An estimated $3.2 million may be allocated by Congress for a PCB human exposure study in Anniston, Senate sources said Tuesday.
U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby announced Tuesday afternoon that a Senate subcommittee approved funding for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to initiate the health study.
The proposed funding has a way to go to become a certainty. The appropriations bill that includes the funding must be approved by the full committee and then by the Senate, then be reconciled with the House version before it can be sent to be signed into law by the president.
The proposed funding is part of the proposed $81allocation for the ATSDR, the sister agency to the Environmental Protection Agency that deals with toxic human exposures at the nation's worst-contaminated sites.
The $81 million is a slight increase from ATSDR's 2002 budget of $78.2 million.
In announcing the proposed funding, Shelby noted that people who live around the former Monsanto plant in western Anniston have some of the highest levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) seen in residential populations.
PCBs are a group of chemicals linked to cancer, neurodevelopmental deficits, and other health effects. Pervasive PCB pollution in the Anniston area, in neighborhoods, waterways, landfills and ditches, has led to multi-million dollar litigation and state and federal cleanup agreements with Solutia, Inc., Monsanto's spinoff company.
Activists and plaintiffs in the PCB litigation have claimed that the western Anniston community suffers from a range of sicknesses linked to PCBs. They have demanded a health clinic for western Anniston, a survey of diseases in the community, and a long-term health study.
They first complained to the EPA and the Alabama Congressional delegation about the high levels of PCB exposures in Anniston in 1998; soon after, the EPA began investigating the extent of the residential contamination and ATSDR published a PCB health assessment for the Anniston area, which relayed blood test results and a summary of the current PCB health literature.
Anniston activist David Baker, who made the original complaint, relayed his ongoing dissatisfaction with the cleanup and the health investigations during an April congressional subcommittee hearing on the federal government's handling of the PCB woes. Baker declared that residents have "have high incidences of cancer, diabetes, asthma, thyroid problems and lupis."
Shelby said, in a press release on Tuesday, "To date, a comprehensive study of the illness rates in Anniston residents has not been conducted. I think that is a failure of the system."
ATSDR officials did not comment on the matter Tuesday afternoon. However, the officials recently said they would consider a comprehensive PCB study if Congress or other entities provided the funding for it.
Shirley Baker, the health coordinator for Community Against Pollution, the western Anniston activist group, said she thinks the Congressional funding "will get us started."
She added, "Now, all we need to do is get a plan."
So far, no government agency has presented a final plan for a comprehensive PCB study or health clinic.
The type of study ATSDR has identified as potentially suitable for Anniston is a prospective cohort study, in which scientists could identify, evaluate and track the health of a defined group of PCB-exposed residents for a number of years, and then compare the health outcomes to a non-PCB exposed group.
In May, EPA Administrator Christine Whitman met with U.S. Rep. Bob Riley, a state gubernatorial candidate, and agreed with him that both a health study and clinic were critical for western Anniston.
