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Dear Umbra,

I saw an infomercial late at night about these foot pads that you wear to sleep and they will "remove toxins from your body." I didn't know who else to ask, so you win that lottery. Do we actually have that many toxins in our body? And does wearing silly pads on our feet really pull them out so we can easily throw these toxins in the trash? I think you should do an experiment and let me know if I'm missing the boat by not ordering right away -- or if I should save energy that will be used by ordering, shipping, and discarding used foot pads.

Elizabeth
Washington, D.C.

Dearest Elizabeth,

Anything you see for sale on late-night TV is guaranteed to be useful. Worth every penny. I asked our comptroller for a credit card so that I could do your suggested experiment. He said no. I'm not a responsible late night shopper (after the Ginsu knife incident), and Grist is all wrapped up in testing nail polish, toothpaste, and organic beer. No time for toxin-sucking foot pads.

Soothe your sole, au naturale.

Photo: sarahfelicity

Let's see what the internet tells us about foot pad-related toxins in our body. Looks like we have metabolic wastes, parasites, chemicals, mucus (!), cellulite (?!?), "toxins" -- and eww, there's a "before" and "after" photo of the footpatch! Bleagh. It's a convincing photo, but I wouldn't undertake such an operation without consulting a professional.

What are toxins, and do we indeed have them inside us? Toxins are traditionally defined as poisons derived from living organisms (e.g., tetanus). Today the term is widely used to mean anything known to be poisonous or suspected to cause ill health. Inquiring into toxins can lead to the dubious world of New Age cure-alls, perhaps including these foot pads. But there's no disputing the sad fact that humans have introduced harmful poisons into the general environment, and many of these very same poisons may be found in our bodies. Our "body burden" includes chemical pollutants from pesticides, flame retardants, treated wood, lead paint, animal fats, cosmetics, and more. Some of these wafted through the air to our lungs; others we ate. Various studies have tested human blood, hair, and urine for chemicals, and delivered bad news. In just a few examples: breast milk contains persistent bioaccumulative toxics (PBTs) and persistent organic pollutants (POPs), such as dioxins, furans, and PCBs. Bill Moyers had 87 out of 214 tested substances, including lead and methylmercury, in his body; some of his fellow Human Toxome Project subjects had more than 100. Ten Washingtonians who were tested for toxic chemicals all had phthalates, PCBs, and mercury in their samples. Many of these chemicals are known or suspected to damage us in some way, be it in our endocrine system, our brain, or our reproductive organs.

Our existing body burden diminishes as water-soluble pollutants exit in our sweat, urine, and other watery outputs; mercury also exits through our hair and nails. Fat-soluble chemicals, however, will only leave us if we lose the fat in which they are stored. Taking those factors into account, we can help cleanse ourselves by losing weight, reducing our exposure to harmful chemicals, and letting our body burden decline via the natural excretion process.

Personal steps to reduce chemical exposure include eating lower on the food chain and eating low-mercury fish, using furniture free of PBDE flame retardants, and avoiding pesticides, solvents, and smoking ... stuff we've oft discussed in this space. Find more information on what to avoid from the Environmental Working Group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Pollution in People, or the Grist archives (search for "body burden" or "environmental health," and voila). We each have a major role to play in reducing community exposure to these chemicals. Our consumption habits have the potential to contribute to chemical pollution (vinyl production emits dioxin, to mention one favorite dead horse), or to promote a cleaner way of life (emitting less car exhaust via driving fewer miles per week, to mention another dead horse).

Which brings us back to whether or not one should buy a product of dubious value advertised on late-night television. Eschewing late-night shopping is excellent personal environmental policy, and the omnipresence of chemicals in the manufacture of stuff is one additional reason. Buying less stuff is an important toe on our eco-footprint. If anyone has news about toxin-removing foot pads, or how cellulite and mucus count as toxins, please write in. Until then, let us refrain from any unnecessary shopping, and simply wrap moist toilet paper about our feet. See where that gets us.

Gamely,
Umbra

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Mining claims on federal land in the West are coming increasingly close to urban areas, according to a new report from the Environmental Working Group. Thanks to a spike in the value of many minerals -- and antiquated U.S. mining law, which is highly prospector-friendly -- there are now 51,600 hardrock claims within five miles of Western population centers, nearly double the count in 2003. Las Vegas and the Phoenix area both have more than 5,000 claims within a five-mile radius. While fewer than 5 percent of claims are likely to actually be developed into mining operations, greens are still antsy. Mining accounts for more toxic Superfund sites than any other industry, and also requires a lot of water, which the West doesn't really have to spare.

