MATAMOROS, Mexico – Here, in a densely populated border city across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Tex., the name of an infamous locale in India is heard with stunning frequency. “We don’t want to be the next Bhopal,” said Erasmo Lucio Garza, referring to the site of the 1984 toxic gas leak at a Union […]
Companies with chemical plants just south of the U.S. border are under increasing political and environmental pressure. Recently, the environmental protection agencies of the U.S. and Mexico announced they are seeking public comment on plans to improve the environment along the border. And this week a decision is expected from a Mexican court on whether […]
TAMPA – Fertilizer companies scour and blast crusty, radioactive deposits from filtering equipment, then pile the waste on gypsum stacks. Contaminated with radium, it is among the most concentrated radioactive waste that comes from natural materials. Yet the federal government has no rules for its disposal. That’s because the government considers it “naturally occurring radioactive […]
Victoria Griffith visits a Brazilian city that was shut down because of excessive pollution levels Just 35 miles south of Sao Paulo the highway to the Brazilian coast descends from a mountain paradise of trees and waterfalls to what looks like a futuristic nightmare – the city of Cubatao. Metal chimneys belching fire and smoke […]
WILMINGTON – Seeking facts on a chemical plant they say threatens their neighborhoods, Mexican activists met Thursday with Du Pont Co. officials in Wilmington. Residents of the Mexican border city of Matamoros joined members of a New York activist group, asking Du Pont to spell out the hazards of a 16-year-old factory built and partly […]
Burbank officials admitted Friday that a breakdown in monitoring and enforcement procedures led to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lawsuit which contends that the city allowed toxic wastes to be dumped into sewers. City Manager Bud Ovrom and Public Works Director Ora Lampman said Burbank didn’t crack down hard enough during the mid-1980s on industries […]
In the 1940’s, as municipalities around the country began putting fluoride into their water, opponents spoke darkly of Communists and said fluoridation was nothing less than a plot to control America through its faucets. The arguing died down in most places as studies began to show that fluoride did fight childrens’ tooth decay, and today, […]
Early this year Newsweek magazine published a story with this advice for readers: “Brush your teeth, but the fluoride from your tap may not do much good – and may cause cancer”. The supporting cancer hazard evidence was an animal study sponsored by the government’s National Toxicology Program (Lancet, Feb 3, p282). Since then, the […]
A recent animal study by the National Toxicology Program that failed to give fluoride a totally clean bill of health is now being questioned as being maybe too lenient on the widely used tooth decay preventative. Also, a government panel appointed to assess the risks and benefits of human exposure to fluoride and to put […]
A recent animal study by the National Toxicology Program that failed to give fluoride a totally clean bill of health is now being questioned as being maybe too lenient on the widely used tooth decay preventative. Also, a government panel appointed to assess the risks and benefits of human exposure to fluoride and to put […]
