Rachael Carson, author of Silent Spring, and the founder of the environmental movement in the United States, would turn over in her grave if was aware of the level of pollutants in Upper Gates Pond at the Barnstable Municipal Airport.
Carson authored Silent Spring in 1962, capturing the nation’s imagination with her portrayal of nature imperiled by the indiscriminate spray of pesticides.
“The few birds seen anywhere were moribund.
They trembled violently and could not fly.
It was a spring without voices.
On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of scores of bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.
Upper Gates Pond at the Barnstable Municipal Airport is a gigantic kettle hole which is defined as
a shallow, sediment-filled body of water formed by retreating draining floodwaters.
Because Upper Gates Pond doesn’t dry up during the year, it is in reality "surface groundwater", and could more appropriately be called a kettle lake.
For seventy years the largest of the airport’s two storm water runoff aqueduct terminus is Upper Gates Pond.
95% of the airport’s commercial activity is vintage Cessna 402’s powered by leaded aviation gasoline.
The Cessna 402 aircraft are like crop dusters; they spray poisonous remnants of partially burned leaded aviation gasoline over the airport surfaces that then get washed into the storm water runoff systems and deposited in Upper Gates Pond.
Tetra-ethyl lead was banned for use in automobile gasoline 30 years ago, but permitted to this day in aviation gasoline, along with all the new additives developed to increase volatility in automobile gasoline;
aromatic hydrocarbons,
ethers and
alcohol (usually ethanol or methanol)
If Rachel Carson was able to write about the impacts of lead and lethal polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH’s) on unborn, infants, and children in Hyannis and Barnstable village,
the airport would be closed within a week,
and Upper Gates Pond drained and capped with impermeable clay
because It is just as much a hazardous waste dump as the 1970's W.R. Grace and Beatrice Food’s pond in Woburn where toxic chemicals were dumped that flowed into Woburn's water-supply resulting in severe illnesses and death, including leukemia, autism, ADD, and other learning disabilities to scores of area children.
In 1993 the Silent Spring Institute, named after Carson’s book, completed an extensive study of the impacts of nitrogen on 900 Cape Cod women who were diagnosed with breast cancer,
and found NO linkage between Cancer and Nitrogen.
The institute did find that breast cancer in and around Hyannis was 20% greater than the state average, but overlooked the most obvious source, Upper Gates Pond in the airport which hadn’t been subject to a water or soils analysis 2001, and only then after getting scoped for an Environmental Impact Report by MEPA for its planned airport terminal.
Baystate Engineering completed the analysis that has been ignored by the DEP, Cape Cod Commission, and EPA.
The analysis reported Total Dissolved Solids of eight different polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH’s) and lead,
all of which are known to impact both neurodevelopment and cognitive development in young children (autism, ADD, and other learning disabilities) taken into the body through inhalation, ingestion, and through contact with the skin;
For example, the level of benzo (a) pyrene, a known carcinogen with a state and federal Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) of 2 nanograms per liter (.0002), was 4,700 mg/liter which is 23 ½ million times greater than the standard.
Pyrene,
a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH)
Consumption, breathing and skin contact of pyrene associated with cancer in humans.
Animal studies showed that exposing mice to 308 parts per million (ppm) of PAHs in food for 10 days (short term exposure) caused birth defects. Mice exposed to 923 ppm of pyrene in food for months developed problems in the liver and blood.
The level of pyrene detected in samples from Upper Gates Pond was 10,000 ppm/liter or 330 times greater than the fatal limit.
Fluoranthene
is a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) consisting of a naphthalene and a benzene unit connected by a five-membered ring.
It is a member of the class of PAHs known as non-alternant PAHs because it has rings other than those with six carbon atoms.
Fluoranthene is found in many combustion products, along with other PAHs.
Fluoranthene is also one of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 16 priority pollutant PAHs
and is a carcinogen.
The level of fluoranthene in Upper Gates Pond in 2001 was
13,000 mg/liter.
Benzo[a]anthracene
is a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon with the chemical formula C18H12.
The Total Dissolved Solids of benzo[a]anthracene detected in Upper Gates Pond is
4,100 mg/liter.
Chrysene
is a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) typically formed in small amounts during the burning or distillation of coal, crude oil, and plant material.
