INDUSTRIAL SOURCES OF DIOXIN POISONING IN MOSSVILLE, LA
Thursday August 9, 2007
Produced by Dori Smith of WHUS at Storrs, University of Connecticut
On this week's Sprouts: why didn't the EPA and other U.S. government agencies prevent industries near Mossville Lousiana from steadily increasing the levels of poison Dioxin they were emitting?
Residents of the tiny Southwest Louisiana town of Mossville, are finally able to prove which industrial plants operating near their homes emitted the Dioxin and other chemicals found in blood of residents. A July report from environmental human rights activists and scientists in Louisiana and Washington D.C. ties together blood sample results with U.S. government research reports on pollution from petroleum processing and vinyl manufacturing plants.
Tests performed in 1998 revealed that residents did have Dioxin levels three times normal levels but despite this risk, U.S. Government watchdog agencies, the EPA and ATSDR, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, refused to tie results together establishing the need to protect residents on an emergency basis. Thus, many residents have been forced to live with deadly Dioxin fumes for more than a decade. Statistics on disease have skyrocketed and health agency assessments are grim. The residents are obtaining petition signature to learn how many would like to be relocated. Meanwhile, their demand of the U.S. Congress is for healthcare and environmental justice.
Featuring: Members of Mossville Environmental Action Now and residents of Mossville, Dorothy Felix, David Prince, Delma Bennett, Haki Vincent, & Shirley Johnson and Gail Garrett. Also attorneys and co-directors of Advocates for Environmental Human Rights of New Orleans, and Washington, D.C., Nathalie Walker and Monique Harden, and chemist Wilma Subra of the Subra Company.
Sprouts is a weekly program produced in collaboration with community radio stations and independent producers across the country. We bring you local stories of national interest produced at these radio stations and media groups.
The program is offered free of charge to all radio stations. For information, or if you would like to feature your work on Sprouts, contact Ursula Ruedenberg at ursula@pacifica. org.
Left KU Channel
August 9 2007, 3PM EST
Total time 29:32 minutes
Listen here |
