EPA reports high levels of cancer-causing chemical agent in Dav...

Interesting. I really hope for the community that this is taken care of and not swept under the rug. Cemex touts how environmentally friendly they are and how they support the town, and all the while are poisening these poor people.

holy smokes -- hexavalent chromium is nasty, nasty stuff.

no wonder the weed up there is so potent.

"... local authorities are calling for closure until more facts are determined and a solution is brought forward."

Good! Great! I am amazed that anything is being done, but...GREAT!

This is so scary for everyone who lives in DVP. I remember back in the day when the cement plant would put off so much dust there would be a layer on everyones car in the morning, all the while they were telling the residents how safe everything was. Then they installed those filters that obviously didnt do a damn thing. I feel for everyone who lives there and has been exposed to this.

This is scary stuff. I wonder how long the plant has been emitting chromium 6. Is this emission something that has been going on for a short time? Wouldn't a lot of people have been getting sick from this by now? The plant has been in operation for over 100 years.

Bonny Dooner, I remember chipping the cement 'dust' off sidewalks and using it like chalk when I was a kid. It was that thick.

All those years in the '50s and '60s when everything up there had a half inch of white powder - glad I survived playing in Davenport ... beyond scary!!

Coulrophobia wrote:

"... local authorities are calling for closure until more facts are determined and a solution is brought forward."
Good! Great! I am amazed that anything is being done, but...GREAT!

I'm shocked! And the Planning Commission is taking up the case of Cemex polluting Liddell Spring (and other creeks?) the next day! Could it be these things are related?! Let's hope our policymakers get a spine on these issues.

i blame the immigrants

Davenporter wrote:

This is scary stuff. I wonder how long the plant has been emitting chromium 6. Is this emission something that has been going on for a short time? Wouldn't a lot of people have been getting sick from this by now? The plant has been in operation for over 100 years.
Bonny Dooner, I remember chipping the cement 'dust' off sidewalks and using it like chalk when I was a kid. It was that thick.

My understanding is that it's a byproduct of coal burning and inadequate maintenance of the scrubber/recovery array on the stack. So the pollution could go back as far as they've been buring coal, or since they changed the scrubber in the stack, or...who knows?

I am so sad for the children and their parents. What a thing to learn!

This is ghastly:

"Researchers have recently reported discovering that vitamin C reacts inside human lung cells with chromium(VI), causing massive DNA damage. Low doses of chromium(VI), combined with vitamin C, produce up to 15 times as many chromosomal breaks and up to 10 times more mutations, compared with cells lacking vitamin C."

I agree that we need Shanna to report ASAP what the exposure level is. "High levels" is a vague term.

CEMEX does a lot to market its green credentials to the public. It will be interesting to see if there's any substance to it.

Shanna I think Erin Brockovich herself (ie not Julia Roberts) brought national attention to the dangers of Chromium VI in drinking water well before the movie came out. It had previously been known to be dangerous when inhaled, but her efforts could be more directly recognized in your article than by reference to the movie! Sorry but I am pretty sure your readers can access the level above the entertainment business (I hope). If not it should be up to you to drag them kicking and screaming up to that level!
cheers, and stay on this story...

Coulrophobia wrote:

<quoted text>
My understanding is that it's a byproduct of coal burning and inadequate maintenance of the scrubber/recovery array on the stack. So the pollution could go back as far as they've been buring coal, or since they changed the scrubber in the stack, or...who knows?
I am so sad for the children and their parents. What a thing to learn!
This is ghastly:
"Researchers have recently reported discovering that vitamin C reacts inside human lung cells with chromium(VI), causing massive DNA damage. Low doses of chromium(VI), combined with vitamin C, produce up to 15 times as many chromosomal breaks and up to 10 times more mutations, compared with cells lacking vitamin C."

Weeping baby jesus in chaps would you set down and take a big breath, shut up and listen. In order for C6 occurs when C3 carries an O2 atom and then coverts to C6. Trivalent chromium is naturally occurring in coastal geological formations. Their test is for total chromium. Saltz tannery dumped a lot of liquid chrome tan solution on the Eastern end of Swanton Valley in the late 70's and early 80's. So please do a little honest research before Erin shows up
Fer cryin' out loud would you people go to Cabrillo and take chemistry and stop getting your daily dose of mis-information on the net.

