-list" fiction is disappearing from the market.

"The problem is that fiction is no longer a marketable form, unless it’s genre fiction," Pines said. "We have a public that’s no longer reading. And when they do, they don’t want endings that are too dark. They want to be reassured that they will live eternally, be young and triumphant."

This doesn’t mean that writers should stop writing, Pines said. It means, he tells his ACC students, that "you had better enjoy the process, and find ways to support yourselves."

And, in his view, it doesn’t matter whether the support comes in the form of a prestigious arts grant or churning out cheap paperbacks under a pen name.

"Every moment I’ve lived is subject matter," he said. "Your moments can be as dispensable as refuse, or as valuable as you choose to make them."

My trip to Africa

Published in The Post-Star (B1)
4/22/07

Four down, three to go.

As a senior in high school, I naively included "travel to every continent" in the "future plans" section of my yearbook profile. It seemed achievable, since of course I would have a fabulous job as a ... well, I didn't really know. As a professional traveler, I guess.

Earlier this month, I got my first taste of Africa on a vacation to Kenya and Uganda.
My college roommate, Jenna, lives and works in Kijabe, Kenya, a rural village about an hour northwest of Nairobi on the edge of the Great Rift Valley. She is the assistant to the director of a hospital run by CURE International, a Christian medical charity that works in developing countries to treat children with disabilities like clubfoot, cleft palate, spina bifida and hydrocephalus.

I started saving for a plane ticket almost immediately after Jenna moved. My friends all know that gaining an international zip code basically guarantees I'll visit them, even if I only saw them once a year when they lived within driving distance.

My childhood friend Courtney joined me on the trip. She teaches global studies at a high school in western New York, and fell in love with Africa after taking an educational vacation to Uganda last year. We left New York City for Nairobi (a 19-hour trip via London) for 10 days on April 6.

These are some of the highlights:

April 7
The night air felt wonderfully balmy -- around 70 degrees -- as we stepped outside the Nairobi airport, but I noticed that the locals were wearing warm jackets and hats. From their slightly sub-equatorial perspective, this was practically winter.

April 8
We visited an outdoor tribal crafts market, and came away with ebony wood carvings, brightly striped scarves and hematite jewelry. I knew that simply being a "mzungu" (Swahili for "white person") meant I would get charged extra, but enjoyed the game of haggling. Strangest deal of the day: a soapstone dish in exchange for my used ballpoint pen (the guy grabbed the pen and wouldn't give it back, so I really didn't have a choice). I turned down a similar offer involving my sunglasses.

Then we went to the animal orphanage in Nairobi National Park. The warthogs were ugly, the ostrich was goofy and the lions were magnificent, as expected, but the unexpected highlight was walking into the cheetahs' cage with their keeper to pet them. Apparently, growing up around humans had made them quite tame. They purred like overgrown housecats at our touch.

April 9
Potholes the size of wading pools had eaten most of the road to the Nakuru wildlife preserve, a dusty three-hour drive from Kijabe. We passed people plowing fields and digging ditches by hand, or walking for miles between towns with heavy bundles balanced on their heads. I bet they would laugh out loud at the idea of paying for a fitness club membership.

Our van had a pop-up roof that provided a vantage point for safely viewing the animals in the park. Baboons came the closest, often gathering on the roadside to watch us watch them. The rhinoceroses only allowed us some distant photographs of their departing backsides, but the zebras were more flirtatious, sometimes galloping across the road within yards of our van. The giraffes stood in shady patches, tugging mouthfuls of leaves off the trees, and looked mildly amused by our excitement at spotting them.

Flamingoes gathered by the thousands on the shore of Lake Nakuru, forming a bright pink ribbon visible from miles away. We walked along the beach and took photos as the birds poked at the sand in the shallows, seeking food and murmuring to each other. Their gentle cacophony sounded like a nursery full of just-waking babies.

April 10-11
I was expecting to rough it on this trip, and was surprised to discover not only indoor plumbing and clean drinking water in Kijabe, but high-speed Internet access. We stayed in a lovely home owned by American missionary doctors who were away on vacation.

A walk into the village outside the medical compound revealed humbler neighborhoods -- houses cobbled together from scraps of metal and wood; cement-faced shops with quirky handpainted signs like "Photocopy Hello Services Etc." and "Barbers Ghetto Haircut" -- but the kids running around seemed happy and healthy.

