Ecology Will Crack Down On Dioxins City May Have To Take Plastics Out Of Garbage

With the release of its first-ever dioxin inventory, Washington’s environment cops are pledging to “virtually eliminate” the production and release of the hazardous chemicals by 2025.

That call to action by Washington Department of Ecology Director Tom Fitzsimmons has serious implications for Spokane, a city official says.

It means trash plant managers may have to take plastics and other dioxin sources out of the waste stream at Spokane’s garbage incinerator before burning them.

To completely halt any dioxin emissions, “we may have to modify the kind of garbage we put into it,” said Lloyd Brewer, the city’s environmental analyst.

That’s because many products of the industrial age, including plastics, contain dioxins that can be liberated when they are burned.

“It costs us more and more as you try to reduce the emissions. Eventually, you have to look at the source,” Brewer said.

Spokane’s garbage incinerator was listed as the top dioxin generator among seven large industrial burners in Washington state in the report released Thursday.

Most of the dioxin ends up in the ash left over after Spokane’s garbage is burned. The ash is buried in a landfill in Klickitat County.

Ecology says it still needs information on several hundred other facilities to complete its assessment of who’s generating dioxin.

Dioxins can cause some cancers and, at very low doses, are linked to reproductive problems and endocrine system disruptions in animals and people.

Ecology plans a series of hearings and public discussions on the issue. The agency’s new strategy includes:

Eliminating dioxins from new facilities by 2005.

Halting dioxin emissions from existing facilities by 2020.

Stopping dioxin releases at environmental cleanup sites by 2025.

Spokane city officials aren’t happy that their incinerator has been fingered as a major industrial generator of dioxin.

“I think it’s based on inadequate data,” Brewer said.

“A large percentage of what we generate goes to a lined landfill.”

Ecology officials agree they need more complete information on dioxin sources statewide.

They only have good data on 25 of the state’s biggest industrial facilities, including the Spokane plant, said Bill Backous, Ecology’s manager for environmental investigations.

The facilities for which the most comprehensive dioxin data are available include hog fuel boilers, incinerators, cement kilns, wastewater treatment plants, pulp and paper mills and plants that regenerate activated carbon.

Six of the operations have shut down in recent years, including two of the largest dioxin sources: the Cameron-Yakima carbon-regeneration plant and the Rayonier Inc. pulp mill in Port Angeles.

State officials aren’t happy that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been so slow in coming out with a dioxin reassessment, promised in the Bush administration and still not finished, Backous said.

The reassessment will be used to determine the extent of dioxins in the environment.

One scientist who has worked on the long-delayed dioxin reassessment, first requested by industry in 1991, agrees.

The EPA’s delay in getting out the reassessment is hindering efforts like Washington state’s, said Peter DeFur, an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va.

“It makes the EPA look like fools to be dragging out this process,” DeFur said.

Scientists evaluating the dioxin dose necessary to cause reproductive and endocrine system damage have already concluded there’s no threshold dose for noncancer effects.

That means no matter how small the dioxin dose, there is some reproductive damage.

“That was a remarkable finding,” said DeFur, a member of the EPA advisory committee that’s working on the dioxin reassessment’s final chapter on risk to humans.

“Dioxin is now seen as a clear carcinogen, with very long-lived reproductive effects,” he said.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization classified dioxin as a carcinogen last year, and also lowered the calculated acceptable daily intake by 30 percent.

By year’s end, Ecology hopes to convene a daylong symposium where dioxin producers, environmentalists, regulators and others will plan a strategy to control and eliminate 27 types of dioxin and related chemicals.

An environmental coalition leader said she’s pleased with Ecology’s new strategy.

“We’re thrilled that Ecology is developing a plan for phaseouts and discussing actual dates for achieving them,” said Carol Dansereau of the Washington Toxics Coalition in Seattle.