'What do you do if big cities have no water? Who would want to commit any investment here?' asked one diplomat.
From Reuters: The West frets that al Qaeda will exploit instability in Yemen to prepare new attacks like the failed December 25 bombing of a U.S. airliner, but this impoverished Arabian peninsula country faces a catastrophe that poses a far deadlier long-term threat.
Nature cannot recharge ground water to keep pace with demand from a population of 23 million expected to double in 20 years.
More water is consumed than produced from most of Yemen's 21 aquifers, especially in the highlands, home to big cities like Sanaa, with a fast-growing population of two million, and Taiz.
"If we continue like this, Sanaa will be a ghost city in 20 years," said Anwer Sahooly, a water expert at German development agency GTZ, which runs several water projects in Yemen.
Some wells in Sanaa are now 800 to 1,000 meters deep -- requiring oil-drilling equipment -- while many are no longer usable because of the sinking water table, he said.
Millions of thirsty Yemenis may eventually have to abandon Sanaa and other mountain cities for the coastal plain. "Water refugees" may try to migrate to nearby Gulf states or Europe.
Diplomats say fights over water use have erupted in some tribal areas. Several orange orchards have run dry in Saada, a northern province already racked by a conflict with rebels who agreed a fragile ceasefire with the government last week.
"From a Yemeni perspective, al Qaeda is a smaller problem than water. What do you do if big cities have no water? Who would want to commit any investment here?" asked one diplomat.
'In this study, however, the pathway of the mercury was a little different. Instead, it appears the recent mercury enrichment of the sampled Pacific Ocean waters is caused by emissions originating from fallout near the Asian coasts.'
A federal study released today explains for the first time the link between global mercury emissions and the contamination of tuna and other marine life in the North Pacific Ocean.
The U.S. Geological Survey study (pdf) documents the formation in the North Pacific of methylmercury, a highly toxic form of mercury that rapidly accumulates in the food chain to levels that can cause serious health concerns for people who consume seafood. Scientists have known for some time that mercury deposited from the atmosphere can be transformed into methylmercury, but the study focuses on how that transformation occurs.
USGS showed that methylmercury is produced in mid-depth ocean waters by processes linked to "ocean rain." Algae, which are produced in sunlit waters near the surface, die quickly and "rain" downward to greater water depths. The settling algae are decomposed by bacteria and the interaction of this decomposition process in the presence of mercury results in the formation of methylmercury.
Many steps up the food chain later, predators like tuna receive methylmercury from the fish they consume, the study shows.
The study unexpectedly reveals the significance of long-range movement of mercury within the ocean that originates in the western Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Asia, USGS scientist and co-author David Krabbenhoft said.
"Mercury researchers typically look skyward to find a mercury source from the atmosphere due to emissions from land-based combustion facilities," Krabbenhoft said in a statement.
"In this study, however, the pathway of the mercury was a little different. Instead, it appears the recent mercury enrichment of the sampled Pacific Ocean waters is caused by emissions originating from fallout near the Asian coasts. The mercury-enriched waters then enter a long-range eastward transport by large ocean circulation currents."
The Obama administration said the study demonstrates the need to curb global mercury emissions.
"This unprecedented USGS study is critically important to the health and safety of the American people and our wildlife because it helps us understand the relationship between atmospheric emissions of mercury and concentrations of mercury in marine fish," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement.
Scientists have predicted an additional 50 percent increase in mercury in the Pacific Ocean by 2050 if mercury emission rates continue as projected. USGS water sampling shows mercury levels in 2006 were approximately 30 percent higher than those measured in the mid-1990s.
This story popped on Al Arabiya in February and I missed it, but it's making the rounds now on environmental blogs (see here,here, and here). In the comments, it seems some are doubting the scholar's integrity, since fossil fuels are a source of Saudi Arabia's wealth.
And then there is this: "Al-Najimi also stated that he believes that the ban should extend to all Muslim youth studying abroad who may ride in vehicles burning biofuels." That would mean no cars and no buses in automobile-oriented America where ethanol is mixed into most gasoline in the country. Good luck with that. I suppose that this might be possible at a few elite schools within urban areas such as Cambridge or Berkeley, but what are American Muslims supposed to do?