A man named Samuel came to clean the house, and we started chatting about U.S. politics. Like many Kenyans, Samuel was fascinated by Barack Obama, and knew as much (if not more) about the 2008 presidential race as the average American. He predicts that Hillary Clinton will lose the Democratic nomination to Obama, "because people would not like to have a woman in charge."

Some of Jenna's Kenyan friends came over for dinner. We ate chicken, ugali (cornmeal paste formed into a thick, breadlike patty), scuma (like shredded kale or spinach cooked with spices), and fish stewed in coconut milk. Following their lead, I ate with my hands, using the ugali as a utensil to pick up the scuma and fish sauce. Delicious.

April 12
We flew to Entebbe, Uganda today. Jenna's friend Sam (another CURE staffer) picked us up at the airport to drive us to our hotel in Kampala. Jenna asked what great plans he had to entertain us, and got a chilling response.

"The plan is to keep you safe," he said. "There are riots in the city. Three people have already been killed."

Sam explained the Ugandan government wants to sell part of a national nature preserve -- Mabira Forest -- to an Indian sugar corporation (not coincidentally, one in which the government owns a majority stake) that would cut down the trees and plant sugarcane. Many Ugandans were outraged by this move, and had organized a major protest in Kampala. Police broke their promise not to use tear gas and bullets, protesters broke their promise to be peaceful, and things got ugly in a hurry. An Indian motorcyclist was stoned to death; a journalist was run over by a car; shops were looted and cars were set on fire.

We were also 1)riding in a vehicle that had been donated to CURE by the government, and still looked official enough that the rioters might target us, and 2)nearly out of diesel, and had already tried three gas stations that were out due to a national shortage. Traffic was snarled by numerous breakdowns as people had no choice but to drive until they ran out of fuel.

Using side roads, we made it to Sam's gated house on the city's outskirts. He kept us there until things calmed down. When we drove through downtown that evening to reach our hotel, the streets were scarred with stones, broken glass and burnt debris, but a fierce rainstorm had dispelled the crowd. To my relief, we managed to find a gas station with some diesel left to sell.

The next day, the government-aligned newspaper blamed the violence on long-standing racial tension between blacks and Indians in Uganda, and focused on the death of the motorcyclist. They didn't explain how the other two victims were killed -- probably by police firing on the crowd.

April 13
After stocking up on more souvenirs at an outdoor market, we went to Mukono, a village just outside Kampala. Courtney's friend Nora lives there, and brought us to visit her daughter Comfort's boarding school. Uganda's public school system is so weak that parents must struggle to find the fees for boarding school if they want their kids to get a decent education.

We were quickly mobbed by children fascinated by our foreignness and fancy cameras. I was surprised at how simple the living conditions were, since "boarding school" in the U.S. is usually equated with wealth and privilege. Here, kids slept in bunks stacked three high in warehouselike rooms, washed themselves and their clothes in plastic basins outside, and all wore the same close-shaved haircuts and simple green uniforms.

Comfort was a shy, endearing 9-year-old who said she wants to be a doctor someday. I asked her what she planned to do on her upcoming school vacation. "Help my mother with doing dishes and sweeping the house," she said. (Note to parents: See what happens when TV and Nintendo aren't an option?)

Trips like this always remind me that even though I sometimes feel "poor" compared to my American peers, I'm rich by the standards of many others in the world. I could see it in the eyes of the African kids, and even in some of the adults'. They looked at us so hopefully, as though we might have superhero capes tucked beneath our sweaty T-shirts. I wish we did.

Mercury rising

Published in The Post-Star (A1)
April 8, 2007

A recent study warns of widespread mercury contamination in the Adirondacks after scientists found high levels of the dangerous element in the picturesque wilderness and wildlife that personify the region.

"I do a lot of work in the Adirondacks, so I knew the concentrations were high. But to put all this together, and learn that 10 of the top 13 species of fish had average concentrations above the EPA guidance value — to me, that’s unbelievable!" said Charles Driscoll, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Syracuse University. He led the mercury study, which includes the central Adirondacks on a list of five confirmed biological mercury hot spots in the Northeast.

Driscoll worked with scientists from Clarkson University and the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation, a New Hampshire-based nonprofit group that studies forest ecosystems. The team spent three years analyzing data from more than 6,800 observations of seven wildlife species in the Adirondacks and New England. The results, which were published in a January 2007 study called "Mercury Matters," shocked him.

