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October 25, 2002
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EPA
tells Leech Lake residents Superfund site still concern
CASS LAKE,
Minn. (AP) — Federal officials have told residents on the Leech Lake
Reservation that the St. Regis Superfund site has tested positive for
elevated
levels of dioxin and may still be a health hazard.
At a daylong
public meeting Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency presented
its
findings of recent soil, sediment, water and fish tissue tests
conducted at the
site that used to be a St. Regis Paper Co. wood treatment plant.
The plant
operated from 1957 until 1985. It was designated a Superfund cleanup
site in
1984.
“There are
increased levels of dioxins in whitefish,” said Milton Clark, EPA
health
adviser. “We do have concerns about the levels that we see and we’re
going to
do more evaluation of those fish in the future.”
The tests
indicated the Pike Bay and Cass Lake whitefish carry 10 times the
levels of
dioxin as the same species in Ball Club Lake, which was unaffected by
the St.
Regis pollution.
The EPA
recommended that people eat no more than 12 meals per year of whitefish
from
Pike Bay and Cass Lake. The fish should be skinned and the fat removed
before
cooking. During cooking, care should be taken to drain the fat away
from the
fish and other foods prepared alongside.
“It makes it
less risky. It doesn’t solve the problem,” Clark said.
Federal
officials reassured those who attended the meetings that food like wild
rice
does not take up dioxin through the stems to the grains, and root
vegetables
like carrots and potatoes are made safe by scraping the outer layer
from the
roots.
Although the
levels of dioxin in the fish and soil are a concern, officials urged
residents
not to panic. Almost every food is contaminated to some extent, Clark
said, and
everyone lives with some level of exposure.
“We want to
make sure people don’t have a sense of emergency,” said Mark Johnson of
the
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
The EPA said
it used low detection limits and screening levels to ensure that even
small
amounts of contaminants could be identified. They also used sampling
techniques
unavailable in the 1980s when the cleanup was initiated.
“We’re
applying methods now that are much more sensitive than we had 20 years
ago,”
Johnson said. The possible effects of dioxin exposure include increased
chances
of developing cancer.
The next
step will be for the EPA to develop a set of recommendations for people
to
reduce their exposure, such as washing hands after handling soil.
Johnson said
the EPA would work with the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe to develop such
recommendations.
“I think
there can be a process where all these things are balanced out,” Clark
said.
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