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An award-winning toxicologist was removed from a U.S. EPA panel reviewing the potential health dangers of deca, a flame retardant widely used in electronics, after the American Chemistry Council claimed she was biased. Deborah Rice had testified for the Maine legislature in support of a state ban on deca; EPA officials cited "the perception of a potential conflict of interest" for her removal. Oddly enough, 17 panelists on seven separate EPA panels last year had significant ties to the chemical industry, according to the Environmental Working Group. Hm, double standard much?

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Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" traced back to farm subsidies

You know that massive "dead zone" that shows up every year in the Gulf of Mexico? The oxygen-starved, life-free patch of water about the size of, oh, Connecticut? That's your tax dollars at work. The zone is caused largely by nitrogen-based fertilizers, which flow downriver from farms in a small set of counties in the Midwest -- farms the Department of Agriculture subsidized to the tune of some $30 billion between 1997 and 2002. In contrast, in that period conservation programs in those same counties received ... $75 million. Love those priorities. This info comes from a new study by the Environmental Working Group. "In the crudest sense, we're paying people to pollute," says an EWG ecologist. A multistate compact to shrink the dead zone to one-third its current size by 2015 has been ineffective so far, possibly because despite incentives, the program is voluntary. The hypoxic area is a major threat to Louisiana's fishing industry, one of the world's most productive.

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U.S. Faces Coming Asbestos Health Crisis, Group Says

Despite the common public perception that asbestos went out with bell bottoms and disco, the fact is that asbestos -- like, uh, bell bottoms and disco -- is still with us. In fact, claims a report released today by the Environmental Working Group, we are poised to enter an asbestos-related public-health crisis: An estimated 100,000 Americans will die over the next decade from diseases linked to asbestos exposure, including mesothelioma, asbestosis, lung cancer, and gastrointestinal cancer. EWG recommends public screening, assistance for victims, and an immediate ban on asbestos. Yup, that's right -- like disco, asbestos is still perfectly legal. A 1989 ban by the U.S. EPA was overturned in an industry lawsuit. "That was the last time the EPA tried to ban anything," said EWG Vice President Richard Wiles. "They figured that if they couldn't ban asbestos -- a known carcinogen for which no level of exposure is safe -- what could they ban?" Republican-sponsored legislation in the Senate would shield asbestos manufacturers from legal liability and establish a trust fund for victims.

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Industry Poised to Clash with California Over Chemical Testing

California, ever on the cutting edge of environmental policy, is considering following the lead of the European Union by requiring more safety testing of chemicals -- a move the chemical industry doesn't plan to take lying down. According to a memo from the American Chemical Council leaked to the Environmental Working Group, the industry is contemplating an undercover campaign to derail efforts to require companies to prove that their chemicals are safe prior to marketing them. (Currently, the burden of proof falls on consumer groups or government agencies to prove that a chemical already on the market is harmful.) The ACC, which represents most chemical manufacturers in the U.S., denied that it was launching a campaign but acknowledged circulating a note outlining a plan to "stigmatize" advocates of chemical testing and create a so-called "independent ... watchdog group" to propagate pro-industry information.

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Apples Rank as Produce Most Contaminated by Pesticides

Apples, bell peppers, celery, and cherries rank as the produce most contaminated by pesticide residues in the U.S., says the Environmental Working Group in a new report. Using data from lab tests conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture, EWG compared contamination of 46 fruits and vegetables and came up with a "Dirty Dozen" list of the most pesticide-laden. Scrubbing your fresh fruits and veggies before eating won't solve the problem, as nearly all of the tests were conducted on foods that had been washed and prepared for normal consumption. But the good news, says EWG, is that the growing availability of organic foods has made it easier to avoid produce with high levels of pesticide residues.

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A toxic chemical used in rocket fuel was found in four of 22 winter lettuce samples purchased at Northern California grocery stores, according to a report by the Environmental Working Group. The lettuce contaminated with perchlorate, a hormone disrupter, was traced to farms in Southern California and Arizona that irrigate their crops with Colorado River water, which has been contaminated with perchlorate by military and industrial activity. An average-sized serving of the tainted leafy greens contained at least four times the level of perchlorate considered safe in drinking water by the U.S. EPA, though not enough research has been done to determine how much perchlorate in the diet would be dangerous. EWG is calling on the federal government to do a comprehensive study of perchlorate in the food stream and to clean up military sites contaminated with the chemical. Earlier this month, Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), and Harry Reid (Nev.) wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld calling for more aggressive cleanup of perchlorate-contaminated sites.