Mercury is fairly harmless in its elemental form, but when it enters watersheds and lakes, it gets transformed into a much more mobile and toxic form called methyl mercury. Then it bioaccumulates, becoming more concentrated at higher levels of the food chain. As it moves from water, to plankton, to fish, to birds, methyl mercury can increase in concentration by a factor of up to 10 million, Driscoll said.

And when it gets into people’s bodies, mercury contamination has been linked to heart disease and reduced brain function.

Stressed species

In the central Adirondacks, researchers found that 25 percent of common loons have blood mercury levels that exceed the wildlife health threshold of 3.0 parts per million, putting the already fragile population at risk of further decline. Mercury accumulates in loons’ bodies from eating contaminated fish, and can cause brain lesions, spinal cord degeneration, difficulty flying and swimming and lowered reproductive success, according to the study.

"The loon already has a variety of stresses on it ... it doesn’t need this one," said John Sheehan, spokesman for the environmental group the Adirondack Council. He said New York state considers the loon "a species of concern," which is one step down from the endangered species list.

"It’s one of the signature species in the park. I can’t tell you how many tourists come back just for the opportunity to hear them at night," Sheehan said.

High mercury levels were also found in the flesh of yellow perch sampled from both the west and central Adirondacks, with concentrations averaging twice the health threshold. In addition to contaminating wildlife above it on the food chain, like loons, this poses a human health risk to anyone who eats fish from the region.

In humans, mercury is a powerful neurotoxin that can interfere with brain development, leading to learning disabilities and reduced cognitive function in children of women who eat large amounts of fish during pregnancy. One recent study estimated that prenatal mercury exposure affects between 200,000 and 400,000 children born in the U.S. each year. In adults, mercury exposure has been linked to higher risk of heart attacks.

A double whammy

Nearly every U.S. state has issued one or more fish-consumption advisories related to mercury in the last several years, indicating that the problem is widespread. But the Adirondacks are especially susceptible after experiencing decades of acid rain, Driscoll said.

Sulfur and nitrogen emissions from Western power plants tend to blow East and get "wrung out" over the Adirondacks, changing the pH balance of the soil and water.

"It’s naturally sensitive, but you have a sort of double whammy with the acid rain," he said.

Scientists have found that adding sulfuric acid to a lake or wetland causes a bacterial interaction that leads to increased production of methyl mercury.

It could also mean mercury has less opportunity for "biodilution," Driscoll said.

"One idea is that the acid rain has affected the number and productivity of organisms in lake, so the mercury gets distributed at a very high level among the fish that are left," he explained.

A third factor is that acidified lakes inhibit a natural process that removes mercury from water by transforming it into a gas, he added.

Mercury contamination is often strongest in shallows and wetlands, which Sheehan noted are "cradles of aquatic life — exactly where you don’t want to have it."

Controlling coal

Coal-fired power plants are currently the largest source of mercury emissions in the U.S., the study found. Although total mercury emissions in the U.S. were cut in half from 1990 to 2002, that reduction was mostly due to stricter pollution controls for waste incinerators.

The amount of mercury emitted by coal-fired power plants declined only 13.7 percent over the same time period, from 116,000 pounds to 100,000 pounds.

The HRBF study suggests that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s national models have underestimated the extent of mercury deposition in areas near coal-fired utilities and other large emission sources.

"The EPA had suggested that local sources probably weren’t that significant," Driscoll said. "But we applied a local-scale model."

Looking specifically at an area near a coal-fired power plant in southern New Hampshire, the HBRF team found levels of mercury deposition that were four to five times higher than levels estimated by the EPA’s model.

Their study noted that the bulk of emissions from coal-fired power plants in the Northeast are in the form of reactive gaseous mercury, which generally travels no more than 150 miles from its source.

Sheehan and other environmentalists think that should raise a red flag about emissions trading, a policy that allows facilities emitting less than the maximum pollution allowance to sell "credits" to facilities that exceed the allowance.

"Trading is not a bad way of going about controlling nitrogen and sulfur pollution, but those are pollutants where a temporary shift of the geographic source doesn’t have a real profound effect on the community," Sheehan said. "But with mercury ... it really takes very little to make people sick. A slight increase here or there could cause damage to public health."

