Alliance For A Clean Environment
A Report on the State of Our Environment                     May 2003
THE ACE REPORT
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Original concept
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Nina Robertson
May 2002
ACE Preliminary Household Health Survey
In an effort to help the community address health problems plaguing the Greater Pottstown area, ACE has created a preliminary household health survey. Designed to pinpoint patterns of illness, the comprehensive survey is expected to show correlations between where the respondents live in relation to known polluting industries and any illness they or other family members have experienced.
The target group for the survey is residents in the Greater Pottstown area that reside in communities within close proximity to the toxic triangle. Careful consideration has been given to making the survey user-friendly and includes space for detailed information about health related problems. To view and download the survey, please visit: www.acereport.org/survey.html
To make a comment about the survey or this article, visit: the Forum
Call For Action
Without funding to send out surveys, we need the help of area residents to distribute them; encourage their contacts to fill out and send them in. Take the cover letter and health surveys to be copied and distributed at their churches, civic organizations, local government meetings, PTA's, and any other places they go to get the survey widely distributed. Forward them to everyone on their e-mail list who lives in this area and take letters / surveys door to door, letting us know which streets you cover. ACE Survey & Cover Letter
National News
EPA moves to protect kids from chemicals
WASHINGTON – The government proposed tougher guidelines Monday for evaluating cancer risks to children on grounds the very young may be 10 times more vulnerable than adults to certain chemicals.
The guidelines, when made final after a review by the Environmental Protection Agency’s science advisory board, would dramatically alter current agency policy, which assumes cancer risks to a fetus or an infant are no greater than for a similarly exposed adult.
For the time being, the increased scrutiny would be limited to assessing a group of chemicals that damage a person’s genes by causing them to mutate so that cancer may form more easily later in life. Among these are some pesticides as well as a number of chemicals released in combustion or used in the making of plastics.
The agency said that as more information is developed, other cancer-causing pollutants, not those that cause gene mutations, may also be brought under the new guidelines if they are found to pose heightened risk to children.
How to assess cancer risk to the very young from environmental pollution has been a question vexing the EPA for years. This would be the first time the EPA has proposed formally... full story

By H. Josef Hebert,
Associated Press Writer.


Article published in The Pottstown Mercury, March 4, 2003
ACE to map illnesses in area
The Alliance for a Clean Environment is looking for patterns. That’s the essential reason behind the group’s latest initiative, a health survey and mapping project that aims to map illnesses known to be related to pollution in the Pottstown area.
"This is a major initiative which will go on for several years," ACE President Lewis Cuthbert said at a Tuesday press conference.
"Hopefully, this will allow us to turn the corner on continuing to allow more and more pollution when we know there is an increase in illnesses known to be related to environmental exposures," he said.
In addition to cancer, the survey will ask about problems with kidneys, livers, bladders, miscarriages, birth defects, fibromyalgia, epilepsy and learning disabilities, just to name a few.
The questionnaire will be distributed throughout the community, can be obtained by calling ACE at 610-326-6433 and will also be available to download at ACE’s Web site -- www.acereport.org/survey.html
ACE has made headlines opposing numerous projects it views as being harmful to the environment and the health of area residents.
And it’s no secret that the group believes three entities -- the Pottstown Landfill in West Pottsgrove, the Occidental Chemical PVC plant in Lower Pottsgrove and Exelon's Nuclear Limerick Generating Station -- create what they call a "Toxic Triangle" that is slowly poisoning area residents.
ACE insists those three are largely to blame for what it asserts is a sharp increase in illnesses that are known to have links to chemicals in the environment, particularly among children.
All three have rejected ACE’s claims, saying there is no proof they are a factor and pointing out they comply with all applicable environmental laws.
But ACE has been relentless in its campaign, particularly as it concerns children’s health.
In September 2002, a statistician updated an earlier study by the Montgomery County Health Department and ACE announced his findings showed childhood cancer rates as being 92.5 percent above the national average.
A Penn State graduate class also compiled statistics from which they concluded that learning disabilities have jumped by 90 percent in Montgomery County during the past 10 years. full story
Excerpts taken from The Pottstown Mercury © March 4, 2003
To make a comment about this article, visit: the Forum
What we know: scientific evidence and cancer registry statistics
Our air fails US health standards and is the top 10% of the most carcinogenic and unhealthy air in the nation, which does not include the most carcinogenic emissions we breathe from Pottstown Landfill gas: radiation and dioxin – they are not required to be monitored or reported.
Historical evidence – Childhood Cancer Rates: about 30% above the national average in the late 80’s; about 60% above the national average in the early 90’s; over 90% above the national average in the late 90’s. That increase was more than doubled the state at 46.6%. Learning disabilities in Montgomery County increased 94% from 1990 to 2000. Waste Management bought Pottstown Landfill in 1984. Occidental Chemical came to Pottstown in 1980.
Still, all evidence has been denied, ignored, and even covered up by our elected state officials, DEP, and the Montgomery County Heath Department. We must know as a community what is really going on to force them to deal with the facts. ACE developed the health survey to show a complete picture of the kinds of illnesses people in our communities are experiencing. But, without funding to circulate the surveys, to be successful, ACE will need the help of as many people in the community as possible. more
ACE
Link of the Month
Every month we search the web for informative webpages pertaining to current issues.
This month we highlight Radiation and Public Health Project's study that documents dramatic declines in local infant death (17.4% compared to a national decline of just 6.4%) and childhood cancer rates that occurred soon after the closing of eight nuclear power plants.
"Children exposed to radiation are of increased risk for cancer," says Joseph Mangano, MPH MBA, the principal author of the study.

National Study


Please note: the internet is an ever changing medium and we cannot guarantee that the links, which may work this month, will not change in the future.
CDC Second National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released the second National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals, the largest and most extensive assessment of the U.S. population’s exposure to environmental chemicals. The report presents exposure information for 116 environmental chemicals measured in blood and urine specimens.
Chemicals presented in the report include mercury, uranium, cadmium, thallium, and other metals; phthalates; organochlorine pesticides, herbicides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; carbamate insecticides; organophosphate pesticides, phytoestrogens.
This report and EPA's admission that children are far more vulnerable to harmful chemicals, both support ACE's demand for reductions of hazardous air emissions and releases into our water by major pollution sources like Pottstown Landfill and Occidental Chemical.
ACE Activist's Hall of Fame/Shame

This months inductees into the..

    Hall of Fame:
Kudos to area residents, Sandy and Gene Swann, who just recently joined ACE and have already made a difference! They’ve distributed hundreds of health surveys; worked to get funding for ACE; wrote powerful letters to the editor; and they've even attended a day long landfill forum at a local college. Great work!

    Hall of Shame:
Shame on PA DEP, once again, for not turning Waste Management away in spite of learning our childhood cancer statistics are 92.5% higher than the national average and almost 100% higher than the state and tri county. DEP continues to consider legalizing radioactive waste dumping and a permit for Pottstown Landfill expansion which would violate two FAA safety regulations and Clean Air Act health based standard requirements.
crown
thumbs down
Support ACE Today!
Your memberships and donations help us aggressively pursue your rights to clean, safe air and water. Every day, ACE continues to fight for those rights, but we still have a long way to go. There is so much more that is needed to secure a cleaner, healthier future for our children and grandchildren. If you haven't joined or sent your contribution, do it today!
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