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So much for the information age: Some U.S. lawmakers are trying to limit access to data on the federal government's farm subsidy program. Last fall, the nonprofit Environmental Working Group touched off a political firestorm by posting on the Internet a database of farm subsidy recipients from 1996 to 2000. Information on the site was used by senators in a debate that resulted in a vote to reduce maximum farm subsidies by 40 percent. Now EWG says both chambers of Congress are crafting language for the Farm Bill that would restrict public access to information on subsidy spending. The Senate version, reportedly the more popular of the two, would allow access to aggregate data only and give the Agriculture Department the right to refuse to release names of individual recipients and the size of their subsidies. For their part, congressional staffers said the EWG was overreacting and no significant changes in the law were planned.

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Despite a stern tongue lashing from the New York Times editorial page on Monday, the Senate version of the Interior appropriations bill continues to provide a comfy roosting spot for a handful of anti-environmental riders.

Some of the offending items got sliced off when the Senate reinstated Rule 16, the sensible old regulation requiring that senators refrain from attaching non-germane legislative items to must-pass spending bills. (Perish the thought!)

Shorn from the bill were items that would have, among other things, forbidden the federal government from introducing grizzly bears in Montana and Idaho without consent from the states' governors; delayed any changes in federal oil royalty rules until 2000; and given the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management sole discretion in deciding whether to conduct wildlife population surveys before making land management decisions.

Even those items, however, may live to ride another day as their sponsors, by various reports, are scrambling to come up with crafty modifications to make their pet amendments comply with Rule 16.

The Interior spending bill, which may go to the Senate floor as early as today (though predictions about this bill's movement are notoriously slippery), still contains a raft of other riders. According to a summary prepared by Defenders of Wildlife, some of these riders would:

We hear that enviros have lined up a number of sympathetic senators to offer amendments opposing several of these riders. Sens. Chuck Robb (D-Va.), Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), and Max Cleland (D-Ga.) are reportedly prepared to offer an amendment to oppose the wildlife populations survey rider. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) may offer an amendment to oppose the Domenici grazing permit provision. Others may step up as well. Should be a bloody battle.

No word yet on how much the Environmental Working Group actually spent on a splashy full-page ad in the New York Times last week (see Muckraker, 07.28.99) touting its study on the nefarious effects of the herbicide atrazine.

We speculated (with some knowledgeable help) that the ad might have cost in the $100,000 range. Some sources now tell us that figure is too low.

But it probably isn't as high as the number EWG Pres. Ken Cook gave us in an email: "We paid a million dollars for the ad ... but we charged it and got the miles." We think he was kidding. But if not, EWG staffers should be crowding into Cook's office right now to find out what exotic locale they will be jetting off to with that motherload of miles.

In the Pander Bear department, Bill Bradley broke his national media silence on NBC's Meet the Press this past Sunday and was hit squarely with a Tim Russert uppercut on ethanol subsidies. Bradley abhorred ethanol as a senator, Russert contended, but now trots around Iowa saying how important it is to keep up federal subsidies for the corn-based fuel additive.

Bradley's response: "But now I'm running for president. I have to see the whole country. I can't just see my state. And I've spent the last seven months on the road in America. I've spent a lot of that in Iowa. I've talked to lots of Iowa farmers, and these are people who work seven days a week. These are people that are salt of the Earth. They're hard-working. They play by the rules. They look out for their neighbors." And they have the power to make or break Bradley's bid.

... In a shocking (hardly) development, the Senate has passed its version of a bill exempting "sensitive" data from the worst-case-scenario disaster reports that chemical storage facilities were supposed to have filed with the EPA by June 21. You may recall that we reported on this issue shortly before the deadline, as legislators scrambled to come up with a bill to allay FBI concerns that the disaster scenario reports could essentially provide a road map for terrorists. Both the Senate bill, and a version passed earlier by the House, would exempt such sensitive data for a year. The bill now awaits Pres. Clinton's signature.

... A number of green groups are lining up to oppose a Global Free Logging Agreement which was on a list of agenda items submitted by the Clinton administration for the meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle later this year. It promises to be a hot issue. Stay tuned for more.

Time for a new feature in which you, Dear Reader, set Muckraker straight when you think we have made an egregious error, displayed a stunning lapse in judgement, or simply missed the forest for the trees.

Last week, we put together a brief item on some brewings in the special election to fill the House seat of the late Rep. George Brown (D), particularly concerns that Democrats might not be able to clear the field for Brown's widow, Marta Brown. We were told that Marta is considered as enviro-friendly as her late husband.

Not so fast, wrote one enviro who asked to remain anonymous. This person argued that Marta Brown holds different environmental views from her late husband on issues ranging from the Endangered Species Act to the use of public lands. Marta Brown should not, this activist wrote, be considered a solid green vote.