Rep. Bobby Rush: 'I think most Americans would be surprised to know that asbestos, a known carcinogen, that kills 8,000 Americans each and every year has not been banned by EPA.'
WASHINGTON, DC, February 26, 2009 (ENS) - The U.S. chemical regulatory system is failing to protect public health and the environment and is in dire need of reform, experts told a House panel Thursday. The legal hurdles of existing law make it virtually impossible for the federal government to limit or ban the use of toxic chemicals or to even obtain the information needed to devise effective regulations, several witnesses testified before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee.
The hearing focused on the effectiveness of the Toxic Substances Control Act. Enacted in 1976, the statute gave the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate chemicals.
But the agency has only required testing for some 200 of the more than 82,000 chemicals in commerce and has issued regulations to control only five existing chemicals.
This record reflects a number of "very difficult, perhaps impossible, requirements that must be met before a chemical can be regulated," said J. Clarence Davies, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future and former EPA assistant administrator for policy in under President George H.W. Bush.
The statute requires EPA to show that a proposed chemical regulation is less burdensome than any alternative and that the risk could not be sufficiently reduced under some other law. Furthermore, it must show a chemical presents an "unreasonable risk" to human health.
The combination of the requirements creates a burden so high "that it is essentially impossible to meet," said Richard Denison, a senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund.
Few examples expose the shortcomings of the law as brutally as the case of asbestos, Denison and others said at the hearing.
EPA tried to ban asbestos, a known carcinogen, under the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1989, after spending nearly a decade gathering evidence about health risks from the fibrous mineral.
But in 1991 a federal court blocked EPA's effort, ruling that the agency had failed to meet the legal hurdles outlined by the Act.
"I think most Americans would be surprised to know that asbestos, a known carcinogen, that kills 8,000 Americans each and every year has not been banned by EPA under TSCA," said Representative Bobby Rush, an Illinois Democrat and chair of the House Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection Subcommittee, which held the hearing.
"It has been a remarkable decline," said study co-author Mary Jean Brown of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "It's a public health success story."
Old homes in the Mattapan section of Boston.
Salaam writes: Nice to get a good news story about the environment.
CHICAGO (AP) - In a stunning improvement in children's health, far fewer kids have high lead levels than 20 years ago, new government research reports - a testament to aggressive efforts to get lead out of paint, water and soil.
Lead can interfere with the developing nervous system and cause permanent problems with learning, memory and behavior. Children in poor neighborhoods have generally been more at risk because they tend to live in older housing and in industrial areas.
Federal researchers found that just 1.4 percent of young children had elevated lead levels in their blood in 2004, the latest data available. That compares with almost 9 percent in 1988.
"It has been a remarkable decline," said study co-author Mary Jean Brown of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "It's a public health success story."
The 84 percent drop extends a trend that began in the 1970s when efforts began to remove lead from gasoline. The researchers credited continuing steps to reduce children's exposure to lead in old house paint, soil, water and other sources.
The study was being released Monday in the March edition of the journal Pediatrics. It is based on nearly 5,000 children, ages 1 to 5, who were part of a periodic government health survey.
The average American consumes 12 teaspoons of it daily, according to federal estimates. Teenagers and children tend to eat more of it than adults. There is no established safe dose for elemental mercury, the type discovered in corn syrup.
High Fructose Corn Syrup is derived from cornstarch, and is sually a combination of 55 percent fructose and 45 percent sucrose. It is treated with an enzyme that converts glucose to fructose, which results in a sweeter product that is used in many foods and drinks.
A swig of soda or a bite of a candy bar might be sweet, but a new study suggests that food made with corn syrup also could be delivering tiny doses of toxic mercury.
For the first time, researchers say they have detected traces of the silvery metal in samples of high-fructose corn syrup, a widely used sweetener that has replaced sugar in many processed foods. The study was published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health.
Eating high-mercury fish is the chief source of exposure for most people. The new study raises concerns about a previously unknown dietary source of mercury, which has been linked to learning disabilities in children and heart disease in adults.
The source of the metal appears to be caustic soda and hydrochloric acid, which manufacturers of corn syrup use to help convert corn kernels into the food additive.