As with other PAHs, chrysene is known to be a human carcinogen, and known to cause cancer in laboratory animals.
The level of chrysene discovered in Upper Gates Pond was
6,000 mg/liter.
Anthracene
Unlike other polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), anthracene is not carcinogenic but has been recently included in the Substances of Very High Concern list (SVHC) by the European Chemicals Agency.
Its impact on cognitive and neurodevelopment in children is not known, but it is a PAH. The level of anthracene in Upper Gates Pond was
1,000 mg./liter.
Phenanthrene
is a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon composed of three fused benzene rings. The name phenanthrene is a composite of phenyl and anthracene. It provides the framework for steroids. The level of phenanthrene in Upper Gates Pond was 7,400 mg/liter.
Dibenzo (a,h) anthracene
is a highly toxic compound, and a probable carcinogen. The level of dibenzo (a,h) anthracene in Upper Gates Pond was 940 mg/liter.
PAH’s are also known nervous system or the endocrine system disruptors along with lead
.Lead
The maximum contaminant level for lead is .00015 mg/liter, yet the Total Dissolved Solids of lead recorded at the airport was
360 mg/liter
which is 240,000 times greater that the level considered safe.
which is 240,000 times greater that the level considered safe.
The theory of endocrine disruption posits that low-dose exposure to PAH’s interact with hormone receptors that interfere with reproduction, development, and other hormonally mediated processes.
Since endogenous hormones are typically present in the body in relatively tiny concentrations, exposure to relatively small amounts of PAH's elicit adverse effects at a much lower doses than a toxicant acting through a different mechanism.
The timing of exposure is also presumed to be critical, since different hormone pathways are active during different stages of development. Particularly with younger individuals that are growing rapidly, interfering with the hormonal communication processes these systems provide can have profound effects on the body.
Depending on the stage of reproductive development, interference with hormonal signaling can result in irreversible effects not seen in adults exposed to the same dose for the same length of time.
Disruption of thyroid function early in development is the cause of abnormal sexual development in males and females early motor development impairment, and learning disabilities.
Prebirth exposure, in some cases, can lead to permanent alterations and adult diseases.
Exposure to endocrine disruptors in the womb or early in life may be associated with neurodevelopmental disorders including reduced IQ, ADHD, and autism.
On the Cape, which historically has had a 20 percent higher incidence of breast cancer than the rest of the state, the question is whether the chemicals are "causing or related to these elevated rates of breast cancer"
The Cape's porous, sandy soil increases groundwater's vulnerability to contamination. The Cape has been designated as a sole-source aquifer which means contaminants in the groundwater in one location can stray into groundwater in all other parts of the Cape.
Last year COG forced a new environmental study of the airport by the DEP.
I have asked for a file review of the report a half-dozen times over the last three months, only to be denied each and every time.
I contacted Silent Spring, and asked the agency to intervene.
I also emailed the institute a copy of the following analysis performed by Baystate Engineering in 2001.
Two years ago COG learned that Horsely Whitten, the airport’s engineers, warned the Cape Cod Commission that the pond is so polluted, there’s a strong probability that any attempt to clean it up would result in the total pollution of the Hyannis and Barnstable Fire Department zones of contribution to wells on the airport, and across the street from the airport (Maher Wellfield).
It’s one thing for voters to elect prodigal spenders to the council, because as the saying goes, “It’s only money,” but quite another thing electing ignorant politicians whose actions and lack of actions result in death, sickness, autism, ADD, and other learning disabilities to thousands.
Upper Gates Pond is both a Zone 1 and a Zone 2 the primary water supply wells in Hyannis.
The only Hyannis water supply wells not impacted by Upper Gates Pond are on Straightway, and Hyannisport. The Barnstable Fire District well at the airport has been closed because of pollution from carbon tetrachloride from Cape Cod Potato Chips, and diesel fuel and perchlorate from the County Fire Training facility in the industrial park, and is now online as a water supply.
What has the Barnstable Town Council done about pollution at the airport?
ANSWER; NOTHING
Instead the council plans to spend $1 billion to curtail nitrogen that's only impact on humans is decreased oxygen carrying capacity of hemoglobin in new born babies and easily corrected at the hospital with a transfusion.
I can see the council doing it, but
"How can you live with this lethal pig sty that is maiming and savagely destroying you and your kids?
Comments