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If you are like us (and we bet you are) you were sipping your coffee and peacefully perusing your New York Times Tuesday morning when POW! you were smacked upside the head by a clever full-page ad from the Environmental Working Group previewing its release of a study on the effects of the herbicide atrazine. The ad, mimicking the long-running Absolut Vodka campaign, pictures a baby bottle with an atrazine-warning label. The caption reads, "Absolute Outrage." Not bad.

Is EWG Outraged? Absolutely

We'll get to the report shortly. But first, what Muckraker readers really care about: How much does a splashy, big mama ad like that cost anyway?

We asked the good people at Fenton Communications who are handling PR for EWG (stop us before we acronym again!) on the atrazine study. No dice. They weren't talking.

So we poked around a bit and found that a full-page, time-sensitive NYT ad (unlike the ones that wait in the can for an open page) can run close to $100,000. That's a nice piece of change, but likely worth it for that kind of mega-exposure. If anyone out there would care to correct us on the cost of such an ad (or its actual efficacy), please feel free.

Back to the substance of the study, which was released today. EWG's report suggests that atrazine, which is used predominantly on cornfields in the Midwest, should be banned by the EPA as a heath hazard to children who drink formula reconstituted with tap water.

To come to this conclusion, EWG studied results from some 127,000 tap water samples taken between 1993 and 1998 by agencies from seven states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Ohio. The group found that atrazine, which runs off into rivers and lakes and soaks into ground water, contaminated the tap water delivered to some 10.4 million people in 796 towns, sometimes in concentrations up to 14 times the legal limit.

The report rakes the EPA over the coals for having no chance of meeting the August 3 deadline for listing new chemicals like atrazine among the dangerous substances that pose health risks to children. It also criticizes the EPA for underestimating by a factor of 15 the risk atrazine poses to infants in the first four months of life.

Not content to leave it there, the report also contends that "the continued presence of atrazine in tap water is assured by the squadron of former top EPA pesticide regulators who now represent the pesticide industry in opposing ... new children's heath protections." Ouch.

Late next year, the 18-month moratorium on road building in 33 million acres of national forest will expire. The Clinton administration will have the opportunity to make the ban permanent and expand it to include the remaining 60 million roadless acres in the federal forest system. Those acres include huge swaths of land in the Northwest and the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, which were exempted from the moratorium because their current management plans were said to already forbid new road building.

Up until now, the conventional wisdom surrounding this touchy issue has been that the administration would not call for an environmental impact study (EIS) on the roadless forest policy, but would settle instead for a more cursory environmental assessment.

The current buzz, however, is that a full-scale EIS may be in the offing, which enviros are convinced will demonstrate that the only way to protect the remaining pristine acres will be to expand the roadless policy to include the disputed areas in the Northwest and the Tongass. Expanding the ban to exclude logging and mineral mining wouldn't hurt, enviros say, but prospects for that happening remain unclear.

Ken Rait, head of the Heritage Forest Campaign, says he believes the message is finally getting through to White House officials that they have both the authority and the political capital needed to expand the road-building ban.

"We've worked it up the food chain and the administration is really starting to take notice," Rait said, adding that he expects to meet with White House Chief of Staff John Podesta within the week. "The administration wants to do something that will outlive the Clinton presidency as well as pass legal muster."

Rait also touted a new survey conducted by Democratic pollster Mark Mellman indicating wide public support for a moratorium on road building in pristine forestland. Among the 800 likely voters Mellman surveyed from June 9-14, 35 percent said the amount of wilderness land currently protected by the U.S. government was "about right" while 48 percent said "not enough" was being protected.

Rait and other enviros believe the ball is in the administration's court (as do 168 members of Congress who signed a letter to the president on the issue). The Republican Congress has been generally hostile to blocking road building, mining, and logging, although there is a rider attached to the House version of the Interior Department appropriations bill that would block all federal funds from being used to build timber access roads in federal forests.

The clock is ticking, however, if an EIS is to be done in advance of the moratorium expiration. Stay tuned ...

Some developments in the special election to fill the late Rep. George Brown's (D-Calif.) seat: Democrats huddled this week to discuss the possibility that both Brown's widow Marta Brown and State Sen. Joe Baca might get in the race, jeopardizing hopes for a clear win for any Democrat in the September 21 open primary. Terry Wold, conservation coordinator for the San Bernardino chapter of the Sierra Club, said enviros were just beginning to comb through Baca's record to determine whether he would be a viable alternative to Brown, who is considered a solid green in the mold of her late husband. On the GOP side, State Sen. Jim Brulte has continued to indicate that he has no plans to give up his considerable clout in Sacramento to become a back-bencher in Washington. Don't count Brulte out yet though, as national party types have a way of sweetening the pot for heavy hitters like Brulte. The more he demurs, the sweeter the pot can get. (For more on the race, see Muckraker, 23 Jul 1999).

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