A handful of plants across the nation still make the soda and acid by mixing a briny solution in electrified vats of mercury. Some of the toxic metal ends up in the final product, according to industry documents cited in the study.
Corn syrup manufacturers insisted their products are mercury-free. But the study said at least one maker of caustic soda that has used the mercury-based technology listed the corn syrup industry as a client.
"This seems like an avoidable source of mercury that we didn't know was out there," said David Wallinga, one of the study's co-authors and a researcher at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a Minnesota-based advocacy group.
The researchers cautioned that their study was limited. Only 20 samples were analyzed; mercury was detected in nine.
Still, the impact of the findings could be significant. High-fructose corn syrup has become such a staple in processed foods that the average American consumes 12 teaspoons of it daily, according to federal estimates. Teenagers and children tend to eat more of it than adults.
There is no established safe dose for elemental mercury, the type discovered in corn syrup. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says an average-sized woman should limit her exposure to 5.5 micrograms a day of methylmercury, the kind found in fish. If that same woman regularly ate corn syrup contaminated at the highest level detected in the study-0.57 micrograms per gram-the researchers estimated that she could end up consuming an amount of mercury that is five times higher than the EPA's safe dose.
Our findings also strengthen the argument for the cocktail of chemicals in our water leading to hormone disruption in fish, and contributing to the rise in male reproductive problems.
New research strengthens the link between water pollution and rising male fertility problems. The study, by Brunel University, the Universities of Exeter and Reading and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, shows for the first time how a group of testosterone-blocking chemicals is finding its way into UK rivers, affecting wildlife and potentially humans.
The research was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council and is now published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
The study identified a new group of chemicals that act as 'anti-androgens'. This means that they inhibit the function of the male hormone, testosterone, reducing male fertility.
Some of these are contained in medicines, including cancer treatments, pharmaceutical treatments, and pesticides used in agriculture. The research suggests that when they get into the water system, these chemicals may play a pivotal role in causing feminising effects in male fish.
Earlier research by Brunel University and the University of Exeter has shown how female sex hormones (estrogens), and chemicals that mimic estrogens, are leading to 'feminisation' of male fish. Found in some industrial chemicals and the contraceptive pill, they enter rivers via sewage treatment works. This causes reproductive problems by reducing fish breeding capability and in some cases can lead to male fish changing sex.
Other studies have also suggested that there may be a link between this phenomenon and the increase in human male fertility problems caused by testicular dysgenesis syndrome. Until now, this link lacked credence because the list of suspects causing effects in fish was limited to estrogenic chemicals whilst testicular dysgenesis is known to be caused by exposure to a range of anti-androgens.
Lead author on the research paper, Dr Susan Jobling at Brunel University's Institute for the Environment, said: "We have been working intensively in this field for over ten years. The new research findings illustrate the complexities in unravelling chemical causation of adverse health effects in wildlife populations and re-open the possibility of a human - wildlife connection in which effects seen in wild fish and in humans are caused by similar combinations of chemicals.
"We have identified a new group of chemicals in our study on fish, but do not know where they are coming from. A principal aim of our work is now to identify the source of these pollutants and work with regulators and relevant industry to test the effects of a mixture of these chemicals and the already known environmental estrogens and help protect environmental health."
Senior author Professor Charles Tyler of the University of Exeter said: "Our research shows that a much wider range of chemicals than we previously thought is leading to hormone disruption in fish. This means that the pollutants causing these problems are likely to be coming from a wide variety of sources.
"Our findings also strengthen the argument for the cocktail of chemicals in our water leading to hormone disruption in fish, and contributing to the rise in male reproductive problems. There are likely to be many reasons behind the rise in male fertility problems in humans, but these findings could reveal one, previously unknown, factor."
Consumer watchdogs wielding handheld X-ray guns are testing toys on shelves for unsafe levels of lead and other chemicals, giving retailers -- from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to mom-and-pop stores -- a case of heartburn this holiday season.
This month, testers with the Center for Environmental Health, a consumer advocacy group in Oakland, Calif., said that Wal-Mart frog-charm jewelry contained levels of lead higher than allowed by California state law. The group informed the California attorney general's office, which then sent a notice of violation last week to Wal-Mart, telling the company to remove the item from its stores, according to Christine Gasparac, a spokeswoman for the attorney general.