The EPA’s 2005 Clean Air Mercury Rule established a cap-and-trade system for mercury emissions and decided that coal-fired power plants no longer qualified for regulation under the Clean Air Act, a move that New Jersey and other states recently challenged in court. That case is now in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

The Adirondack Mountain Club filed a brief in the appeal in January 2007, arguing that the CAMR "is an illegal attempt to weaken the strict mercury controls set forth in the Clean Air Act" and would perpetuate mercury hot spots in the Northeast.

The good news

The HBRF team’s case study of New Hampshire, a state that implemented strict mercury emissions controls in the mid-1990s, found that mercury levels in loons decreased rapidly in response to decreased local pollution.

"It was amazing, almost instantaneous!" Driscoll said. "We don’t know if it is a one-shot deal or if it can apply to other areas, but it’s encouraging."

Sheehan said he’s looking forward to 2010, when the Clean Air Interstate Rule goes into effect to reduce sulfur and nitrogen pollution in the eastern U.S. That will mean less acid rain for the Adirondacks, and could have other benefits.

"The good news is that reductions in those things are hard to make without making cuts in mercury, too, so the people who live around the plants should be getting healthier, too," he said.

Driscoll hopes the HBRF study will encourage policymakers to implement a comprehensive mercury emissions monitoring program, such as the one proposed in March by Sen. Hillary Clinton and others.

"These types of monitoring programs are not in place for mercury, so we have no idea how emissions control programs are working," Driscoll said. "I’m just a lowly researcher ... but if you’re talking about a multibillion dollar program that involves a significant health component ... it seems to me it’s a no-brainer that you want to know if it works."

LOGGING ON
EPA mercury information: www.epa.gov/mercury/
Current fish consumption advisories in New York state: www.health.state.ny.us/environmental/outdoors/fish/fish.htm
Mercury Matters study: www.hubbardbrookfoundation.org
Adirondack Mountain Club brief: www.adk.org/issues/Mercury.aspx
Adirondack Cooperative Loon Program: www.adkscience.org/loons/

Barber retires after 40 years

Published in The Post-Star

April 1, 2007

QUEENSBURY -- Locks of white, gray and black hair mingled on the floor of Jack's Barber Shop, forming a soft carpet under Jack Wright's feet by mid-morning.

He didn't have time to stop and sweep them up. Even without an appointment book, he almost always had a customer in his old-fashioned barber's chair, and several more flipping through the hunting and fishing magazines in the waiting area.

Last week, all of them were talking about the same thing.

"I don't know what I'm gonna do, where I'm gonna go," complained John Hoey, 79, a longtime customer. "He's the best barber in the area."

After 40 years of barbering, Wright retired Friday, giving his last cuts and shaves at his Main Street shop near Exit 18.

"I came for the last call. I don't really need a haircut, but I figured I better get one while I can," said Jack Woods, 65, a retired school custodian from Corinth who came in Thursday morning.

"It's worth driving over here," Woods added. "I used to be on the Village Board, and he'd ask me how things were going in the village -- but a lot of the time, he'd know more about it than I did! They say women are gossips, but men are just as bad, you know."

Wright agreed.

"I hear more confessions than a priest does, I tell you!" he said, grinning. "And I have a few priests that come in, too!"

But, he said, whenever his wife asked him if he heard anything interesting that day, he'd just shake his head.

"I would tell her, nope, nobody said a thing," he said. "What goes on in the barbershop, stays in the barbershop."

Wright grew up in South Glens Falls and became a barber's apprentice in 1967, after four years in the Navy. He opened his own shop on Route 9 in 1971, and moved to Main Street in 1982.

Barbershops like this used to be a community gathering place, Wright said, but he has seen a lot change in the last few decades.

"That's the part of the business I miss, all the neighborhood people just coming in to chat," he said. "People today, they just want to get their haircut and leave. Everybody's in a hurry."

Wright smeared a bit of lather on the back of a customer's neck, wielding a straight-edge razor as calmly as a putty knife. A handmade sign above the mirror displayed the current prices: "Haircuts $9.00, Beard Trim $2.00"

"When I started out, haircuts were 75 cents," he said. "That was a few days ago, wasn't it, Jack?"

"Oh, yup," the white-haired man in the chair replied.

Time hasn't changed Wright's tools and techniques. Simple black combs and silver shears are still his staples; classic, clean men's cuts are his specialty. He prunes wild eyebrows, shapes sideburns and scrapes away stray neck hairs, often adding a splash of Bay Rum aftershave at the end -- "the stuff the old cowboys used," he says.

He keeps a stash of lollipops on hand for younger customers.

