The photographs in a small cabin off Alabama 202 seem testimony to a thriving summer business.
Grinning men grip big, slippery catfish. They fill the frames, as does the name of the place in the picture, Cooper’s Catfish Lakes.
But the frames hang a little askew. Outside, the grass is growing long; the 11 lakes are a little low.
“I haven’t really taken care of my lakes the way I should, on account of them buying it,” said T.A. Cooper, who has owned the lakes for a half-dozen years.
“Them” is the Army, which has long promised to purchase the 37-acre property and its 11 rectangular lakes.
“They’re going to pay me next week next week, next week,” said Cooper, 79. “I’ve let ‘em drill wells on my place. I’ve done everything I could to help ‘em, and now I’m mad at ‘em.”
The reason for that is chemical contamination from the Anniston Army Depot, which is visible across a set of railroad tracks from the lakes.
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Though it doesn’t make the fish unsafe to eat, the solvent in Cooper’s lakes has kept customers away.
On a bright summer day a few weeks ago, he drove his pickup along the square banks, pulling up alongside two men who fished quietly with spools of line.
They were his only customers. Cooper held out his hand and rubbed his fingers together. One of the men dug his pants. He pulled out a wadded-up five-dollar bill.
“I owe you a dollar,” Cooper said, patting his shirt pocket.
Summer used to be a busy season at the lakes, he said. He charges $2 to drop a line, and $1.50 per pound to take fish away.
“I used to take in $400 or $500 a week,” he said.
Now the lakes are heavy with Cooper’s uncaught catfish.
“Now I don’t go down there but once in a while and collect a couple of dollars,” he said.
Three years ago, tests revealed that the well where he gets the water for the catfish pools was contaminated with trichlorethylene, or TCE.
The colorless chemical is used as an industrial degreaser at the depot.
For years, workers disposed of TCE in lagoons and ditches. That resulted in a chemical plume in the aquifer – a problem the Army has been trying to solve for more than a decade.
TCE has been detected at very low levels, below 5 parts per billion, in Coldwater Spring, Anniston’s water source. Federal health agencies say people can safely drink that amount for years.
Three years ago, tests found 190 parts per billion of TCE at Cooper’s property.
The news devastated his business.
“It’s just like hittin’ a fly with a hammer,” he said.
TCE has been linked with kidney and liver ailments. But it does not make the fish hazardous to eat.
“I would catch catfish there and eat them,” said Ted Simon, a toxicologist for the Environmental Protection Agency who is familiar with the situation. “The fish themselves are processing the TCE without storing it.
“That’s if any of it even gets in the water,” he said.
TCE evaporates easily, especially from a water body with a large surface area, and it breaks down in sunlight.
But customers don’t understand that, Cooper said, and they have all but stopped coming.
Plus, the pump he uses is so powerful — it can draw 300 gallons of water a minute — that Army engineers have said it could be affecting the way the contamination migrates.
So the Army has promised again and again to buy his land, only to draw back each time the deal is close to being closed. The last time was in the middle of July.
“I feel for him,” said Pat Smith, an environmental engineer for the depot. “It’s true. As soon as we get to a certain point and it looks like it’s going to go through we hit another stumbling block.”
The Army wanted to buy Cooper’s property with fiscal year 2003 funds, Smith said.
“In order to do that, we had to do it like any other property appraisal, with an environmental study,” he said. “Basically we ran out of time.”
The purchase could be completed by the end of the year, he said.
Cooper is fed up and is considering a lawsuit.
“Might is the devil, might,” Cooper said. “I just want them to give me yes or no. They’ve strung me along for three years and we got to the gate and they shut the gate on me.”
He wants to be compensated for the money he’s lost, and will continue to lose, because of the contamination.
He wants to know one way or the other, so he can carry out some of his “wild ideas,” like building a teepee for Boy Scout campouts, and a kiddie pool with a schoolbus waterfall.
He has spent thousands of dollars stocking the lake, he said, and wants to go back to fattening his crop.
“I quit pushing the fish, because they ain’t gonna buy,” he said. “They ain’t gonna buy.”