Wal-Mart said in a statement that it has "directed stores in California to remove this item from our shelves and blocked its sale at registers as we investigate further." The company said safety is a top priority.
The advent of guerrilla toy testing, enabled by technology, has taken the toy industry to task again, just a year after scares about unsafe toys so rattled holiday shoppers that Congress this year passed a sweeping overhaul of consumer-product-safety regulation. Typically, advocacy groups send out press releases disclosing their findings -- sometimes without first informing the affected retailers or manufacturers. They often tell regulatory officials about any troubling findings. The Consumer Product Safety Commission said it hears from up to a dozen of these groups around the holiday season.
Dubai is planning to construct the world's first refrigerated beach. A system of heat-absorbing pipes and giant wind blowers will "keep tourists cool in the searing 40-50C heat." Soheil Abedian, president of Palazzo Versace hotel that will be home to the refrigerated beach, said: "We will suck the heat out of the sand to keep it cool enough to lie on. This is the kind of luxury that top people want." Critics have argued that Dubai's design lacks regard for the environment:
Rachel Noble, of Tourism Concern, said: "Dubai is like a bubble world where the things that are worrying the rest of the world, like climate change, are simply ignored so people can continue destructive lifestyles." [...]
The city's continued expansion will also add to its huge carbon footprint. Each person living in Dubai has a carbon footprint of more than 44 tons of CO2 a year.
The research - to be detailed tomorrow in the most comprehensive report yet published - shows that a host of common chemicals is feminising males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people.
The male gender is in danger, with incalculable consequences for both humans and wildlife, startling scientific research from around the world reveals.
The research - to be detailed tomorrow in the most comprehensive report yet published - shows that a host of common chemicals is feminising males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people.
Backed by some of the world's leading scientists, who say that it "waves a red flag" for humanity and shows that evolution itself is being disrupted, the report comes out at a particularly sensitive time for ministers. On Wednesday, Britain will lead opposition to proposed new European controls on pesticides, many of which have been found to have "gender-bending" effects.
It also follows hard on the heels of new American research which shows that baby boys born to women exposed to widespread chemicals in pregnancy are born with smaller penises and feminised genitals.
"This research shows that the basic male tool kit is under threat," says Gwynne Lyons, a former government adviser on the health effects of chemicals, who wrote the report.
Wildlife and people have been exposed to more than 100,000 new chemicals in recent years, and the European Commission has admitted that 99 per cent of them are not adequately regulated. There is not even proper safety information on 85 per cent of them.
Many have been identified as "endocrine disrupters" - or gender-benders - because they interfere with hormones. These include phthalates, used in food wrapping, cosmetics and baby powders among other applications; flame retardants in furniture and electrical goods; PCBs, a now banned group of substances still widespread in food and the environment; and many pesticides.
The report - published by the charity CHEMTrust and drawing on more than 250 scientific studies from around the world - concentrates mainly on wildlife, identifying effects in species ranging from the polar bears of the Arctic to the eland of the South African plains, and from whales in the depths of the oceans to high-flying falcons and eagles.
It concludes: "Males of species from each of the main classes of vertebrate animals (including bony fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) have been affected by chemicals in the environment.
"Feminisation of the males of numerous vertebrate species is now a widespread occurrence. All vertebrates have similar sex hormone receptors, which have been conserved in evolution. Therefore, observations in one species may serve to highlight pollution issues of concern for other vertebrates, including humans."
So-called 'greenocons' worry that the list of major oil exporters overlaps with a list of countries that harbor ill will toward the United States - Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Iran, for example.
Jihadis' vehicle of choice: Terrorist financiers are easy to pick out of a crowd because they are usually driving one of these or some other gas-guzzler to help refund the movement.
Neoconservatives, despite their appreciable influence on President George W. Bush's administration, have never numbered very many people. By forming tactical alliances and associations with groups like evangelical Christians and hardline nationalists to promote their policy goals, neocons became a powerful faction in Washington, D.C. Recently, some neocons are attempting to forge what might be their most unexpected alliance yet- with environmentalists.