"It's neat to see the kids grow up. Some of them, now I'm cutting their sons' hair," he said. "But a lot of my older customers have passed away -- I just saw another one in the obituaries today. It's hard. I've been to a lot of funerals."

Wright thinks traditional barbers like himself might be a dying breed. Although barbershops have enjoyed a nostalgia-driven surge of patronage in recent years, their numbers declined drastically in the last half of the 20th century while beauty salons blossomed.

As of 2004, New York had nearly 144,000 licensed cosmetologists and only 8,021 barbers, according to the state Department of State.

Wright blames The Beatles, among other things.

"Back in those days when I first started out, we had the Beatles come along, and suddenly everybody wants long hair," he said. "Now, everyone wants barbers again, but there's not many of us left."

Jack Huskie, 76, has been coming to Wright for a dozen years, and was perturbed to hear of his retirement.

"Every time my barbers retire or die, I gotta find a new one, and it's hard!" he said.

Even Wright's newer customers were distressed to hear the shop would be closing.

"What? You're making me sad!" exclaimed Rico Rapisora, 38, who moved to the area from California a few years ago. "When you move from one place to another, and you're used to going to a barber, finding another one is very comforting," Rapisora said. "It's like home."

Wright, 65, said he's looking forward to spending more time at his own home, and outdoors.

"I've got a little fishing boat and I never have time to use it -- I didn't even get it in the water last year," he said. "I'm gonna do a little more fishing, hunting, golf and travel. My wife just retired, too, so we'll take some trips."

On Thursday, many of the customers who walked in were surprised to hear the shop was in its final days.

"He didn't check with us to see if he could retire!" said Wayne Carlton, 65. He sighed as he settled into Wright's chair.

"Cut 'er nice and short, Jack," he said. "It may be a long time before I find another barber."

20something: Is it hot in here, or is it just me?

Published in The Post-Star (Go)
March 29, 2007

Nothing is neutral.

A sociology professor terrified me with that statement in college. I'm not good at making quick decisions, so it was overwhelming to suddenly feel surrounded by them.

She made the point that even the simple act of eating comes with a lot of baggage, thanks to globalization. You can choose between organic and non-organic; fair-trade and non; New York or New Zealand apples. Your dollars make a statement, whether you want them to or not.

The weather, apparently, isn't neutral either.

Sure, rain is rain, and you'll get wet whether you're liberal, conservative, green or a member of that obscure "Rent is Too High" party that showed up in last year's gubernatorial elections.

But drop the words "global warming" into any of those circles, and you'll definitely get some mixed precipitation.

Most liberals and greens will unleash a hurricane of anxiety, pelting their listeners with statistics about the imminence of climate change and free viewings of "An Inconvenient Truth."

Many conservatives will respond with an icy drizzle of skepticism.

"Global warming? Riiiight ... Al Gore didn't notice that snowstorm last month. Guess he was busy inventing the Internet!"

(As for that last party, I can only assume they would say something like: "The planet is in danger? Will that reduce my rent?")

I recently overheard a group of middle-aged men debating global warming in these terms. One argued that scientists are still divided on the issue, and it's only those crazy liberals who are scaring everyone because ... well, that's the part I must have missed. Is there some sort of secret kickback system, where a dime of every dollar spent on reducing carbon emissions gets donated to the Democratic Party?

Another man responded with earnest outrage that millions of people will die by the time the proof is undeniable, and it's only those crazy conservatives who are dilly-dallying because ... hmm, I didn't catch that one either. Are all conservatives accepting bribes from the oil industry? (Why haven't I been offered one? I've voted for at least one Republican.)

They droned on for an hour or more, accomplishing nothing besides annoying everyone in earshot. I wish I could say this surprised me, but I've heard the same debate so many times it hurts my head.

How did what should be a scientific issue get so tied up in a political tug-of-war? The result is that people who vote on issues, rather than party lines, are bewildered into a false sense of neutrality that feels more like paralysis.

Nothing is neutral, and it's foolish to pretend otherwise. But that doesn't mean everything needs to become a battle, either, especially not a politicized one. The world's got enough war on its hands already.

Amanda Bensen writes features for The Post-Star. She agrees that rent is too high, but probably won't be voting that way.

Causing a splash at the spa

Published in The Post-Star (D1)
3/26/07

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Saratoga's famous mineral water splashed into the headlines last week when the New York Post reported that the Roosevelt Baths in Spa State Park were being diluted with municipal tap water.