Why didn't they test nearby Bonny Doon and Swanton as well? How far does this crap travel? This is very troubling news for our community, especially for long-time Davenport residents and their children.

Thank you for giving the story the serious attention it deserves Shanna.

Rocket J Squierrl wrote:

<quoted text> Weeping baby jesus in chaps would you set down and take a big breath, shut up and listen. In order for C6 occurs when C3 carries an O2 atom and then coverts to C6. Trivalent chromium is naturally occurring in coastal geological formations. Their test is for total chromium. Saltz tannery dumped a lot of liquid chrome tan solution on the Eastern end of Swanton Valley in the late 70's and early 80's. So please do a little honest research before Erin shows up
Fer cryin' out loud would you people go to Cabrillo and take chemistry and stop getting your daily dose of mis-information on the net.

"Fer cryin' out loud", people, consider the source of the above post. And dissmiss it for what it is.

...dissmiss should have been dismiss, but I kind of like the "diss" in there, oh "weeping baby Jesus in chaps"...

Rocket J Squierrl wrote:

<quoted text> Weeping baby jesus in chaps....

By the way, Noxious Flying Rodent, I see that the Sentinel has updated the story since I posted:

"Cemex officials suspect the source of the chromium 6 is mill scale and steel slag, two ingredients in cement known for high chromium content."

SO not from the stack but from the manufacturing process.

So why don't you go and do some "honest" research up your a**. It seems that you have claimed, in various places on on this forum, to have done just about every job there is at some time in your life, and lived just about everywhere. I suspect you are just a habitual Googler with a strange, sad fantasy life.

For any *human* readers who are interested:

"Chromium occurs in the environment predominantly in one of two valence states: trivalent chromium (Cr III), which occurs naturally and is an essential nutrient, and hexavalent chromium (Cr VI), which, along with the less common metallic chromium (Cr 0), is most commonly produced by industrial processes..."

Mill scale:

"During the processing of steel, iron oxides will form on the surface of the metal. These oxides, known as mill scale, occur during continuous casting, reheating, and hot rolling operations. The scale is removed by water sprays and often recycled by the steel plant. Mill scale that cannot be recycled by steel plants has been used by portland cement plants as an iron source. "

Steel slag:

"Steel slag is a byproduct from the processing of iron or scrap steel in a basic oxygen furnace or electric arc furnace. Once again, limestone or dolomite is used as a flux to remove impurities...after free iron products are removed, it can be used as a raw material in the manufacture of clinker. For 2003, the United States Geographical Survey estimated that 8.8 million metric tons of steel furnace slag was produced, and that over 5% of it was used by cement plants to produce clinker.

Clinker:

"Cement clinkers are formed by the heat processing of cement elements in a kiln. Limestone, clay, bauxite, and iron ore sand in specific proportions are heated in a rotating kiln...until they begin to form cinder lumps, which are also known as cement clinkers. Cement clinkers are usually ground with gypsum to produce the fine powder later mixed with liquid to produce cement, although some manufacturers ship cement clinkers in their lump form to cut down on dust."

***The question is, WHY was Cemex using those "two ingredients in cement known for high chromium content"? And for how long?***

"The average risk of cancer is 83 in 1 million at the school and 102 per million at the fire department, Kendig said. The probability of contracting cancer is based on a person being continuously exposed to the emissions for 70 years, he said."
But the likelihood of contracting cancer by age 70 is about 1 in 4 to 1 in 3. So how can this be considered a significant risk, if it changes the likelihood from 0.25 to 0.2500083?

I'm just saying there are other local naturally occurring sites of trivalent chromium. Everyone loves to take down a company without considering all the possibilities.

If anyone would do a study on population and chronic illness incidence I think you would be surprised at how many cancers, autoimmune disease we have per capita in this town. I live here and hope that this plant gets shut down for good. Besides Chromium 6 maybe we should also mention how toxic cement dust itself is....hmmmm? Or the methyl mercury from burning the coal to run the plant.