Trichloroethylene
CAS# 79-01-6
July 2003
This fact sheet answers the most frequently asked health questions about trichloroethylene. For more information, you may call the ATSDR Information Center at 1-888-422-8737. This fact sheet is one in a series of summaries about hazardous substances and their health effects. This information is important because this substance may harm you. The effects of exposure to any hazardous substance depend on the dose, the duration, how you are exposed, personal traits and habits, and whether other chemicals are present.| HIGHLIGHTS: Trichloroethylene is a colorless liquid which is used as a solvent for cleaning metal parts. Drinking or breathing high levels of trichloroethylene may cause nervous system effects, liver and lung damage, abnormal heartbeat, coma, and possibly death. Trichloroethylene has been found in at least 852 of the 1,430 National Priorities List sites identified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). |
What is trichloroethylene?
(Pronounced try-klor'oh eth'uh-leen)
Trichloroethylene (TCE) is a nonflammable, colorless liquid with a somewhat sweet odor and a sweet, burning taste. It is used mainly as a solvent to remove grease from metal parts, but it is also an ingredient in adhesives, paint removers, typewriter correction fluids, and spot removers.
Trichloroethylene is not thought to occur naturally in the environment. However, it has been found in underground water sources and many surface waters as a result of the manufacture, use, and disposal of the chemical.
What happens to trichloroethylene when it enters the environment?
How might I be exposed to trichloroethylene?
How can trichloroethylene affect my health?
Breathing small amounts may cause headaches, lung irritation, dizziness, poor coordination, and difficulty concentrating.
Breathing large amounts of trichloroethylene may cause impaired heart function, unconsciousness, and death. Breathing it for long periods may cause nerve, kidney, and liver damage.
Drinking large amounts of trichloroethylene may cause nausea, liver damage, unconsciousness, impaired heart function, or death.
Drinking small amounts of trichloroethylene for long periods may cause liver and kidney damage, impaired immune system function, and impaired fetal development in pregnant women, although the extent of some of these effects is not yet clear.
Skin contact with trichloroethylene for short periods may cause skin rashes.
How likely is trichloroethylene to cause cancer?
Some studies with mice and rats have suggested that high levels of trichloroethylene may cause liver, kidney, or lung cancer. Some studies of people exposed over long periods to high levels of trichloroethylene in drinking water or in workplace air have found evidence of increased cancer. Although, there are some concerns about the studies of people who were exposed to trichloroethylene, some of the effects found in people were similar to effects in animals.
In its 9th Report on Carcinogens, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) determined that trichloroethylene is “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.” The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has determined that trichloroethylene is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
Is there a medical test to show whether I've been exposed to trichloroethylene?
If you have recently been exposed to trichloroethylene, it can be detected in your breath, blood, or urine. The breath test, if it is performed soon after exposure, can tell if you have been exposed to even a small amount of trichloroethylene.
Exposure to larger amounts is assessed by blood and urine tests, which can detect trichloroethylene and many of its breakdown products for up to a week after exposure. However, exposure to other similar chemicals can produce the same breakdown products, so their detection is not absolute proof of exposure to trichloroethylene. This test isn’t available at most doctors’ offices, but can be done at special laboratories that have the right equipment.
Has the federal government made recommendations to protect human health?
The EPA has set a maximum contaminant level for trichloroethylene in drinking water at 0.005 milligrams per liter (0.005 mg/L) or 5 parts of TCE per billion parts water.
The EPA has also developed regulations for the handling and disposal of trichloroethylene.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has set an exposure limit of 100 parts of trichloroethylene per million parts of air (100 ppm) for an 8-hour workday, 40-hour workweek.
Glossary
Carcinogenicity: The ability of a substance to cause cancer.
CAS: Chemical Abstracts Service.
Evaporate: To change into a vapor or gas.
Milligram (mg): One thousandth of a gram.
Nonflammable: Will not burn.
ppm: Parts per million.
Sediment: Mud and debris that have settled to the bottom of a body of water.
Solvent: A chemical that dissolves other substances.
References
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). 1997. Toxicological Profile for trichloroethylene. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service.
Where can I get more information?
ATSDR can tell you where to find occupational and environmental health clinics. Their specialists can recognize, evaluate, and treat illnesses resulting from exposure to hazardous substances. You can also contact your community or state health or environmental quality department if you have any more questions or concerns.
For more information, contact:
source: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts19.html 12sep03
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