The mixed water was never a secret, according to many locals, but it raises another question: Does it even matter?

In previous centuries, the medicinal benefits of mineral water -- as a bath or a tonic -- were viewed as common knowledge. Entire cities sprang from springs, and doctors advised sick patients to "take the waters" in places like Saratoga Springs.

But in this age of hi-tech medicine and high-powered pharmaceutical companies, the connection between mineral water and mainstream medicine seems to have sprung a leak.

"It used to be very mainstream. A number of hospitals were built around mineral springs, and now we're the only one in the nation that still uses one," said Dr. Les Moore, director of integrative medicine at Clifton Springs Hospital and Clinic, near Rochester.

He explained that Clifton Springs is a traditional hospital that decided a few years ago to add a department of "integrative medicine," once again using its mineral springs to promote healing. That's called hydrotherapy, or balneotherapy when it refers specifically to bathing.

Although spas in Europe and Asia still flourish, American interest in hydrotherapy seemed to evaporate around the mid-20th century.

"It still works, it's just that now we've got all these supposedly better drugs that came out, which are more easily packaged and sellable," Moore explained. "But I think it's making a comeback."

That's exactly what Mary Chamberlain, a Glens Falls acupuncturist, would like to see happen to the Roosevelt Baths.

"I do not understand what happened in Saratoga," she said. "I see all the money they're spending on Saratoga Hospital, and they talk about expanding ... they have it right under their nose! They could build an incredible rehab center at the baths."

Chamberlain is part of the New York Spa Promotion Alliance, and said she has met many others who share her views.

"Perhaps the townspeople could become shareholders in the spa," she said. "So many people are interested. I think it's totally possible."

Minerals like magnesium, iron and lithium are present in various springs throughout Saratoga, and Chamberlain believes each has unique benefits.

"The lithium spring is good for mental and emotional balance, for example," she said.

Dr. Koock Jung, a Queensbury psychiatrist, had a different reaction when asked if he believed that mineral water has medicinal value.

"Oh, God, no," he said. "We prescribe lithium for manic depression and bipolar disorder ... but there would be miniscule amounts, almost nothing, in the water."

Chamberlain said she knew the Roosevelt Baths were diluted, and thinks this reflects the perception that even the spa's management doesn't see the water as medicinal.

"It's like they think it's just a bubble bath, and as long as there are bubbles, the benefits are the same," she said.

She worries that bathers may be absorbing chlorine from the tap water without knowing it.

The city puts chlorine in its water supply to clean it, said Tom Kirkpatrick, chief water plant operator, but the residual amount is only about .5 parts per million.

"I don't think that small amount would have a harmful effect from bathing in it -- it's not even as high as chlorine in a swimming pool," he said. "But my personal opinion is, if you're paying for a mineral bath and you're only getting half of the minerals you're paying for, it doesn't seem right."

Kirkpatrick, 52, said he grew up in Saratoga Springs and has been drinking from the mineral springs for years, although he's never bathed in them.

"I like the taste," he said. "If it has health effects, so be it."

Keeping tabs on toxins

Published in The Post-Star
3/26/07

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its annual batch of Toxic Releases Inventory data on Thursday, probably one of the last times the public will have access to parts of that information.

The Toxic Releases Inventory (TRI) was created 20 years ago to inform citizens about chemical hazards in their communities, under the Community Right to Know Act. Any facility that managed or released at least 500 pounds of any of the 650 chemicals the EPA considers toxic was required to report its data to the inventory.

Last year, however, the EPA announced it would raise the reporting thresholds for TRI chemicals to "reduce the burden" on industry. Facilities will now only need to report releases exceeding 2,000 pounds and all chemicals managed in amounts greater than 5,000 pounds a year. Those changes take effect this year, and will show up in the 2009 public release of TRI data.

According to a study done by the National Environmental Trust, the TRI rule changes mean that 10 percent of all U.S. ZIP codes will lose data from all facilities that had previously reported toxic releases. New York state ranked second-highest in the nation for having the most ZIP codes (57 of 369) that will lose all TRI data.

Legislation proposed last month by New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg and others would reverse the TRI rule changes, as well as block the EPA from resurrecting a recently defeated proposal to cut annual reporting requirements back to every other year.

According to the Web site Govtrack.us, both the House and Senate versions of that bill (H.R.1055 and S.595) have been referred to committees, the first step in a long process toward becoming law.