A merging of neoconservatism, with its aggressive support of U.S. military action abroad (among other things) and the green agenda, with its priorities on sustainable living and earth-friendly policies, seems counterintuitive. But so-called "greenocons" seem to have a foot planted in each camp, won over by the idea of improving U.S. security by reducing the amount of money sent to oil-rich regimes that neocons feel "by and large, are hostile to us." The greenocons, as Robert Bryce reported in Slate, are "going green for geopolitical reasons, not environmental ones."
The most visible of the bunch is former CIA chief R. James Woolsey, who wears his ideology on his bumper - a sticker on his hybrid vehicle sums up the greenocons' argument: "Bin Laden Hates This Car."
So-called greenocons worry that the list of major oil exporters overlaps with a list of countries that harbor ill will toward the United States-Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Iran, for example. These oil-exporting governments oppose the U.S. agenda, according to the greenocons, and are also beneficiaries of billions of dollars from the American "addiction to oil."
Last year in congressional testimony, Anne Korin told the House Committee on Foreign affairs that high oil prices "will be perceived as a victory for the Jihadist movement and a reaffirmation that the economic warfare component of its campaign against the West is a resounding success." 6 This angle capitalizes on environmentalism's concerns over energy and oil dependence and mixes them with the neoconservatives' concerns about terrorism and national security.
Korin is the chair of the greenocons' Set America Free Coalition (SAFC), which promotes alternate fuel sources with alarmist language: "Because so much of the oil we import comes from countries that hate us, we're actually helping to bankroll terrorists that hunt us," the coalition argues. "As long as our cars can only run on gasoline, we'll continue to be held hostage."
Korin is also member of the neocon-led Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), saying in her blurb on the CPD site, "It is essential to put the war in the context of our oil dependence and connect the dots between our excessive oil demand and the national security challenges facing our society. We help fund the spread of radical Islam and the proliferation of terror every time we go to a gas station and fill up the tanks of our cars. Therefore, a shift from oil is the best weapon against America's enemies, who derive their power from oil and use it to fuel terror and spread hatred toward our nation."
The notion has attracted hawks, including Center for Security Policy president Frank Gaffney (who recently wrote that energy security is "one of our most important national security challenges") ; Daniel Pipes, head of the Middle East Forum; Cliff May of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; and Meyrav Wurmser of the Hudson institute. As Laura Rozen reported, "Being a green neoconservative is becoming less lonely, especially as more hawks come to energy as a security issue."
But the apparent convergence of the right-wing with environmentalism, typically a politics of the left, is complex and conflicted. Take the "drill, baby, drill" plank of the 2008 Republican platform, which played on struggles with energy costs and the unwillingness of many Democrats to drill in Alaskan wildlife preserves. Gaffney supports drilling - certainly not a green program, and one that wouldn't even break U.S. dependence on oil. The greenocon nexus gets even more complex when one examines the beliefs of other neocon allies. Christian Right leader Gary Bauer, for example, urged a member of the National Association of Evangelicals to resign because he publicly took the "disturbing" position that "global warming is an indisputable fact" - Bauer, however, is nevertheless a member of the Set America Free Coalition.
Salaam writes: Nice to know us nonpork-eating Muslims are not contributing to the problem.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - For farmers, this stinks: Belching and gaseous cows and hogs could start costing them money if a federal proposal to charge fees for air-polluting animals becomes law.
Farmers so far are turning their noses up at the notion, which is one of several put forward by the Environmental Protection Agency after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases emitted by belching and flatulence amounts to air pollution.
"This is one of the most ridiculous things the federal government has tried to do," said Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks, an outspoken opponent of the proposal.
It would require farms or ranches with more than 25 dairy cows, 50 beef cattle or 200 hogs to pay an annual fee of about $175 for each dairy cow, $87.50 per head of beef cattle and $20 for each hog.
The executive vice president of the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation, Ken Hamilton, estimated the fee would cost owners of a modest-sized cattle ranch $30,000 to $40,000 a year. He said he has talked to a number of livestock owners about the proposals, and "all have said if the fees were carried out, it would bankrupt them."
Sparks said Wednesday he's worried the fee could be extended to chickens and other farm animals and cause more meat to be imported.
"We'll let other countries put food on our tables like they are putting gas in our cars. Other countries don't have the health standards we have," Sparks said.
