Doctors mount Hill 78 protest
By Jack Dew, Berkshire Eagle Staff

Friday, March 10
PITTSFIELD — All of the city's pediatricians have signed a letter to
Mayor James M. Ruberto urging the community to speak out against two
PCB dumps that sit next to an elementary school.

The dumps — known as Hill 78 and Building 71 — were included in the
PCB cleanup settlement finalized in 2000. They are being filled with
contaminated soil and sediment taken from General Electric's dormant
transformer plant and the Housatonic River.

Hill 78 — the larger of the two dumps — sits 50 feet from the
Allendale Elementary School campus. As the landfills have grown large,
so have the community's concerns. Over the past 10 months, parents,
teachers and environmentalists have loudly protested the dumps and
called for their removal. They have been met by a resolute U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency and other regulators that say the
dumps are carefully monitored and safe.

The doctors' concerns center around emerging evidence that people can
be exposed to PCBs via the air. Conventional wisdom has long held that
— because PCBs bind to soil — the primary exposure for people came
through physical contact with dirt or by eating fish and meat that
itself contains PCBs.

Airborne PCBs as a pathway to the human body, the doctors wrote, is "a
significant form of exposure" that was "barely understood" when the
cleanup settlement was finalized in 2000. With a landfill so near a
school, the children could be exposed to pollution carried by the wind.

In interviews, two of the doctors who drafted the letter — Siobhan
McNally and Richard Rosenfeld — said authorities should exercise the
precautionary principle and avoid exposing children to a potentially
massive source of contamination.


» Pediatricians united
The letter protesting two PCB dumps that sit next to Allendale
Elementary School was sent to Pittsfield Mayor James M. Ruberto and to
several state and federal agencies. It was signed by all of
Pittsfield's pediatricians:

John Dallenbach, Brian Dempsey, Michael Fabrizio, Julia Feudo,
Jacqueline Jones, Alan Kulberg, Siobhan McNally, Diane Piraino,
Richard Rosenfeld, Gary Shalan, Vicki Smith



PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, have been banned since 1977 and
are considered a probable cause of cancer. Studies have also shown
that fetal exposure to even low levels of the chemical can contribute
to reduced intelligence in children and to developmental disabilities
like autism and dyslexia.

"I don't think we can feel at all comfortable at this point with the
continued accumulation of hazardous waste at the GE dump site,"
Rosenfeld said in a telephone interview.

In the letter, the doctors

said they support the parents and teachers who have formed the
Allendale School Task Force, particularly the assertion that "every
child has the right to attend an environmentally safe school.

"We believe that as long as hazardous waste dumping continues at Hill
78, Building 71, and other adjacent areas near this school, it will be
difficult to assure this right. We therefore urge the community to
speak out to community leaders and politicians to stop the dumping and
cap these sites."

In addition to Ruberto, the letter was sent to a host of state and
federal agencies, including the EPA and the state Department of Public
Health.

EPA spokesman David Deegan said yesterday that his agency has received
the letter and is reviewing it.

"We have tried to make it really clear to the community that we are
aware of the concerns regarding Hill 78 and Building 71," Deegan said.
"We are firmly committed to continuing all of the things we have
discussed in terms of trying to make sure that we have the best, most
accurate data regarding whether those landfills are contributing any
PCBs to the schoolyard, and we will certainly continue to do that."

By drafting the letter, McNally said, the physicians hope to convince
the EPA, GE and others to develop a solution that will remove any
threat from the pollution.

But there is also the risk that the continued controversy could divide
the parties that signed the settlement and lead GE away from the deal,
leaving behind a massive fight over who will pay for the cleanup.

"A cleanup of the community is extremely important, but at the same
time, we can't compromise our kids," McNally said. "Given the growing
body of science out there linking airborne PCB exposure to potential
health effects, and knowing that kids are particularly vulnerable, I
really feel that we need to take this seriously and be willing to go
to the (bargaining) table again."

The Housatonic River Initiative, an environmental group that has been
opposed to the landfills since they were included in the first drafts
of the cleanup settlement, said it welcomed the support of the
pediatricians.

Its executive director, Tim Gray, said it is "good to see some support
from the medical community. It is not a good thing to have two huge
toxic dumps next to children and the neighbors."