"The majority of bills never make it out of committee," the site notes.

The TRI data released last week shows that total releases rose nationally by about 3 percent between 2004 and 2005, with 23,500 facilities producing a combined 4.34 billion pounds of toxins.

In New York state, total TRI releases declined by about 8 percent between 2004 and 2005, from 35.8 to 32.9 million pounds, according to the EPA’s regional office.

Many local facilities reported significant reductions over the previous year.

Finch, Pruyn & Co.’s paper mill in Glens Falls was still the largest source of TRI releases in the region, but its total releases were down by 45 percent from 2004, continuing an overall trend of polllution reduction over the past decade.

"Whenever you talk about TRI releases at Finch Pruyn, the majority of what you’re talking about are nitrates, which are released to water," said John Brodt, the company’s spokesman. He explained that the company’s wastewater treatment plant uses bacteria to convert harmful ammonia into "more benign" nitrates.

"For the last several years, we have had a very active program to minimize the release of nitrates by limiting the amount of oxygen in the water at the treatment plant," he said. "This directs the bacteria to consume the oxygen molecules off nitrates. ... The nitrates get converted to nitrogen gas and dispersed into the air."

Some of the mill’s other releases are harder to reduce, he said, like sulfuric acid produced by
burning fuel oil for power production.

"That’s a pretty stable number from year to year," Brodt said.

In northern Saratoga County, Ball Metal Beverage Container plant was still the top source of TRI chemicals, but it reported 25 percent less than in 2004 and dropped to the bottom of the "top 50" national list of facilities with the most toxic releases in their industries.

"We’re always trying to find coatings that are more environmentally friendly," said Scott McCarty, a spokesperson at Ball Metal’s Colorado headquarters.

McCarty predicted the Saratoga plant’s TRI numbers will drop dramatically in about two years, when the data no longer includes a chemical called ethylene glycol monobutyl ether that the EPA recently decided to delist. As part of a category called "Certain glycol ethers," EGBE constitutes about half of the plant’s total toxic releases.

Regionally, about 2 million pounds of toxic chemicals were released by facilities in Warren, Washington, Saratoga and Essex counties combined in 2005. About five percent of the substances were recognized carcinogens.

Although the EPA’s revised TRI reporting requirements are stricter for the most hazardous chemicals, like mercury and lead, the National Environmental Trust study estimates that at least 10 percent of reporting about these types of chemicals in New York state will be lost under the new rules.




TOP LOCAL POLLUTERS
Total toxic releases in New York state dropped between 2004 and 2005. The following are the top industrial polluters locally in 2005, in terms of toxic releases reported to the EPA (compared to 2004):
1) Finch Pruyn, Glens Falls: 735,847 pounds (-45%)
2) International Paper, Ticonderoga: 541,506 pounds (-12%)
3) General Electric, Waterford 444,637 pounds (+2%)
4) Ball Metal Beverage Container Corp., Saratoga Springs: 225,914 pounds (-25%)
5) Hollingsworth & Vose, Greenwich, 31,162 pounds (-29%)
6) Quad/Graphics, Saratoga Springs, 24,250 pounds (-9%)
7) General Electric, Fort Edward: 23,970 pounds (+63%)

LOGGING ON
Toxic Releases Inventory: www.epa.gov/tri
Pollution data, searchable by ZIP code (updated through 2002): www.scorecard.org
Health effects fact sheets for hazardous air pollutants: www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/hlthef/hapindex.html
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry: www.atsdr.cdc.gov/
Community Right to Know laws: www.crtk.org/index.cfm

WHAT'S BEING RELEASED
Chemicals released locally in highest volume in 2005 (in pounds):
Warren County:
1) Nitrate compounds (396,070)
2) Ammonia (89,110)
3) Methanol (80,800)
4) Manganese compounds (76,760)
5) Sulfuric Acid (60,005)
6) Formaldehyde (31,722)

Washington County:
1) Decabromodiphenyl oxide (18,743)
2) Chromium (12,398)
3) Lead (8,364)
4) Antimony (7,717)
5) Copper (3,207)
6) Barium (3,009)

Saratoga County:
1) Certain glycol ethers (140, 250)
2) Nitrate compounds (110,010)
3) N-Butyl Alcohol (108, 250)
4) Copper compounds (84,750)
5) Toluene (53,255)
6) Zinc compounds (50,100)
7) Chloromethane (41,355)
Source: EPA reports