EPA spokesman Nick Butterfield said the fee was proposed for farms with livestock operations that emit more than 100 tons of carbon emissions in a year and fall under federal Clean Air Act provisions.
Climate change in Southern Arizona could trigger an increase in asthma, bronchitis, West Nile virus, allergies, dengue fever, valley fever, heat-related deaths and malaria.
These and other diseases could increase or arrive here as the climate warms, dries and displays more extreme hot and cold spells and fiercer storms due to emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
Those warnings came from two scientists - one local and one national - who spoke at a weekend conference at University Medical Center on climate change's health effects.
More than 80 physicians, scientists, community activists and others attended Saturday's conference.
Other highlights:
? Children are likely most vulnerable to climate-induced disease, said Eve Shapiro, a Tucson pediatrician. They get dehydrated more easily, have faster metabolisms and eat more food for their size compared with adults, she said. They're outdoors more, breathing more pollutants.
? Pima County's Health Department has made strides in monitoring some diseases but has a ways to go for others, said Dr. Michelle McDonald, the department's chief medical officer. It's better at tracking mosquitoes and has vastly improved mosquito control and reduced stagnant-water pools. It has fared less well in dealing with environmental health risks, lacks capacity to track chronic respiratory diseases and doesn't have the staff to track heat-related deaths, she said.
? A risk exists that if coastal California is hit by rising sea levels from warming temperatures, evacuees may flee to Arizona, straining this state's services, said a suburban fire chief.
? While many speakers talked of government's responsibilities, emergencies stemming from climate change such as more extreme storms that knock out power to thousands of people may not have a government solution, said Rural Metro Fire Chief Les Caid.
"There is a personal responsibility that everyone has to be prepared," Caid said.
The scientists who spoke on specific diseases, professor Andrew Comrie of the University of Arizona and Jeremy Hess, a consultant for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are backed up by many scientists worldwide in linking warming to health problems. But they acknowledge a lack of hard research documenting or predicting climate-change-disease links.
The importance of science-based policy: According to critics within and outside the EPA, the agency has stifled independent research and compromised scientific assessments of all manner of toxins and carcinogens that Americans breathe, drink and touch.
Robert and Lupe Alvarado of San Antonio, Texas, say a sickly sweet chemical smell floods the house when they close the windows. Both have suffered from mulitple cancers and other ailemnts. "We call ourselves the living dead."
Nov. 11, 2008 | SAN ANTONIO -- This may sound like just another Erin Brockovich-style tear-jerker. Enter stage right: Poor people exposed to toxic chemicals who worry that the government is ignoring their plight.
But the story of the hundreds of sick people who live near the former Kelly Air Force Base illuminates an entirely new manner in which the Bush administration has diluted science and put public health at risk. This year, largely in obeisance to the Pentagon, the nation's biggest polluter, the White House diminished a little-known but critical process at the Environmental Protection Agency for assessing toxic chemicals that impacts thousands of Americans.
As a coalition of more than 40 national and local environmental organizations put it in a letter to EPA administrators this past April: "EPA, under pressure from the Bush White House, has given the foxes the keys to the environmental protection henhouse.
So meet lifelong San Antonio residents Robert and Lupe Alvarado. For decades, the Alvarados, whose modest home sits around two miles from Kelly, have lived with toxic chemicals underfoot. This is the poor part of town, adorned with chain-link fences and black metal bars concealing the windows. Many houses lack a proper foundation and rest on simple concrete slabs.
Beneath the Alvarados' house and those of their neighbors are shallow pools of groundwater that are polluted with tetrachloroethylene, or PCE, a chemical associated with cancer, liver and kidney disease. Before the Kelly base closed in 2001, mechanics used PCE to degrease parts on airplanes and fighter jets. For decades, they chronically dumped the solvent into poorly sealed or unsealed waste pits on the base, where it seeped underground, forming a plume that sprawls over four square miles under 23,000 homes and businesses. Locals refer to the area as "the toxic triangle."
On cool or rainy days, when the Alvarados close the windows and shut off the air conditioning, a sweet chemical smell floods the house. When they eat dinner during these times, says Robert, 66, it's like tasting something acrid. "We drink bottled water but there's nothing we can do about the air except go outside and wait," says Lupe, 64.
