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Federal and state officials used flawed calculations in a 2005 report that assured Nitro residents that dioxin levels in school buildings and a community center do not pose a health risk, according to government records recently made public. By Staff writer
Federal and state officials used flawed calculations in a 2005 report that assured Nitro residents that dioxin levels in school buildings and a community center do not pose a health risk, according to government records recently made public.
The corrected figures - which were not made public at the time - would have made the risks appear slightly worse, especially for children at a day-care center in the Nitro Community Center, the records show.
State and federal officials said last week they stand by their earlier assurances to the public, and an April 2007 study that also found no significant risks.
However, lawyers who are suing Monsanto Co. over the alleged contamination of Nitro-area residents and area streams say government agents greatly underestimated the hazards and then covered up flaws in their studies.
"You had to have known that an unacceptable cancer risk existed for schoolchildren using a 'worst-case scenario' analysis," Charleston lawyer Stuart Calwell said in a June 11 letter to state and federal agencies. "Did you withhold such information from the public on purpose? Sadly, that is what the evidence seems to suggest."
Calwell is litigating two class-action lawsuits over dioxin pollution from the former Monsanto plant in Nitro, which for more than 50 years churned out herbicides, rubber products and other chemicals.
June 22, 2008 Nitro dioxin report flawed Levels at day-care center could be 'unacceptable' Federal and state officials used flawed calculations in a 2005 report that assured Nitro residents that dioxin levels in school buildings and a community center do not pose a health risk, according to government records recently made public. By Ken Ward Jr. Staff writer
Federal and state officials used flawed calculations in a 2005 report that assured Nitro residents that dioxin levels in school buildings and a community center do not pose a health risk, according to government records recently made public.
The corrected figures - which were not made public at the time - would have made the risks appear slightly worse, especially for children at a day-care center in the Nitro Community Center, the records show.
State and federal officials said last week they stand by their earlier assurances to the public, and an April 2007 study that also found no significant risks.
However, lawyers who are suing Monsanto Co. over the alleged contamination of Nitro-area residents and area streams say government agents greatly underestimated the hazards and then covered up flaws in their studies.
"You had to have known that an unacceptable cancer risk existed for schoolchildren using a 'worst-case scenario' analysis," Charleston lawyer Stuart Calwell said in a June 11 letter to state and federal agencies. "Did you withhold such information from the public on purpose? Sadly, that is what the evidence seems to suggest."
Calwell is litigating two class-action lawsuits over dioxin pollution from the former Monsanto plant in Nitro, which for more than 50 years churned out herbicides, rubber products and other chemicals.
Full Story: http://wvgazette.com/News/200806210336