Robert, a handsome man with almond skin, limps across his cramped living room with a black metal cane. He shows me a letter that recently arrived from the local hospital, congratulating him; he'd qualified for a kidney transplant. A few years ago he suffered a brain aneurysm, causing him to become nearly blind. His wife and one of his daughters both have battled thyroid cancer. "We know at least 15 people on this street alone who have some sort of cancer," says Robert, a former labor relations employee at Delta Air Lines. "We call ourselves the living dead."
In the Alvarados' front yard, a purple cross sticks out of a cluster of banana trees. The crosses, distributed by a local community group, punctuate front yards throughout the neighborhood. They mark homes where people are battling cancer or other illnesses, an estimated 25 percent of households, according to local activists.
Surveys conducted by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry have found elevated levels of kidney, liver and cervical cancer, leukemia and low birth weights in the neighborhoods that surround Kelly Air Force Base. A survey by the University of Texas found that 91 percent of adults in the area experienced multiple illnesses, including chronic sinus infections, nausea, heart and lung disease. Based on these studies, the area qualifies as a cancer cluster (with a higher rate of terminal illness, per capita, than areas of a similar size), says Wilma Subra, a chemist and environmental health activist based in Louisiana, who has consulted with Kelly community activists.
Although it has conducted limited testing, the EPA acknowledges that it's possible for PCE vapor to rise from groundwater into people's living rooms and kitchens. Yet it says the Alvarados and their neighbors have nothing to fear. Based on EPA air quality tests inside five area homes, the nation's environmental guardian claims that it's safe for residents to live above the plume for the next 40 to 100 years, or the amount of time it will take for the chemicals to naturally dissipate.
The fact is, EPA scientists haven't completed an updated scientific assessment of PCE, including its health risks, for a decade. Worse, a comprehensive review of the carcinogenic chemical may never be coming. Anti-regulatory crusaders inside the Bush White House have peopled the EPA with top officials apparently more concerned with limiting government spending than public health. According to critics within and outside the EPA, the agency has stifled independent research and compromised scientific assessments of all manner of toxins and carcinogens that Americans breathe, drink and touch.
"It feels like Stalin-era Russia, like the administration set themselves up to decide what's allowable science and what isn't," says a high-ranking staff scientist at the EPA, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Until the recent economic crash, this has been such an anti-regulatory administration. One of the ways to undermine regulations is to undermine the science behind them. It's absolutely shocking what's going on."
Public health officials say this attempt to derail the scientific evaluation of toxins is one of the most damning legacies of the Bush administration. In late September, the Government Accountability Office issued a scathing critique of the EPA's new toxic-assessment procedures. It concluded that the secretive procedures compromise scientific credibility and sacrifice the public's trust in government. Despite such hefty criticism, public officials fear that because the new procedures have been instituted at the EPA so far below the public radar, their harmful impact will survive long after Bush leaves office. It will take a bold and expedient move by Barack Obama or the next Congress to curtail the influence of the Pentagon and other government agencies on the EPA.
Nasheed fears is that if he does not take action, the future descendents of the 300,000 islanders could become environmental refugees.
The president-elect of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, says he wants to buy a new homeland for his people.
He says that the gradual rise in sea levels caused by global warming means the Maldives islanders may eventually be forced to resettle elsewhere.
The Maldives is the lowest nation in the world. Its highest land is little more than two metres above sea level.
The United Nations estimates that sea levels may rise globally by nearly 60 centimetres this century.
Devastation fears The Maldives comprise more than 1,000 islands and coral atolls surrounded by the clear waters of the Indian Ocean.
The white sandy beaches are a major tourist attraction bringing in billions of dollars every year.
Now Mohamed Nasheed, who will be sworn in as the country's first democratically elected president on Tuesday, has said that he will set up a fund to acquire land in other parts of the region.
Mr Nasheed's spokesman, Ibrahim Hussein Zaki, told the BBC's World Today programme that the new government had to take action.
"Global warming and environmental issues are issues of major concern to the Maldivian people. We are just about three feet (0.91 metre) above sea level," Mr Zaki said, speaking from the capital, Male.
"So any sea level rise could have a devastating effect on the people of the Maldives and their very survival".
